WINDOWS TRICKS & SHORTCUTS

October 2nd, 2003, 5:10 pm

List your favorite shortcuts and tricks when using windows here!!

Here's one to start --

WindowsKey + d = Show Desktop

TRY IT! hehehe

[Bigwebmaster]

October 2nd, 2003, 7:23 pm

Thats a good one, the other one I use is WindowsKey + L which allows you to switch users

[ATNO/TW]

October 3rd, 2003, 7:17 am

Since I have at times as many as 10 or more windows open at once a nifty little keyboard shortcut that instantly minimizes all open windows:

Ctrl+Esc immediately followed by Alt+M

That's my alltime favorite. I also like Windowskey+E to bring up the Windows Explorer and Windowskey+R to bring up Run. I also use Ctrl+A to select all, Ctrl+C to copy Ctrl+Z to Cut, and Ctrl+V to paste. Very convenient shortcuts when copying code and hypertext links.

October 3rd, 2003, 9:36 am

Well I don't use too many shortcuts for Windows, my main ones have all been mentioned, well except Alt+F4 to close out the current window.

Hmm, I know a few tricks but they don't come to mind right now... here is one that does.

In Windows XP Professional you can go to Start > Run > gpedit.msc This allows you to edit group policies. Although you can change a lot of settings in here, my favorite thing to do is go under User Configuration and then under Windows Settings, in there is an option for Internet Explorer Maintenance. You can change the title of your internet explorer (who it says it was provided by at the top), you can change the toolbar background or even give it a custom logo in the top right (the thing that moves as the page loads)

Theres more in there, but you can explore

October 3rd, 2003, 9:50 am

Have you ever been to a site that opens up all the images in a pop-up. Only that pop-up is 1 size and not resizeable so sometimes the images get cut off because these people don't know what they are doing?

Well in a pop-up windows that has the resize property set to false so you can't resize, you can hit F11 twice to be able to resize it depsite the resize property.

Dirty trick yes, but sometimes it's necessary.

[ATNO/TW]

October 3rd, 2003, 10:15 am

I know there's fewer people using Win98se nowadays, but I still use it (for now) to a large degree. I always hate seeing that MS logo during boot. To remove it, open MSDOS.SYS in a text editor (Notepad works well - make sure you've nixed the "read only" property or you won't be able to save it). Under the options line add logo=0 or change logo=1(if that's already there) to logo=0. Save. (reset properties to read only" to be on the safe side.

There you have it - no more MS blue screen logo! There is also a way to change the MS logo to one of your own, but I'd have to review my notes at home to remember exactly how.

[ATNO/TW]

October 3rd, 2003, 12:02 pm

F6 automatically highlights the URL in the address bar of IE - copy and paste at will.

[ATNO/TW]

October 3rd, 2003, 12:08 pm

I don't know what you call the key, but on most current standard keyboards, to the right of the spacebar there is Alt, then Windowskey, then another one, that I'm not sure what it is called, but it's the same thing as right-click. Select that one, then just select the underlined letter in the resulting menu for what you want to do. Very convenient. (Has anyone gotten the idea yet that you don't always have to use your mouse?! *lol)

[ATNO/TW]

October 3rd, 2003, 12:16 pm

During POST (Power On Self Test - for the novices), on boot, F2 will normally get you to CMOS settings, After POST, SHIFT + F5 will get you to Safe Mode and if I recall correctly Shift+ F8 will get you to a DOS prompt -- or vice versa --I'm on an XP machine at the moment and can't double check that. (Win95,98,ME)

Those are all about as good as I can do from memory (and the ones I use most frequently)...I'll have to look up the other stuff Sunday when I get home

October 3rd, 2003, 3:02 pm

Pressing Alt while in a program will cause certain letters to be underlined in the top menu.

Combining Alt with that letter will open that menu. For example...

ALT+F will open File
ALT+E will open Edit
ALT+V will open View

etc, etc.

October 3rd, 2003, 3:19 pm

Another one that pops into mind.

This little [pointless] trick allows you display your windows version in the lower right corner of your desktop (above the system clock)

Go to Start > Run > regedit
Please note that registry changes can be harmful if you don't know what you're doing, so don't hold it against me if this goes wrong for you

Go tot he registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop in there will be key called PaintDesktopVersion the value of this is currently set to 0 (for false) so what you can do is right click on the key, choose Modify from the context menu and set the Value Data to 1 (for true).

Then close regedit, restart and voila, your windows version is printed on your desktop in the lower right corner.

Pointless, but interesting

October 3rd, 2003, 3:21 pm

do you use ye ol' CUT- COPY - PASTE functions de windows?

Well the keyboard shortcuts go as follows while holding down ctrl +

X = cut
C = copy
V = paste

I use this one on a daily basis - it's easily my most used trick, especially
with forms and url's.

October 3rd, 2003, 3:23 pm

UNFLUX wrote:

do you use ye ol' CUT- COPY - PASTE functions de windows?

Well the keyboard shortcuts go as follows while holding down ctrl +

X = cut
C = copy
V = paste

I use this one on a daily basis - it's my my most used trick easily.
Especially with forms and url's.

I use CTRL+V for paste isn't CTRL+P for printing? Well that's how it is on my system.

October 3rd, 2003, 3:24 pm

lostinbeta wrote:

isn't CTRL+P for printing?

well, yes....yes it is.

October 3rd, 2003, 3:34 pm

Here's another one (i'm just cruising through my registry thinking of stuff)...

Again, editing the registry can be dangerous if you don't know what your doing, so do this at your own risk.

This next trick allows you to decide whether windows should display the blue screen of death or if it should auto restart when the system crashes.

Go to Start > Run > regedit

In there, navigation to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl

In there will be an option called AutoReboot, right click on this key and choose Modify, set the Value Data to 0 for blue screen, or 1 for auto-restart.