What the 'Win' Key Does - Shortcuts!

You might think that the little windows or ‘win’ key  on your keyboard only has one function – to bring up the start menu – but it in fact can be used in conjunction with other keys for a vast number of simple shortcuts. These ‘win’ key  shortcuts will save you those precious minutes and help you perform tasks you never knew you could with your PC.
Enjoy the following listed shortcuts, according to alphabetical order.

1. Win — opens the Start Menu (but in Windows 8.1 it opens the previous window)
2. Win + A — opens Windows 10’s Action Center
3. Win + B — chooses the first icon in the Notification Area (then use the arrow keys to switch icons)
4. Win + Ctrl + B — switches to a new message in the Notification Area
5. Win + C —brings up the Charm Bar (in Windows 8 and 8.1). In Windows 10 it opens Cortana
6. Win + D — shows the desktop and minimizes all windows
7. Win + E — opens Windows Explorer. In Windows 10 opens Quick Launch
8. Win + F — starts ’Find files and folders’
9. Win + Ctrl + F — opens ’Find computers’
10. Win + G — brings all gadgets to the foreground (in Windows 7 and Vista); opens Windows 10’s Game bar
11. Win + K — opens a new Start menu (only Windows 8 and 8.1)
12. Win + L — changes user or can lock the workstation
13. Win + M — minimizes all your windows
14. Win +  Shift + M — restores windows that have been minimized
15. Win + O — locks device orientation (and disables gyroscope function on tablets);
16. Win + P — switches operating modes to an outside monitor or projector
17. Win + Q — opens Search charm for installed apps (in Windows 8)
18. Win + R — opens the ’Run dialog’ box
19. Win + T — opens the Taskbar
20. Win + U — opens the Utility Manager
21. Win + W — opens Windows Ink Workspace
22. Win + X — opens the Windows Mobile Application Center (only mobile computers in Windows Vista and 7);
23. Win + Y — starts Yahoo! Messenger
24. Win + Pause — opens My Computer
25. Win + F1 — opens Windows Help
26. Win + 1 ... 0 — runs or switches to the program pinned to the Taskbar with a specific sequence number 
27. Win +  Shift + 1 ... 0 — starts a new program pinned to the Taskbar with a specific sequence number 
28. Win + Ctrl + 1 ... 0 — switches to the last active window of the program that’s pinned to the Taskbar with the specific sequence number 
29. Win + Alt +1 ... 0 — opens the transitions list for the program pinned to the Taskbar with the specific sequence number 
30. Win + ↑ — maximizes the active window
31. Win + ↓ — restores the default window size or minimizes active windows
32. Win + ← or → — switches the window deployment mode
33. Win +  Shift + ← or → — switches a window between monitors in multi-monitor set-ups 
34. Win +  Shift + ↑ or ↓ — stretches the active window from the top to the bottom of the screen and restores the window size
35. Win + Home — minimizes or restores all non-closed windows, except active ones (only Windows 7), goes to the top of the web page
36. Win + Space — looks at the desktop (only Windows 7). Changes the layout (only Windows 8 and 10)
37. Win + + — activates the Magnifier Utility or zooms the image by 100%
38. Win + — — if the Magnifier Utility is active, the image is reduced by 100%
39. Win + Esc — disables the Magnifier Utility

Fill free to add more shortcuts, I know there are many more !!

Faster Shutdown your PC

The shutdown process in Windows operating system requires three clicks and a menu. Here’s how you can make the shutdown process faster.

All you need to do is right-click on any open space on the desktop, then click New > Shortcut. A Location field will appear on the screen. Paste the following in the location field:

%windir%\System32\shutdown.exe /s /t 0

Then, click on Next and complete the shortcut setup.

 /l         Log off. This cannot be used with /m or /d options.
 /s         Shutdown the computer.
 /r         Shutdown and restart the computer.

 /t xx    Is the timer parameter followed by numeric value as second

For more help you can go to command prompt and type "shutdown /?"

Enable Telnet in Windows 7

It’s very rare use of Telnet these days, so it took a long time to notice that by default it was not packaged with Windows Vista and Windows 7. 

More than likely this was an attempt to make Windows more secure by default, as Telnet is very insecure. However, you can quickly re-enable Telnet by following these steps:

1. Start
2. Control Panel
3. Programs And Features
4. Turn Windows features on or off
5. Check Telnet Client
6. Hit OK

After that you can start Telnet via Command Prompt.

Windows 7 Cool Feature – Problem Steps Recorder (PSR)

It seems that Microsoft is coming up with something nice interesting tools in Windows 7. We are talking about feature that is called “Problem Steps Recorder”.

Problem Steps Recorder can be used to automatically capture the steps performed by a user on a computer, including a text description of where they clicked and a picture of the screen during each click. This capture is then automatically saved to a file that can be used by a support professional to help the user troubleshoot the issue or understand what steps were taken by the user.


To Start the Problem Steps Recorder : In the tradition of all of Microsoft’s handiest utilities, the Problem Steps Recorder isn’t plainly visible in the Start menu. To run it, you’ll need to open the Run dialogue box by hitting Win + R, and then typing psr.exe (below, top). In a pinch, you can also search for PSR at the bottom of the Start menu.

In any case, PSR is more than just a screenshot capturing tool. Besides automating the capturing of what’s going on the screen, it will also highlight the user’s mouse clicks, and, most importantly, will provide a detailed textual metadata with a description of what the user is doing.

Windows 7 Contacts

Using contact in window 7

If you choose to use window mail, windows contact is integrated with windows mail.

What's in a contact?

You can store as much or as little information as you like about each contact, including any of the following:

E‑mail addresses: Store as many e‑mail addresses as you want for a contact, and set one as the preferred address.

Picture:  Adding a picture of a contact can help you remember the person.

Phone numbers: You can store home, work, cell, and fax phone numbers for a contact.

Street addresses: You can store both home and work street addresses for a contact.

Family information: You can enter information here about a contact's spouse or partner, children, gender, birthday, and anniversary.

Website addresses: You can store both home and work website addresses for a contact. 

Finding the Contacts folder

Open Windows Contacts by clicking the Start button, clicking All Programs, and then clicking Windows Contacts.

Address book are available in both your desktop mail tools and in web mail tool. Such as yahoo, hotmail and Gmail address book.

Adding a contact.

Click New Contact, and then type the information you want for the contact in any of the boxes on the available tabs. You don't have to fill in all the boxes; just enter as much information as you want about the contact.

Adding information to a contact

Open Windows Contacts by clicking the Start button, clicking All Programs, and then clicking Windows Contacts. Double-click the contact you want to change. Click the tab where you want to add information, and then type in any of the available boxes.

Adding a new picture to a contact

On the Name and e‑mail tab, click the contact picture, and then do one of the following:

To add a new picture, click Change picture, locate the picture you want to use for the contact, click it, and then click Open.

Creating contact groups (mailing lists):

You can also create contact groups, which combine multiple individual contacts into a single group. Creating a contact group enables you to send e mail to many ‑ people at once. If you send an e‑mail message to a contact group, it will be sent to everyone you added to the group. Sending e‑mail to a contact group can be a lot easier than adding names one at a time to an e‑mail message, especially if you often send messages to the same group of people.

Windows 7 some of the hidden features

Shake your desktop free of clutter

If you frequently run multiple programs simultaneously, your desktop can get extremely cluttered. This can get annoying, if you're working on one program and want to minimize all the other windows -- in previous versions of Windows you had to minimize them individually.

With Windows 7's "shake" feature, though, you can minimize every window except the one in which you're currently working -- in a single step. Click and hold the title bar of the window you want to keep on the desktop; while still holding the title bar, shake it quickly back and forth until all of the other windows minimize to the taskbar. Then let go. To make them return, shake the title bar again.

You can accomplish the same thing by pressing the Window key-Home key combination -- although doing that is not nearly as much fun.

Add a Videos link to the Start Menu

The Windows 7 Start Menu includes links to your Pictures and Music folders, but not to your Videos folder. If you watch a lot of videos and want a link to them on your Start Menu, here's what you can do:

Displaying the Videos folder on the Start Menu.

Click to view larger image.

1. Right-click the Start button and select Properties.

2. On the screen that appears, go to the Start Menu tab and click Customize.

3. In the dialog box that appears, scroll to the bottom, look for the Videos section, select "Display as a link," and click OK and then OK again.

If you'd prefer that Videos display as a menu, with links to files and submenus, instead select "Display as a menu."

Use check boxes to select multiple files

In order to select multiple files for an operation such as copying, moving or deleting in Windows Explorer, you generally use the keyboard and the mouse, Ctrl-clicking every file you want to select.

But if you're mouse-centric, there's a way to select multiple files in Windows 7 using only your mouse, via check boxes. To do it:

1. In Windows Explorer, click Organize, and then select "Folder and search options."

2. Click the View tab.

3. In Advanced Settings, scroll down and check the box next to "Use check boxes to select items." Click OK.

4. From now on, when you hover your mouse over a file in Windows Explorer, a check box will appear next to it; click it to select the file. Once a file is selected, the checked box remains next to it; if you uncheck it, the box will disappear when you move your mouse away.

Build your own Internet Search Connector

Windows 7 has a very useful new feature called a Search Connector that lets you search through a Web site from right inside Windows Explorer. With it, you type in a search term and select the Search Connector for the site you want to search; Explorer searches the Web site without having to open Internet Explorer, and the results appear inside Windows Explorer. Click any of the results to head there using your default Web browser.

Normally, you'll need to get each Search Connector from the Web site through which you want to search, and very few Connectors are available. Sites normally need to adhere to Open Search standards in order for their Connectors to work.

However, there's a work-around that will let you easily build your own Search Connector for any site, using Windows Live Search as a kind of go-between. Don't worry, you don't need to know any code to write a Connector. Just follow these steps:

1. Copy the following text and paste it into Notepad. The text you'll need to change is in bold, all-caps text:

NAME YOUR SEARCH

DESCRIPTION OF SEARCH

SITENAME.COM&web.count=50"/>

SITENAME.COM"/>

2. In place of NAME YOUR SEARCH, type in the name of the search as you want it to appear. In our case, we're going to build a Search Connector for Computer world, so we'll just type in Computerworld.

3. In place of DESCRIPTION OF SEARCH, type in a longer description of the search. In our instance, it will be Search through Computerworld.

4. In the two SITENAME.COM entries, enter the Web site's domain. Don't use the http:// or www -- just the domain name. In our instance it will becomputerworld.com.

5. To the right of "count=", type in the number or results you want to appear. In our instance, we'll keep it at 50.

6. In our example, here's what the code should look like (no bold necessary):

Computerworld

Search through Computerworld

computerworld.com&web.count=50"/>

computerworld.com"/>

7. Save the file in Notepad, choose UTF-8 from the Encoding drop-down box near the bottom of the Save As screen, and give it an .osdx extension. In our instance, we'll call the file Computerworld.osdx.

8. In Windows Explorer, right-click the .osdx file and select Create Search Connector. The Search Connector will be created.

9. You can now use the Search Connector. To get to it, in Windows Explorer go to YourName --> Searches --> Connector, where YourName is your account name, and Connector is the name of the Connector.

See taskbar thumbnails without a mouse

If you're a fan of using the keyboard rather than your mouse whenever possible, you can move your cursor from icon to icon in the taskbar without a mouse -- and still see thumbnail previews.

Press Windows key-T, and you'll move the focus to the leftmost icon on the taskbar. Then, while still pressing the Windows key, press T again to change the focus to the next icon to the right. You can keep doing this as long as you like.

Launch taskbar apps without a mouse

Likewise, you can launch any program on the taskbar without the mouse. Press the Windows key and the number that corresponds to the position of the application on the taskbar -- for example, Windows key-1 to launch the left-most application on the taskbar, Windows key-2 to launch the second left-most application and so on.

Run multiple copies of applications from the taskbar

The Windows 7 taskbar serves a dual purpose, which can get confusing at times. It's used to launch programs, and also to switch between programs that are running. So you launch a program by clicking its icon, and also switch to that program after it's running by clicking its icon.