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- Oreilly - Windows 7 The Missing Manual (03-2010) (ATTiCA)
- The Missing Credits
- Introduction
- Part One: The Windows 7 Desktop
- Getting Started, Desktop, & Start Menu
- Explorer, Windows, & the Taskbar
- Universal Window Controls
- New Window Tricks in Windows 7
- Windows Flip (Alt+Tab)
- Windows Flip 3D
- Explorer Window Controls
- Optional Window Panes
- Libraries
- Tags, Metadata, and Properties
- Icon and List Views
- Sorting, Grouping, and Filtering
- Uni-Window vs. Multi-Window
- Immortalizing Your Tweaks
- The “Folder Options” Options
- Taskbar 2.0
- Three Ways to Get the Taskbar Out of Your Hair
- Taskbar Toolbars
- Searching & Organizing Your Files
- Interior Decorating Windows
- Getting Help
- Part Two: Windows 7 Software
- Programs, Documents, & Gadgets
- The Freebie Apps
- Windows Live Essentials
- Default Programs
- Desktop Gadget Gallery
- Internet Explorer
- Windows Anytime Upgrade
- Windows DVD Maker
- Windows Fax and Scan
- Windows Media Center
- Windows Media Player
- Windows Live Movie Maker
- Windows Update
- XPS Viewer
- Accessories
- Connect to a Network Projector
- Games
- Maintenance
- Startup
- Windows Live
- The Control Panel
- Part Three: Windows 7 Online
- Hooking Up to the Internet
- Internet Security
- Internet Explorer 8
- Windows Live Mail
- Windows Live Services
- Part Four: Pictures, Music, & TV
- Windows Live Photo Gallery
- Windows Media Player
- Windows Media Center
- Part Five: Hardware & Peripherals
- Print, Fax, & Scan
- Hardware
- Laptops, Tablets, & Touchscreens
- Part Six: PC Health
- Maintenance & Speed Tweaks
- The Disk Chapter
- Backups, System Restore, & Troubleshooting
- Part Seven: Networking & Homegroups
- Accounts & Logging On
- Setting Up a Workgroup
- Network Domains
- Sharing Files on the Network
- Windows by Remote Control
- Part Eight: Appendixes
- Installing & Upgrading to Windows 7
- Fun with the Registry
- Where’d It Go?
- The Master Keyboard Shortcut List
- Index
Windows 7: The Missing Manual
by David Pogue
Copyright © 2010 David Pogue. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North,
Sebastopol, CA 95472.
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800-998-9938 or corporate@oreilly.com.
March 2010: First Edition.
The Missing Manual is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The Missing
Manual logo, and “The book that should have been in the box” are trademarks of
O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers
to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations
appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media is aware of a trademark claim, the
designations are capitalized.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the
publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages
resulting from the use of the information contained in it.
ISBN: 978-0-596-80639-2 [03/10]
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table of contents v
Table of Contents
The Missing Credits ..................................................................................xii
Introduction ................................................................................................1
What’s New ......................................................................................................................................... 3
About This Book ................................................................................................................................. 7
The Very Basics ................................................................................................................................... 9
Part One: The Windows 7 Desktop
Chapter 1: Getting Started, Desktop, & Start Menu ..............................21
Getting Started .................................................................................................................................... 21
The Windows Desktop—Now with Aero! ........................................................................................ 23
The Start Menu ................................................................................................................................... 26
The All Programs List ......................................................................................................................... 30
Start Menu: The Right Side ............................................................................................................... 33
StartÆShut down (Sleep, Restart, Log Off…) ............................................................................... 36
Customizing the Start Menu ............................................................................................................. 41
Jump Lists ............................................................................................................................................ 51
The Run Command ............................................................................................................................ 55
Chapter 2: Explorer, Windows, & the Taskbar ...................................... 59
Universal Window Controls .............................................................................................................. 59
New Window Tricks in Windows 7 .................................................................................................. 64
Windows Flip (Alt+Tab) ..................................................................................................................... 69
Windows Flip 3D ................................................................................................................................ 70
Explorer Window Controls ................................................................................................................ 71
Optional Window Panes .................................................................................................................... 75
Libraries ............................................................................................................................................... 81
Tags, Metadata, and Properties ........................................................................................................ 86
Icon and List Views ............................................................................................................................. 88
Sorting, Grouping, and Filtering ....................................................................................................... 92
Uni-Window vs. Multi-Window ........................................................................................................ 96
Immortalizing Your Tweaks ............................................................................................................... 97
The “Folder Options” Options .......................................................................................................... 97
Taskbar 2.0 .......................................................................................................................................... 101
Three Ways to Get the Taskbar Out of Your Hair ........................................................................... 114
Taskbar Toolbars ................................................................................................................................. 115
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vi table of contents
Chapter 3: Searching & Organizing Your Files .....................................121
Meet Windows Search ....................................................................................................................... 121
Search from the Start Menu ............................................................................................................. 122
Explorer-Window Searches ............................................................................................................... 130
The Search Index ................................................................................................................................ 132
Saved Searches ................................................................................................................................... 138
The Folders of Windows 7 ................................................................................................................ 140
Life with Icons ..................................................................................................................................... 144
Selecting Icons .................................................................................................................................... 150
Copying and Moving Folders and Files ........................................................................................... 153
The Recycle Bin................................................................................................................................... 156
Shortcut Icons ..................................................................................................................................... 160
Compressing Files and Folders ........................................................................................................ 163
Burning CDs and DVDs from the Desktop ...................................................................................... 166
Chapter 4: Interior Decorating Windows .............................................173
Aero or Not ......................................................................................................................................... 173
A Gallery of Themes .......................................................................................................................... 176
Desktop Background (Wallpaper) ................................................................................................... 179
Window Color ..................................................................................................................................... 182
Sounds ................................................................................................................................................. 184
Screen Savers ...................................................................................................................................... 184
Desktop Icons ..................................................................................................................................... 187
Mouse Makeover ................................................................................................................................ 188
Preserving Your Tweaks for Posterity .............................................................................................. 190
Monitor Settings ................................................................................................................................. 192
Chapter 5: Getting Help .........................................................................199
Navigating the Help System .............................................................................................................. 199
Remote Assistance ............................................................................................................................. 202
Getting Help from Microsoft ............................................................................................................. 209
Part Two: Windows 7 Software
Chapter 6: Programs, Documents, & Gadgets ......................................213
Opening Programs ............................................................................................................................. 213
Exiting Programs ................................................................................................................................. 214
When Programs Die: The Task Manager......................................................................................... 215
Saving Documents.............................................................................................................................. 217
Closing Documents ............................................................................................................................ 221
The Open Dialog Box ......................................................................................................................... 221
Moving Data Between Documents .................................................................................................. 222
Speech Recognition ............................................................................................................................ 225
Gadgets ................................................................................................................................................ 234
Filename Extensions and File Associations ..................................................................................... 242
Installing Software .............................................................................................................................. 250
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table of contents vii
Uninstalling Software ......................................................................................................................... 255
Program Compatibility Modes ......................................................................................................... 257
Windows XP Mode ............................................................................................................................. 260
Chapter 7: The Freebie Apps ................................................................ 265
Windows Live Essentials .................................................................................................................... 265
Default Programs ............................................................................................................................... 267
Desktop Gadget Gallery .................................................................................................................... 267
Internet Explorer ................................................................................................................................. 267
Windows Anytime Upgrade .............................................................................................................. 268
Windows DVD Maker ........................................................................................................................ 269
Windows Fax and Scan...................................................................................................................... 269
Windows Media Center ..................................................................................................................... 269
Windows Media Player ...................................................................................................................... 269
Windows Live Movie Maker ............................................................................................................. 269
Windows Update ................................................................................................................................ 269
XPS Viewer .......................................................................................................................................... 270
Accessories .......................................................................................................................................... 270
Connect to a Network Projector ....................................................................................................... 273
Games .................................................................................................................................................. 294
Maintenance ....................................................................................................................................... 300
Startup ................................................................................................................................................. 300
Windows Live ...................................................................................................................................... 300
Chapter 8: The Control Panel ................................................................311
Many Roads to Control Panel ........................................................................................................... 311
The Control Panel, Applet by Applet ............................................................................................... 315
Part Three: Windows 7 Online
Chapter 9: Hooking Up to the Internet ................................................ 343
Your New Network Neighborhood .................................................................................................. 344
Wired Connections ............................................................................................................................. 345
WiFi Hot Spots .................................................................................................................................... 346
Cellular Modems ................................................................................................................................ 351
Dial-Up Connections .......................................................................................................................... 352
Connection Management .................................................................................................................. 354
Chapter 10: Internet Security ............................................................... 357
Microsoft Security Essentials ............................................................................................................ 359
Action Center ...................................................................................................................................... 361
Windows Firewall ............................................................................................................................... 363
Windows Defender ............................................................................................................................ 367
SmartScreen Filter .............................................................................................................................. 373
Privacy and Cookies ........................................................................................................................... 375
History: Erasing Your Tracks.............................................................................................................. 379
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viii table of contents
The Pop-Up Blocker ........................................................................................................................... 380
InPrivate Browsing ............................................................................................................................. 383
InPrivate Filtering ............................................................................................................................... 383
Internet Security Zones...................................................................................................................... 386
Hot Spot Security ................................................................................................................................ 387
Protect Your Home Wireless Network ............................................................................................. 389
Parental Controls ................................................................................................................................ 390
Chapter 11: Internet Explorer 8 ............................................................ 399
IE8: The Grand Tour ........................................................................................................................... 400
Tabbed Browsing ................................................................................................................................ 405
Favorites (Bookmarks) ...................................................................................................................... 409
History List ........................................................................................................................................... 412
RSS: The Missing Manual .................................................................................................................. 414
Web Slices ........................................................................................................................................... 417
Tips for Better Surfing ........................................................................................................................ 417
The Keyboard Shortcut Master List ................................................................................................. 425
Chapter 12: Windows Live Mail ........................................................... 427
Setting Up Windows Mail .................................................................................................................. 428
Sending Email ..................................................................................................................................... 431
Reading Email ..................................................................................................................................... 438
Junk Email ........................................................................................................................................... 447
The World of Mail Settings ................................................................................................................ 450
Calendar .............................................................................................................................................. 453
RSS Feeds ............................................................................................................................................ 461
Newsgroups ........................................................................................................................................ 462
Chapter 13: Windows Live Services ..................................................... 467
Home ................................................................................................................................................... 468
Profile .................................................................................................................................................. 468
Spaces .................................................................................................................................................. 469
Mail....................................................................................................................................................... 470
Photos .................................................................................................................................................. 470
SkyDrive ............................................................................................................................................... 472
Calendar .............................................................................................................................................. 476
Part Four: Pictures, Music, & TV
Chapter 14: Windows Live Photo Gallery ............................................481
Photo Gallery: The Application ........................................................................................................ 482
Getting Pictures into Photo Gallery.................................................................................................. 483
The Post-Dump Slideshow ................................................................................................................ 490
The Digital Shoebox ........................................................................................................................... 491
Tags and Ratings ................................................................................................................................. 500
Editing Your Shots .............................................................................................................................. 504
Finding Your Audience ...................................................................................................................... 513
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table of contents ix
Chapter 15: Windows Media Player .....................................................521
The Lay of the Land ........................................................................................................................... 522
Importing Music Files ........................................................................................................................ 524
Music Playback .................................................................................................................................. 525
Playlists ................................................................................................................................................ 532
Burning Your Own CDs ...................................................................................................................... 534
Sharing Music on the Network ......................................................................................................... 536
Online Music Stores ........................................................................................................................... 541
DVD Movies ......................................................................................................................................... 542
Pictures and Videos ............................................................................................................................ 544
Chapter 16: Windows Media Center .....................................................547
Your Gear List...................................................................................................................................... 548
Setup .................................................................................................................................................... 549
The Main Menu .................................................................................................................................. 552
Extras .................................................................................................................................................... 553
Pictures+Videos .................................................................................................................................. 554
Music: Your PC as Jukebox ................................................................................................................ 558
Now Playing ........................................................................................................................................ 562
Movies .................................................................................................................................................. 562
TV: Your PC as TiVo ............................................................................................................................ 563
Sports ................................................................................................................................................... 571
Tasks ..................................................................................................................................................... 572
Settings ................................................................................................................................................ 572
Part Five: Hardware & Peripherals
Chapter 17: Print, Fax, & Scan ...............................................................577
Installing a Printer .............................................................................................................................. 577
Printing................................................................................................................................................. 582
Controlling Printouts .......................................................................................................................... 586
Fancy Printer Tricks ............................................................................................................................ 587
Printer Troubleshooting ..................................................................................................................... 593
Fonts ..................................................................................................................................................... 595
Faxing ................................................................................................................................................... 595
Scanning Documents ......................................................................................................................... 601
Chapter 18: Hardware ........................................................................... 603
External Gadgets ................................................................................................................................. 604
Device Stage ........................................................................................................................................ 607
Installing Cards in Expansion Slots .................................................................................................. 609
Troubleshooting Newly Installed Gear ............................................................................................ 611
Driver Signing ..................................................................................................................................... 613
The Device Manager .......................................................................................................................... 613
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x the missing credits
Chapter 19: Laptops, Tablets, & Touchscreens .....................................619
Laptops ................................................................................................................................................ 620
Tablet PCs and Touchscreen PCs ...................................................................................................... 623
Windows Touch .................................................................................................................................. 633
Windows Mobile ................................................................................................................................ 635
Offline Files & Sync Center ................................................................................................................ 635
Part Six: PC Health
Chapter 20: Maintenance & Speed Tweaks ......................................... 643
The Action Center ............................................................................................................................... 643
Disk Cleanup ....................................................................................................................................... 644
Disk Defragmenter ............................................................................................................................. 645
Hard Drive Checkups ......................................................................................................................... 647
Disk Management .............................................................................................................................. 649
Task Scheduler .................................................................................................................................... 654
Three Speed Tricks ............................................................................................................................. 657
Windows Update ................................................................................................................................ 662
Chapter 21: The Disk Chapter ............................................................... 667
Dynamic Disks .................................................................................................................................... 667
Compressing Files and Folders ........................................................................................................ 675
Encrypting Files and Folders ............................................................................................................. 679
BitLocker Drive Encryption ............................................................................................................... 682
Chapter 22: Backups, System Restore, & Troubleshooting ................ 687
Automatic Backups ............................................................................................................................ 687
System Images .................................................................................................................................... 694
System Restore ................................................................................................................................... 695
Shadow Copies (Previous Versions) ................................................................................................ 700
Safe Mode and the Startup Menu .................................................................................................... 702
Troubleshooting Tools ....................................................................................................................... 704
Startup Repair (Windows Recovery Environment) ........................................................................ 707
Part Seven: Networking & Homegroups
Chapter 23: Accounts & Logging On .....................................................713
Introducing User Accounts ................................................................................................................ 713
Windows 7: The OS with Two Faces ................................................................................................ 715
Local Accounts .................................................................................................................................... 715
Authenticate Yourself: User Account Control ................................................................................. 726
Local Accounts on a Domain Computer ......................................................................................... 729
Local Users and Groups .................................................................................................................... 730
Fast User Switching ............................................................................................................................ 736
Logging On .......................................................................................................................................... 737
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the missing credits xi
Profiles ................................................................................................................................................. 738
NTFS Permissions: Protecting Your Stuff ......................................................................................... 740
Chapter 24: Setting Up a Workgroup ...................................................747
Kinds of Networks .............................................................................................................................. 748
Sharing an Internet Connection ....................................................................................................... 753
The Network and Sharing Center .................................................................................................... 755
Chapter 25: Network Domains ..............................................................761
The Domain......................................................................................................................................... 762
Joining a Domain ............................................................................................................................... 764
Four Ways Life Is Different on a Domain ........................................................................................ 766
Chapter 26: Sharing Files on the Network ...........................................773
Three Ways to Share Files ................................................................................................................. 774
Homegroups ....................................................................................................................................... 775
Sharing the Public Folders ................................................................................................................ 780
Sharing Any Folder............................................................................................................................. 783
Accessing Shared Folders .................................................................................................................. 789
Mapping Shares to Drive Letters ...................................................................................................... 793
Chapter 27: Windows by Remote Control ...........................................797
Remote Access Basics ........................................................................................................................ 797
Dialing Direct ...................................................................................................................................... 798
Virtual Private Networking ................................................................................................................ 803
Remote Desktop ................................................................................................................................. 805
Part Eight: Appendixes
Appendix A: Installing & Upgrading to Windows 7 ............................ 817
Before You Begin ................................................................................................................................ 817
Upgrade vs. Clean Install ................................................................................................................... 819
Dual Booting ....................................................................................................................................... 821
Installing Windows 7 .......................................................................................................................... 823
Getting Started .................................................................................................................................... 828
Activation ............................................................................................................................................. 828
Windows Easy Transfer ..................................................................................................................... 830
Appendix B: Fun with the Registry ...................................................... 835
Meet Regedit ....................................................................................................................................... 836
Regedit Examples ............................................................................................................................... 839
Appendix C: Where’d It Go? ................................................................. 843
Appendix D: The Master Keyboard Shortcut List ............................... 849
Index ....................................................................................................... 855
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xii the missing credits
About the Author
David Pogue (author) is the weekly tech columnist for The New
York Times, Emmy-winning correspondent for CBS News Sunday
Morning, weekly CNBC contributor, and the creator of the Miss-
ing Manual series. He’s the author or coauthor of over 50 books,
including 26 in this series, six in the For Dummies line (including
Macs, Magic, Opera, and Classical Music), two novels, and The World
According to Twitter. In his other life, David is a former Broadway show conductor, a
magician, and a funny public speaker. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and three
awesome children.
Links to his columns and funny weekly videos await at www.davidpogue.com. He
welcomes feedback about his books by email at david@pogueman.com.
About the Creative Team
Julie Van Keuren (copy editor, indexer) is a freelance editor, writer, and desktop
publisher who runs her “little media empire” from her home in Billings, Montana. In
her spare time she enjoys swimming, biking, running, and (hey, why not?) triathlons.
She and her husband, M.H., have two sons, Dexter and Michael. Email: little_media@
yahoo.com.
Brian Jepson (technical editor, updater of the sections on remote desktop, domains,
Registry, and installation) is a senior editor for O’Reilly Media. He cowrote Mac
OS X for Unix Geeks and has written or edited a number of other tech books. He’s
the cofounder of Providence Geeks and serves as an all-around geek for AS220, a
nonprofit, unjuried, and uncensored arts center in Providence, Rhode Island. Email:
bjepson@oreilly.com.
Phil Simpson (design and layout) works out of his office in Southbury, Connecticut,
where he has had his graphic design business since 1982. He is experienced in many
facets of graphic design, including corporate identity/branding, publication design,
and corporate and medical communications. Email: pmsimpson@earthlink.net.
Acknowledgments
The Missing Manual series is a joint venture between the dream team introduced on
these pages and O’Reilly Media. I’m grateful to all of them, and also to a few people
who did massive favors for this book. They include Microsoft’s Greg Chiemingo,
who helped dig up answers to the tweakiest Windows 7 questions; HP and Toshiba
for loaning me multitouch PCs to test; O’Reilly’s Peter Meyers, Joe Wikert and Chris
Nelson, who accommodated my nightmarish schedule like gentlemen; and proofread-
The Missing Credits
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the missing credits xiii
ers Kellee Katagi, Diana D’Abruzzo, and Jennifer Carney.
In previous editions of this book, I relied on the talents of several guest authors; some
of their prose and expertise lives on in this edition. They include author/columnist/
teacher/consultant Joli Ballew (Tablet PC and Media Center chapters); author/speaker/
Microsoft Certified Trainer C.A. Callahan (Control Panel chapter); and prolific
author/newspaper writer Preston Gralla (security, backup and maintenance chapters).
Similarly, in this edition, I was grateful for the assistance of John Pierce, who expertly
updated the previous edition’s coverage of peripherals, laptops, and printing/fax-
ing. Adam Ornstein scoured the Web to compile every known Windows 7 keyboard
shortcut for Appendix D.
Finally, a special nod of thanks to my squadron of meticulous, expert volunteer beta
readers, who responded to my invitation via Twitter: Torsten Lyngaas, Betsy Hunter,
Ryan Yi, Pathum Karunaratne, Luka Sucic, Henry Koren, Henry Braithwaite, Jesse
McCulloch, Scott Winkler, Geroge M. Sun, Chris Smolen, Carlos Rodriguez, Bill Vetter,
and Andreas Kleutgens. They’re the superstars of crowdsourcing.
Thanks to David Rogelberg for believing in the idea, and above all, to Jennifer, Kelly,
Tia, and Jeffrey, who make these books—and everything else—possible.
—David Pogue
The Missing Manual Series
Missing Manual books are superbly written guides to computer products that don’t
come with printed manuals (which is just about all of them). Each book features a
handcrafted index; cross-references to specific page numbers (not just “See Chapter
14”); and RepKover, a detached-spine binding that lets the book lie perfectly flat
without the assistance of weights or cinder blocks. Recent and upcoming titles include:
Access 2007: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
CSS: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
eBay: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
Excel 2007: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Facebook: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer
FileMaker Pro 10: The Missing Manual by Geoff Coffey and Susan Prosser
Flash CS4: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
Google Apps: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
The Internet: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and J.D. Biersdorfer
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xiv the missing credits
iMovie ’09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
iPhone: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition by David Pogue
iPhoto ’09: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
iPod: The Missing Manual, 8th Edition by J.D. Biersdorfer
JavaScript: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Netbooks: The Missing Manual by J.D. Biersdorfer
Office 2007: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover, Matthew MacDonald, and E.A.
Vander Veer
Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Jim Elferdink
Palm Pre: The Missing Manual by Ed Baig
PCs: The Missing Manual by Andy Rathbone
Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual by Lesa Snider
Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage
Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac: The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage
PowerPoint 2007: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer
Premiere Elements 8: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
QuickBase: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
QuickBooks 2010: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Quicken 2009: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Snow Leopard Edition by David Pogue
Wikipedia: The Missing Manual by John Broughton
Windows Vista: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Windows Vista for Starters: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Word 2007: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
Living Green: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
Your Brain: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Buying a Home: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
Your Money: The Missing Manual by J.D. Roth
Your Body: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
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introduction 1
Introduction
It must be a great time to work at Microsoft. For the first time in years, the people
who work on Windows can hold their heads high in public.
Windows 7 is the best-reviewed, best-loved, and, well, best version of Windows
ever. Maybe part of the positive reception is because of Win7’s contrast to Windows
Vista, which was almost universally despised. Maybe Microsoft saw that it was losing
market-share ground to Mac OS X and Linux and maybe even Google and, its back
to the wall, did some of its best work.
But whatever the reason, Windows 7 is a hit.
It’s technically an evolution of Windows Vista, so Windows 7 maintains all the stuff
that was good about Vista: stability, security, just enough animation and eye candy
to keep things interesting. “Blue screen of death” jokes have almost completely disap-
peared from the Internet.
Yet Windows 7 fixes what everybody hated about Vista:
•Speed. In PC Magazine’s tests, Windows 7 was 12 to 14 percent faster than Vista.
It’s especially brisk when starting up, going to sleep, and waking from sleep. A lot
of other things have between tweaked for speed, too, like noticing USB gadgets
you’ve plugged in.
•Hardware requirements. PCs have steadily grown faster and more powerful since
Vista’s debut in 2007, but the hardware requirements for Windows 7 are exactly the
same. Even those $300 netbooks manage to run Windows 7 without bogging down.
•Intrusiveness. Windows Vista used to freak out, with full-screen, show-stopping
warning boxes that required your password to continue, at every potential security
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2 windows 7: the missing manual
What’s New threat. But Win7 leaves you in peace far more often. In fact, 10 categories of warn-
ings now pile up quietly in a single, unified new control panel called the Action
Center, and don’t interrupt you at all.
If You’re Coming from Windows XP
If you’re coming to Windows 7 from Windows Vista, you’ll
probably land with all guns blazing. Most of the layout,
techniques, and functions are very similar.
If you’re coming straight to Windows 7 from Windows XP,
though, you might feel as though you came home from
college to find that your parents turned your old bedroom
into a home office. Where is everything? A lot went on while
you were away.
This book will treat you, the XP veteran, very well; you’ll find
frequent references to the major departures from XP. But
here’s a heads-up to some of the biggest changes:
Security. You could fill several books with information about
the security enhancements Microsoft has made to Windows.
A lot of them are so technical, they’d make your eyes glaze
over, but here’s a sampling.
User Account Control is a dialog box that pops up whenever
you try to install a program or adjust a PC-wide setting, re-
questing that you type your password. It means that viruses
can no longer make changes to your system without your
knowing about it. You’ll see one of these dialog boxes, and
if you aren’t the one trying to make the change, you’ll click
Cancel instead of Continue. Windows Defender protects
your PC from spyware (downloads from the Internet that,
unbeknownst to you, send information back to their creators
or hijack your Web browser).
A cosmetic overhaul. Thanks to a new design scheme called
Aero, window edges are translucent; menus and windows
fade away when closed; the taskbar shows actual thumbnail
images of the open documents, not just their names; all
the icons have been redesigned with a clean, 3-D look and
greater resolution; and so on.
(Not everyone gets to enjoy these Aero features. Some
PCs are too slow to handle all this graphics processing; on
those machines, the transparency and taskbar features are
missing.)
The Start menu is a better-organized, two-column affair; that
awful XP business of superimposing the All Programs menu
on top of the two other columns is long gone.
New programs and features. Lots of new or upgraded soft-
ware programs and features debuted in Vista. For example:
Instant Search. With one keystroke (the w key), you open
the Start menu’s new Search box. It searches your entire PC
for the search phrase you type—even inside files that have
different names.
New apps. Check out the Snipping Tool (for capturing
patches of the screen as graphics, for use in illustrating
computer books) and Windows Fax and Scan, one-stop
shopping for scanning and faxing. Speech Recognition lets
you dictate email and documents, and even control Windows
itself, all by voice.
Laptop goodies. You’ll find folder synchronization with
another computer, more powerful battery-control settings,
and a central Mobility Center that governs all laptop features
in one place.
New Explorer features. Explorer windows can now have
information panels and controls on all four edges, including
the Navigation pane (left); task toolbar (top); Preview pane
(right); and Details pane (bottom). The new address bar,
which displays the path you’ve taken to burrow into the
folder you’re now inspecting, is loaded with doodads and
clickable spots that make navigation far easier.
All of this is covered in this book, of course—but may this list
prepare you for some of the post-XP shocks you’re in for.
up to speed
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introduction 3
What’s New
Microsoft added a few choice new features, not the usual list of several hundred. This
time around, the master plan wasn’t “Triple the length of the feature list,” as usual at
Microsoft. Instead, it was “Polish and fix what we’ve already got.”
The formula worked. New color schemes make the whole thing feel lighter and less
daunting. New fonts make everything cleaner and sharper. There’s a new design
consistency, too, featuring plain-English, lowercase, one-click toolbar commands
for the things you’re most likely to want to do at the moment (“Burn,” “New folder,”
“Share,” and so on).
What’s New
That’s not to say that Microsoft didn’t add any new features at all in Win7. Here are
some of the highlights:
•New taskbar. The taskbar, the traditional row of buttons at the bottom of the screen
(representing your open programs), has been given the most radical overhaul in
years. Now it resembles the Dock on the Mac: It holds the icons for open programs
and icons you’ve dragged there for quick access.
If you point to a program’s icon, Triscuit-sized miniatures of its windows pop up.
You can either click one, to bring that window forward, or you can just run your
cursor across them; as you do so, the corresponding full-size windows flash to the
fore. All of this means easier navigation in a screen awash with window clutter.
•Jump lists. Another taskbar feature. When you right-click a taskbar icon, you get
a new, specialized list of shortcuts called a jump list. It maintains a list of that
program’s most recently or frequently opened documents, and offers a few other
important program-related commands too.
•New window treatments. Now Windows does more for windows. You can drag a
window’s edge against the top or side edge of your screen to make it fill the whole
screen or half of it. You can give a window a little shake with the mouse to minimize
all other windows when you need a quick look at your desktop. The Show Desktop
button has been reborn as a sliver at the right end of the taskbar—a one-click
shortcut for hiding all windows instantly.
•A new folder concept: Libraries. Libraries are like meta-folders: They display the
contents of up to 50 other folders, which may be scattered all over your system or
even all over your network.
Libraries make it easy to keep project files together, to back them up en masse, or
to share them with other PCs on the network.
•Effortless networking. Windows has always been good at networking computers
together—but Microsoft has never been especially good at making that easy for
the average non-techie. That all changes with Windows 7’s HomeGroups feature.
You just enter a one-time password on each machine in your house. Once that’s
done, each computer can see the photos, music, printers, and documents on
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4 windows 7: the missing manual
all the other ones. At no time do you have to mess with accounts, permissions,
or passwords. Obviously, homegroups aren’t ideal for government agencies or
NASA—but if it’s just you and a couple of family members, the convenience of
sharing your printers and music collections may well be more important than
big-deal security barriers.
•Wild music sharing. Windows Media Player lets you listen to the music from one
PC while seated at another one—across the room, across the network, or even
across the Internet.
•Better plug-and-play. Microsoft’s little driver slave drivers were busy during the
three-year gestation of Windows 7. Thousands more gadgets now work auto-
matically when you plug them in, without your having to worry about drivers or
software installation. The new Device Stage window even shows a picture of the
camera/phone/printer/scanner you’ve just plugged in, describes it for you, and
offers links to its most useful functions.
•Multitouch. Does the world really want multitouch laptops and desktop PCs that
work like an iPhone? It’s too soon to tell, but Microsoft is ready for the new wave
of multitouch screens. Windows 7 recognizes the basic two-finger “gestures”:
pinching and zooming (to shrink or enlarge a photo or a Web page), rotating (for
a photo), dragging a finger (to scroll), and so on.
Other new-and-improved items lurk around every corner; among other improve-
ments, somebody with a degree in English has swept through every corner and
rewritten buttons, links, and dialog boxes for better clarity.
Note: Microsoft has taken a bunch of stuff away, too. Most of it is complicated clutter, introduced in Vista,
that nobody wound up using. The not-so-dearly departed features include Stacking in desktop windows, the
Quick Launch toolbar, the Sidebar, and Offline Favorites.
If you’re among the few, the proud, who actually used these features, don’t despair; this book proposes
replacements for all of them.
The Bummers
Windows 7 is pretty great, but it’s not all sunshine and bunnies. You should know up
front that you’re in for a few rude surprises:
Upgrading from Windows XP
Upgrading your current PC from Vista is easy. But upgrading from Windows XP in-
volves a clean install—moving all your programs and files off the hard drive, installing
Windows 7, and then copying everything back on again.
Clearly, Microsoft hopes that XP holdouts won’t even bother, that they’ll just get
Windows 7 preinstalled on a new PC.
The Matrix of Windows versions lives on
You thought Windows XP was bad, with its two different versions (Home and Pro)?
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introduction 5
Like Windows Vista, Windows 7 comes in a raft of different versions, each with a
different set of features at a different price.
Microsoft says each version is perfectly attuned to a different kind of customer, as
though each edition had been somehow conceived differently. In fact, though, the main
thing that distinguishes the editions is the suite of programs that comes with each one.
Each main heading in this book bears a handy cheat sheet, like this:
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
This line lets you know at a glance whether or not that feature discussion applies to you.
Meanwhile, if a description of this or that feature makes you salivate, fear not. Mi-
crosoft is delighted to let you upgrade your copy of Windows 7 to a more expensive
edition, essentially “unlocking” features for a fee. See page 268 for details.
Here, for the record, is what they are:
•Starter. This stripped-down version of Windows 7 is what you’ll probably get
preinstalled on a netbook (that is, a lightweight, inexpensive laptop that doesn’t
have a CD/DVD drive).
The Starter edition lacks Aero (the suite of animations, window-manipulation
gestures, pop-up taskbar thumbnails, and other eye candy); Windows Media Cen-
ter; DVD playback; streaming of music and video to or from other computers; the
ability to connect a second monitor; XP Mode for accommodating older programs;
and a 64-bit edition. The Starter version also doesn’t let you change your desktop
picture or your visual design scheme, or switch accounts without logging off.
Sounds like a lot of missing stuff. But the truth is, none of those things diminish
the things you’d want to do on a netbook: emailing, surfing the Web, writing,
working with photos, and so on.
Note: Perhaps surprisingly, Starter doesn’t actually save you any hard drive space. Every copy of Windows 7
is actually a complete Ultimate edition on the hard drive—but with features turned off. That’s how Microsoft
is able to pull off the instant-upgrade feature known as the Anytime Upgrade. Choose its name from the
Start menu, pay a few bucks at a Web site, and presto: Your PC has just acquired one of the fancier editions
of Windows 7.
•Home Basic. In the Vista days, the Home Basic edition was the cheapest and most
bare-bones edition sold in the U.S. But not anymore. Oh, it’s still the cheapest and
most bare-bones—but now it’s sold only in third-world countries.
•Home Premium. This is the one you’re most likely to get when you, a normal
person, buy a single PC. It’s the mainstream consumer edition.
•Professional. Has all the features of Home Premium, but adds Presentation Mode
(shuts off anything that might interrupt during PowerPoint slideshows); the ability
to join a corporate network; the Encrypting File System (lets you encode certain
files or folders for security); XP Mode; and location-aware printing.
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6 windows 7: the missing manual
(This was called the Business edition in the Vista days.)
Note: In the Vista days, the Home editions offered some features that the corporate editions lacked, and
vice versa. Now, each more expensive edition includes all the features of the previous one. No more must
corporate drones have to miss out on the joy of Windows Media Center.
•Enterprise, Ultimate. Same version, just sold different ways. (Enterprise is sold
directly to corporations; Ultimate is sold in stores.) Has everything Professional
has, plus it can run in multiple languages at once, has even more fancy networking
features, can run Unix programs, and can use a feature called BitLocker to encrypt
your hard drive for total security.
Note: As an Ultimate owner, you no longer get access to a special suite of free bonus goodies exclusive to
your version, as you did in the Vista days.
•N and K editions. These are special editions sold in Europe and Korea, respectively,
to comply with antitrust laws there. They’re identical to the Home Premium, Pro-
fessional, and Ultimate editions—but they have Windows Media Player and DVD
Maker stripped out. (You can download those missing free apps at any time, so
what was the point? What a waste of everyone’s time!)
To make matters even more complicated, each version except Starter is available in
both 32-bit or 64-bit flavors (see page 263 for what this means). Good luck figuring
out why some cool Windows 7 feature isn’t on your PC.
Missing Apps
Out of fear of antitrust headaches, Microsoft has stripped Windows 7 of a bunch of
programs that usually come with mainstream operating systems. Believe it or not,
Windows 7 doesn’t come with a calendar, an address book, photo management, video
editing, instant messaging, or even email!
That’s not to say that Microsoft is leaving you without these programs entirely; they’re
available in a single, free, downloadable suite called Windows Live Essentials. One
click and you’re done—not a big deal. (The company you buy your PC from may
even preinstall them.)
But you may be confused at first, especially if you upgrade your Vista machine to
Windows 7—the installer actually deletes your copies of Windows Mail, Movie Maker,
Calendar, Contacts, and Photo Gallery! (Mercifully, it preserves your data.)
Windows still has some long-standing frustrations, too. It’s still copy-protected, it still
offers way too many ways to get to a certain feature, it still requires antivirus software.
And it’s still an enormous, seething, vast hunk of 50 million lines of computer code
that must appeal equally well to a third-grader and a NASA systems analyst; sooner
or later, everybody runs into parts of it they could do without.
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introduction 7
On the other hand, it’s still Windows in a good way, too. It’s still the 800-pound gorilla
of the computer world, so it’s compatible with the world’s largest catalog of programs,
games, and add-on gadgets.
About This Book
Despite the many improvements in Windows over the years, one feature hasn’t im-
proved a bit: Microsoft’s documentation. In fact, Windows 7 comes with no printed
user guide at all. To learn about the thousands of pieces of software that make up this
operating system, you’re expected to read the online help screens.
Unfortunately, as you’ll quickly discover, these help screens are tersely written, of-
fer very little technical depth, and lack examples. You can’t even mark your place,
underline, or read them in the bathroom. Some of the help screens are actually on
Microsoft’s Web site; you can’t see them without an Internet connection. Too bad if
you’re on a plane somewhere with your laptop.
The purpose of this book, then, is to serve as the manual that should have accompa-
nied Windows. In these pages, you’ll find step-by-step instructions for using almost
every Windows feature, including those you may not even have understood, let alone
mastered.
System Requirements for Your Brain
Windows 7: The Missing Manual is designed to accommodate readers at every tech-
nical level (except system administrators, who will be happier with a very different
sort of book).
The primary discussions are written for advanced-beginner or intermediate PC users.
But if you’re a first-time Windows user, special sidebar articles called “Up To Speed”
provide the introductory information you need to understand the topic at hand. If
you’re an advanced PC user, on the other hand, keep your eye out for similar shaded
boxes called “Power Users’ Clinic.” They offer more technical tips, tricks, and shortcuts
for the veteran PC fan.
About the Outline
This book is divided into seven parts, each containing several chapters:
• Part 1, The Desktop, covers everything you see on the screen when you turn on
a Windows 7 computer: icons, windows, menus, scroll bars, the taskbar, the Re-
cycle Bin, shortcuts, the Start menu, shortcut menus, and so on. It also covers the
system-wide, instantaneous Search feature.
• Part 2, Windows 7 Software, is dedicated to the proposition that an operating
system is little more than a launch pad for programs. Chapter 6 describes how to
work with applications and documents in Windows—how to launch them, switch
among them, swap data between them, use them to create and open files, and so
on—and how to use the microprograms called gadgets.
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8 windows 7: the missing manual
This part also offers an item-by-item discussion of the individual software nug-
gets that make up this operating system. These include not just the items in your
Control Panel, but also the long list of free programs that Microsoft threw in:
Windows Media Player, WordPad, Speech Recognition, and so on.
• Part 3, Windows Online, covers all the special Internet-related features of Win-
dows, including setting up your Internet account, Windows Live Mail (for email),
Internet Explorer 8 (for Web browsing), and so on. The massive Chapter 10 also
covers Windows’s dozens of Internet fortification features: the firewall, anti-spyware
software, parental controls, and on and on.
• Part 4, Pictures, Music, & TV, takes you into multimedia land. Here are chapters
that cover the Windows Live Photo Gallery picture editing and organizing program;
Media Player 12 (music playback); and Media Center (TV recording and playback).
• Part 5, Hardware and Peripherals, describes the operating system’s relationship
with equipment you can attach to your PC—scanners, cameras, disks, printers,
and so on. Special chapters describe faxing, fonts, laptops, and tablet PC touch-
screen machines.
• Part 6, PC Health, explores Windows 7’s greatly beefed-up backup and trouble-
shooting tools. It also describes some advanced hard drive formatting tricks and
offers tips for making your PC run faster and better.
• Part 7, Networking & Homegroups, is for the millions of households and offices
that contain more than one PC. If you work at home or in a small office, these
chapters show you how to build your own network; if you work in a corporation
where some highly paid professional network geek is on hand to do the trouble-
shooting, these chapters show you how to exploit Windows’s considerable net-
working prowess. File sharing, accounts and passwords, and the new HomeGroups
insta-networking feature are here, too.
At the end of the book, four appendixes provide a guide to installing or upgrading to
Windows 7, an introduction to editing the Registry, a master list of Windows keyboard
shortcuts, and the “Where’d It Go?” Dictionary, which lists every feature Microsoft
moved or deleted on the way to Windows 7.
AboutÆTheseÆArrows
Throughout this book, and throughout the Missing Manual series, you’ll find sen-
tences like this: “Open the StartÆComputerÆLocal Disk (C:)ÆWindows folder.”
That’s shorthand for a much longer instruction that directs you to open three nested
icons in sequence, like this: “Click the Start menu to open it. Click Computer in the
Start menu. Inside the Computer window is a disk icon labeled Local Disk (C:);
double-click it to open it. Inside that window is yet another icon called Windows.
Double-click to open it, too.”
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introduction 9
Similarly, this kind of arrow shorthand helps to simplify the business of choosing
commands in menus. “Choose StartÆControl Panel” means to open the Start menu,
and then click the Control Panel command in it. Figure I-1 shows the story.
The Very Basics
To get the most out of Windows with the least frustration, it helps to be familiar with
the following concepts and terms. If you’re new to Windows, be prepared to encoun-
ter these words and phrases over and over again—in the built-in Windows help, in
computer magazines, and in this book.
Windows Defined
Windows is an operating system, the software that controls your computer. It’s designed
to serve you in several ways:
•It’s a launching bay. At its heart, Windows is a home base, a remote-control clicker
that lets you call up the various software programs (applications) you use to do
Figure I-1:
In this book, arrow
notations help to
simplify folder and
menu instructions.
For example,
“Choose StartÆ
Control PanelÆ
AutoPlay” is a more
compact way of
saying, “Click the
Start button. When
the Start menu
opens, point to
Control Panel; with-
out clicking, now
slide to the right
onto AutoPlay,” as
shown here.
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10 windows 7: the missing manual
work or kill time. When you get right down to it, applications are the real reason
you bought a PC.
Windows 7 is a well-stocked software pantry unto itself; for example, it comes with
such basic programs as a Web browser, a simple word processor, and a calculator.
And a suite of games, too. (Chapter 7 covers all these freebie programs.)
If you were stranded on a desert island, the built-in Windows programs could
suffice for everyday operations. But if you’re like most people, sooner or later,
you’ll buy and install more software. That’s one of the luxuries of using Windows:
You can choose from a staggering number of add-on programs. Whether you’re a
left-handed beekeeper or a German-speaking nun, some company somewhere is
selling Windows software designed just for you, its target audience.
•It’s a file cabinet. Every application on your machine, as well as every document
you create, is represented on the screen by an icon, a little picture that symbolizes
the underlying file or container. You can organize these icons into onscreen file
folders. You can make backups (safety copies) by dragging file icons onto a flash
drive or blank CD, or send files to people by email. You can also trash icons you
no longer need by dragging them onto the Recycle Bin icon.
•It’s your equipment headquarters. What you can actually see of Windows is only
the tip of the iceberg. An enormous chunk of Windows is behind-the-scenes
plumbing that controls the various functions of your computer—its modem,
screen, keyboard, printer, and so on.
The Right Mouse Button is King
One of the most important features of Windows isn’t on the screen—it’s in your hand.
The standard mouse or trackpad has two mouse buttons. You use the left one to click
buttons, highlight text, and drag things around on the screen.
When you click the right button, however, a shortcut menu appears onscreen, like the
one shown at left in Figure I-3. Get into the habit of right-clicking things—icons, fold-
ers, disks, text inside a paragraph, buttons on your menu bar, pictures on a Web page,
and so on. The commands that appear on the shortcut menu will make you much
more productive and lead you to discover handy functions you never knew existed.
This is a big deal: Microsoft’s research suggests that nearly 75 percent of Windows users
don’t use the right mouse button and therefore miss hundreds of timesaving shortcuts.
Part of the rationale behind Windows 7’s redesign is putting these functions out in the
open. Even so, many more shortcuts remain hidden under your right mouse button.
Tip: Microsoft doesn’t discriminate against left-handers…much. You can swap the functions of the right
and left mouse buttons easily enough.
Choose StartÆControl Panel. Click “Classic view.” Open the Mouse icon. When the Mouse Properties dialog
box opens, click the Buttons tab, and then turn on “Switch primary and secondary buttons.” Then click OK.
Windows now assumes that you want to use the left mouse button as the one that produces shortcut menus.
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introduction 11
Wizards = Interviews
A wizard is a series of screens that walk you through the task you’re trying to complete.
Wizards make configuration and installation tasks easier by breaking them down into
smaller, more easily digested steps. Figure I-2 offers an example.
There’s More Than One Way to Do Everything
No matter what setting you want to adjust, no matter what program you want to
open, Microsoft has provided five or six different ways to do it. For example, here are
the various ways to delete a file: Press the Delete key; choose FileÆDelete; drag the
file icon onto the Recycle Bin; or right-click the filename, and then choose Delete
from the shortcut menu.
Pessimists grumble that there are too many paths to every destination, making it
much more difficult to learn Windows. Optimists point out that this abundance of
approaches means that almost everyone will find, and settle on, a satisfying method for
each task. Whenever you find a task irksome, remember that you have other options.
Figure I-2:
Wizards (interview
screens) are every-
where in Windows. On
each of the screens,
you’re supposed to
answer a question
about your computer
or your preferences,
and then click a Next
button. When you
click the Finish button
on the final screen,
Windows whirls into
action, automatically
completing the instal-
lation or setup.
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12 windows 7: the missing manual
You Can Use the Keyboard for Everything
In earlier versions of Windows, underlined letters appeared in the names of menus
and dialog boxes. These underlines were clues for people who found it faster to do
something by pressing keys than by using the mouse.
The underlines are hidden in Windows 7, at least in disk and folder windows. (They
may still appear in your individual software programs.) If you miss them, you can make
them reappear by pressing the Alt key, Tab key, or an arrow key whenever the menu
bar is visible. (When you’re operating menus, you can release the Alt key immediately
after pressing it.) In this book, in help screens, and in computer magazines, you’ll
see key combinations indicated like this: Alt+S (or Alt+ whatever the letter key is).
Note: In some Windows programs, in fact, the entire menu bar is gone until you press Alt (or F10). That
includes everyday Explorer windows.
Once the underlines are visible, you can open a menu by pressing the underlined let-
ter (F for the File menu, for example). Once the menu is open, press the underlined
letter key that corresponds to the menu command you want. Or press Esc to close the
menu without doing anything. (In Windows, the Esc key always means cancel or stop.)
If choosing a menu command opens a dialog box, you can trigger its options by press-
ing Alt along with the underlined letters. (Within dialog boxes, you can’t press and
release Alt; you have to hold it down while typing the underlined letter.)
The Start Menu is Fastest
The fastest way to almost anything in Windows 7 is the Search box at the bottom of
the Start menu.
For example, to open Outlook, you can open the Start menu and type outlook. To
get to the password-changing screen, you can type password. To adjust your network
settings, network. And so on. Display. Speakers. Keyboard. BitLocker. Excel. Photo Gal-
lery. Firefox. Whatever.
Each time, Windows does an uncanny job of figuring out what you want and high-
lighting it in the results list in the Start menu, usually right at the top.
Here’s the thing, though: You don’t need the mouse to open the Start menu. You can
just tap the w key.
You also don’t need to type the whole thing. If you want the Sticky Notes program,
sti is usually all you have to type. In other words, without ever lifting your hands
from the keyboard, you can hit w, type sti, and hit Enter—and you’ve opened Sticky
Notes. Really, really fast.
Now, there is almost always a manual, mouse-clickable way to get at the same func-
tion in Windows—in fact, there are usually about six of them. Here, for example, is
how you might open the Device Manager, a window that lists all the components of
your PC. First, the mouse way:
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introduction 13
1. Open the Start menu. In the right-side column, click Control Panel.
The Control Panel opens, teeming with options.
2. Click “Hardware and Sound.”
Now a second Control Panel screen appears, filled with options having to do with
external gadgets.
3. Click Device Manager.
The Device Manager dialog box opens.
OK then. Here, by contrast, is how you’d get to exactly the same place using the Start
menu method:
1. Press w to open the Start menu. Type enough of device manager to make Device
Manger appear highlighted in the results list; press Enter.
The Device Manager appears. One step instead of three.
Now, you’re forgiven for exclaiming, “What!? Get to things by typing? I thought the
whole idea behind the Windows revolution was to eliminate the DOS-age practice
of typing commands!”
Well, not exactly. Typing has always offered a faster, more efficient way to getting places
and doing things—what everyone hated was the memorizing of commands to type.
Scrolling: The Missing Manual
These days, PC monitors are bigger than ever—but so are
the Web pages and documents they display.
Scroll bars, of course, are the strips that may appear at
the right side and/or bottom of a window. The scroll bar
signals you that the window isn’t big enough to reveal all
of its contents.
Click the arrows at each end of a scroll bar to move slowly
through the window, or drag the rectangular handle (the
thumb) to move faster. (The position of the thumb in the
scroll bar reflects your relative position in the entire window
or document.) You can quickly move to a specific part of the
window by holding the mouse button down on the scroll
bar where you want the thumb to be. The scroll bar rapidly
scrolls to the desired location and then stops.
Scrolling is such a frequently needed skill, though, that all
kinds of other scrolling gadgets have cropped up.
Your mouse probably has a little wheel on the top. You can
scroll in most programs just by turning the wheel with your
finger, even if your cursor is nowhere near the scroll bar. You
can turbo-scroll by dragging the mouse upward or downward
while keeping the wheel pressed down inside the window.
Laptops often have some kind of scrolling gizmo, too. Maybe
you have an actual roller, or maybe the trackpad offers drag-
here-to-scroll strips on the right side and across the bottom.
And if you have one of the new breed of touchscreen com-
puters, of course, you can scroll just by dragging around with
a finger (or two fingers, on multitouch screens).
Of course, keyboard addicts should note that you can scroll
without using the mouse at all. Press the Page Up or Page
Down keys to scroll the window by one window-full, or use
the , or . keys keys to scroll one line at a time.
up to speed
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14 windows 7: the missing manual
But the Start menu requires no memorization; that’s the beauty of it. You can be
vague. You can take a guess. And almost every time, the Start menu knows what you
want, and offers it in the list.
For that reason, this book almost always provides the most direct route to a certain
program or function: the one that involves the Start menu’s Search box. There’s always
a longer, slower, mousier alternative, but hey: This book is plenty fat already, and those
rainforests aren’t getting any bigger.
About Shift+Clicking
Here’s another bit of shorthand you’ll find in this book (and others): instructions to
Shift+click something. That means you should hold down the Shift key, and then click
before releasing the key. If you understand that much, the meaning of instructions
like “Ctrl+click” and “Alt+click” should be clear.
You Could Spend a Lifetime Changing Properties
You can’t write an operating system that’s all things to all people, but Microsoft has
certainly tried. You can change almost every aspect of the way Windows looks and
works. You can replace the gray backdrop of the screen (the wallpaper) with your
favorite photograph, change the typeface used for the names of your icons, or set up
a particular program to launch automatically every time you turn on the PC.
When you want to change some general behavior of your PC, like how it connects to
the Internet, how soon the screen goes black to save power, or how quickly a letter
repeats when you hold down a key, you use the Control Panel window (described
in Chapter 8).
Many other times, however, you may want to adjust the settings of only one particular
element of the machine, such as the hard drive, the Recycle Bin, or a particular ap-
plication. In those cases, simply right-click the corresponding icon. In the resulting
shortcut menu, you’ll often find a command called Properties. When you click it, a
The Very Basics
The Service Pack Story
Microsoft dribbles out a steady stream of Windows bug fixes,
touchups, driver updates, and security patches. If you have
Windows Update turned on (page 662), then you get them
all automatically, or nearly so, as they’re released.
Microsoft also periodically gathers up all of these little
touchups into a much bigger, all-in-one, free update called
a Service Pack.
Service Packs show up maybe once a year, or even less.
Each one contains hundreds of tiny adjustments and tweaks,
nearly all of them invisible to you. They’re under-the-hood
changes, mostly for the sake of security and compatibility.
Copying files might be a little bit faster in some situations,
a frustrating feature might be addressed, drivers might be
updated, and so on.
Should you install Windows 7 SP1 when, inevitably, it
comes along? Probably. You gain a lot of invisible security
and compatibility improvements; on balance, it’s progress.
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introduction 15
dialog box appears, containing settings or information about that object, as shown
in Figure I-3, right.
Tip: As a shortcut to the Properties command, just highlight an icon and then press Alt+Enter.
It’s also worth getting to know how to operate tabbed dialog boxes, like the one shown
in Figure I-3. These are windows that contain so many options, Microsoft has had to
split them up into separate panels, or tabs. To reveal a new set of options, just click a
different tab (called General, Tools, Hardware, Sharing, Security, Previous Versions,
and Quota in Figure I-3). These tabs are designed to resemble the tabs at the top of
file folders.
Tip: You can switch tabs without using the mouse by pressing Ctrl+Tab (to “click” the next tab to the right)
or Ctrl+Shift+Tab (for the previous tab).
Every Piece of Hardware Requires Software
When computer geeks talk about their drivers, they’re not talking about their chauf-
feurs (unless they’re Bill Gates); they’re talking about the controlling software required
by every hardware component of a PC.
Figure I-3:
One quick way
to find out how
much space
is left on your
hard drive is to
right-click the
correspond-
ing icon, and
then choose
the Properties
command (left).
The Properties
dialog box
appears (right),
featuring a
handy disk-
space graph..
The Very Basics
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16 windows 7: the missing manual
The driver is the translator between your PC’s brain and the equipment attached to
it: mouse, keyboard, screen, DVD drive, scanner, digital camera, palmtop, and so on.
Without the correct driver software, the corresponding piece of equipment doesn’t
work at all.
When you buy one of these gadgets, you receive a CD containing the driver software.
If the included driver software works fine, then you’re all set. If your gadget acts up,
however, remember that equipment manufacturers regularly release improved (read:
less buggy) versions of these software chunks. (You generally find such updates on
the manufacturers’ Web sites.)
Fortunately, Windows 7 comes with drivers for over 15,000 components, saving you
the trouble of scavenging for them on a disk or on the Internet. Most popular gizmos
from brand-name companies work automatically when you plug them in—no CD
installation required (Chapter 18).
It’s Not Meant to Be Overwhelming
Windows has an absolutely staggering array of features. You can burrow six levels
down, dialog box through dialog box, and never come to the end of it. There are enough
programs, commands, and help screens to keep you studying the rest of your life.
It’s crucial to remember that Microsoft’s programmers created Windows in mod-
ules—the digital-photography team here, the networking team there—with different
audiences in mind. The idea, of course, was to make sure that no subset of potential
customers would find a feature lacking.
Not Your Father’s Keyboard
Keyboards built especially for using Windows contain some
extra keys on the bottom row:
On the left, between the Ctrl and Alt keys, you may find
a key bearing the Windows logo (w). No, this isn’t just a
tiny Microsoft advertising moment; you can press this key
to open the Start menu without having to use the mouse.
(On desktop PCs, the Windows key is usually on the bottom
row; on laptops, it’s sometimes at the top of the keyboard.)
On the right, you may find a duplicate w key, as well as a key
whose icon depicts a tiny menu, complete with a microscopic
cursor pointing to a command. Press this key to simulate a
right-click at the current location of your cursor.
Even better, the w key offers a number of useful functions
when you press it in conjunction with other keys. For a com-
plete list, see Appendix D, the Master Windows 7 Keystroke
List. But here are a few important ones to get you started:
w opens the Start menu.
w+number key opens the corresponding icon on the
taskbar, left to right (w+1, w+2, etc.).
w+D hides or shows all your application windows (ideal for
jumping to the desktop for a bit of housekeeping).
w+E opens an Explorer window.
w+F opens the Search window.
w+L locks your screen. Everything you were working on
is hidden by the login screen; your password is required
to get past it.
w+Tab cycles through all open windows using the three-
dimensional Flip 3D feature.
gem in the rough
The Very Basics
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introduction 17
But if you don’t have a digital camera, a network, or whatever, there’s absolutely noth-
ing wrong with ignoring everything you encounter on the screen that isn’t relevant
to your setup and work routine. Not even Microsoft’s CEO uses every single feature
of Windows.
About MissingManuals.com
To get the most out of this book, visit www.missingmanuals.com. Click the “Missing
CD-ROM” link—and then this book’s title—to reveal a neat, organized, chapter-by-
chapter list of the shareware and freeware mentioned in this book.
The Web site also offers corrections and updates to the book. (To see them, click the
book’s title, and then click View/Submit Errata.) In fact, please submit such correc-
tions and updates yourself! In an effort to keep the book as up to date and accurate as
possible, each time O’Reilly prints more copies of this book, I’ll make any confirmed
corrections you’ve suggested. I’ll also note such changes on the Web site so that you
can mark important corrections into your own copy of the book, if you like.
The Very Basics
www.it-ebooks.info
chapter
1
chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 21
Getting Started, Desktop,
& Start Menu
Microsoft wants to make one thing perfectly clear: Compared with Windows
XP, Windows 7 isn’t just a whole new ball game—it’s practically a differ-
ent sport. It’s different on the surface, under the hood, and everywhere in
between. (It’s so different, in fact, that this book includes an appendix called “Where’d
It Go?” which lets you look up a familiar Windows landmark and figure out where
Microsoft stuck it in Windows 7.)
If you’re moving to Windows 7 from Vista, well, your new world won’t be quite as
much of a shock. But the landscape still has shifted quite a bit.
Either way, it’s hard to predict exactly what you’ll see at the fateful moment when
the Windows 7 screen first lights up on your monitor. You may see a big welcome
screen bearing the logo of Dell or whomever; it may be the Windows 7 Setup Wizard
(Appendix A); or it may be the login screen, where you’re asked to sign in by clicking
your name in a list. (Skip to page 737 for details on logging in.)
The best place to start, though, might be the shining majesty of the Getting Started
window shown in Figure 1-1. If it doesn’t open automatically, choose StartÆGetting
Started.
Getting Started
All Versions
Getting Started is supposed to be an antidote to the moment of dizzy disorientation
you’d otherwise feel the first time you fired up Windows 7. It’s basically a window full
of links to useful places in the Windows empire. What’s confusing is that just clicking
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22 windows 7: the missing manual
Getting Started one of these promising-looking buttons (“Back up your files”? Hey, yeah!) doesn’t
actually do anything except change the billboard in the top part of the window. You
have to double-click to open up the control panel or program you need to make changes.
Here are a few highlights:
•Go online to find out what’s new in Windows 7. Sure enough: Takes you to a Web
page describing the new features.
•Use a homegroup to share with other computers in your home. One of Microsoft’s
most important promises is that it’s finally simple to set up a home network if you
have more than one PC. By all means, double-click here to get started, but have
Chapter 26 in front of you.
•Back up your files. Fires up the Backup and Restore Center, which is described
on page 688.
•Personalize Windows. Sure, sure, eventually you’ll be plotting rocket trajectories
and mapping the genome—but let’s not kid ourselves. The first order of business
is decorating: choosing your screen saver, replacing the desktop background (wall-
paper), choosing a different cursor shape, adjusting your monitor resolution, and
so on. Double-click here to open the appropriate control panel.
•Choose when to be notified about changes to your computer. Windows 7 has tamed
one of Vista’s most ornery features: User Account Control (otherwise known as “the
infuriating nag box that pops up every time I make a change, asking, ‘Are you sure?’
‘Are you sure?’ ”). However, UAC still gets in your face from time to time. Double-
click here to open the User Account Control settings so you can tone it down.
Figure 1-1:
Getting Started
offers links to
various useful
corners of
the operating
system. Most
are designed
to help you set
up a new PC.
(Click once to
read a descrip-
tion, and then
double-click to
open the link.)
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 23
Getting Started
•Add new users to your computer. If you’re the lord of the manor, the sole user
of this computer, then you can ignore this little item. But if you and other family
members, students, or workers share this computer, you’ll want to consult Chapter
23 about how to set up a separate account (name, password, and working environ-
ment) for each person.
•Transfer files and settings from another computer. This program, now called
Windows Easy Transfer, is a beefed-up version of the old Files and Settings Trans-
fer Wizard. Its purpose is to transfer files and settings from an older PC, and it’s
described on page 830.
•Go online to get Windows Live Essentials. Weird as it may seem, Windows 7 is the
first mainstream operating system in recent memory to arrive completely stripped
down. It comes with no email program, no photo or video editing app, no chat
program, no calendar or address book. (In fact, if you upgraded from Vista, you’ll
discover that the Windows 7 installer has actually deleted the Microsoft apps you
used to have for these purposes! Big whoops!)
There’s actually a good reason (well, OK, a dumb reason) for Microsoft’s decision:
Its lawyers were attempting to protect the company from more antitrust lawsuits.
Whatever. The point is that if you want these standard, free programs, then you
have to download them yourself by clicking this link. Details are at the beginning
of Chapter 7.
Note: You may not have to do this manual downloading. Some PC companies, like Dell, preinstall these
apps when they sell you a new PC.
•Change the size of the text on your screen. Over-40-year-olds, you know who you
are. Now, with one click, you can make all text in all programs 25 or 50 percent
larger, thanks to this handy option.
To get rid of the Getting Started window, click its Close box—or press Alt+F4, the
universal Windows keystroke for “close this window.”
The Windows Desktop—Now with Aero!
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Once you’ve recovered from the excitement of Getting Started, you get your first
glimpse of the full Windows 7 desktop (Figure 1-2). If you’d rather not go through
life staring at the Windows logo, then by all means choose one of the much more
attractive Windows 7 desktop pictures, as described in Chapter 4.
All the usual Windows landmarks are here—the Start menu, the taskbar, and the
Recycle Bin—but they’ve been given an extreme makeover, especially if you’re used
to Windows XP.
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24 windows 7: the missing manual
What you’re seeing is the latest face of Windows, known to fans as Aero. (It supposedly
stands for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open, but you can’t help suspecting
that somebody at Microsoft retrofitted those words to fit the initials.) It debuted in
Windows Vista, and it’s been refined in Windows 7.
Figure 1-2:
There are some
gorgeous new
desktop pictures
in Windows 7—
Microsoft evidently
endured one
Teletubbies joke
too many during
the Windows XP
era—although the
factory-installed
wallpaper isn’t
among them.
See page 179 for
details on choos-
ing a better-look-
ing background.
Desktop
Start menu Taskbar Notification area
(system tray)
nostalgia corner
Restoring the Desktop Icons
The Windows 7 desktop is awfully pretty—but awfully bar-
ren. If you’re a longtime Windows veteran, you may miss
the handy desktop icons that once provided quick access
to important locations on your PC, like My Computer, My
Documents, My Network Places, and Control Panel.
You can still get to these locations (they’re listed in your Start
menu), but opening them requires two mouse clicks—an
egregious expenditure of caloric effort.
However, it’s easy enough to put these icons back on the
desktop. To do so, right-click a blank spot on the desktop;
from the shortcut menu, choose Personalize. (This option
isn’t available in the Starter edition of Windows 7.)
Now the Personalization dialog box appears. In the Tasks
pane on the left side, click “Change desktop icons.” In the
resulting dialog box, checkboxes for common desktop icons
now await your summons: Computer, Network, Recycle
Bin, Control Panel, and User’s Files (that is, your Personal
folder—see page 33).
Turn on the ones you’d like to install to the desktop and
then click OK. Your old favorite icons are now back where
they once belonged.
Windows Desktop—
Now with Aero!
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 25
If you’re into this kind of thing, here’s the complete list of what makes Aero, Aero:
• The edges of windows are thicker than they were in the XP days (for easier target-
ing with your mouse). Parts of the Start menu and window edges are transparent.
Windows and dialog boxes cast subtle shadows on the background, as though
they’re floating.
• A new, bigger, more modern font is used for menus and labels.
• When you point to a window button without clicking, the button “lights up.” The
Minimize and Maximize buttons glow blue; the Close button glows red.
• The default button in a dialog box—the one Microsoft thinks you really want,
like Save or Print—pulses gently, using fading color intensity to draw your eye.
• Little animations liven up the works, especially when you minimize, maximize,
or close a window.
Aero isn’t just looks, either—it also includes a couple of features, like Flip 3D and live
taskbar icons. You can read about these two useful features in Chapter 2.
up to speed
The Windows Experience Index
Quick—which computer is better, an AMD Turion 64 ML-34
processor at 1.80 gigahertz but only 512 megs of RAM, or a
Core Duo 2.0 gigahertz with 1 gig of RAM but only a Radeon
Xpress 200M graphics card?
If you know the answer offhand, you shouldn’t be reading
a book about Windows; you should be writing your own
darned book.
The point is, of course, that today’s Windows is extremely
demanding. It craves horsepower, speed, and memory.
But Microsoft doesn’t really expect the average person, or
even the average IT manager, to know at a glance whether
a particular PC is up to the Windows 7 challenge.
That’s why Windows analyzes the guts of your computer and
boils the results down to a single numerical rating, on a scale
of 1 to 7.9 To find out yours, open the Start menu; start typ-
ing the word experience until you see “Check the Windows
Experience Index” in the results list. Click that link. On the
resulting screen, click “Rate this computer.” (Or if you’ve just
installed new components into your PC, thereby making the
index out of date, click Refresh Now.) After a minute or so,
you’ll see your PC’s horsepower scores.
The final score is the lowest of any of the subscores. For
example, if your memory, hard drive, and graphics all get
scores over 4, but your processor’s score is only 3.1, then
your overall score is 3.1, which makes it easy to spot the
bottleneck.
A score of 7.9 is the best; it means you’ll be able to run all of
Windows’s features well and fast. You need a score of at least
4 to play and edit high-definition video. A 3 is the minimum
for running Aero (page 23). A 1 is the worst; Windows will be
dog slow unless you turn off some of the eye-candy features,
as described on page 173.
True, finding out that the computer you bought last year for
$2,800 is now worth only a measly 2 on the performance
scale could deal your ego quite a bruise.
Fortunately, Microsoft also offers the Windows 7 Upgrade
Advisor (page 268). This free program reveals your PC’s
report card before you install Windows 7, so at least you
can avoid getting a rude surprise.
Windows Desktop—
Now with Aero!
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26 windows 7: the missing manual
The Aero design may not actually be Authentic or whatever, but it does look clean and
modern. You see it, however, only if you have a fairly fast, modern PC. Basically, you
need a Windows Experience Index score of 3 or higher (page 25), meaning a good
amount of memory and a recent graphics card.
Tip: If you’re not seeing the Aero goodies, and your Experience Index score indicates that you should, let
the new Windows 7 Aero troubleshooter help you figure out why. Open the Start menu. Into the Search
box, type aero. Click “Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects.” Click Next to walk
through the wizard. It will check things like your video memory, your Desktop Windows Manager (DWM)
service, your screen’s color settings, your chosen visual theme, your power settings, and so on. After this
analysis, Windows tries to fix whatever was wrong.
Furthermore, the Aero features are not available in the Starter edition of Windows 7.
If you don’t have Aero, you can still enjoy most of Windows 7’s features—just without
the transparencies, animations, and other eye candy. The pictures in this book still
match the buttons and text you see on the screen, but without so much decoration
around the edges.
Nobody ever said Microsoft’s specialty was making things simple.
The Start Menu
All Versions
Windows is composed of 50 million lines of computer code, scattered across your
hard drive in thousands of files. The vast majority of them are support files, there for
behind-the-scenes use by Windows and your applications—they’re not for you. They
may as well bear a sticker reading, “No user-serviceable parts inside.”
That’s why the Start menu is so important (Figure 1-3). It lists every useful piece of
software on your computer, including commands, programs, and files. Just about
everything you do on your PC begins—or can begin—with your Start menu.
In Windows 7, as you’ve probably noticed, the word “Start” doesn’t actually appear on
the Start menu, as it did for years; now the Start menu is just a round, backlit, glass
pebble with a Windows logo behind it. But it’s still called the Start menu, and it’s still
the gateway to everything on the PC.
If you’re the type who bills by the hour, you can open the Start menu (Figure 1-3) by
clicking it with the mouse. If you feel that life’s too short, however, open it by tapping
the w key on the keyboard instead. (If your antique, kerosene-operated keyboard has
no w key, pressing Ctrl+Esc does the same thing.)
Tip: To find out what something is—something in your Start menu (right side), All Programs menu, or
indeed anywhere on your desktop—point to it with your cursor without clicking. A tinted, rectangular tooltip
bar appears, containing a text description. (If the tooltip doesn’t appear, it might be that the window you’re
pointing to isn’t the active window on your desktop. Click the window and then try again.)
Windows Desktop—
Now with Aero!
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 27
Anatomy of the Start Menu
The Start menu is split down the middle into two columns:
•Left side (white). At the top, above the thin divider line, is the pinned items list,
which is yours to modify; it lists programs, folders, documents, and anything else
you want to open quickly. This list never changes unless you change it.
(If you don’t see a divider line, then you have a brand-spankin’-fresh Windows 7
installation, and you haven’t put anything into the pinned list yet.)
Below the fine line is the standard Windows most frequently used programs list.
This list is computed automatically by Windows and may change from day to day.
Figure 1-3:
Left: The Start
menu’s top-left
section is yours
to play with. You
can “pin” what-
ever programs you
want here. The
lower-left section
lists programs you
use most often.
(You can delete
items here but you
can’t add things or
rearrange them.)
The right column
links to important
Windows features
and folders.
Right: The All
Programs menu
replaces the left
column of the
Start menu, listing
all your software.
You can rear-
range, add to, or
delete items from
this list.
Pinned items
Most frequently used
Important locations
and functions Master list of programs
The Start Menu
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28 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: You can, if you wish, ask Windows not to display a list of the programs you’ve used most recently.
You might want to do that if, for example, it would be best that your boss or your spouse didn’t know what
you’ve been up to.
If that’s your situation, then right-click the Start button; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties. In the
resulting dialog box, turn off “Store and display recently opened programs in the Start menu.” (While you’re
here, if you’re especially paranoid, you can also turn off “Store and display recently opened items in the Start
menu and the taskbar”—a reference to the jump lists feature described on page 51.) Click OK.
When you next inspect the Start menu, you’ll be happy to see that the lower-left quadrant, where the recently
used programs are usually listed, is creepily blank.
If you see a submenu arrow (˘) next to a program’s name in the Start menu, con-
grats. You’ve just found a jump list, a new Windows 7 feature that gives you quick
access to documents you’ve opened recently. See page 51 for details on creating,
deleting, and working with jump lists.
At the very bottom is the All Programs list described below, plus the all-important
Search box, which gets a whole chapter to itself (Chapter 3).
•Right side (dark). In general, the right side of the Start menu is devoted to listing
important places on the computer: folders like Documents, Pictures, and Music;
or special windows like Network, Control Panel, and Computer.
At the bottom is the Shut Down button, which turns the PC off. The ˘ button next
to it offers several variations of “off,” like “Log off,” Lock (for when you’re about to
wander away for coffee, so that a password is required to re-enter), Restart, Sleep,
and Hibernate.
Tip: After many years, the “My” prefix finally disappeared from all the important folders of your PC in Win-
dows Vista (My Pictures, My Music, My Documents, My Computer, and so on). Maybe Microsoft was tired
of all the lawsuits from Fisher-Price.
In Windows 7, “My” may be gone from the libraries containing those file types. But within your own Personal
folder, there they are again: My Pictures, My Music...! Page 143 explains why, but in the meantime, you’re
not stuck with “My.” You can rename these special icons just as you would any other icon (page 145). Call it
“My Computer,” call it “Your Computer,” call it “Jar Jar Binks”—makes no difference to Windows.
Keyboard Navigation
You can navigate and control the Start menu in either of two ways:
Use the arrow keys
Once the Start menu is open, you can use the arrow keys to “walk” up and down the
menu. For example, press , to enter the left-hand column from the bottom. Or press
> to enter the right-hand column.
Either way, once you’ve highlighted something in either column, you can press the <
or > keys to hop to the opposite side of the menu; press the , or . keys to highlight
The Start Menu
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 29
other commands in the column (even the Shut Down button); or type the first initial
of something’s name to highlight it. (If there’s more than one command that starts
with, say, W, press W repeatedly to cycle through them.)
Once you’ve highlighted something, you can press Enter to “click” it (open it), or tap
the w key or Esc to close the Start menu and forget the whole thing.
Use the Search box
This thing is awesome. The instant you pop open the Start menu, your insertion point
blinks in the new Start Search box at the bottom of the menu (Figure 1-4). That’s your
cue that you can begin typing the name of whatever you want to open.
The instant you start to type, you trigger Windows’s very fast, whole-computer search
function. This search can find files, folders, programs, email messages, address book
entries, calendar appointments, pictures, movies, PDF documents, music files, Web
bookmarks, and Microsoft Office documents, among other things. It also finds any-
thing in the Start menu, making it a very quick way to pull up something without
having to click through a bunch of submenus.
Figure 1-4:
As you type, Windows winnows down the list of found
items, letter by letter. (You don’t have to type the full
search term and then press Enter.) If the list of results
is too long to fit the Start menu, click “See more re-
sults” below the list. In any case, Windows highlights
the first item in the results. If that’s what you want to
open, press Enter. If not, you can click what you want
to open, or use the arrow keys to walk down the list
and then press Enter to open something.
The Start Menu
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30 windows 7: the missing manual
You can read the meaty details about search in Chapter 3.
The All Programs List
All Versions
When you click All Programs at the bottom of the Start menu, you’re shown an im-
portant list indeed: the master catalog of every program on your computer. You can
jump directly to your word processor, calendar, or favorite game, for example, just
by choosing its name from the StartÆAll Programs menu.
Clearly, Microsoft has abandoned the superimposed-menus effect of Windows XP.
Rather than covering up the regularly scheduled Start menu, the All Programs list
replaces it (or at least the left-side column of it).
You can restore the original left-side column by clicking Back (at the bottom of the
list) or pressing the Esc key.
Tip: When the Start menu is open, you can open the All Programs menu in a number of ways: by clicking
the phrase “All Programs,” by pointing to it and keeping the mouse still for a moment, or by pressing the ,
key (to highlight All Programs) and then tapping the Enter key, the > key, or the space bar. Just for keyboard
fanatics: Once the programs list is open, you can also choose anything in it without involving the mouse.
Just type the first letter of a program or folder name, or press the , and . keys, to highlight the item you
want. Then press Enter to seal the deal.
Folders
As you’ll quickly discover, the All Programs list doesn’t list just programs. It also
houses a number of folders.
nostalgia corner
Restoring the Traditional Folder Listings
Some of the commands that populated the Start menus of
previous Windows versions no longer appear in the Start
menu of Windows 7. Microsoft is trying to make Windows
look less overwhelming.
But if you miss some of the old folders—Favorites, Printers,
and the Run command, for example—it’s easy enough to
put them back.
Right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose
Properties. Now the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties
dialog box appears; click the Customize button.
In the scrolling list, you’ll find checkboxes and buttons that
hide or show all kinds of things that can appear in the right
column of the Start menu: Computer, Connect To, Control
Panel, Default Programs, Documents, Favorites, Games,
Help, Music, Network, Pictures, Printers, Run, Search, and
System Administrative Tools (a set of utilities described in
Chapter 20).
Click OK twice to return to the desktop and try out your
changes.
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 31
Software-company folders
Some of them bear the names of software you’ve installed; you might see a folder called,
for example, PowerSoft or Logitech. These generally contain programs, uninstallers,
instruction manuals, and other related junk.
Tip: Submenus, also known as cascading menus, have been largely eliminated from the Start menu. Instead,
when you open something that contains other things—like a folder listed in the Start menu—you see its contents
listed beneath, indented slightly, as shown in Figure 1-3. Click the folder name again to collapse the sublisting.
Keyboard freaks should note that you can also open a highlighted folder in the list by pressing the Enter key
(or the > key). Close the folder by pressing Enter again (or the < key).
Program-group folders
Another set of folders is designed to trim down the Programs menu by consolidat-
ing related programs, like Games, Accessories (little single-purpose programs), and
Maintenance. Everything in these folders is described in Chapter 7.
The Startup folder
This folder contains programs that open automatically every time you start Windows.
This can be a very useful feature. For instance, if you check your email every morn-
ing, you may as well save yourself a few mouse clicks by putting your email program
into the Startup folder. If you spend all day long word processing, you may as well
put Microsoft Word in there.
In fact, although few PC users suspect it, what you put into the Startup folder doesn’t
have to be an application. It can just as well be a document you consult every day. It
can even be a folder or disk icon whose window you’d like to find open and waiting
each time you turn on the PC. (The Documents folder is a natural example.)
Of course, you may be interested in the Startup folder for a different reason: to stop
some program from launching itself. This is a particularly common syndrome if
somebody else set up your PC. Some program seems to launch itself, unbidden, every
time you turn the machine on.
Tip: All kinds of programs dump components into this folder. Over time, they can begin to slow down your
computer. If you’re having trouble determining the purpose of one startup program or another, visit this
Web page, which provides a comprehensive list of every startup software nugget known, with instructions
for turning off each one: http://www.sysinfo.org/startupinfo.html.
Fortunately, it’s easy to either add or remove items from the Startup folder:
•Deleting something. With the Startup folder’s listing visible in the All Programs
menu, right-click whatever you want to delete. From the shortcut menu, choose
Delete. Click Yes to send the icon to the Recycle Bin.
Enjoy your newfound freedom from self-launching software.
The All
Programs List
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32 windows 7: the missing manual
•Adding something. With the All Programs list open, right-click the Startup folder
and, from the shortcut menu, choose Open. You’ve just opened the Startup folder
itself.
Once its window is open, navigate to the disk, folder, program, or document icon
you want to add. (Navigating to your files and folders is described in the follow-
ing chapters.)
Using the right mouse button, drag the icon directly into the Startup window,
as shown in Figure 1-5. When you release the button, a shortcut menu appears;
from the shortcut menu, choose Create Shortcuts Here.
Figure 1-5:
It’s easy to add a
program or docu-
ment icon to your
Startup folder so that
it launches automati-
cally every time you
turn on the computer.
Here, a document
from the Documents
library is being
added. You may
also want to add a
shortcut for the Docu-
ments library itself,
which ensures that
its window will be
open and ready each
time the computer
starts up.
nostalgia corner
Return to the Old Start Menu
The fancily redesigned Start menu has its charms, includ-
ing its translucent look. But as we all know, change can be
stressful.
In Windows Vista, you could return to the organization and
design of the old, single-column Start menu. (It was an op-
tion in the Start menu Properties dialog box.) But it’s gone in
Windows 7. Microsoft seems to be saying, “Come on, now,
people. Seriously. Let’s move on.”
If you’re among the Windows 2000 crowd who genuinely
preferred the old arrangement, the free CSMenuLanucher
program can do the job for you. It’s available from this book’s
“Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.
The All
Programs List
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 33
Close any windows you’ve opened. From now on, each time you turn on or restart
your computer, the program, file, disk, or folder you dragged will open by itself.
Start Menu: The Right Side
All Versions
As noted earlier, the left-hand Start menu column, the white column, is your launcher
for program, files, and folders you use a lot. The right side, the dark column, contains
links to important functions and places. Here’s a whirlwind tour of these options,
from top to bottom.
StartÆ[Your Name]: The Personal Folder
As the box on this page makes clear, Windows keeps all your stuff—your files, fold-
ers, email, pictures, music, bookmarks, even settings and preferences—in one handy,
central location: your Personal folder. This folder bears your name, or whatever account
name you typed when you installed Windows 7.
As described in Chapter 23, everyone with an account on your PC has a Personal folder.
frequently asked question
Secrets of the Personal Folder
Why did Microsoft bury my files in a folder three levels deep?
Because Windows has been designed for computer sharing.
It’s ideal for any situation where family members, students,
or workers share the same PC.
Each person who uses the computer will turn on the machine
to find his own separate desktop picture, set of files, Web
bookmarks, font collection, and preference settings. (You’ll
find much more about this feature in Chapter 23.)
Like it or not, Windows considers you one of these people.
If you’re the only one who uses this PC, fine—simply ignore
the sharing features. But in its little software head, Windows
still considers you an account holder, and stands ready to
accommodate any others who should come along.
In any case, now you should see the importance of the Users
folder in the main hard drive window. Inside are folders—the
Personal folders—named for the people who use this PC. In
general, nobody is allowed to touch what’s inside anybody
else’s folder.
If you’re the sole proprietor of the machine, of course, there’s
only one Personal folder in the Users folder—named for
you. (You can ignore the Public folder, which is described
on page 774.)
This is only the first of many examples in which Windows
imposes a fairly rigid folder structure. Still, the approach has
its advantages. By keeping such tight control over which files
go where, Windows 7 keeps itself pure—and very, very stable.
(Other operating systems known for their stability, including
Mac OS X, work the same way.)
Furthermore, keeping all your stuff in a single folder makes
it very easy for you to back up your work. It also makes life
easier when you try to connect to your machine from else-
where in the office (over the network) or elsewhere in the
world (over the Internet), as described in Chapters 26 and 27.
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34 windows 7: the missing manual
Technically, your Personal folder lurks inside the C:ÆUsers folder. But that’s a lot of
burrowing when you just want a view of your entire empire. That’s why your Personal
folder is also listed here, at the top of the Start menu’s right-side column. Choose
this listing to open the folder that you’ll eventually fill with new folders, organize,
back up, and so on.
StartÆDocuments
This command opens up your Documents folder, a very important folder indeed.
It’s designed to store just about all the work you do on your PC—everything except
music, pictures, and videos, which get folders of their own.
Of course, you’re welcome to file your documents anywhere on the hard drive, but
most programs propose depositing newly created documents into the Documents
folder. That principle makes navigation easy. You never have to wonder where you
filed something, since all your stuff is sitting right there in Documents.
Note: The Documents folder actually sits in the ComputerÆLocal Disk (C:)ÆUsersÆ[Your Name] folder.
If you study that path carefully, it should become clear that what’s in Documents when you log in (page 737)
isn’t the same thing other people will see when they log in. That is, each account holder (Chapter 23) has a
different Documents folder, whose contents switch according to who’s logged in.
StartÆPictures, Music
Microsoft assumes (correctly) that most people these days use their home comput-
ers for managing digital photos and music collections. As you can probably guess,
the Pictures and Music folders are intended to house them—and these Start menu
commands are quick ways to open them.
In fact, whatever software came with your digital camera or MP3 player probably
dumps your photos into, and sucks your music files out of, these folders automati-
cally. You’ll find much more on these topics in Chapters 14 and 15.
StartÆGames
This item opens the Games folder, where Microsoft has stashed 11 computer games for
your procrastination pleasure. (You get only six in the Starter edition of Windows 7.)
Note: The first time you open the Games folder, a message pops up to ask if you want to use the recom-
mended update and folder settings. If so, Windows will notify you when updates to your games are available;
auto-download rating and genre details about your games; and, in certain folder views, show when you
last played a game.
StartÆComputer
The Computer command is the trunk lid, the doorway to every single shred of soft-
ware on your machine. When you choose this command, a window opens to reveal
icons that represent each disk drive (or drive partition) in your machine, as shown
in Figure 1-6.
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The Right Side
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 35
For example, by double-clicking your hard drive icon and then the various folders on
it, you can eventually see the icons for every single file and folder on your computer.
StartÆControl Panel
This command opens an extremely important window: the Control Panel, which
houses more than 50 mini-programs that you’ll use to change almost every impor-
tant setting on your PC. It’s so important, in fact, that it gets a chapter of its own
(Chapter 8).
StartÆDevices and Printers
Yes, kids, it’s a direct link to the Devices and Printers pane of the Control Panel, where
you can fiddle with the settings for various gadgets (cameras, cellphones, headsets,
scanners, fax machines, printers, monitors, mice, and so on). Details in Chapter 18.
StartÆDefault Programs
This command is a shortcut to the Default Programs control panel. It has two func-
tions:
• To let you specify which program (not necessarily Microsoft’s) you want to use as
your Web browser, email program, instant-messaging program, Java module, and
music player—choices offered by Microsoft to placate the U.S. Justice Department.
Details are on page 319.
Figure 1-6:
The Computer
window lists your
PC’s drives—hard
drives, CD drives,
USB flash drives, and
so on; you may see
networked drives
listed here, too. This
computer has two
hard drives, a USB
flash drive, and a
CD-ROM drive. (If
there’s a disk in the
CD drive, you see
its name, not just its
drive letter.) When
you select a disk
icon, the Details
pane (if visible)
shows its capacity
and amount of free
space (bottom).
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36 windows 7: the missing manual
• To specify which program opens when you double-click a certain kind of docu-
ment. For example, if you double-click a JPEG graphic, do you want it to open in
Picasa or Windows Photo Gallery? Details on page 319.
Note: Grizzled, longtime Windows veterans may want to note that this file-association function used to be
called File Types, and it was in the Folder Options window.
StartÆHelp and Support
All Versions
Choosing StartÆHelp and Support opens the Windows Help and Support Center
window (Chapter 5).
Tip: Once again, speed fans have an alternative to using the mouse—just press the F1 key to open the Help
window. (If that doesn’t work, some other program may have Windows’s focus. Try it again after clicking
the desktop.)
StartÆShut down (Sleep, Restart, Log Off…)
All Versions
What should you do with your PC when you’re finished using it for the moment?
Millions of people shut their PCs off, but they shouldn’t; it’s a colossal waste of
time on both ends. When you shut down, you have to wait for all your programs to
close—and then the next morning, you have to reopen everything, reposition your
windows, and get everything back the way you had it.
You shouldn’t just leave your computer on all the time, either. That’s a massive waste
of electricity, a security risk, and a black mark for the environment.
What you should do is put your PC to sleep. The Sleep command, along with Shut
down, Restart, and other relevant options, appears in the “Shut down” pop-up menu
at the lower-right corner of the Start menu.
Click the ˘ to see these commands. As shown in Figure 1-7, these are the options for
finishing your work session:
frequently asked question
StartÆStop
Could someone explain why all the variations of “Shut
down” are in a menu called Start?
The Name-the-Button Committee at Microsoft probably
thought you’d interpret Start to mean “Start here to get
something accomplished.”
But you wouldn’t be the first person to find it illogical to click
Start when you want to stop. Microsoft probably should have
named the button “Menu,” saving all of us a lot of confusion.
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 37
•“Switch user.” This command refers to Windows’s accounts feature, in which each
person who uses this PC gets to see her own desktop picture, email account, files,
and so on. (See Chapter 23.)
When you choose “Switch user,” somebody else can log into the computer with her
own name and password—to do a quick calendar or email check, for example. But
whatever you had running remains open behind the scenes. After the interloper
is finished, you can log in again to find all your open programs and documents
exactly as you left them.
Note: In Windows XP, there was a Fast User Switching on/off switch. Nowadays, there’s no off switch; Fast
User Switching is in effect full time.
•“Log off.” If you click “Log off,” Windows closes all your open programs and docu-
ments (giving you an opportunity to save any unsaved documents first). It then
presents a new Welcome screen (page 766) so that the next person can sign in.
•Lock. This command locks your computer—in essence, it throws a sheet of inch-
thick steel over everything you were doing, hiding your screen from view. This is
an ideal way to protect your PC from nosy people who happen to wander by your
desk while you’re away getting coffee or lunch.
All they’ll find on your monitor is the standard Logon screen. They (and even you)
will have to enter your account password to get past it (page 766).
Tip: You can trigger this button entirely from the keyboard. Hit these keys, in sequence: w, > (twice), letter
O. (The underlined letter in the word Lock lets you know that O is the shortcut key.)
•Restart. This command quits all open programs, and then quits and restarts Win-
dows again automatically. The computer doesn’t actually turn off. (You might do
Figure 1-7:
How do you want to stop working
today?
Microsoft offers you six different
ways. It’s all about choice.
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38 windows 7: the missing manual
this to “refresh” your computer when you notice that it’s responding sluggishly,
for example.)
•Sleep. In the olden days, Windows offered a command called Standby. This special
state of PC consciousness reduced the amount of electricity the computer used,
putting it in suspended animation until you used the mouse or keyboard to begin
working again. Whatever programs or documents you were working on remained
in memory.
When using a laptop on battery power, Standby was a real boon. When the flight
attendant handed over your microwaved chicken teriyaki, you could take a break
without closing all your programs or shutting down the computer.
Unfortunately, there were two big problems with Standby, especially for laptops.
First, the PC still drew a trickle of power this way. If you didn’t use your laptop for
a few days, the battery would silently go dead—and everything you had open and
unsaved would be lost forever. Second, drivers or programs sometimes interfered
with Standby, so your laptop remained on even though it was closed inside your
carrying case. Your plane would land on the opposite coast, you’d pull out the
laptop for the big meeting, and you’d discover that (a) the thing was roasting hot,
and (b) the battery was dead.
The command is now called Sleep, and it doesn’t present those problems anymore.
First, drivers and applications are no longer allowed to interrupt the Sleep process.
No more Hot Laptop Syndrome.
Second, the instant you put the computer to sleep, Windows quietly transfers a copy
of everything in memory into an invisible file on the hard drive. But it still keeps
everything alive in memory—the battery provides a tiny trickle of power—in case
you return to the laptop (or desktop) and want to dive back into work.
If you do return soon, the next startup is lightning-fast. Everything reappears on
the screen faster than you can say, “Redmond, Washington.”
If you don’t return shortly, then Windows eventually cuts power, abandoning what
it had memorized in RAM. (You control when this happens using the advanced
power plan settings described in Chapter 8.) Now your computer is using no power
at all; it’s in hibernate mode.
Fortunately, Windows still has the hard drive copy of your work environment. So
now when you tap a key to wake the computer, you may have to wait 30 seconds or
so—not as fast as 2 seconds, but certainly better than the 5 minutes it would take to
start up, reopen all your programs, reposition your document windows, and so on.
The bottom line: When you’re done working for the moment—or for the day—put
your computer to Sleep instead of shutting it down. You save power, you save time,
and you risk no data loss.
You can send a laptop to Sleep just by closing the lid. On any kind of computer, you
can trigger Sleep by choosing StartÆSleep or by pushing the PC’s power button,
if you’ve set it up that way (see page 40).
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 39
Tip: You can also trigger Sleep entirely from the keyboard by pressing w, then > twice, then S.
•Hibernate. Hibernate mode is a lot like Sleep, except that it doesn’t offer a period
during which the computer will wake up instantly. Hibernate equals the second
phase of Sleep mode, in which your working world is saved to the hard drive.
Waking the computer from Hibernate takes about 30 seconds.
Tip: You can configure your computer to sleep or hibernate automatically after a period of inactivity, or to
require a password to bring it out of hibernation. See page 329 for details.
•Shut down. This is what most people would call “really, really off.” When you shut
down your PC, Windows quits all open programs, offers you the opportunity to
save any unsaved documents, exits Windows, and turns off the computer.
Truth is, there’s almost no reason to shut down your PC anymore. Sleep is almost
always better all the way around.
The only exceptions have to do with hardware installation. Anytime you have to
open up the PC to make a change (installing memory, hard drives, sound or video
cards), or connect something external that doesn’t just use a USB or FireWire
(1394) port, you should shut the thing down first.
Tip: Once again, it’s worth noting that you can trigger any of these commands entirely from the keyboard;
save your mouse for Photoshop.
Hit the w key to open the Start menu. Then hit the > key twice to open the menu shown in Figure 1-7. At
this point, you can type the underlined letter of the command you want: L for “Log off,” S for Sleep, and so on.
Three Triggers for Sleep/Shut Down—and How to Change Them
You now know how to trigger the Shut down command using the mouse (StartÆShut
down) or by pressing a keyboard sequence. But there are even faster ways.
If you have a laptop, just close the lid. If you have a desktop PC, just press its power
button (π).
In all these cases, though—menu, lid, power button—you can decide whether the
computer shuts down, goes to sleep, hibernates, or just ignores you. That’s really
important, because Microsoft’s proposed responses aren’t always the best ones. For
example, “Shut down” is what’s listed at the bottom of the Start menu, but Sleep is
what you’ll probably want more often.
Here’s how to change the factory setting when you open the Start menu, close the
lid, or hit the power button:
•Change what the Start menu’s Shut down command says. Right-click the Start
menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. On the Start Menu tab of the
resulting dialog box, use the “Power button action” pop-up menu. You can choose
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40 windows 7: the missing manual
Switch user, Log off, Lock, Restart, Sleep, Hibernate, or Shut down—whichever
you’d like to see listed at the bottom of the Start menu, where it started out saying
“Shut down” (see Figure 1-8).
•Change what happens when you close the lid. Open the Start menu. In the Search
box, start typing power options until you see “Change what closing the lid does” in
the search results. Click that link. In the resulting dialog box, you can choose any
of the usual options (Sleep, Restart, Hibernate, and so on) for “When I close the
lid.” In fact, you can even choose this setting independently for when the laptop
is plugged in and when it’s running on battery, although Sleep is really the best
choice in both cases.
•Change what happens when you press the power button. Open the Start menu. In
the Search box, start typing power options until you see “Change what the power
buttons do” in the search results. Click that link. In the resulting dialog box, you
can choose any of the usual options (Sleep, Restart, Hibernate, and so on) for
“When I press the power button.” (You can also specify what happens “When I
press the sleep button,” except that your PC probably doesn’t have a sleep button.)
Commands That No Longer Appear
If you’re coming from an earlier version of Windows, you may wonder what became
of a few useful Start menu commands, like Recent Items, Connect To, Network, and
Run. Turns out they’re gone, but not forgotten; you can restore them, if you like, as
described next.
Figure 1-8:
In this dialog
box (left),
you can
change what
it says at
the bottom
of the Start
menu (right).
For most
people, the
best option
is Sleep—not
Shut down.
StartÆShut down
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 41
Customizing the Start Menu
All Versions
It’s possible to live a long and happy life without ever tampering with the Start menu.
In fact, for many people, the idea of fiddling with it comes dangerously close to nerd
territory.
Still, Start-menu customizing got a big boost in Windows 7, so you may as well sniff
around to see what Microsoft offers. Besides, knowing how to manipulate the Start
menu listings provides an interesting glimpse into the way Windows works, and
tweaking it can pay off in efficiency down the road.
Note: Thanks to the User Accounts feature described in Chapter 23, any changes you make to the Start menu
apply only to you. Each person with an account on this PC has an independent, customized Start menu.
Start Menu Settings
Microsoft offers a fascinating set of customization options for the Start menu. It’s
hard to tell whether these options were selected by a scientific usability study or by a
dartboard, but you’re likely to find something that suits you.
To view and change the basic options, right-click the Start menu; from the shortcut
menu, choose Properties. Now the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box
opens (Figure 1-9, top). When you click Customize, you see the dialog box shown
at bottom in Figure 1-9. Here you’re offered an assortment of Start-menu tweaks,
neatly listed in alphabetical order; they affect the Start menu in some fairly simple
yet profound ways.
The hide/show switches for things in the Start menu
Most of the checkboxes in this scrolling list are on/off switches for things that appear
on the right side of the Start menu: Games, Music, Computer, Control Panel, your
Personal folder, Pictures, and so on. If you never use some of these things, then for
heaven’s sake turn them off; you’ll reduce clutter and eliminate that nagging feeling
that you’re not using all of Windows’s features.
Also in this list, though, are checkboxes for items Microsoft didn’t put in the Start menu
but that you, the oddball fringe case, can put there if you like. Here’s what they are:
•Connect To. This command opens the “Connect to a network” dialog box, a simple
list of all the dial-up, VPN (virtual private networking), and wireless networks your
computer can “see” at the moment. The thing is, in Windows 7, there are easier
ways to see the networks around you (see Chapter 9).
•Downloads. For decades, novice computer users have been baffled: They down-
load something from the Web but then can’t find where it went. Now you’ll know.
Out of the box, Internet Explorer puts your downloaded files into the Downloads
folder (which is inside your Personal folder). It makes sense to add this item to
your Start menu so you have quick access to it.
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42 windows 7: the missing manual
•Favorites menu. The Favorites menu is a list of your favorite Web sites—the same
ones you’ve bookmarked using Internet Explorer (page 409). If you turn on this
item, you can use the Start menu to launch Internet Explorer and travel directly
to the selected site. (Of course, jump lists, described later in this chapter, provide
a similar feature.)
•Homegroup. This item adds a direct link to a list of the Windows 7 PCs on your
home network, as described on page 775. Of course, since there’s a link to them
in the Navigation pane of every Explorer window, having it in the Start menu isn’t
especially critical.
Figure 1-9:
Top: On this first screen, you can
specify what your PC’s power
button does (shut down? sleep?
restart?) or turn off the listings
of recently used programs. (Turn
these off if you don’t want to risk
your supervisor coming by while
you’re up getting coffee and
noticing that your most recently
used programs are The Sims,
World of Warcraft, Dragon Age,
and Fallout.)
Bottom: Here’s the Customize
Start Menu dialog box.
Customizing the
Start Menu
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 43
•Network. There’s no Network item in the Start menu, because you can see all avail-
able networked computers right there at the left side of every Explorer window.
Details on networking are in Chapters 23, 24, 25, and 26.
•Recorded TV. You’d have no reason to use this unless your computer came equipped
with a TV tuner, meaning that it’s a Media Center PC (described on page 547). This
item is a link to the TV shows you’ve recorded on your PC.
•Recent Items. The Recent Items command is a little redundant. The left side of the
Start menu lists the most recently used programs, and jump lists (page 51) list your
most recently used documents. But if you’re a fan of Recent Items from previous
Windows versions, here you go.
•Run command. The Run command is a power-user tool that’s actually pretty cool.
It gets a writeup of its own at the end of this chapter; for now, note that you don’t
really need to put it in the Start menu to enjoy it. Just press w+R whenever you
want to run something.
•System administrative tools. This one is a folder of techie diagnostic tools like
Performance Monitor, Task Scheduler, and Windows Memory Diagnostic. They’re
described later in this book, and they’re way over the heads of most people who
don’t do PCs for a living.
If you are in the market for this sort of tool, the options here let you install a link
to these tools either (a) in the All Programs menu, or (b) both there and in the
right side of the Start menu.
•Videos. Do you want a link to your Movies folder to appear in the Start menu, just
as Music and Pictures do? If so, knock yourself out.
A note about “Display as menu”
Take a look at the options for Computer, Control Panel, Documents, Downloads,
Games, Music, Personal folder, Pictures, Recorded TV, System administrative tools,
Videos. Beneath each of these headings, you’ll find three options:
•Display as a link. In other words, “list in my Start menu the usual way.”
frequently asked question
Opening the Control Panel Window When You Can’t
OK, I’m with you—I turned on “Display as a menu” for the
Control Panel, so now I can open any Control Panel program
directly from my Start menu. Trouble is, now I can’t open
the Control Panel window itself! Nothing happens when I
click the StartÆControl Panel command. How do I open
the Control Panel window?
Ah, there’s a troublemaker in every class.
Open the Start menu and then right-click Control Panel.
Choose Open from the shortcut menu. You’re back in
business.
Customizing the
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44 windows 7: the missing manual
•Display as a menu. This option is extremely useful. It means that instead of simply
listing the name of a folder, your Start menu sprouts a submenu listing the contents
of that folder, as shown on the right in Figure 1-10.
•Don’t display this item. This option, of course, removes the folder from your Start
menu altogether. That’s a good point to remember if you ever sit down at your
PC and discover that, for example, the Control Panel appears to have disappeared.
More options for the Start menu
A few of the checkboxes in the list aren’t on/off switches for Start menu items, but
rather checkboxes that control the Start menu’s behavior. For example:
•Enable context menus and dragging and dropping. There’s not much reason to turn
off this checkbox; after all, it has two benefits. First, it lets you customize your Start
menu simply by dragging icons onto it, as described in the next section. Second,
it lets you right-click Start-menu items, which produces a useful shortcut menu
containing commands like Rename and Remove from This List. (If this checkbox
is turned off, then right-clicking Start menu items has no effect.)
•Highlight newly installed programs. Whenever you (or some techie in the building)
installs a new program into the Start menu, it shows up with colored highlighting
for a few days. The idea, of course, is to grab your attention and make you aware
of your expanded software suite. If you could do without this kind of reminder,
then just turn off this checkbox.
•Open submenus when I pause on them with the mouse pointer. When this check-
box is turned on, you don’t actually have to click a submenu to view its options.
Figure 1-10:
Left: When “Display
as a link” is selected
for Control Panel, you
can’t open a particular
Control Panel program
directly. Instead, you
must choose StartÆ
Control Panel, which
opens the Control
Panel window; then it’s
up to you to open the
program you want.
Right: Turning on
“Display as a menu”
saves you a step; you
now get a submenu that
lists each Control Panel
program. By clicking
one, you can open it
directly.
Customizing the
Start Menu
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 45
•Search other files and libraries. These options govern the Start menu’s Search
command. “Search with public folders” means “search the Public folder on my
computer.” (You can read more about this folder on page 774.)
The third option here is “Don’t search.” If you select this, the Search command
won’t search files and documents at all. Seems like that would greatly diminish the
usefulness of Search. But this could be a speedy arrangement if you use Search
for opening programs and nothing else. (That assumes, of course, that you leave
“Search programs and Control Panel” turned on, as described next.)
•Search programs and Control Panel. Suppose you never want the Search command
to pull up the names of programs and Control Panel items—you want it to find
only files, pictures, documents, and so on. In that case, turn off this box.
Note: This option is the inverse of “Search other files and libraries.” If you turn off both of these options,
then the Start menu’s Search box will never find anything, ever. (To prevent that, select one of the two
search options under “Search other files and libraries, and/or turn on “Search programs and Control Panel.”)
•Sort All Programs menu by name. Yep, here it is, the feature that the world’s com-
pulsives have been waiting for: a self-alphabetizing All Programs list. (All right,
that was uncalled for; truth is, having the list in A-to-Z order can make life easier
for just about anyone.)
Note: If you turn off this option, you can always make the All Programs list snap into alphabetical order on
your command, as described in the tip on page 47.
•Use large icons. You don’t need a book to explain this one. This option affects the
little icon that appears next to each Start menu item’s name (in the left column—
either the regular Start menu or the All Programs list). Bigger icons are pretty, and
on today’s high-resolution monitors, they may rescue your Start-menu items from
disappearing completely. On the other hand, on smaller monitors, large icons may
limit the number of items the list can hold.
Below the scrolling list
Below the massive list of checkboxes, two additional controls await in the Customize
dialog box:
•Number of recent programs to display. The number here refers to the lower-left
column of the Start menu, the one that lists programs you’ve used most recently. By
increasing this number, you make the Start menu taller—but you ensure that more
of your favorite programs are listed and ready to launch. If this item is dimmed,
it’s because you’ve turned off “Store and display recently opened items in the Start
menu and the taskbar” (page 53).
•Number of recent items to display in Jump lists. For details on jump lists, see page
51. If this control is dimmed, it’s because you turned off “Store and display recently
opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar” (page 53).
Customizing the
Start Menu
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46 windows 7: the missing manual
Add Your Own Icons to the Start Menu
Usually, when you install a new program, its installer inserts the program’s name and
icon in your StartÆAll Programs menu. There may be times, however, when you want
to add something to the Start menu yourself, such as a folder, document, or even a disk.
The “free” sections of the Start menu
In the following pages, you’ll read several references to the “free” portions of the Start
menu. These are the two areas that you, the lowly human, are allowed to modify
freely—adding, removing, renaming, or sorting as you see fit:
•The top-left section of the Start menu. This little area lists what Microsoft calls
pinned programs and files—things you use often enough that you want a fairly
permanent list of them at your fingertips.
•The All Programs menu. This, of course, is the master list of programs (and any-
thing else—documents, folders, disks—you want to see listed).
These two areas are highlighted back in Figure 1-3.
In other words, most of the following techniques don’t work in the right column, nor
the lower-left quadrant of the Start menu, where Windows lists your most recently
used programs.
Microsoft wouldn’t be Microsoft if it didn’t provide at least 437 different ways to do
this job. Here are two of the world’s favorites:
Method 1: Drag an icon directly
1. Locate the icon you want to add to your Start menu.
It can be a program (see the box on page 30), a document, a folder you frequently
access, one of the programs in your Control Panel’s folder, or even your hard drive
or DVD-drive icon. (Adding disks and folders to the Start menu is especially handy,
because it lets you dive directly into their contents without having to drill down
through the Computer window.)
Tip: Adding an application name to your All Programs menu requires that you find the program file, as
described on page 141. To do so, either use the Search command (Chapter 3), or just dig around for it in any
Explorer window. You can find your program files in the ComputerÆLocal Disk (C:)ÆProgram Files folder.
2. Drag it directly onto the Start button.
If you release the mouse now, Windows adds the icon’s name to the bottom of
the “pinned items” list (Figure 1-11, right). You’re now welcome to drag it up or
down within this list.
But if you keep the mouse button pressed as you drag onto the Start button, the
Start menu itself opens. As long as the button is still pressed, you can drag the
new icon wherever you want among the items listed in the top-left section of the
menu (Figure 1-11, left).
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Start Menu
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 47
Note: If this drag-and-dropping business doesn’t seem to work, it’s because you’ve turned off “Enable drag-
ging and dropping,” as described in the previous section. And if Windows doesn’t let you drag it anywhere
you like, it’s because you’ve turned on “Sort All Programs menu by name,” also described earlier.
In fact, as long as you haven’t stopped pressing the mouse button, you can even
drag your icon onto the words “All Programs.” Your programs list opens, and you
can deposit whatever you’re dragging anywhere in that menu.
Tip: If “Sort All Programs menu by name” is not turned on, your All Programs list may gradually become
something of a mess.
If you want to restore some order to it—specifically, alphabetical—then right-click anywhere on the open All
Programs menu and choose Sort by Name from the shortcut menu. (This command doesn’t appear if “Sort
All Programs menu by name” is already turned on.)
Figure 1-11:
Left: You can add
something to the
top of your Start
menu by dragging
it onto the Start
button to open
the Start menu,
and then dragging
it into position.
(You can also
drag it onto the All
Programs link and
then anywhere in
that list.)
Right: When you
release the mouse,
the item is happily
ensconced where
you dropped it.
Remember, too,
that you’re free
to drag anything
up or down in the
“free” areas: the
circled area shown
here, and the All
Programs list.
(One exception:
when alphabetical
sorting is on.)
Drag from a window
or the desktop
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48 windows 7: the missing manual
Method 2: Use the Start menu folders
Windows builds the All Programs menu by consulting two critical folders:
•Local Disk (C:)ÆProgramDataÆMicrosoftÆWindowsÆStart MenuÆPrograms
folder. This folder contains shortcuts for programs that are available to everybody
who has an account on your machine (Chapter 23).
•Local Disk (C:)ÆUsersÆ[your name]ÆAppDataÆRoamingÆMicrosoftÆWin-
dowsÆStart MenuÆPrograms folder. This invisible folder stashes shortcuts for
the programs you have added to the Start menu—and they appear only when you
have logged into the machine.
Therefore, instead of the fancy drag-and-drop scheme described above, you may
prefer to fine-tune your Start menu the low-tech way.
Unfortunately, these folders are normally hidden. Fortunately, you don’t really care;
there’s a quick shortcut to opening them, as described in Figure 1-12. Then, once you’ve
opened the relevant Programs folder, you can add shortcut icons there, remove them,
or rename them. Whatever changes you make are reflected in your All Programs menu.
Removing Icons from the Start Menu
When it comes time to prune an overgrown Start menu, there are two different sets
of instructions, depending on which section of the Start menu needs purging.
Figure 1-12:
To edit your All Pro-
grams menu, edit
its source folders.
To begin, open
the Start menu
and right-click All
Programs; from
the shortcut menu,
choose either Open
All Users (to view
the list of programs
for the masses) or
Open (to see the
list of your personal
programs). Those
commands take
you directly to
the deeply buried
Programs folders
described above.
1. Navigate to this folder 2. Load it up
3. You’ve just added
your own stuff to the
All Programs list!
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Start Menu
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 49
•The left-side column, the All Programs list, and jump lists. Right-click the item
you’ve targeted for extinction, and then, from the shortcut menu, choose either
“Remove from this list” or “Delete.”
In both cases, you’re only deleting the shortcut on the menu. You’re not actually
deleting any software.
•The right-side column. Open the PropertiesÆCustomize dialog box for the Start
menu (page 30), and then turn off the checkboxes for all the items you want
expunged.
Tip: You can spawn instant shortcuts (page 160) of anything in the left-hand column of the Start menu by
dragging them off the menu—onto the desktop, for example. That’s a handy tactic if you want a desktop icon
for something you use often, so you don’t even have to open the Start menu to get at it.
Renaming Start-Menu Items
Although few people realize it, you can rename anything in the Start menu’s left side
(or in the top half of the right side—like Pictures, Music, or Documents). Open the
Start menu, right-click the item you want to rename, and choose Rename from the
shortcut menu. The command sprouts a little editing box. Type the new name and
then press Enter.
Reorganizing the Start Menu
To change the order of listings in the “free” portions of the Start menu, including
the All Programs list, just drag the items up and down the lists as you see fit. As you
drag, a black line appears to show you the resulting location of your dragging action.
Release the mouse when the black line is where you want the relocated icon to appear.
Tip: If you change your mind while you’re dragging, press the Esc key to leave everything as it was.
You can drag program names from the lower-left section of the Start menu, too—but
only into one of the “free” areas.
Tip: A reminder: If you can’t seem to drag program names around in the All Programs list, it’s probably
because you’ve told Windows to auto-alphabetize this list (page 47).
Add folders to hold submenus
As noted earlier, some items in the All Programs list are actually folders. For example,
clicking Games reveals a submenu of the games that come with Windows (see Figure
1-13).
It’s worthwhile to know that you can create All Programs menu folders of your own and
stock them with whatever icons you like. For instance, you may want to create a folder
for CD-ROM games, eliminating those items from a too-long All Programs menu.
To add a folder to the All Programs menu, follow these steps:
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50 windows 7: the missing manual
1. Open the Start menu. Right-click the All Programs command. From the shortcut
menu, choose Open.
You’re about to create subfolders that will show up only when you are logged on. (If
you want to make a change that affects everybody with an account on this computer,
then choose Open All Users from the shortcut menu instead.)
In any case, the Start Menu Explorer window appears.
2. Open the Programs folder.
Its contents are arrayed before you, as shown in Figure 1-14.
3. In the window toolbar, click “New folder.”
Or, if your right mouse button hasn’t been getting enough exercise, right-click a
blank spot in the window, and then choose NewÆFolder from the shortcut menu.
(Or just press Shift+Ctrl+N.)
4. When the new folder appears, type a folder name and then press Enter.
Close the window, if you like.
Figure 1-13:
Some All Programs
menu items have sub-
menu folders and sub-
submenu folders. As
you move through the
layers, you’re perform-
ing an action known
as “drilling down.”
This phrase shows up
a lot in manuals and
computer books—for
example, “Drill down
to the Calculator to
crunch a few quick
numbers.”
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Start Menu
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 51
Tip: You can even create folders within folders in your StartÆAll Programs menu. Just double-click to open
any of the existing folders in the Programs folder, and then repeat from step 3.
Your new folder appears in the folders list of the StartÆAll Programs menu, already
sorted into alphabetical order.
Now you can put your favorite file, folder, disk, or application icons into this new
folder. To do so, drag an icon onto the StartÆAll Programs menu, and then, with-
out releasing the mouse, onto the All Programs link, and then into the new folder/
submenu you created.
Jump Lists
All Versions
There’s one more bit of Start-menu customization left. It’s one of the stars of Win-
dows 7, a new feature called jump lists.
They’re handy submenus that list frequently or recently opened files in each of your
programs. For example, the jump list for Internet Explorer shows the Web sites you
Figure 1-14:
Notice that some of the
items in Programs have
folder icons; these are the
folders that will become
submenus in the Start
menu.
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Start Menu
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52 windows 7: the missing manual
visit most often; the jump list for Windows Media Player shows songs you’ve played
a lot lately.
The point, of course, is that you can reopen a file just by clicking its name. Jump lists
can save you time when you want to resume work on something you had open recently
but you’re not in the mood to burrow through folders to find its icon.
Often, jump lists also include shortcut-menu-ish commands, like New Message (for
an email program), Play/Pause (for a jukebox program), or Close All Windows (just
about any program). As Microsoft puts it, it’s like having a separate Start menu for
every single program.
Interestingly enough, the same jump lists appear both in the Start menu and in your
taskbar (Figure 1-15).
You have several ways to make jump lists appear:
•In the Start menu. A ˘ button next to a program’s name in the Start menu means a
jump list awaits. (In general, a program sprouts a jump list automatically if you’ve
used it to open or play files.)
To open the jump list, either click the ˘ or just point to the program’s name without
clicking. The submenu opens automatically after about half a second.
Figure 1-15:
Jump lists display
the most recently
opened documents
in each program.
These submenus
show up in the
Start menu (left),
but they also sprout
from the taskbar
when you right-click
a program’s icon
there (right).
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 53
Note: If no jump lists ever appear, it’s probably because you’ve turned this feature off. To turn it back on,
right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Turn on “Store and display recently
opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar.” (Yes, that’s the on/off switch for jump lists.) Click OK.
And if the submenu doesn’t pop open by itself when you point without clicking, you’ve probably turned
that feature off, too. To turn it back on, right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Proper-
ties. Click Customize. Turn on “Open submenus when I pause on them with the mouse pointer.” Click OK.
•On the taskbar. The nearly identical jump list appears when you right-click a
program’s icon on your taskbar (page 101).
Actually, there’s a second, secret way to make the jump list appear: Swipe upward
from the program’s icon. (That is, give the mouse a flick upward while you’re
clicking.)
This technique isn’t such a huge benefit when you’re using a mouse or trackpad.
But if you’re using a touchscreen computer, where right-clicking can be a little
hard to figure out, you’ll be glad to have this alternative.
Pinning
In general, jump lists maintain themselves. Windows decides which files you’ve opened
or played most recently or most frequently and builds the jump lists accordingly. New
document listings appear, older ones vanish, all without your help.
Figure 1-16:
Suppose there’s a
document you refer
to a lot, and you
don’t want it to van-
ish from its program’s
jump list. Just point
to its name without
clicking, and then
click the pushpin icon
(left). Now there’s
a new section in
the jump list called
Pinned, where that
document will remain
undisturbed until you
unpin it by clicking
the pushpin again
(right).
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54 windows 7: the missing manual
You can, however, pin an item to a program’s jump list so it doesn’t disappear. It’s out
of Windows’s clutches, at least until you unpin it. Figure 1-16 shows the technique.
Jump List Caveats
Jump lists are great and all, but you should be aware of a few things:
• They don’t know when you’ve deleted a document or moved it to another folder
or disk; they continue to list the file even after it’s gone. In that event, clicking the
document’s listing produces only an error message. And you’re offered the chance
to delete the listing (referred to as “this shortcut” in the error message) so you
don’t confuse yourself again the next time.
• Some people consider jump lists a privacy risk, since they reveal everything you’ve
been up to recently to whatever spouse or buddy happens to wander by. (You
know who you are.)
In that case, you can turn off jump lists, or just the incriminating items, as de-
scribed next.
Tip: Of course, even if you turn off jump lists, there’s another easy way to open a document you’ve recently
worked on—from within the program you used to create it. Many programs maintain a list of recent docu-
ments in the File menu.
Jump List Settings
There are all kinds of ways to whip jump lists into submission. For example:
•Turn off jump lists. If the whole idea of Windows (or your boss) tracking what
you’ve been working on upsets you, you can turn this feature off entirely. To do
that, right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Turn
off “Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and taskbar” and
click OK.
•Delete one item from a jump list. For privacy, for security, or out of utter embar-
rassment, you may not want some file or Web site’s name to show up in a jump
list. Just right-click and, from the shortcut menu, choose “Remove from this list.”
•Clear a jump list completely. At other times, you may want to wipe out all your
jump lists—and all your tracks. To do that, right-click the Start menu. From the
shortcut menu, choose Properties. Turn off the checkbox that says “Store and
display recently opened items in the Start menu and taskbar” (that’s the master
on/off switch for jump lists). Click Apply; you’ve just erased all the jump lists.
If you didn’t intend to turn off jump lists for good, though, turn the “Store and
display” checkbox back on again before clicking OK. Your jump lists are now ready
to start memorizing new items.
•Change the number of documents in the list. Ordinarily, jump lists track the 10
most recent (or most frequently used) items, but you can goose that number up
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 55
or down. To do that, right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose
Properties. Click Customize. Adjust the “Number of recent items to display in Jump
Lists” item at the bottom of the dialog box, and then click OK.
Tip: Jump-list items are draggable. For example, suppose you’re composing an email message, and you
want to attach your latest book outline. If it’s in your Start menu, in a jump list, you can drag the document’s
icon directly from the jump list into your email message to attach it. Cool.
The Run Command
All Versions
The Start menu in a fresh installation of Win7 doesn’t include the Run command.
But power users and über-geeks may well want to put it back in the Start menu, fol-
lowing the instructions on page 30. (Or don’t bother. Whenever you want the Run
command, you can just press w+R, or type run into the Start menu’s Search box and
then hit Enter.)
The Run command gets you to a command line, as shown in Figure 1-17. A command
line is a text-based method of performing a task. You type a command, click OK, and
something happens as a result.
Figure 1-17:
Top: The last Run command you entered
appears automatically in the Open text box.
You can use the drop-down list to see a list
of commands you’ve previously entered.
Bottom: The Run command knows the
names of all your folders and also remem-
bers the last few commands you typed here.
As you go, you’re shown the best match
for the characters you’re typing. When the
name of the folder you’re trying to open
appears in the list, click it to prevent having
to type the rest of the entry.
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56 windows 7: the missing manual
Note: The command line in the Run dialog box is primarily for opening things. Windows 7 also comes
with a program called Command Prompt that offers a far more complete environment—not just for opening
things, but for controlling and manipulating them. Power users can type long sequences of commands and
symbols in Command Prompt.
Working at the command line is becoming a lost art in the world of Windows, because
most people prefer to issue commands by choosing from menus using the mouse.
However, some old-timers still love the command line, and even mouse-lovers en-
counter situations when a typed command is the only way to do something.
If you’re a PC veteran, your head probably teems with neat Run commands you’ve
picked up over the years. If you’re new to this idea, however, the following are a few
of the useful and timesaving functions you can perform with the Run dialog box.
Open a Program
For example, you can use the Run command as a program launcher. Just type any
program’s program filename in the Open text box and then press Enter. For both
pros and novices, it’s frequently faster to launch a program this way than to click the
StartÆAll Programs menu with the mouse.
Unfortunately, the program filename isn’t the same as its plain-English name; it’s a
cryptic, abbreviated version. For example, if you want to open Microsoft Word, you
must type winword. That’s the actual name of the Word program icon as it sits in
your ComputerÆLocal Disk (C:)ÆProgram FilesÆMicrosoft OfficeÆOffice folder.
Some other common program filenames are here:
Program’s real name Program’s familiar name
iexplore Internet Explorer
explorer Windows Explorer
write WordPad
msworks Microsoft Works
msimn Mail
wmplayer Windows Media Player
control Classic Control Panel
regedit Registry Editor
cleanmgr Disk Cleanup
defrag Disk Defragmenter
calc Calculator
To discover the real filename of a certain program, open ComputerÆLocal Disk (C:)
ÆProgram Files. Inspect the folders there; with the window in Details view, you’ll be
able to spot the icons whose type is “application.”
Note: True, the Start Search box at the bottom of the Start menu offers another way to find and open any
program without taking your hands off the keyboard. But the Run method is more precise, and may require
less effort because you’re not typing the entire program name.
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chapter 1: getting started, desktop, & start menu 57
In fact, keyboard lovers, get this: You can perform this entire application-launching
stunt without using the mouse at all. Just follow these steps in rapid succession:
1. Press w+R.
That’s the keyboard shortcut for the Run command, whose dialog box now opens.
2. Type the program file’s name in the Open box.
If you’ve typed the name before, just type a couple of letters; Windows fills in the
rest of the name automatically.
3. Press Enter.
Windows opens the requested program instantly. Keystrokes: 4; Mouse: 0.
Open Any Program or Document
Using the Run dialog box is handy for opening favorite applications, because it re-
quires so few keystrokes. But you can also use the Run dialog box to open any file
on the computer.
The trick here is to type in the entire path of the program or document you want.
(See the box on page 58 if you’re new to the idea of file paths.) For example, to open
the family budget spreadsheet that’s in Harold’s Documents folder, you might type
C:\Users\Harold\Documents\familybudget.xls.
Of course, you probably wouldn’t actually have to type all that, since the AutoComplete
pop-up menu offers to complete each folder name as you start to type it.
Tip: Typing the path in this way is also useful for opening applications that don’t appear in the StartÆAll
Programs menu. (If a program doesn’t appear there, you must type its entire pathname—or click Browse to
hunt for its icon yourself.)
For example, some advanced Windows utilities (including the Registry Editor, an advanced diagnostic program)
are accessible only through the command line. You also need to use the Run command to open some older
command-line programs that don’t come with a listing in the All Programs menu.
Open a Drive Window
When you click Computer in your Start menu, you see that Windows assigns a letter
of the alphabet to each disk drive attached to your machine—the hard drive, the DVD
drive, the floppy drive, and so on. The floppy drive is A:, the hard drive is usually C:,
and so on. (There hasn’t been a B: drive since the demise of the two-floppy computer.)
By typing a drive letter followed by a colon (for example, C:) into the Run box and
pressing Enter, you make a window pop open, showing what’s on that drive.
Open a Folder Window
You can also use the Run dialog box to open the window for any folder on your
machine. To do so, type a backslash followed by the name of a folder (Figure 1-17,
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58 windows 7: the missing manual
bottom of screen). You might type, for example, the first few letters of \Program Files
to see your complete software collection.
Note: The Run command assumes you’re opening a folder on Drive C. If you want to open a folder on a
different drive, add the drive letter and a colon before the name of the folder (for example, D:\data).
If you’re on a network, you can even open a folder that’s sitting on another computer
on the network. To do so, type two backslashes, the computer’s name, and then the
shared folder’s name. For instance, to access a shared folder called Budgets on a com-
puter named Admin, enter \\admin\budgets. (See Chapter 26 for more on sharing
folders over the network.)
It might make you feel extra proficient to know that you’ve just used the Universal
Naming Convention, or UNC, for the shared folder. The UNC is simply the two-
backslash, computer name\folder name format (for example: \\ComputerName\
foldername).
Tip: In any of these cases, if you don’t remember the precise name of a file or folder you want to open in the
Run dialog box, then click the Browse button to display the Browse dialog box, as shown in Figure 1-17, bottom.
Connect to a Web Page
You can jump directly to a specific Web page by typing its Web address (URL)—such
as http://www.bigcompany.com—into the Run dialog box and then pressing Enter. You
don’t even have to open your Web browser first.
Once again, you may not have to type very much; the drop-down list in the Run dialog
box lists every URL you’ve previously entered. Simply click one (or press the . key to
highlight the one you want, and then press Enter) to go to that site.
up to speed
The Path to Enlightenment about Paths
Windows is too busy to think of a particular file as “that family
album program in the Program Files folder, which is in the
Programs folder on the C drive.” Instead, it uses shorthand
to specify each icon’s location on your hard drive—a series
of disk and folder names separated by backslashes, like this:
C:\program files\pbsoftware\beekeeperpro.exe.
This kind of location code is that icon’s path. (Capitalization
doesn’t matter, even though you may see capital letters in
Microsoft’s examples.)
You’ll encounter file paths when using several important
Windows features. The Run dialog box described in this
section is one. The address bar at the top of every Explorer
window is another, although Microsoft has made addresses
easier to read by displaying triangle separators in the address
bar instead of slashes. (That is, you now see Users ™ Casey
instead of Users\Casey.)
Try not to be confused by the fact that Web addresses use
forward slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\)!
The Run Command
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2
chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 59
Explorer, Windows,
& the Taskbar
Windows got its name from the rectangles on the screen—the windows—
where all your computer activity takes place. You look at a Web page in a
window, type into a window, read email in a window, and look at lists of
files in a window. But as you create more files, stash them in more folders, and open
more programs, it’s easy to wind up paralyzed before a screen awash with cluttered,
overlapping rectangles.
Fortunately, Windows has always offered icons, buttons, and other inventions to help
you keep these windows under control—and Windows 7 positively crawls with them.
Universal Window Controls
All Versions
As Figure 2-1 shows, a lot has changed in windows since the Windows of a few years
ago. If you’re feeling disoriented, firmly grasp a nearby stationary object and read
the following breakdown.
Here are the controls that appear on almost every window, whether in an application
or in Explorer:
•Title bar. It’s really not much of a title bar anymore, since the window’s title only
rarely appears here (Figure 2-1). But this big, fat top strip is still a giant handle
you can use to drag a window around.
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60 windows 7: the missing manual
Universal Window
Controls Tip: The title bar offers two great shortcuts for maximizing a window, making it expand to fill your entire
screen exactly as though you had clicked the Maximize button described below. Shortcut 1: Double-click the
title bar. (Double-click it again to restore the window to its original size.) Shortcut 2: Drag the title bar up
against the top of your monitor. That maximizing shortcut is new in Windows 7.
•Window edges. You can reshape a window by dragging any edge except the top.
Position your cursor over any border until it turns into a double-headed arrow.
Then drag inward or outward to make the window smaller or bigger. (To resize a
full-screen window, click the “restore down” button first.)
Tip: You can resize a window in two dimensions at once by dragging one of its corners. Sometimes a dotted
triangle appears at the lower-right corner, sometimes not; in either case, all four corners work the same way.
On most computers, window edges are also transparent, revealing a slightly blurry
image of what’s underneath. (That’s the Aero effect at work; see page 25.) Truth be
told, being able to see what’s underneath the edges of your window (sort of) doesn’t
really offer any particular productivity advantage. Sure does look cool, though.
•Minimize, Maximize, [restore down]. These three window-control buttons, at the
top of every Windows window, cycle a window among its three modes—minimized,
maximized, and restored, as described on page the following pages.
•Close button. Click the X button to close the window. Keyboard shortcut: Press
Alt+F4.
Figure 2-1:
All windows have
the same basic in-
gredients, making it
easy to become an
expert in window
manipulation. This
figure shows an
Explorer (desktop)
window—a disk or
folder—but you’ll
encounter the same
elements in ap-
plication windows.
(To open a new
Explorer window,
double-click a
folder, or click the
Explorer icon—looks
like a filing folder—
on your taskbar, or
press w+E.)
Title bar Minimize, Maximize, Close
Control menu
Scroll
bar
Address bar
Toolbar
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chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 61
Universal Window
Controls
Tip: Isn’t it cool how the Minimize, Maximize, and Close buttons “light up” when your cursor passes over
them? (At least they do if you’ve got Aero, as described in Chapter 1.)
Actually, that’s not just a gimmick; it’s a cue that lets you know when the button is clickable. You might not
otherwise realize, for example, that you can close, minimize, or maximize a background window without first
bringing it forward. But when the background window’s Close box beams bright red, you know.
•Scroll bar. A scroll bar appears on the right side or bottom of the window if the
window isn’t large enough to show all its contents.
•Control menu. In Windows XP and earlier versions, there was a tiny icon in the
upper-left corner of every Explorer window. It was a menu of commands for siz-
ing, moving, and closing the window.
In Windows 7, the Control menu is invisible. But if you click where it’s supposed
to be, the menu opens. It’s clearly intended for use only by the initiated who pass
on the secret from generation to generation.
One of the Control menu’s commands is Move. It turns your cursor into a four-
headed arrow; at this point, you can move the window by dragging any part of
it, even the middle. Why bother, since you can always just drag the top edge of a
window to move it? Because sometimes, windows get dragged past the top of your
screen. You can hit Alt+space to open the Control menu, type M to trigger the Move
command, and then move the window by pressing the arrow keys (or by dragging
any visible portion). When the window is where you want it, hit Enter to “let go,”
or the Esc key to return the window to its original position.
Tip: You can double-click the Control menu spot to close a window.
Sizing, Moving, and Closing Windows
A Windows window can cycle among three altered states.
Maximized
A maximized window is one that fills the screen, edge to edge, so you can’t see anything
behind it. It gets that way when you do one of these things:
• Click its Maximize button (identified in Figure 2-1).
• Double-click the title bar.
• Drag the window up against the top of the screen. (That’s a new technique in
Windows 7, as described below.)
• Press w+,. (That’s also new in Windows 7, and it’s awesome.)
• Press Alt+space, then X. (That’s the clumsy old key sequence.)
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62 windows 7: the missing manual
Maximizing the window is an ideal arrangement when you’re surfing the Web or
working on a document for hours at a stretch, since the largest possible window
means the least possible scrolling.
Once you’ve maximized a window, you can restore it to its usual, free-floating state
in any of these ways:
• Drag the window away from the top edge of the screen.
• Double-click the title bar.
• Click the Restore Down button (C). (The Maximize button looks like that only
when the window is, in fact, maximized.)
• Press w+.. (New in Windows 7.)
Tip: If the window isn’t maximized, this keystroke minimizes it instead.
• Press Alt+space, then R.
Minimized
When you click a window’s Minimize button (M), the window gets out of your way.
It shrinks down into the form of a button on your taskbar, at the bottom of the
screen. Minimizing a window is a great tactic when you want to see what’s behind it.
Keyboard shortcut: w+..
You can bring the window back, of course (that’d kind of be a bummer otherwise).
Point to the taskbar button that represents that window’s program. For example, if
you minimized an Explorer (desktop) window, point to the Explorer icon.
If Aero is working (page 23), the program’s button sprouts handy thumbnail min-
iatures of the minimized windows when you point to it without clicking. Click a
window’s thumbnail to restore it to full size. (You can read more about this trick
later in this chapter.)
If you’re in a non-Aero mode, the program’s button sprouts the names of the mini-
mized windows. Click the window name you want to bring it back again.
Tip: In Windows 7, there’s a cool twist on minimizing, described in the following section, called Aero Shake.
Restored
A restored window is neither maximized nor minimized; it’s a loose cannon, floating
around on your screen as an independent rectangle. Because its edges aren’t attached
to the walls of your monitor, you can make it any size you like by dragging its borders.
Moving a Window
Moving a window is easy—just drag the big, fat top edge.
Universal Window
Controls
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Closing a Window
Microsoft wants to make absolutely sure you’re never without some method of closing
a window. It offers at least nine ways to do it:
• Click the Close button (the X in the upper-right corner).
Tip: If you’ve managed to open more than one window, Shift-click that button to close all of them.
• Press Alt+F4. (This one’s worth memorizing. You’ll use it everywhere in Windows.)
• Double-click the window’s upper-left corner.
• Click the invisible Control menu in the upper-left corner, and then choose Close
from the menu.
• Right-click the window’s taskbar button (see page 105), and then choose Close
from the shortcut menu.
• Point to a taskbar button without clicking; if you have Aero working (page 23),
thumbnail images of its windows appear. Point to a thumbnail; an X button ap-
pears in its upper-right corner. Click it.
• Right-click the window’s title bar (top edge), and choose Close from the shortcut
menu.
• In an Explorer window, choose OrganizeÆClose. In many other programs, you
can choose FileÆClose.
• Quit the program you’re using, log off, or shut down the PC.
Be careful. In many programs, including Internet Explorer, closing the window also
quits the program entirely.
Tip: If you see two X buttons in the upper-right corner of your screen, then you’re probably using a program
like Microsoft Excel. It’s what Microsoft calls an MDI, or multiple document interface program. It gives you a
window within a window. The outer window represents the application itself; the inner one represents the
particular document you’re working on.
If you want to close one document before working on another, be careful to click the inner Close button. If
you click the outer one, you’ll exit the entire application.
Layering Windows
When you have multiple windows open on your screen, only one window is active,
which affects how it works:
• It’s in the foreground, in front of all other windows.
• It’s the window that “hears” your keystrokes and mouse clicks.
• Its Close button is red. (Background windows’ Close buttons are transparent or
window-colored, at least until you point to them.)
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64 windows 7: the missing manual
As you would assume, clicking a background window brings it to the front.
Tip: And pressing Alt+Esc sends an active window to the back. Bet you didn’t know that one!
And what if it’s so far back that you can’t even see it? That’s where Windows’s window-
management tools come in; read on.
Tip: For quick access to the desktop, clear the screen by clicking Show Desktop—the skinny rectangle at the
far right end of the taskbar—or by pressing w+D. Pressing that keystroke again brings all the windows back
to the screen exactly as they were.
New Window Tricks in Windows 7
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
There are a few new shortcuts in Windows 7, expressly designed for managing win-
dows. Most of them involve some clever mouse gestures—special dragging techniques.
Thanks to those mouse movements and the slick animations you get in response,
goofing around with your windows may become the new Solitaire.
Aero Snap
Microsoft applies that name—Aero Snap—to a set of expando-window tricks.
Note: Despite the word Aero in the name, the Snap features work in the Home Basic and Starter editions
of Windows 7, too.
Here’s the rundown:
•Maximize a window by dragging its title bar against the top edge of your monitor.
•Restore a maximized window by dragging its title bar down from the top of the
screen.
•Make a full-height, half-width window by dragging it against one side of your
screen.
Tip: Actually, it’s faster to use the new keyboard shortcuts: w+< to snap the window against the left side,
or w+> to snap it against the right. To move the window back again, either hit the same keystroke a couple
more times (it cycles left, right, and original spot, over and over), or use the w key with the opposite arrow key.
And if you have more than one monitor, add the Shift key to move the frontmost window to the next moni-
tor, left or right.
And why would you bother? Well, a full-height, half-width window is ideal for
reading an article, for example. You wouldn’t want your eyes to keep scanning the
text all the way across the football field of your screen; and you wouldn’t want to
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chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 65
spend a lot of fussy energy trying to make the window tall enough to read without
scrolling a lot. This gesture sets things up for you with one quick drag.
But this half-screen-width trick is even more useful when you apply it to two win-
dows, as shown in Figure 2-2. Now it’s simple to compare two windows’ contents,
or to move or copy stuff between them.
•Make a window the full height of the screen. This trick never got much love from
Microsoft’s marketing team, probably because it’s a little harder to describe. But
it can be very useful.
Figure 2-2:
Parking two windows
side by side is a
convenient preparation
for copying information
between them or com-
paring their contents—
and it’s super-easy in
Windows 7. Just drag the
first window against the
right or left side of your
screen; then drag the
second window against
the opposite side
(shown here in progress
on the right). Each one
gracefully snaps to
the full height of your
monitor, but only half
its width.
New Window Tricks
in Windows 7
Turn Off All the Snapping and Shaking
It’s cool how Windows now makes a window snap against
the top or side of your screen. Right? I mean, it is better
than before, right?
It’s perfectly OK to answer, “I don’t think so. It’s driving me
crazy. I don’t want my operating system manipulating my
windows on its own.”
In that case, you can turn off the snapping and shaking
features. Open the Start menu. Type enough of the word
shaking until you see “Turn off automatic window arrange-
ment.” Click it.
You’ve just opened the “Make the mouse easier to use”
control panel. At the bottom, turn on “Prevent windows from
being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of
the screen,” and then click OK.
From now on, windows move only when and where you
move them. (Shaking a window’s title bar doesn’t hide other
windows now, either.)
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66 windows 7: the missing manual
It’s not the same as the previous trick; this one doesn’t affect the width of the
window. It does, however, make the window exactly as tall as your screen, sort of
like half-maximizing it; see Figure 2-3.
Tip: There’s a new keyboard shortcut for this new feature: Shift+w+, to create the full-height effect, and
(of course) Shift+w+. to restore the window’s original height.
To restore the window to its original dimensions, drag its top or bottom edge away
from the edge of your screen.
Note: These new window-morphing tricks make a good complement to the traditional “Cascade windows,”
“Show windows stacked,” and “Show windows side by side” commands that appear when you right-click
an empty spot on the taskbar.
Aero Shake
If you’ve become fond of minimizing windows—and why not?—then you’ll love this
one. If you give your window’s title bar a rapid back-and-forth shake, you minimize
all other windows. The one you shook stays right where it was (Figure 2-4).
Tip: Aero Shake makes a very snazzy YouTube demo video, but it’s not actually the easiest way to isolate one
window. If the window you want to focus on is already the frontmost window, you can just press w+Home
key to achieve the same effect. Press that combo a second time to restore all the minimized windows.
Handily enough, you can bring all the hidden windows back again, just by giving the
hero window another title-bar shake.
Figure 2-3:
The before-and-
after effect of the
full-screen-height
feature of Aero
Snap. To make
this work, grab the
bottom edge of
your window (left)
and drag it down
to the bottom edge
of your screen. The
window snaps only
vertically, but main-
tains its width and
horizontal position
(right).
New Window Tricks
in Windows 7
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chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 67
Note: Dialog boxes (for example, boxes with OK and Cancel buttons) aren’t affected by this Aero Shake
thing—only full-blown windows.
The Show Desktop Button
Believe it or not, that bizarre little reflective-looking stick of Trident in the lower-right
corner of your screen—at the right end of your taskbar—is actually a button. It’s the
old Show Desktop button (Figure 2-5), now moved to a new location.
Figure 2-4:
Top: OK, this is the state
of your screen. You want
to have a look at your
desktop—but oy, what a
cluttered mess!
Bottom: So you give this
window’s title bar a little
shake—at least a couple
of horizontal or vertical
back-and-forths—and
boom! All other windows
are minimized to the task-
bar, so you can see what
you’re doing. Give the title
bar a second shake to
bring the hidden windows
back again.
New Window Tricks
in Windows 7
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68 windows 7: the missing manual
It has two functions:
•Point to it without clicking to make all windows completely transparent, leaving
behind only their outlines. (Holding down w+Space bar does the same thing.)
This technique is primarily useful when (a) you want an easier look at your Win-
dows gadgets (page 234), or (b) you want to show people how cool Windows 7 is.
Note: This point-without-clicking thing works only if your PC can handle Aero (page 23) and if you’ve
selected an Aero theme (page 178).
•Click it to make all windows and dialog boxes disappear completely, so you can
do some work on your desktop. They’re not minimized—they don’t shrink down
into the taskbar—they’re just gone. Click the Show Desktop button a second time
to bring them back from invisible-land.
Tip: Once again, there’s a less flashy, but more efficient keyboard trick that achieves the same effect. Next
time you want to minimize all windows, revealing your entire desktop, press w+M (which you can think of
as M for “Minimize all”). Add the Shift key (Shift+w+M) to bring them all back.
Figure 2-5:
There was a
Show Desktop
button in previ-
ous versions of
Windows, but
it’s never been a
vertical column
at the right end
of the taskbar
before (inset). If
you find yourself
triggering it acci-
dentally, you can
turn the feature
off. Right-click the
taskbar; from the
shortcut menu,
choose Proper-
ties; turn off the
“Use Aero Peek to
preview the desk-
top” checkbox,
and click OK.
New Window Tricks
in Windows 7
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Windows Flip (Alt+Tab)
All Versions
In its day, the concept of overlapping windows on the screen was brilliant, innovative,
and extremely effective. In that era before digital cameras, MP3 files, and the Web,
managing your windows was easy this way; after all, you had only about three of them.
These days, however, managing all the open windows in all your programs can be
like herding cats. Off you go, burrowing through the microscopic pop-up menus of
your taskbar buttons, trying to find the window you want. And heaven help you if
you need to duck back to the desktop—to find a newly downloaded file, for example,
or to eject a disk. You have to fight your way through 50,000 other windows on your
way to the bottom of the “deck.”
Windows 7 offers the same window-shuffling tricks that were available in previous
editions:
•Use the taskbar. Clicking a button on the taskbar (page 101) makes the correspond-
ing program pop to the front, along with any of its floating toolbars, palettes, and
so on.
•Click the window. You can also bring any window forward by clicking any visible
part of it.
•Alt+Tab. For years, this keyboard shortcut has offered a quick way to bring a dif-
ferent window to the front without using the mouse. If you press Tab while holding
down the Alt key, a floating palette displays the icons of all running programs, as
shown at the top in Figure 2-6. Each time you press Tab again (still keeping the Alt
key down), you highlight the next icon; when you release the keys, the highlighted
program jumps to the front, as though in a high-tech game of duck-duck-goose.
This feature has been gorgeous-ized, as shown in Figure 2-6; if Aero is working,
then all windows turn into invisible outlines except the one you’ve currently tabbed
Figure 2-6:
Alt+Tab highlights
successive icons;
add Shift to move
backward. (Add
the Ctrl key to
lock the display,
so you don’t have
to keep Alt down.
Tab to the icon
you want; then
press the space
bar or Enter.)
Windows Flip
(Alt+Tab)
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70 windows 7: the missing manual
to (in Figure 2-6, it’s the Sticky Notes program). Alt+Tab has been renamed, too;
it’s now called Windows Flip.
Tip: If you just tap Alt+Tab without holding down the Alt key, you get an effect that’s often even more use-
ful: You jump back and forth between the last two windows you’ve had open. It’s great when, for example,
you’re copying sections of a Web page into a Word document.
Windows Flip 3D
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
If your PC can run Aero (page 23), Microsoft has something much slicker for this
purpose: Flip 3D, a sort of holographic alternative to the Alt+Tab trick.
The concept is delicious. With the press of a keystroke, Windows shrinks all windows
in all programs so that they all fit on the screen (Figure 2-7), stacked like the exploded
view of a deck of cards. You flip through them to find the one you want, and you’re
there. It’s fast, efficient, animated, and a lot of fun.
Tip: You even see, among the other 3-D “cards,” a picture of the desktop itself. If you choose it, Windows
minimizes all open windows and takes you to the desktop for quick access to whatever is there.
Here’s how you use it, in slow motion. First, press w+Tab. If you keep your thumb
on the w key, you see something like Figure 2-7.
At this point, you can shuffle through the “deck” of windows using either of these
techniques:
Figure 2-7:
These window
miniatures aren’t
snapshots; they’re
“live.” That is, if
anything is changing
inside a window (a
movie is playing, for
example), you’ll see
it right on the 3-D
miniature.
By the way: Don’t
miss the cool
slow-motion trick
described in Ap-
pendix B..
Windows Flip
(Alt+Tab)
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chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 71
• Tap the Tab key repeatedly. (Add the Shift key to move backward through the stack.)
• Turn your mouse’s scroll wheel toward you. (Roll it away to move backward.)
When the window you want is in front, release the key. The 3-D stack vanishes, and
the lucky window appears before you at full size.
Flip 3D Without Holding Down Keys
That Flip 3D thing is very cool, but do you really want to exhaust yourself by keeping
your thumb pressed on that w key? Surely you’ll wind up with the painful condition
known as Nerd’s Thumb.
Fortunately, you can also use Flip 3D without holding down keys. You can trigger it
using these methods:
• Add the Ctrl key to the usual keystroke. That is, press w+Ctrl+Tab. This time, you
don’t have to keep any keys pressed.
• Press the Flip 3D key on your keyboard, if it has one.
Any of these tactics triggers the 3-D floating-windows effect shown in Figure 2-7. At
this point, you can use the arrow keys or your mouse’s scroll wheel to flip through
the open windows without having to hold down any keys. When you see the one you
want, press the Esc key to choose it and bring it to the front.
Explorer Window Controls
All Versions
When you’re working at the desktop—that is, opening Explorer folder windows—
you’ll find a few additional controls dotting the edges. They’re quite a bit different
from the controls of Windows XP and its predecessors.
Address Bar
In a Web browser, the address bar is where you type the addresses of the Web sites
you want to visit. In an Explorer window, the address bar is more of a “bread-crumbs
bar” (a shoutout to Hansel and Gretel fans). That is, it now shows the path you’ve
taken—folders you burrowed through—to arrive where you are now (Figure 2-8).
There are three especially cool things about this address bar:
•It’s much easier to read. Those ˘ little ˘ triangles are clearer separators of folder
names than the older\slash\notation. And instead of drive letters like C:, you see
the drive names.
Tip: If the succession of nested folders’ names is too long to fit the window, then a tiny H icon appears
at the left end of the address. Click it to reveal a pop-up menu showing, from last to first, the other folders
you’ve had to burrow through to get here.
(Below the divider line, you see, for your convenience, the names of all the folders on your desktop.)
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72 windows 7: the missing manual
•It’s clickable. You can click any breadcrumb to open the corresponding folder. For
example, if you’re viewing the Casey ˘ Pictures ˘ Halloween folder, you can click
the word Pictures to backtrack to the Pictures folder.
•You can still edit it. The address bar of old was still a powerful tool, because you
could type in a folder address directly (using the slash notation).
Actually, you still can. You can “open” the address bar for editing in any of four
different ways: (1) Press Alt+D. (2) Click the tiny icon to the left of the address. (3)
Click any blank spot. (4) Right-click anywhere in the address; from the shortcut
menu, choose Edit Address.
In each case, the address bar changes to reveal the old-style slash notation, ready
for editing (Figure 2-8, bottom).
Tip: After you’ve had a good look, press Esc to restore the ˘ notation.
Components of the address bar
On top of all that, the address bar houses a few additional doodads that make it easy
for you to jump around on your hard drive (Figure 2-9):
•Back (<), Forward (>). Just as in a Web browser, the Back button opens what-
ever window you opened just before this one. Once you’ve used the Back button,
you can then use the Forward button to return to the window where you started.
Keyboard shortcuts: Alt+<, Alt+>.
Figure 2-8:
Top: The notation in the
address bar, Libraries ˘
Pictures ˘ Egypt slideshow,
indicates that you, Casey,
opened your Personal folder
(page 33); then opened the
Pictures library inside; and
finally opened the “Egypt
slideshow” folder inside
that.
Bottom: If you press Alt+D,
the address bar restores the
slash notation of Windows
versions gone by so that
you can type in a different
address.
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Controls
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chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 73
•Recent pages list. Click the ≥ to the left of the address bar to see a list of folders
you’ve had open recently; it’s like a multilevel Back button.
•Recent folders list. Click the ≥ at the right end of the address bar to see a pop-up
menu listing addresses you’ve recently typed.
•Contents list. This one takes some explaining, but for efficiency nuts, it’s a gift
from the gods.
It turns out that the little ˘ next to each bread crumb (folder name) is actually a
pop-up menu. Click it to see what’s in the folder name to its left.
How is this useful? Suppose you’re viewing the contents of the USA ˘ Florida ˘
Miami folder, but you decide that the file you’re looking for is actually in the USA
˘ California folder. Do you have to click the Back button, retracing your steps to
the USA folder, only to then walk back down a different branch of the folder tree?
No, you don’t. You just click the ˘ that’s next to the USA folder’s name and choose
California from the list.
•Refresh (r). If you suspect that the window contents aren’t up to date (for ex-
ample, that maybe somebody has just dropped something new into it from across
the network), click this button, or press F5, to make Windows update the display.
•Search box. Type a search phrase into this box to find what you’re looking for
within this window. Page 130 has the details.
What to type into the address bar
When you click the tiny folder icon at the left end of the address bar (or press Alt+D),
the triangle ˘ notation changes to the slash\notation, meaning that you can edit the
address. At this point, the address bar is like the little opening in the glass divider that
Figure 2-9:
The address bar is crawling with
useful controls and clickable
gizmos. It may take you awhile
to appreciate the difference
between the little ≥ to the left of
the address bar and the one to
its right, though. The left-side one
shows a list of folders you’ve had
open recently; the right-side one
shows addresses you’ve explicitly
typed (and not passed through
by clicking).
Contents lists
Recent typed-in addresses list
Recent places list
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74 windows 7: the missing manual
lets you speak to your New York cab driver; you tell it where you want to go. Here’s
what you can type there (press Enter afterward):
•A Web address. You can leave off the http:// portion. Just type the body of the Web
address, such as www.sony.com, into this strip. When you press Enter (or click the
> button, called the Go button), Internet Explorer opens to the Web page you
specified.
Tip: If you press Ctrl+Enter instead of just Enter, you can surround whatever you’ve just typed into the
address bar with http://www. and .com. See Chapter 11 for even more address shortcuts along these lines.
•A search phrase. If you type some text into this strip that isn’t obviously a Web
address, Windows assumes you’re telling it, “Go online and search for this phrase.”
From here, it works exactly as though you’ve used the Internet search feature
described on page 403.
•A folder name. You can also type one of several important folder names into this
strip, such as Computer, Documents, Music, and so on. When you press Enter, that
particular folder window opens.
Tip: This window has AutoComplete. That is, if you type pi and then press Tab, the address bar will complete
the word Pictures for you. (If it guesses wrong, press Tab again.)
•A program or path name. In this regard, the address bar works just like the Run
command (page 55).
In each case, as soon as you begin to type, a pop-up list of recently visited Web sites,
files, or folders appears below the address bar. Windows is trying to save you some
Would You Like to See the Menu Bar?
You may have noticed already that there’s something
dramatically different about the menu bar (File, Edit, View,
and so on): It’s gone. Microsoft decided you’d rather have
a little extra space to see your icons.
Fortunately, you can bring it back, in three ways.
Temporarily. Press the Alt key or the F10 key. Presto! The
traditional menu bar reappears. You even get to see the
classic one-letter underlines that tell you what letter keys
you can type to operate the menus without the mouse.
Permanently, all windows. On the task toolbar, choose
OrganizeÆLayoutÆ“Menu bar.” The traditional menu
bar appears, right above the task toolbar. There it will stay
forever, in all Explorer windows, at least until you turn it off
using the same command.
Permanently, all windows (alternate method). Here’s
another trick that achieves the same thing. Open Folder
Options. (Do that by typing folder op into the Start menu’s
Search box, or by choosing OrganizeƓFolder and search
options” in any Explorer window.)
In the resulting dialog box, click the View tab. Turn on “Always
show menus,” and then click OK.
nostalgia corner
Explorer Window
Controls
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chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 75
typing. If you see what you’re looking for, click it with the mouse, or press the . key
to highlight the one you want and then press Enter.
The Task Toolbar
See the colored strip that appears just below the address bar? That’s the task toolbar.
It’s something like a menu bar, in that some of the words on it (like Organize) are
menus. But it’s also like the task pane of Windows XP, in that its buttons are differ-
ent in different windows. In a folder that contains pictures, you see buttons here like
“Slide show” and “Share with”; in a folder that contains music files, the buttons might
say “Play all” and “Burn.”
Later in this chapter, you’ll meet some of the individual commands in this toolbar.
Note: You can’t hide the task toolbar.
Optional Window Panes
All Versions
Most Explorer windows have some basic informational stuff across the top: the ad-
dress bar and the task toolbar, at the very least.
But that’s just the beginning. As shown in Figure 2-10, the Organize menu on the task
toolbar lets you hide or show as many as four other strips of information. Turning
them all on at once may make your windows feel a bit claustrophobic, but at least
you’ll know absolutely everything there is to know about your files and folders.
The trick is to choose a pane name from the OrganizeÆLayout command, as shown
in Figure 2-10. Here are the options you’ll find there.
Tip: You can adjust the size of any pane by dragging the dividing line that separates it from the main window.
(You know you’ve got the right spot when your cursor turns into a double-headed arrow.)
Details Pane
This strip appears at the bottom of the window, and it can be extremely useful. It
reveals all kinds of information about whatever icon you’ve clicked in the main part
of the window: its size, date, type, and so on. Some examples:
• For a music file, the Details pane reveals the song’s duration, band and album
names, genre, the star rating you’ve provided, and so on.
• For a disk icon, you get statistics about its formatting scheme, capacity, and how
much of it is full.
• For a Microsoft Office document, you see when it was created and modified, how
many pages it has, who wrote it, and so on.
• If nothing is selected, you get information about the open window itself: namely,
how many items are in it.
Explorer Window
Controls
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76 windows 7: the missing manual
• If you select several icons at once, this pane shows you the sum of their file sizes—a
great feature when you’re burning a CD, for example, and don’t want to exceed the
650 MB limit. You also see the range of dates when they were created and modified.
What’s especially intriguing is that you can edit many of these details, as described
on page 87.
Preview Pane
The Preview pane appears at the right side of the window. That’s right: You can now
have information strips that wrap all four sides of a window.
Anyway, the Preview pane can be handy when you’re examining common file types
like pictures, text files, RTF files, sounds, and movies. As you click each icon, you see
a magnified thumbnail version of what’s actually in that document. As Figure 2-11
Figure 2-10:
Windows has you
surrounded—or at
least your Explorer
windows.
Top: Use the
Organize menu to
summon or dismiss
each of the optional
panes that can line
a window. A subtle
outline appears
around the icon for
each pane you’ve
summoned. Choose
the name of a pane
once to make it ap-
pear and a second
time to hide it.
Bottom: The
taller you make the
Details pane, the
more information
you reveal about the
selected item.
Details pane Preview paneNavigation pane
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demonstrates, a controller lets you play sounds and movies right there in the Explorer
window, without having to fire up Windows Media Player. (Cool.)
Tip: You don’t have to fuss with the OrganizeÆLayout command to make the Preview pane appear and
disappear. Instead, you can just click the Preview icon identified in Figure 2-11. That’s new in Windows 7.
Now, the Preview pane isn’t omniscient; right out of the box, Windows can’t display the
contents of oddball document types like, say, sheet-music documents or 3-D model-
ing files. But as you install new programs, the Preview pane can get smarter. Install
Office, for example, and it can display Office files’ contents; install Adobe Acrobat,
and it can show you PDF files. Whether or not the Preview pane recognizes a certain
document type depends on the effort expended by the programmers who wrote its
program (that is, whether they wrote preview handlers for their document types).
Navigation Pane
The Navigation pane is the helpful folder map at the left side of an Explorer window.
It’s come a long way, baby, since the folder hierarchy of Windows XP, and even since
the Navigation pane of Windows Vista. Today, it’s something like a master map of
your computer, with a special focus on the places and things you might want to visit
most often.
Favorite Links list
At the top of the Navigation pane, there’s a collapsible list of Favorites. These aren’t
Web-browser bookmarks, even though Microsoft uses the same term for those. Instead,
Figure 2-11:
In many windows,
the Preview pane
can get in the way,
because it shrinks
the window space
without giving you
much useful infor-
mation. But when
you’re browsing
movies or sound
files, it’s awesome; it
lets you play the mu-
sic or the movie right
in place, right in the
window, without
having to open up a
playback program.
Hide/show Preview pane
Optional Window
Panes
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78 windows 7: the missing manual
these are places to which you want quick access. Mostly, that means folders or disks, but
saved searches and libraries are eligible, too (both are described later in this chapter).
Since this pane will be waiting in every Explorer window you open, taking the time
to install your favorite folders here can save you a lot of repetitive folder-burrowing.
One click on a folder name opens the corresponding window. For example, click
the Pictures icon to view the contents of your Pictures folder in the main part of the
window (Figure 2-12).
Out of the box, this list offers icons for your desktop and your Downloads folder
(which is actually inside your Personal folder), plus a Recent Places link that reveals
all the folders and Control Panel items you’ve opened recently.
Tip: If you click the word Favorites itself, you open the Favorites window, where the shortcuts for all your
Favorites are stored. Now you have a quick way to add, delete, or rename the items in your favorite links
all at once.
The beauty of this parking lot for containers is that it’s so easy to set up with your
favorite places. For example:
•Remove an icon by dragging it out of the window entirely and onto the Recycle
Bin icon; it vanishes from the list. Or right-click it and, from the shortcut menu,
choose Remove. (Of course, you haven’t actually removed anything from your PC;
you’ve just unhitched its alias from the Navigation pane.)
Tip: If you delete one of the starter icons (Desktop, Downloads, Recent Places) and later wish you had it
back, no big deal. Right-click the word Favorites; from the shortcut menu, choose “Restore favorite links.”
•Rearrange the icons by dragging them up or down in the list. Release the mouse
when the thick black horizontal line lies in the desired new location.
Tip: You can also sort this list alphabetically. Right-click the word Favorites; from the shortcut menu, choose
“Sort by name.”
Figure 2-12:
The Navigation pane
makes navigation very
quick, because you can
jump back and forth
between distant corners
of your PC with a single
click. Folder and disk icons
here work just like normal
ones. You can drag a
document onto a folder
icon to file it there, for
example.
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•Install a new folder, disk, library, or saved search by dragging its icon off of your
desktop (or out of a window) into any spot in the list.
•Adjust the width of the pane by dragging the vertical divider bar right or left.
Tip: If you drag carefully, you can position the divider bar just to the right of the disk and folder icons, thereby
hiding their names almost completely. Some people find it a tidier look; you can always identify the folder
names by pointing to them without clicking.
Libraries
The next section of the Navigation pane lists your libraries. You can read about this
new Windows 7 feature beginning on page 81.
The Master Explorer-Window Keyboard-Shortcut List
If you arrive home one day to discover that your mouse has
been stolen, or if you simply like using the keyboard, you’ll
enjoy the shortcuts that work in Windows Explorer:
F6 or Tab cycles the “focus” (highlighting) among the
different parts of the window: Favorite Links, address bar,
main window, and so on. (The only caveat: F6 skips over
the Search box, for some reason.)
F4 highlights the address bar and pops open the list of
previous addresses. (Press Alt+D to highlight the address
bar without opening the pop-up menu.)
Alt+< opens the previously viewed window, as though
you’ve clicked the Back button in a browser. Once you’ve
used Alt+<, you can press Alt+> key to move forward
through your recently open windows.
Backspace does the same thing as Alt+<. It, too, walks
you backward through the most recent windows you’ve had
open. That’s a change from Windows XP, when Backspace
meant “up,” as in, “Take me to the parent folder” (see
Alt+,, below).
Alt+double-clicking an icon opens the Properties window
for that icon. (It shows the same sort of information you’d
find in the Details pane.) Or, if the icon is already highlighted,
press Alt+Enter.
Alt+, opens the parent window of whatever you’re looking
at now. For example, if you’ve drilled down into the USAÆ
TexasÆHouston folder, you could hit Alt+, to pop “upward”
to the Texas folder, again for the USA folder, and so on. If
you hit Alt+, enough times, you wind up at your Desktop.
F11 enters or exits full-screen mode, in which the current
window fills the entire screen. Even the taskbar is hidden.
This effect is more useful in a Web browser than at the
desktop, but you never know; sometimes you want to see
everything in a folder.
Shift+Ctrl+N makes a new empty folder.
Shift+Ctrl+E adjusts the Navigation pane so that it reveals
the folder path of whatever window is open right now,
expanding the indented folder icons as necessary.
Press the Ctrl key while turning the mouse’s scroll
wheel to magnify or shrink the icons in your window. You
can also press the letter keys to highlight a folder or file that
begins with that letter, or the , and . keys to “walk” up and
down a list of icons.
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80 windows 7: the missing manual
Homegroup
Next in the Nav pane is the Homegroup heading. Here’s a list of all the Windows 7
computers in your house that you’ve joined into a harmonious unit, using the
HomeGroup networking feature described in Chapter 26.
Computer
The next heading is Computer. When you expand this heading, you see a list of all of
your drives (including the main C: drive), each of which is also expandable (Figure
2-13). In essence, this view can show you every folder on the machine at once. It lets
you burrow very deeply into your hard drive’s nest of folders without ever losing
your bearings.
Network
Finally, the Network heading shows your entire network. Not just Windows 7 PCs that
have been connected as a homegroup, but the entire network—Macs, PCs running
older Windows versions, Linux boxes, whatever.
Flippy triangles
As you can see, the Navigation list displays only disks and folders, never individual
files. To see those, look at the main window, which displays the contents (folders and
files) of whatever disk or folder you click.
Figure 2-13:
When you click a disk or
folder in the Navigation
pane—including the Com-
puter hierarchy—the main
window displays its contents,
including files and folders.
Double-click to expand a disk
or folder, opening a new, in-
dented list of what’s inside it;
double-click again to collapse
the folder list. (Clicking the
flippy triangle accomplishes
the same thing.)
At deeper levels of indenta-
tion, you may not be able
to read an icon’s full name.
Point to it without clicking to
see an identifying tooltip, as
shown here.
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To expand a folder or disk that appears in the Nav pane, double-click its name, or click
the tiny ˘ next to its name. You’ve just turned the Nav list into an outline; the contents
of the folder appear in an indented list, as shown in Figure 2-14. Double-click again,
or click the flippy triangle again, to collapse the folder listing.
By selectively expanding folders like this, you can, in effect, peer inside two or more
folders simultaneously, all within the single Navigation list. You can move files around
by dragging them onto the tiny folder icons, too.
Libraries
All Versions
Libraries are new in Windows 7. They’re like folders, except that they can display the
contents of other folders from all over your PC—and even from other PCs on your
network. In other words, a library doesn’t really contain anything at all. It simply
monitors other folders, and provides a single “place” to work with all their contents.
Windows 7 starts you out with four libraries: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos.
Sure, XP and Vista came with folders bearing those names, but libraries are much
more powerful. (You can make libraries of your own, too.)
The Pictures library, for example, seems to contain all your photos—but in real life,
they may be scattered all over your hard drive, on external drives, or on other PCs
in the house.
So what’s the point? Well, consider the advantages over regular folders:
•Everything’s in one spot. When it comes time to put together a year-end photo
album, for example, you might be very grateful to find your pictures, your spouse’s
pictures from the upstairs PC, and the pictures from your kid’s laptop all in one
central place, ready for choosing. Figure 2-14 shows the idea.
•Happy laptop reunions. When you come home with your laptop and connect to
the network, you’re instantly reunited with all those music, pictures, and video
files you store on other drives.
•Easy backup or transfer. You can back up or transfer all the files corresponding
to a certain project or time period in one fell swoop, even though the originals
are in a bunch of different places or reside on different collaborators’ computers.
•Manipulate en masse. You can work with the contents of a library—slicing, dicing,
searching, organizing, filtering—just as you would a folder’s contents. But because
you’re actually working with folders from all over your computer and even your
network, you can be far more efficient.
Working with Library Contents
To use a library, click its name in your Navigation pane. (Try Pictures, for example.)
A few clues tell you that you’re not in a regular folder. First, there’s the huge banner
at the top of the window that says “Pictures library” or whatever (Figure 2-14). The
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82 windows 7: the missing manual
subheading, “Includes: 2 locations,” lets you know that you’re actually looking at the
consolidated contents of two folders.
The other giveaway is the “Arrange by:” pop-up menu. This awesome tool lets you sort
the window contents according to useful criteria. For Pictures, you can sort by Folder,
Month, Day, Rating, or Tag. For Music, it’s Album, Artist, Song, Genre, and Rating.
For Documents, it’s Author, Date Modified, Tag, Type, or Name. You get the idea.
When you choose one of these Arrange commands, the icons in the library window
clump together by type, like kids in a high-school cafeteria (Figure 2-15).
You can also filter a library window—that is, to hide all the files that don’t meet certain
criteria. You can show only the photos taken last year, only the songs recorded by The
Figure 2-14:
The Pictures library
window seems to
contain a bunch of
photo folders, all in
one place. As a bo-
nus, you can access
all this from within
the Save and Open
dialog boxes within
your programs, too.
But don’t be fooled;
in real life, these
folders are scattered
all over your system.
Actually sitting on
an external hard drive
Your Preferred “Save Into” Folder
So let me get this straight: A library is just a fiction. It contains
links to a bunch of folders. So when I’m in, say, Microsoft
Word, and I save a new document “into the library,” which
real folder am I saving it into?
That’s up to you.
In an Explorer window, click the library in question. Where it
says “Includes:” at the top of the window, click “locations.”
In the Library Locations dialog box (shown in Figure 2-16),
right-click the folder you want to be the standard location for
new files you save into this library. From the shortcut menu,
choose “Set as default save location,” and then click OK.
frequently asked question
Libraries
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chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 83
Beatles, only documents written by your partner, and so on. Page 82 has more on
filtering, but the point here is that you’re now performing this action on files that have
been rounded up from all over your system and your network—at once.
Tip: Remember, the icons in a library aren’t really there; they’re just a mirage. They’re stunt doubles for files
that actually sit in other folders on your hard drive.
Fortunately, when you’re getting a bit confused as to what’s really where, there’s a way to jump to a file or
folder’s actual location. Right-click its icon in the library; from the shortcut menu, choose “Open file location”
(or “Open folder location”). You jump right to the real thing, sitting in its actual Windows Explorer window.
Figure 2-15:
Top: The “Arrange
by” pop-up menu
does more than
just sort things. It
actually groups
things. Here, when
sorted by rating,
Windows identifies
each group of
photos with its
own headline,
making the
window look like
an index. It’s an
inspired tool that
makes it easier to
hunt down specific
icons among the
haystack of thou-
sands.
Bottom: When
you’re using “Ar-
range by” for your
music, commands
like Genre and
Artist produce
pseudo-folders—
artificial holding
tanks for all the
music in that style
or by that band.
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84 windows 7: the missing manual
Adding a Folder to an Existing Library
A library is nothing without a bunch of folders to feed into it. You can add a folder to a
library (like Pictures or Music) in any of four ways, depending on where you’re starting.
•You can see the folder’s icon. If the folder is on the desktop or in a window, right-
click it. From the shortcut menu, choose “Include in library”; the submenu lists
all your existing libraries so you can choose the one you want. Figure 2-16 shows
the idea.
•You can see the folder’s icon (alternate). Use the right mouse button to drag the
folder onto a library’s name in the Navigation pane. Release the mouse button
when it’s on the library name. From the shortcut menu, choose “Include in library.”
•You’ve opened the folder’s window. This one’s even easier. On the toolbar of every
folder window, there’s a big fat “Include in library” menu staring you in the face.
Use it to choose the library you want this folder to join.
•You’ve opened the library window. If you’re already in the library, then where it
says “Includes:” click where it says “3 locations” (or whatever the number is). You
get the “Change how this library gathers its contents” dialog box, shown in Figure
2-16. Click Add, and then find and double-click the folder you want. You see it
added to the “Library locations” list in the dialog box. Click OK.
The fine print
All the techniques above also work for folders on external drives, USB flash drives,
and shared folders on your network. There is, however, some important fine print:
• You can’t add a folder that’s on a CD or a DVD.
Figure 2-16:
The path to adding
a folder to a library
may begin with the
folder itself (left), the
open window of the
folder (bottom), or
the library (right).
Libraries
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chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 85
• You can add a folder that’s on a USB flash drive, as long as that flash drive’s icon
shows up in the Navigation pane when it’s inserted, under the Computer/Hard
Drives heading. (A few oddball models appear under Devices With Removable
Storage; they’re not allowed.) Furthermore, the folder won’t be available in the
library when the flash drive isn’t inserted (duh).
• You can’t add a networked folder to a library unless it’s been indexed for searching on
the PC that contains it; see page 134 for details on that process. (If it’s a Windows 7
machine that’s part of a homegroup [page 321], you’re all set; it’s been indexed.)
As an alternative, you can turn on the “available offline” feature for that networked
folder, as described on page 636. The good news is that the folder can now be part of
your library even when the other PC on the network is turned off. The bad news is
that you’ve basically copied that folder to your own PC, which eats up a lot of disk
space and sort of defeats the purpose of adding a networked folder to your library.
Removing a Folder from a Library
Getting rid of a folder is pretty straightforward, really. You can use any of these
techniques:
•If the library window is open: Where it says “Includes:” click where it says “3 loca-
tions” (or whatever the number is). You get the “Change how this library gathers its
contents” dialog box, shown in Figure 2-16. Click the folder you want to remove,
click Remove, and click OK.
•If the library’s name is visible in the Navigation pane: Expand the library to show
the folder you want to remove. Right-click the folder’s name. From the shortcut
menu, choose “Remove location from library.”
Remember: You’re not deleting anything important. A library only pretends to contain
other folders; the real ones are actually sitting in other places on your PC or network,
even after the library is gone.
Creating a New Library
The starter libraries (Pictures, Music, Documents, and Videos) are awfully useful
right out of the box. Truth is, they’re as far as most people probably go with the
libraries feature.
But you may have good reasons to create new ones. Maybe you want to create a library
for each client—and fill it with the corresponding project folders, some of which have
been archived away on external drives. Maybe you want to round up folders full of
fonts, clip art, and text, in readiness for submitting a graphics project to a print shop.
In any case, here are the different ways to go about it:
•From the Navigation pane. Click the Libraries heading in the navigation pane,
and then click “New library” in the toolbar. (Alternate method: Right-click the
word “Library” in any window’s Navigation pane. From the shortcut menu, choose
NewÆLibrary.)
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86 windows 7: the missing manual
A new, empty library appears, both in the Libraries window and in the list of
libraries in the Nav pane. It’s up to you to add folders to it, as described earlier.
•From a folder. Right-click any folder. From the shortcut menu, choose “Include
in library”Æ”Create new library.” Bing! A new library appears in the Libraries list,
named after the folder you clicked. As a handy bonus, this library already contains
its first folder: the one you clicked, of course.
Tip: Once you’ve created a library, you can specify which canned library style it resembles most: General
Items, Pictures, Music, Documents, or Videos. (Why does it matter? Because the library style determines
which commands are available in the “Arrange by” pop-up menu. Pictures offer choices like Month and Day;
Music offers choices like Rating and Genre.
Anyway, to make this choice, right-click the library’s name in the Navigation pane of an Explorer window.
From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. In the “Optimize this library for” list, click the type you want,
and then click OK.
Tags, Metadata, and Properties
All Versions
See all that information in the Details pane—Date, Size, Title, and so on? It’s known
by geeks as metadata (Greek for “data about data”). (Drag the upper border of the
Details pane upward to reveal more of this information.)
Different kinds of files provide different sorts of details. For a document, for example,
you might see Authors, Comments, Title, Categories, Status, and so on. For an MP3
music file, you get Artists, Albums, Genre, Year, and so on. For a photo, you get Date
Taken, Title, Author, and so on.
Oddly (and usefully) enough, you can actually edit some of this stuff (Figure 2-17).
Hiding and Showing Libraries
Microsoft thinks libraries are very important. After all, libraries
get one of the coveted spots in the Navigation pane at the
left side of every single Explorer window.
You, however, may not consider all of them equally impor-
tant. You might not use your PC for music at all. You might
not have any videos.
Or maybe you love libraries, but you don’t want all of them
listed in the Nav pane, either for privacy reasons or clutter
reasons.
In each of these cases, it’s nice to know you can hide a
library so that its name doesn’t appear in the Nav pane.
Just right-click the library’s name; from the shortcut menu,
choose “Don’t show in navigation pane.” Poof! It’s gone (just
the listing, not the library itself).
You can, fortunately, bring the library listing back. It’s still
sitting in your Personal folderÆLibraries folder. To see it,
click the word Libraries in any window’s Navigation pane.
Right-click the library’s icon; from the shortcut menu, choose
“Show in navigation pane.” Foop! It’s back in the list.
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chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 87
Some of the metadata is off limits. For example, you can’t edit the Date Created or
Date Modified info. (Sorry, defense attorneys of the world.) But you can edit the star
ratings for music or pictures; in the row of five stars, click the rating star you want.
Click the third star to give a song a 3, for example.
Most usefully of all, you can edit the Tags box for almost any kind of icon. A tag is
just a keyword. It can be anything you want: McDuffy Proposal, Old Junk, Back Me
Up—anything. Later, you’ll be able to round up everything on your computer with
a certain tag, all in a single window, even though they physically reside in different
folders.
Yo u’ l l e n c o u n t e r t a g s i n p l e n t y o f o t h e r p l a c e s i n Wi n d o w s — a n d i n t h i s b o o k , e s p e -
cially when it comes to searching for photos and music.
Note: Weirdly, you can’t add tags or ratings to BMP, PNG, AVI, or MPG files.
Many of the boxes here offer autocompletion, meaning that Windows proposes
finishing a name or text tidbit for you if it recognizes what you’ve started to type.
Tip: You can tag a bunch of icons at once. Just highlight them all (page 150) and then change the corresponding
detail in the Details pane once. This is a great trick for applying a tag or star rating to a mass of files quickly.
Click Save when you’re finished.
Figure 2-17:
Click the information
you want to change;
if a text-editing box
appears, you’ve hit
pay dirt. Type away,
and then press Enter
(or click the Save but-
ton at the lower-right
corner of the dialog
box). To input a list
(of tags or authors,
for example), type a
semicolon (;) after
each one.
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88 windows 7: the missing manual
Properties
The Details pane shows some of the most important details about a file, but if you
really want to see the entire metadata dossier for an icon, open its Properties dialog
box using one of these tactics:
• Right-click it. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties.
• Alt+double-click it.
• If the icon is already highlighted, press Alt+Enter.
In each case, the Properties dialog box appears. It’s a lot like the one in previous
versions of Windows, in that it displays the file’s name, location, size, and so on. But
in Windows 7, it also bears a scrolling Details tab that’s sometimes teeming with
metadata details (Figure 2-18).
Icon and List Views
All Versions
Windows’s windows look just fine straight from the factory; the edges are straight,
and the text is perfectly legible. Still, if you’re going to stare at this screen for half of
your waking hours, you may as well investigate some of the ways these windows can
be enhanced.
Figure 2-18:
If Windows knows anything about an icon, it’s in
here. Scroll, scroll, and scroll some more to find the
tidbit you want to see—or to edit. As with the Details
pane, many of these text morsels are editable.
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chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 89
For starters, you can view the files and folders in an Explorer window in either of two
ways: as icons (of any size) or as a list (in several formats). Figure 2-19 shows some
of your options.
How to Shed Your Metadata’s Skin
At the bottom of the Details pane (of the Properties dialog
box) is a peculiarly worded link: “Remove Properties and
Personal Information.”
This is a privacy feature. What it means is, “Clean away all
the metadata I’ve added myself, like author names, tag
keywords, and other insights into my own work routine.”
Microsoft’s thinking here is that you might not want other
people who encounter this document (as an email attach-
ment, for example) to have such a sweeping insight into the
minutiae of your own work routine.
When you click this link, the Remove Properties dialog box
appears, offering you a scrolling list of checkboxes: Title,
Rating, Tags, Comments, and lots and lots of others.
You can proceed in either of two ways. If you turn on “Cre-
ate a copy with all possible properties removed,” then all
the metadata that’s possible to erase (everything but things
like file type, name, and so on) will be stripped away. When
you click OK, Windows instantly creates a duplicate of the
file (with the word “Copy” tacked onto its name), ready for
distribution to the masses in its clean form. The original is
left untouched.
If you choose “Remove the following properties from this
file” instead, you can specify exactly which file details you
want erased from the original. (Turn on the appropriate
checkboxes.)
gem in the rough
Figure 2-19:
The Views pop-up menu
is a little weird; it actually
has two columns. At right,
it displays the preset view
options for the files and
folders in a window. At left,
a slider adjusts icon sizes
to any degree of scaling—at
least until it reaches the
bottom part of its track.
In any case, here’s a survey
of the window views in
Windows 7: Medium Icons,
Content view, List view,
and Details view. List and
Details views are great
for windows with lots of
files. Extra Large Icons (not
shown) is great if you’re 30
feet away.
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90 windows 7: the missing manual
Every window remembers its view settings independently. You might prefer to look
over your Documents folder in List view (because it’s crammed with files and folders),
but you may prefer to view the Pictures library in Icon view, where the icons look like
miniatures of the actual photos.
To switch a window from one view to another, you have three options, all of which
involve the Views pop-up menu shown in Figure 2-19:
•Click the Views button. With each click, the window switches to the next view in
this sequence: List, Details, Tiles, Content, Large Icons.
•Use the Views pop-up menu. If you click the ≥ triangle next to the word “Views,”
the menu opens, listing Extra Large Icons, Large Icons, Small Icons, List, and so
on. Choose the option you want. (They’re described below.)
•Use the slider. The Views menu, once opened, also contains a strange little slider
down the left side. It’s designed to let Windows’s graphics software show off a
little. The slider makes the icons shrink or grow freely, to sizes that fall between
the canned Extra Large, Large, Medium, and Small choices.
What’s so strange is that partway down its track, the slider stops adjusting icon
sizes and turns into a selector switch for the last four options in the menu: List,
Details, Tiles, and Content.
Tip: You can enlarge or shrink all the icons in a window, quick as a wink, by turning your mouse’s scroll
wheel while you press the Ctrl key. This trick even works on desktop icons.
(If you didn’t have that trick, the only way to adjust icon sizes on the desktop would be to right-click a blank
spot and choose from the View command in the shortcut menu.)
So what are these various views? And when should you use which? Here you go:
•Icon view. In an icon view, every file, folder, and disk is represented by a small pic-
ture—an icon. This humble image, a visual representation of electronic bits, is the
cornerstone of the entire Windows religion. (Maybe that’s why it’s called an icon.)
Interestingly, in Windows 7, folder icons appear turned 90 degrees. Now, in real
life, setting filing folders onto a desk that way would be idiotic; everything inside
would tumble out. But in Windows-land, the icons within a folder remain exactly
where they are. Better yet, at larger icon sizes, they peek out just enough so that
you can see them. In the Music folder, for example, a singer’s folder shows the
first album cover within; a folder full of PowerPoint presentations shows the first
slide or two; and so on.
Tip: If you have a multitouch screen, you can use the two-finger spreading gesture to enlarge icons, or the
pinching gesture to shrink them, right on the glass.
•List view. This one packs, by far, the most files into the space of a window; each file
has a tiny icon to its left, and the list of files wraps around into as many columns
as necessary to maximize the window’s available space.
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•Details view. This is the same as List view, except that it presents only a single
column of files. It’s a table, really; additional columns reveal the size, icon type,
modification date, rating, and other information.
•Tiles view. Your icons appear at standard size, with name and file details just to
the right.
•Content view. This view, new in Windows 7, attempts to cram as many details
about each file as will fit in your window (Figure 2-20). Yes, that’s right: It’s a table
that shows not just a file’s icon and name, but also its metadata (Properties) and,
in the case of text and Word files, even the first couple of lines of text inside it. (If
Secrets of the Details View Columns
In windows that contain a lot of icons, Details view is a
powerful weapon in the battle against chaos. Better yet,
you get to decide how wide the columns should be, which
of them should appear, and in what order. Here are the
details on Details:
Add or remove columns.
Right-click any column head-
ing (like Name or Size). When
the shortcut menu opens,
checkmarks appear next to the
visible columns: Name, Date
Modified, Size, and so on.
Choose a column’s name to
make it appear or disappear.
But don’t think that you’re stuck
with that handful of common
columns. If you click More in
the shortcut menu, you open
the Choose Details dialog box,
which lists over 200 more
column types, most of which are useful only in certain cir-
cumstances: Album Artist (for music files), Copyright, Date
Taken, Exposure Time (for photos), Nickname (for people),
Video Compression (for movies), and on and on. To make
one of these columns appear, turn on its checkbox and then
click OK; by the time you’re done, your Explorer window can
look like a veritable spreadsheet of information.
Rearrange the columns. You can rearrange your Details
columns just by dragging their gray column headers
horizontally. (You can even drag the Name column out of
first position.) As you drag, a tiny bold divider line in the
column-heading area snaps into place to show where it
thinks you intend to drop the
column you’re dragging.
Change column widths. If
some text in a column is too
long to fit, Windows displays
an ellipsis (…) after the first
few letters of each word. In
that case, here’s a great trick:
Carefully position your cursor
at the right edge of the col-
umn’s header (Name, Size, or
whatever—even to the right of
the ≥ button). When the cur-
sor sprouts horizontal arrows
from each side, double-click
the divider line to make the
column adjust itself, fitting automatically to accommodate
the longest item in the column.
If you’d rather adjust the column width manually, then
instead of double-clicking the dividing line between two
column headings, just drag horizontally. Doing so makes
the column to the left of your cursor wider or narrower.
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92 windows 7: the missing manual
you’re not seeing all the file details you think you should, make the window bigger.
Windows adds and subtracts columns of information as needed to fit.)
You’ll get to know Content view very well indeed once you start using Windows 7’s
Search feature, which uses this view to display your results when you search in an
Explorer window.
Sorting, Grouping, and Filtering
All Versions
In Windows 7, sorting is only one way to impose order on your teeming icons. Group-
ing and filtering can be handy, too.
Note: In Windows Vista, there was actually a lot more of this stuff. There was a whole row of criteria but-
tons (Name, Size, Date…) across the top of every Explorer window—yes, another toolbar-like thing—that
existed solely to help you sort, group, and filter. To make matters worse, Windows Vista offered still another
organizational feature called stacking.
In the end, this was just too much; people’s eyes glazed over. Today, the strip of sorting criteria lives on
only in Details view, which is by far the best view for grouping and sorting. If you want to sort or group the
contents of a window in any other view, you have to right-click, as described below.
Figure 2-20:
Content view is espe-
cially useful when you’re
viewing search results,
because the snippet of
text revealed beneath
each icon shows, with
highlighting, the portion
of text that matched your
search query. Context is
everything, dude.
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and Filtering
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Sorting Files
Sorting the files in a window alphabetically or chronologically is nice, but it’s so
2005. In Windows 7, you can sort up, down, and sideways. The technique for doing
so depends on which window view you’re in.
Details view
In Details view, sorting is simple. See the column headings, like Name, Size, and Type?
They aren’t just signposts; they’re also buttons. Click Name for alphabetical order,
“Date modified” for chronological order, Size to view largest files at the top, and so
on (Figure 2-21).
It’s especially important to note the tiny ≤ or ≥ just above the heading you’ve most
recently clicked. It shows you which way the list is being sorted. When the triangle
points upward, oldest files, smallest files, or files whose names begin with numbers
(or the letter A) appear at the top of the list, depending on which sorting criterion
you’ve selected.
Tip: It may help you to remember that when the smallest portion of the triangle is at the top, the smallest
files are listed first when viewed in size order.
Figure 2-21:
Top: You control the
sorting order of a List
view by clicking the
column headings.
Bottom: Click a second
time to reverse the
sorting order.
The tiny triangle is
a reminder. It shows
you which way you’ve
sorted the window: in
ascending order (for
example, A to Z) or
descending order (Z
to A).
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94 windows 7: the missing manual
To reverse the sorting order, just click the column heading a second time. The tiny
triangle turns upside-down.
Note: Within each window, Windows groups folders separately from files. They get sorted, too, but within
their own little folder ghetto.
All other views
You can sort your icons in the other window views, too, but it’s a lot more work. For
one thing, you have to know the secret: Right-click a blank spot in the window. From
the shortcut menu, choose “Sort by” and choose the criterion you want (Name, Date,
Type…) from the submenu.
There’s no handy triangle to tell you which way you’ve just sorted things; is it oldest to
newest or newest to oldest? To make that decision, you have to right-click the window
a second time; this time, from the “Sort by” submenu, choose either Ascending or
Descending.
Grouping
Grouping means “adding headings within the window and clustering the icons beneath
the headings.” The effect is shown in Figure 2-22, and so is the procedure. Try it out;
grouping can be a great way to wrangle some order from a seething mass of icons.
Figure 2-22:
To group the
icons in a
window, right-
click a blank
spot. From the
shortcut menu,
choose “Group
by,” and then
choose the
criterion you
want to use
for grouping,
like Name,
Date, Size, or
whatever.
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and Filtering
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Tip: Don’t forget that you can flip the sorting order of your groups. Reopen that shortcut menu and the
“Group by” submenu, and specify Ascending or Descending.
Filtering
Filtering, a feature available only in Details view, means hiding. When you turn on
filtering, a bunch of the icons in a window disappear, which can make filtering a sore
subject for novices.
Tip: In case you one day think you’ve lost a bunch of important files, look for the checkmark next to a column
heading, as shown in Figure 2-23. That’s your clue that filtering is turned on, and Windows is deliberately
hiding something from you.
On the positive side, filtering means screening out stuff you don’t care about. When
you’re looking for a document you know you worked on last week, you can tell Win-
dows to show you only the documents edited last week.
You turn on filtering by opening the pop-up menu next to the column heading you
want. For instance, if you want to see only your five-star photos in the Pictures folder,
open the Rating pop-up menu.
Sometimes, you’ll see a whole long list of checkboxes in one of these pop-up menus
(Figure 2-23). For example, if you want to see only the songs in your Music folder by
The Beatles, turn on the Beatles checkmark.
Note: Filtering, by the way, can be turned on with sorting or grouping.
Figure 2-23:
You can turn on
more than one
checkbox. To see
music by The
Beatles or U2, turn
on both checkbox-
es. In fact, you can
turn on checkboxes
from more than
one heading—music
by The Beatles or
U2, rated four stars
or higher.
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96 windows 7: the missing manual
Once you’ve filtered a window in Details view, you can switch to a different view; you’ll
still see (and not see) the same set of icons. The address bar reminds you that you’ve
turned on filtering; it might say, for example, “Research notesÆLongTimeAgoÆDOC
file,” meaning “ancient Word files.”
To stop filtering, open the heading pop-up menu again and turn off the Filter checkbox.
Note: The other window views offer a Search box in the upper right. Keep in mind that you can do quick-
and-dirty filtering using that box, too, as described on page 125. It’s not the same checkbox mechanism, but
the results are pretty much the same.
Uni-Window vs. Multi-Window
All Versions
When you double-click a folder, Windows can react in one of two ways:
•It can open a new window. Now you’ve got two windows on the screen, one over-
lapping the other. Moving or copying an icon from one into the other is a piece
of cake. Trouble is, if your double-clicking craze continues much longer, your
screen will eventually be overrun with windows, which you must now painstak-
ingly close again.
The Little Filtering Calendar
Some of the column-heading pop-up menus in Details
view—Date modified, Date created, Date taken, and so
on—display a little calendar, right there in the menu. You’re
supposed to use it to specify a date or date range. You use
it, for example, if you want to see only the photos taken
last August, or the Word documents
created last week. Here’s how the little
calendar works:
To change the month, click the ¯ or
˘ buttons to go one month at a time.
Or click the month name to see a list of
all 12 months; click the one you want.
To change the year, click the ¯ or ˘
buttons. Or, to jump farther back or
forward, double-click the month’s name. You’re offered a
list of all 10 years in this decade. Click a third time (on the
decade heading) to see a list of decades. At this point, drill
down to the year you want by clicking what you want. (The
calendar goes from 1601 to the year 9999, which should
pretty much cover your digital photo collection.)
To see only the photos taken on a certain date, click the
appropriate date on the month-view calendar.
To add photos taken on other dates,
click additional squares. You can also
drag horizontally, vertically, or diagonally
to select blocks of consecutive dates.
If you “back out” until you’re viewing
the names of months, years, or decades,
you can click or drag to choose, for
example, only the photos taken in June
or July 2010.
The checkboxes below the calendar offer one-click access to
photos taken earlier this week, earlier this year, and before
the beginning of this year (“a long time ago”).
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•It can replace the original window with a new one. This only-one-window-at-
all-times behavior keeps your desktop from becoming crowded with windows.
If you need to return to the previous window, the Back button takes you there.
Of course, you’ll have a harder time dragging icons from one window to another
using this method.
Whatever you decide, you switch windows between these two behaviors like this: In
an Explorer window, choose OrganizeÆ“Folder and search options.” In the resulting
dialog box, click “Open each folder in the same window” or “Open each folder in its
own window,” as you like. Then click OK.
Immortalizing Your Tweaks
All Versions
Once you’ve twiddled and tweaked an Explorer window into a perfectly efficient
configuration of columns and views, you needn’t go through the same exercises for
each folder. Windows can immortalize your changes as the standard setting for all
your windows.
Choose OrganizeÆ“Folder and search options”; click the View tab. Click “Apply to
Folders,” and confirm your decision by clicking Yes.
At this point, all your disk and folder windows open up with the same view, sorting
method, and so on. You’re still free to override those standard settings on a window-
by-window basis, however. (And if you change your mind again and want to make all
your maverick folder windows snap back to the standard settings, repeat the process,
but click Reset Folders instead.)
The “Folder Options” Options
All Versions
In the battle between flexibility and simplicity, Microsoft comes down on the side of
flexibility almost every time. Anywhere it can provide you with more options, it will.
Explorer windows are a case in point, as the following pages of sometimes preposter-
ously tweaky options make clear. The good news: If Explorer windows already work
fine for you the way they are, you can ignore all of this.
But if you’d like to visit the famed Folder Options dialog box, here are a few ways to
get there:
• Choose OrganizeÆ“Folder and search options” from any Explorer window.
• Press the Alt key to make the old menu bar appear. Choose ToolsÆ“Folder options.”
• Open the Start menu. Start typing the word folder until you see Folder Options
in the results list; click it.
• In the Control Panel, type folder into the Search box. Click Folder Options.
In each case, click the View tab to see the dialog box shown in Figure 2-24.
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98 windows 7: the missing manual
Here you see an array of options that affect all the folder windows on your PC. When
assessing the impact of these controls, earth-shattering isn’t the adjective that springs
to mind. Still, you may find one or two of them useful.
Here are the functions of the various checkboxes:
•Always show icons, never thumbnails. Windows takes great pride in displaying
your document icons as documents. That is, each icon appears as a miniature of
the document itself—a feature that’s especially useful in folders full of photos.
On a slowish PC, this feature can make your processor gasp for breath. If you no-
tice that the icons are taking forever to appear, consider turning this checkbox on.
•Always show menus. This checkbox forces the traditional Windows menu bar
(File, Edit, View, and so on) to appear in every Explorer window, without your
having to tap the Alt key.
•Display file icon on thumbnails. Ordinarily, you can identify documents (think
Word, Excel, PowerPoint) because their icons display the corresponding logo (a
big W for Word, and so on). But in Windows’s icon views (Medium and larger),
you see the actual document on the icon—an image of the document’s first page.
So does that mean you can no longer tell at a glance what kind of document it is?
Figure 2-24:
Some of the options in this list are contained
within tiny folder icons. A double-click collapses
(hides) these folder options or shows them
again. For example, you can hide the “Do
not show hidden files and folders” option by
collapsing the “Hidden files and folders” folder
icon.
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Don’t be silly. This option superimposes, on each thumbnail icon, a tiny “badge,”
a sub-icon, that identifies what kind of file it is. (It works on only some kinds of
documents, however.)
•Display file size information in folder tips. A folder tip is a rectangular balloon that
appears when you point to a folder—a little yellow box that tells you what’s in that
folder and how big it is on the disk. (It appears only if you’ve turned on the “Show
pop-up description” checkbox described below.) You turn off this checkbox if you
want to see only the description, but not the size. Talk about tweaky!
Note: It’s at this spot in the list where, in pre-Win7 versions, you used to find the “Display simple folder view”
option. It added vertical dotted lines to designate each level of folder indenting in the Navigation pane, as
in older versions of Windows. But simple folder view is no longer with us in Windows 7. Time marches on.
•Display the full path in the title bar (Classic theme only). Suppose you’ve rejected
the millions of dollars Microsoft put into Windows’s new look. You’ve opted in-
stead for the clunky old Classic theme (page 176). In that case, when this option
is on, Windows reveals the exact location of the current window in the title bar
of the window—for example, C:\Users\Chris\Documents. See page 58 for more
on folder paths. Seeing the path can be useful when you’re not sure which disk a
folder is on, for example.
•Hidden files and folders. Microsoft grew weary of answering tech-support calls
from clueless or mischievous customers who had moved or deleted critical system
files, rendering their PCs crippled or useless. The company concluded that the
simplest preventive measure would be to make them invisible (the files, not the
customers).
This checkbox is responsible. Your personal and Windows folders, among other
places, house several invisible folders and files that the average person isn’t meant
to fool around with. Big Brother is watching you, but he means well.
By selecting “Show hidden files, folders, and drives,” you, the confident power
user in times of troubleshooting or customization, can make the hidden files and
folders appear (they show up with dimmed icons, as though to reinforce their
delicate nature). But you’ll have the smoothest possible computing career if you
leave these options untouched.
•Hide empty drives in the Computer folder. For years, the Computer window has
displayed icons for your removable-disk drives (floppy, CD, DVD, memory-card
slots, whatever) even if nothing was in them. In Windows 7, though, that’s changed.
Now you see icons only when you insert a disk into these drives. (It now works like
the Mac, if that’s any help.)
•Hide extensions for known file types. Windows normally hides the filename
extension on standard files and documents (.doc, .jpg, and so on), in an effort to
make Windows seem less technical and intimidating. Your files wind up named
“Groceries” and “Frank” instead of “Groceries.doc” and “Frank.jpg.”
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100 windows 7: the missing manual
There are some excellent reasons, though, why you should turn off this option. See
page 242 for more on this topic.
•Hide protected operating system files. This option is similar to “Show hidden files
and folders,” above—except that it refers to even more important files, system files
that may not be invisible, but are nonetheless so important that moving or deleting
them might turn your PC into a $2,000 paperweight. Turning this off, in fact, pro-
duces a warning message that’s meant to frighten away everybody but power geeks.
•Launch folder windows in a separate process. This geekily worded setting opens
each folder into a different chunk of memory (RAM). In certain rare situations,
this largely obsolete arrangement is more stable—but it slows down your machine
slightly and unnecessarily uses memory.
•Restore previous folder windows at logon. Every time you log off the computer,
Windows forgets which windows were open. That’s a distinct bummer, especially
if you tend to work out of your Documents window, which you must therefore
manually reopen every time you fire up the old PC.
If you turn on this useful checkbox, then Windows will automatically greet you
with whichever windows were open when you last logged off.
•Show drive letters. Turn off this checkbox to hide the drive letters that identify each
of your disk drives in the Computer window (StartÆComputer). In other words,
“Local Disk (C:)” becomes “Local Disk”—an option that might make newcomers
feel less intimidated.
•Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color. This option won’t make much
sense until you’ve read pages 163 and 675, which explain how Windows can encode
and compact your files for better security and disk space use. It turns the names of
affected icons green and blue, respectively, so you can spot them at a glance. On
the other hand, encrypted or compressed files and folders operate quite normally,
immediately converting back to human form when double-clicked; hence, know-
ing which ones have been affected isn’t particularly valuable. Turn off this box to
make them look just like any other files and folders.
•Show pop-up description for folder and desktop icons. If you point to an icon,
a taskbar button, a found item in Search, or whatever (without clicking), you get
a tooltip—a floating, colored label that identifies what you’re pointing to. If you
find tooltips distracting, turn off this checkbox.
•Show preview handlers in preview pane. This is the on/off switch for one of Win-
dows’s best features: seeing a preview of a selected document icon in the Preview
pane. Turn it off only if your PC is grinding to a halt under the strain of all this
graphics-intensive goodness.
•Use check boxes to select items. Now here’s a weird one: This option makes a
checkbox appear on every icon you point to with your mouse, for ease in selection.
Page 151 explains all.
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Tip: This option replaces the “Single-click to open an item” option of Windows XP.
•Use Sharing Wizard (Recommended). Sharing files with other computers is one of
the great perks of having a network. As Chapter 26 makes clear, this feature makes
it much easier to understand what you’re doing. For example, it lets you specify
that only certain people are allowed to access your files, and lets you decide how
much access they have. (For example, can they change them or just see them?)
•When typing into list view. When you’ve got an Explorer window open, teeming
with a list of files, what do you want to happen when you start typing?
In the olden days, that’d be an easy one: “Highlight an icon, of course!” That is, if
you type piz, you highlight the file called Pizza with Casey.jpg. And indeed, that’s
what the factory setting means: “Select the typed item within the view.”
But Windows 7 has a Search box in every Explorer window. If you turn on “Auto-
matically type into the Search Box,” then each letter you type arrives in that box,
performing a real-time, letter-by-letter search of all the icons in the window. Your
savings: one mouse click.
Taskbar 2.0
All Versions
For years, the taskbar—the strip of colorful icons at the bottom of your screen—has
been one of the most prominent and important elements of the Windows interface
(Figure 2-25). In Windows 7, you can call it Taskbar, Extreme Makeover Edition,
because it does a lot of things it’s never done before.
Here’s an introduction to its functions, old and new:
•The Start menu is at the left end. As you’ll soon see, the Start menu and taskbar
are related in all kinds of ways.
•The taskbar lists your open programs and windows. The icons on the taskbar make
it easy to switch from one open program to another—from your Web browser
Figure 2-25:
On the left is the
Start menu. In
the middle are
buttons for every
program you’re
running—and
every program
you’ve pinned
there for easy
access later. .
Program buttons (some running, some not) Notification Area
Thumbnails (point without clicking)
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102 windows 7: the missing manual
to your email programs, for example—or even to specific windows within those
programs.
•The taskbar lets you open your favorite programs. If you just splurted your Sprite,
you’re forgiven; this is a new task for the taskbar, a Windows 7 special. The taskbar
is now a launcher, just like the taskbar in Mac OS X or the QuickLaunch toolbar
in old Windows versions.
•The system tray (notification area) is at the right end. These tiny icons show you
the status of your network connection, battery life, and so on.
•The Show Desktop button huddles at the far right end. You can read more about
this weird rectangular sliver on page 67.
You’ve already read about the Start menu; the following pages cover the taskbar’s
other functions.
Tip: You can operate the taskbar entirely from the keyboard. Press w+T to highlight the first button on it,
as indicated by a subtle glow. Then you can “walk” across its buttons by pressing the left/right arrow keys, or
by pressing w+T (add the Shift key to “walk” in the opposite direction). Once a button is highlighted, you
can tap the space bar to “click” it, press Shift+F10 to “right-click” it, or press the Menu key on your keyboard
to open the icon’s jump list. Who needs a mouse anymore?
Taskbar as App Switcher
Every open window is represented by a button—in Aero, it’s an actual miniature of
the window itself—that sprouts from its program’s taskbar icon. These buttons make
it easy to switch between open programs and windows. Just click one to bring its
associated window into the foreground, even if it has been minimized.
No Thumbnails? No Previews? No Aero.
If your taskbar isn’t offering up the goodies you’re reading
about here—pop-up thumbnails of your open windows,
full-size window previews—then you must not have Aero
working for you (page 23).
That could be because your computer is so feeble that it can’t
run Aero at all, as described on page 25. It could mean that
your computer has Windows 7 Starter edition. Or it could
mean that you’ve selected a cosmetic theme that comes
with Aero turned off. (In that case, the problem is easy to
fix. Right-click a blank spot on the desktop. From the shortcut
menu, choose Personalize. In the resulting window, click
one of the icons listed under Aero Themes. They offer the
Aero desktop features described in this book, whereas the
Basic themes do not. (See Chapter 4 for more on themes.)
All right, but what if Aero is turned off and you can’t, or don’t
want to, turn it on? The taskbar can still be useful to you!
In that case, clicking a taskbar thumbnail does not produce
a miniature of its windows—instead, it produces a list of their
names, which may not be as pretty but is often just as useful.
Also in that case, pointing to a thumbnail without clicking
doesn’t give a full-size window preview—but you’re not out
of luck. You can still enjoy full-size window previews—by
Ctrl+clicking a taskbar icon. With each Ctrl+click, Windows
shows you another open window in that program.
troubleshooting moment
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Handy Window Miniatures
On PCs with Aero (page 23), the taskbar does more than display each window’s name.
If you point to a program’s button without clicking, it sprouts thumbnail images of
the windows themselves. Figure 2-26 shows the effect. It’s a lot more informative than
just reading the windows’ names, as in days of yore (your previous Windows versions,
that is). The thumbnails are especially good at helping you spot a particular Web page,
photo, or PDF document.
Tip: There’s a tiny Close button (X) in each thumbnail, too, which makes it easy to close a window without
having to bring it forward first. (Or click the thumbnail itself with your mouse’s scroll wheel, or use your
middle mouse button, if you have one.) Each thumbnail also has a hidden shortcut menu. Right-click to
see your options!
Aero Peek
Those window miniatures are old news, at least if you’ve used Windows Vista. What’s
cool in Windows 7 is the full-screen previews of your windows.
To see them, point to one of the thumbnails without clicking. As you can see in Figure
2-26 (bottom), Windows now displays that window at full size, right on the screen,
even if it was minimized, buried, or hidden. Keep moving your cursor across the
thumbnails (if there are more than one); each time the pointer lands on a thumbnail,
the full-size window preview changes to show what’s in it.
When you find the window you want, click on the thumbnail you’re already pointing
to. The window pops open so you can work in it.
Figure 2-26:
Pointing to a taskbar
button produces
“live” thumbnail pre-
views of the windows
themselves, which
can be a huge help.
Click a thumbnail to
open its window.
Then, as long as
you’re pointing
around, try point-
ing to one of the
thumbnails. You see
a full-size preview of
the corresponding
window (in this case,
a Web window).
Click the thumbnail
to make that window
active.
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104 windows 7: the missing manual
Button Groups
In the old days, opening a lot of windows might produce a relatively useless display of
truncated buttons. Not only were the buttons too narrow to read the names of the win-
dows, but the buttons appeared in chronological order, not software-program order.
As you may have noticed, though, Windows 7 automatically consolidates open win-
dows into a single program button. (There’s even a subtle visual sign that a program
Figure 2-27:
An icon without a border is a program you
haven’t opened yet (the second and fourth
ones here). A brightened background indicates
the active (frontmost) program. Right-clicking
one of these buttons lets you perform tasks on
all the windows together, such as closing them
all at once.
Figure 2-28:
Top: Cascading
windows are
neatly arranged
so you can see
the title bar for
each window.
Click any title
bar to bring that
window to the
foreground as the
active window.
Bottom: You may
prefer to see
your windows
displayed stacked
(left) or side-by-
side (right).
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has multiple windows open: Its taskbar icon appears to be “stacked,” like the first and
third icons in Figure 2-27.) All the Word documents are accessible from the Word
icon, all the Excel documents sprout from the Excel icon, and so on.
Point to a taskbar button to see the thumbnails of the corresponding windows, com-
plete with their names; click to jump directly to the one you want.
Despite all the newfangled techniques, some of the following time-honored basics
still apply:
• If a program has only one window open, you can hide or show it by clicking the
program’s taskbar button—a great feature that a lot of PC fans miss. (To hide
a background window, click its taskbar button twice: once to bring the window
forward, then a pause, then again to hide it.)
• To minimize, maximize, restore, or close a window, even if you can’t see it on the
screen, point to its program’s button on the taskbar. When the window thumbnails
pop up, right-click the one you want, and choose from the shortcut menu.
Bringing Back the Old Taskbar
The taskbar’s tendency to consolidate the names of docu-
ment windows into a single program button saves space,
for sure.
Even so, it’s not inconceivable that you might prefer the
old system, in which there’s one taskbar button for every
single window. For example, the new consolidated-window
scheme means you can’t bring a certain application to the
front just by clicking its taskbar button. (You must actually
choose one particular window from among its thumbnails,
which is a lot more effort.)
To make Windows display the taskbar the old way, right-click
an empty area of the taskbar and choose Properties from
the shortcut menu. From the “Taskbar buttons” pop-up
menu, choose either “Never combine” or “Combine when
taskbar is full” (meaning “only as necessary”). Click Apply;
you now have the wider, text-labeled taskbar buttons from
the pre-Win7 days, as shown here.
While you’re rooting around in here, consider also turn-
ing on “Use small icons.” That step replaces the inch-tall,
unlabeled, Mac-style taskbar icons with smaller, half-height
ones. Click OK.
The only weirdness now: Icons representing programs that
aren’t open right now—icons you’ve pinned to the taskbar
for quick access—appear only as icons, without labels, and
the effect is somewhat disturbing. You can get rid of them,
if you want; just right-click each and choose “Unpin this
program from taskbar.”
Now you have a taskbar that looks almost exactly like the
Windows XP taskbar—except that it still has a shiny, glass,
modern look. If you want to complete your rewind fully, you
can also choose the Classic theme (page 176), giving you
a coarser, uglier, older look. It’s as though the taskbar has
just arrived in a time machine from 1995.
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106 windows 7: the missing manual
• Windows can make all open windows visible at once, either by cascading them,
stacking them, or displaying them in side-by-side vertical slices. (All three options
are shown in Figure 2-28.) To create this effect, right-click a blank spot on the
taskbar and choose Cascade Windows from the shortcut menu.
Note: Actually, there’s a fourth way to see all your windows at once: Flip 3D, described earlier in this chapter.
The cascading/stacking business is an older method of plucking one window out of a haystack.
• To hide all open windows in one fell swoop, press w+D. Or right-click a blank
spot on the taskbar and choose “Show the desktop” from the shortcut menu. Or
point to (or click) the Show Desktop rectangle at the far right end of the taskbar.
To bring the windows back, repeat that step.
Tip: When the taskbar is crowded with buttons, it may not be easy to find a blank spot to click. Usually
there’s a little gap near the right end; you can make it easier to find some blank space by enlarging the
taskbar, as described on page 114.
The Taskbar as App Launcher
Each time you open a program, its icon appears on the taskbar. That’s the way it’s
always been. And when you exit that program, its icon disappears from the taskbar.
In Windows 7, however, there’s a twist. Now you can pin a program’s icon to the task-
bar so that it’s always there, even when it’s not open. One quick click opens the app.
The idea, of course, is to put frequently used programs front and center, always on
the screen, so you don’t have to burrow into the Start menu to find them.
To pin a program to the taskbar in this way, use one of these two tricks:
•Drag a program’s icon directly to any spot on the taskbar, as shown in Figure 2-29.
You can drag them from any Explorer window, from the desktop, from the left side
of the Start menu, or (most conveniently) from the Start menu’s All Programs list.
•Right-click a program’s icon (or its shortcut icon), wherever it happens to be.
From the shortcut menu, choose “Pin to Taskbar.” The icon appears instantly at
the right end of the taskbar. This technique requires less mousing, of course, but
it also deprives you of the chance to specify where the new icon goes.
Once an icon is on the taskbar, you can open it with a single click. By all means, stick
your favorites there; over the years, you’ll save yourself thousands of unnecessary
Start-menu clicks.
Tip: If you Shift+click a taskbar icon, you open another window for that program—for example, a new Web-
browser window, a new Microsoft Word document, and so on. (Clicking with your mouse’s scroll wheel,
or middle mouse button, does the same thing.) Add the Ctrl key to open the program as an administrator.
And if you Shift+right-click a taskbar icon, you see the same menu of window-management commands
(Cascade, Restore, and so on) that you get when you right-click a blank spot on the taskbar.
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If you change your mind about a program icon you’ve parked on the taskbar, it’s easy
to move an icon to a new place—just drag it with your mouse.
You can also remove one altogether. Right-click the program’s icon—in the taskbar
or anywhere on your PC—and, from the shortcut menu, choose “Unpin this program
from taskbar.”
Note: The taskbar is really intended to display the icons of programs. If you try to drag a file or folder, you’ll
succeed only in adding it to a program’s jump list, as described next. If you want quick, one-click access to
files, folders, and disks, you can have it—by using the Links toolbar (page 116).
Jump Lists: Taskbar Edition
Jump lists, new in Windows 7, are submenus that list frequently or recently opened
files in each of your programs. On the taskbar, each program’s icon has its own jump
list. (Jump lists can also sprout from your programs’ icons in the Start menu, as
described on page 52.)
Figure 2-29:
To install a program
on your taskbar, drag
its icon to any spot; the
other icons scoot aside to
make room.
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108 windows 7: the missing manual
To open a jump list, right-click an icon on your taskbar. The list pops right up, as
shown in Figure 2-30.
All of this is designed to save you time, mousing, and folder-burrowing.
Ordinarily, Windows builds jump lists for you automatically, tracking the documents
you open. Your Web browser’s jump list tracks your recent and most-visited sites, for
example. Your Excel icon’s jump list shows the spreadsheets you’ve had open most
recently.
But you can also install files manually into a program’s jump list—in Windows-ese,
you can pin a document to a program’s jump list so that it’s not susceptible to replace-
ment by other items.
For example, you might pin the chapters of a book you’re working on to your Word
jump list. To the Windows Explorer jump list, you might pin the folder and disk loca-
tions you access often.
You can pin a file or folder to a jump list in any of three ways:
•Drag an icon directly onto a blank spot on the taskbar. You can drag a document
(or its file shortcut) from the desktop, an Explorer window, or the Start menu.
Figure 2-30:
Tip: Instead of
right-clicking the
taskbar icon, you
can swipe upward
from the icon with
your mouse or
trackpad finger.
This gesture was
intended for use
on touchscreen
computers, where
right-clicking is
awfully hard to do
with your pointer
finger. But it works
equally well on
any PC.
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(You can drag it onto its “parent” program’s icon if you really want to, but the
taskbar itself is a bigger target.)
As shown in Figure 2-31, a tooltip appears: “Pin to Adobe Photoshop” (or whatever
the parent program is). Release the mouse. You’ve just pinned the document to its
program’s taskbar jump list.
Note: If the document’s parent program doesn’t already appear on the taskbar, it does now. In other words,
if you drag a Beekeeper Pro document onto the taskbar, Windows is forced to install the Beekeeper Pro
program icon onto the taskbar in the process. Otherwise, how would you open the jump list?
•In an existing jump list, click the pushpin icon. If the document already appears
in a jump list, you can move it up into the Pinned list at the top of the jump list
this way. Now it won’t be dislodged over time by other files you open.
Figure 2-31:
Left: Drag a
document icon
to the taskbar
and release.
Middle: That
document’s
name now ap-
pears in its par-
ent program’s
jump list.
Right: You can
also pin some-
thing already in
the jump list.
Secret Keystrokes of the Taskbar Icons
There’s secret keyboard shortcuts lurking in them taskbar
icons.
It turns out that the first 10 icons, left to right, have built-in
keystrokes that “click” them: the w key plus the numbers
1, 2, 3, and so on (up to 0, which means 10).
If you use this keystroke to “click” the icon of a program
that’s not running, it opens up as though you’d clicked it. If
you “click” a program that has only one window open, that
window pops to the front. If you “click” a program with more
than one window open, the icon sprouts thumbnail previews
of all of them, and the first window pops to the front.
Remember that you can drag icons around on the taskbar,
in effect reassigning those 1-through-0 keystrokes.
gem in the rough
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110 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: If you drag a folder (or a shortcut of one) onto the taskbar, it gets pinned in the Windows Explorer
icon’s jump list.
•If the file appears in another program’s jump list, drag it onto the new program’s
taskbar icon. For example, maybe you opened a document in WordPad (it’s in
WordPad’s jump list), but you want to move it to Microsoft Word’s jump list.
To do that, drag the document’s name out of WordPad’s list and then drop it onto
Word’s taskbar icon. It now appears pinned in both programs’ jump lists.
Removing things from your taskbar jump lists is just as easy. Open a program’s jump
list, point to anything in the Pinned list, and click the “Unpin from this list” pushpin.
Note: Once it’s unpinned, the file’s name may jump down into the Recent section of the jump list, which
is usually fine. If that’s not fine, you can erase it from there, too; right-click its name and, from the shortcut
menu, choose “Remove from this list.” (Of course, you’re not actually deleting the file.)
You can also erase your jump lists completely—for privacy, for example. For details,
and for other caveats about jump lists, see page 54.
The Notification Area (System Tray)
The notification area gives you quick access to little status indicators and pop-up
menus that control various functions of your PC (Figure 2-32).
This area has been a sore spot with PC fans for years. Many a software installer inserts
its own little icon into this area: fax software, virus software, palmtop synchronization
software, and so on. So before Windows 7 came along, the tray eventually filled with
junky, confusing little icons that had no value to you—but made it harder to find the
icons you did want to track.
In Windows 7, all that is history. Out of the box, only a handful of Windows icons
appear here. Each one offers three displays: one when you point without clicking, one
when you click the icon, and a third when you right-click the icon. Here’s what you
start with:
Figure 2-32:
You can point to a status icon’s name without
clicking (to see its name) or click one to see its
pop-up menu of options.
Network
Action Center
Power
Volume
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•Action Center (F). This humble, tiny icon is the front end for one of Win7’s best
new features: the Action Center. It’s a single, consolidated command center for all
the little nags that Windows used to bury you with.
Nowadays, Windows may still whimper because you have no antivirus program,
because your backup is out of date, because there are Windows updates to install,
or whatever. But this icon will sprout a balloon just once, for a few seconds, and
then leave you alone after that.
Note: When all is well, the Action Center icon looks like a tiny flag (F); when you’ve ignored some of its
warnings, a circled X appears on the flag (a).
If you ever actually care what Windows is griping about, you have several options.
Point to the icon without clicking to see how many important messages are waiting.
Click to see the most important messages (or click a link to take care of them).
Right-click for links to the Action Center itself (Chapter 10), a troubleshooting
wizard, or Windows Update (page 662).
•Power (p, laptops only). Point to the tiny battery icon without clicking to view the
time-remaining (and percentage-remaining) readout for your laptop battery. Click
for a choice of power plan (page 326)—and for a detailed battery juice–remaining
readout, in minutes and in percentage of capacity. Right-click for access to the
Power Options control panel and the Windows Mobility Center (see Chapter 19).
•Network (n or N). Point to see the name of your current network and whether or
not it’s connected to the Internet. Click for a list of available networks; the wireless
(WiFi) ones in the list come with icons for signal strength and “locked” (password-
protected) status. You can switch networks by clicking one’s name. Right-click for
a shortcut menu that offers direct access to a troubleshooting screen and to the
Network and Sharing Center.
•Volume (v). Point to see a tooltip that says, for example, “Speakers: 67%” (of full
volume). Click for a volume slider that controls your PC’s speakers. Right-click
for a shortcut menu that offers direct access to various Control Panel screens, like
Sounds, Recording Devices, and so on.
•Clock. Shows the current date and time. Point to see today’s full date, with day
of the week (“Thursday, January 17, 2013”). Click for a pop-up clock and mini-
calendar, which you can use to check, for example, what day of the week March 9,
2016, falls on. (Right-clicking the Clock doesn’t offer anything special—just the
same shortcut menu that appears when you right-click a blank spot on the taskbar.)
Tip: You can drag system-tray icons around to rearrange them—not just these starter icons, but any that you
install, as described below. A vertical insertion-point line appears to show you where the icon will go when
you release the mouse.
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Revealing the hidden status icons
So if these are the only authorized status icons, what happened to all the other junky
ones deposited there by your software programs?
They’re hidden until you summon them. Click the tiny ≤ at the left end of the system
tray to see them, safely corralled in a pop-up palette (Figure 2-33).
Reinstating the hidden icons
OK, so now you know where the additional, non-Microsoft status icons are hidden.
Thank you, Windows, for sparing us from Creeping Iconitus.
But what if you want one of those inferior icons to appear in the system tray? What
if you don’t want Windows to hide them away in the popup window (Figure 2-33)?
No big whoop. Just drag them out of the “hidden” corral and back onto the taskbar.
Or you can do it the long way, by opening the Notification Area control panel and
bringing them back (see Figure 2-34).
Here, you see a list of all of those secondary, usually-hidden status icons. For each
one, you can use the pop-up menu to choose from the following:
•Show Icon And Notifications. This icon will always appear in the system tray,
unhidden at last.
•Hide Icon And Notifications. The icon is hidden. If the icon wants to get your
attention by popping up a message, too bad; Windows stifles all notifications.
•Only Show Notifications. This icon is hidden, but if it needs your attention, Win-
dows will still show you its notification pop-ups.
Hiding icons you rarely use is a noble ambition. Most of the time, you truly won’t
miss them, and their absence will make the icons you do use stand out all the more.
Figure 2-33:
Left: Nowadays, your taskbar isn’t
overrun by useless software-company
icons. They’re all hidden in this pop-up
corral.
Right: You can drag them around
within this bubble to rearrange them,
or drag them into or out of the bubble
to hide or un-hide specific icons.
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It’s worth noting, by the way, that you have these options even for the basic Windows
icons described above: Volume, Network, Power, and so on. If you don’t want the date
and time eating up taskbar space, then, by golly, you can hide it.
Tip: Actually, the Clock item doesn’t appear in the dialog box shown in Figure 2-34. If you want to hide the
date and time, click ”Turn system icons on or off” at the bottom of that box. You arrive in another dialog
box, this one dedicated exclusively to on/off switches for the basic Windows icons: Power, Action Center,
Network, Volume—and, yes, Clock.
Revealing all system-tray icons
One last thought: If your intention in visiting the Notification Area Icons box (Fig-
ure 2-34) is to turn on all system-tray icons—maybe to recreate the halcyon days of
Windows XP—you can save yourself some time. Just turn on “Always show all icons
and notifications on the taskbar.” (It’s at the bottom of the dialog box.)
Now all the icons appear in the system tray, the Behaviors pop-up menus are dimmed
to show you’ve overridden them, and the little ≤ button at the left end of the system
tray goes away. That’s a lot faster than adjusting the Behaviors pop-up menu indi-
vidually for each icon.
Taskbar 2.0
Figure 2-34:
To open this control panel,
click the tiny ≤ at the left end
of the system tray, and then
click Customize. (Or open the
Start menu; type as much of
the word notification as neces-
sary until you see, and can
click, Notification Area Icons.)
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114 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: You have complete keyboard control over the system tray. Press w+B to highlight the first icon—the
little ≤ button. Then press the arrow keys to “walk” through the other icons. Press the space bar to “click”
whatever icon is highlighted, opening its menu. (Press the Menu key or Shift+F10 to “right-click” the icon.)
Three Ways to Get the Taskbar Out of Your Hair
All Versions
The bottom of the screen isn’t necessarily the ideal location for the taskbar. Virtually
all screens are wider than they are tall, so the taskbar eats into your limited vertical
screen space. You have three ways out: Hide the taskbar, shrink it, or rotate it 90 degrees.
Auto-Hiding the Taskbar
To turn on the taskbar’s auto-hiding feature, start by right-clicking a blank spot on
the taskbar, and then choose Properties from the shortcut menu. The dialog box that
appears offers a checkbox called “Auto-hide the taskbar.” This feature makes the taskbar
disappear whenever you’re not using it—a clever way to devote your entire screen to
application windows and yet have the taskbar at your cursor tip when needed.
When this feature is turned on, the taskbar disappears whenever you click elsewhere,
or whenever your cursor moves away from it. Only a thin line at the edge of the screen
indicates that you have a taskbar at all. As soon as your pointer moves close to that
line, the taskbar joyfully springs back into view.
Tip: On paper, an auto-hiding taskbar is ideal; it’s there only when you summon it. In practice, however, you
may find that the extra half-second the taskbar takes to appear and disappear makes this feature slightly less
appealing. Fortunately, you can hide and show the taskbar at will by pressing the hide/show key—namely, the
w key. Now you can make the taskbar pop in and out instantly, without requiring you to move the mouse.
Changing the Taskbar’s Size
Even with the button-grouping feature, the taskbar can still accumulate a lot of but-
tons and icons. As a result, you may want to enlarge the taskbar to see what’s what.
•The draggy way. First, ensure that the toolbar isn’t locked (which means you can’t
move or resize it). Right-click a blank spot on the taskbar; from the shortcut menu,
uncheck “Lock the taskbar,” if necessary.
Now position your pointer on the upper edge of the taskbar (or, if you’ve moved
the taskbar, whichever edge is closest to the center of the screen). When the pointer
turns into a double-headed arrow, drag to make the taskbar thicker or thinner.
Note: If you’re resizing a taskbar that’s on the top or bottom of the screen, it automatically changes its size
in full taskbar-height increments. You can’t fine-tune the height; you can only double or triple it, for example.
If it’s on the left or right edge of your screen, however, you can resize the taskbar freely. If you’re not careful,
you can make it look really weird.
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•The dialog-box way. In the Properties dialog box for the taskbar (right-click it;
choose Properties from the shortcut menu), an option called “Use small icons”
appears. As described in the box on page 105, it cuts those inch-tall taskbar icons
down to half size, for a more pre-Win7 look.
Moving the Taskbar to the Sides of the Screen
Yet another approach to getting the taskbar out of your way is to rotate it so that it
sits vertically against a side of your screen. You can rotate it in either of two ways:
•The draggy way. First, ensure that the toolbar isn’t locked, as described above.
(Right-click a blank spot; from the shortcut menu, uncheck “Lock the taskbar.”)
Now you can drag the taskbar to any edge of the screen, using any blank spot in
the central section as a handle. (You can even drag it to the top of your screen, if
you’re a true rebel.) Release the mouse when the taskbar leaps to the edge you’ve
indicated with the cursor.
Tip: No matter which edge of the screen holds your taskbar, your programs are generally smart enough to
adjust their own windows as necessary. In other words, your Word document will shift sideways so that it
doesn’t overlap the taskbar you’ve dragged to the side of the screen.
•The dialog-box way. Right-click a blank spot on the taskbar; from the shortcut
menu, choose Properties. Use the “Taskbar location on screen” pop-up menu to
choose Left, Right, Top, or Bottom. (You can do this even if the taskbar is locked.)
You’ll probably find that the right side of your screen works better than the left. Most
programs put their document windows against the left edge of the screen, where the
taskbar and its labels might get in the way.
Note: When you position your taskbar vertically, what was once the right side of the taskbar becomes the
bottom. In other words, the Clock appears at the bottom of the vertical taskbar. So as you read references
to the taskbar in this book, mentally substitute the phrase “bottom part of the taskbar” when you read refer-
ences to the “right side of the taskbar.”
Taskbar Toolbars
All Versions
You’d be forgiven if you’ve never even heard of taskbar toolbars; this is one obscure
feature.
These toolbars are separate horizontal sections on the taskbar that offer special-
function features. You can even build your own toolbars—for example, one stocked
with documents related to a single project. (Somewhere in America, there’s a self-help
group for people who spend entirely too much time fiddling with this kind of thing.)
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To make a toolbar appear or disappear, right-click a blank spot on the taskbar and
choose from the Toolbars submenu that appears (Figure 2-35). The ones with check-
marks are the ones you’re seeing now; you can click to turn them on and off.
Tip: You can’t adjust the toolbars’ widths until you unlock the taskbar (right-click a blank spot and turn off
“Lock the taskbar”). Now each toolbar is separated from the main taskbar by a dotted “grip strip.” Drag this
strip to make the toolbar wider or narrower.
Here’s a rundown of the ready-made taskbar toolbars at your disposal.
Address Toolbar
This toolbar offers a duplicate copy of the address bar that appears in every Explorer
window, complete with a Recent Addresses pop-up menu—except that it’s always
available, even if no Explorer window happens to be open.
Links Toolbar
From its name alone, you might assume that the purpose of this toolbar is to provide
links to your favorite Web sites. And sure enough, that’s one thing it’s good for.
Figure 2-35:
Top: Make toolbars
appear by right-
clicking a blank area
on the taskbar, if
you can find one.
Bottom: Toolbars eat
into your taskbar
space, so use them
sparingly. If you’ve
added too many
icons to the toolbar,
a h button appears
at its right end. Click
it to expose a list of
the commands or
icons that didn’t fit.
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But in fact, you can drag any icon at all onto this toolbar—files, folders, disks, pro-
grams, or whatever—to turn them into one-click buttons.
In other words, the Links toolbar duplicates the “park favorite icons” function of
the Start menu, taskbar, and Quick Launch toolbar. But in some ways, it’s better. It
can display any kind of icon (unlike the taskbar). It’s always visible (unlike the Start
menu). And it shows the icons’ names.
Note: The Links toolbar is a mirror of the Favorites toolbar in Internet Explorer (ToolsÆToolbarsÆFavorites),
just in case you were baffled. Edit one, you edit the other.
Here are a few possibilities of things to stash here, just to get your juices flowing:
• Install icons of the three or four programs you use the most (or a few documents
you work on every day).
• Install the Recycle Bin’s icon, so you don’t have to mouse all the way over to…
wherever you keep the real Recycle Bin.
• Install icons for shared folders on the network. This arrangement saves several
steps when you want to connect to them.
• Install icons of Web sites you visit often so you can jump directly to them when
you sit down in front of your PC each morning. (In Internet Explorer, you can
drag the tiny icon at the left end of the address bar directly onto the Links toolbar
to install a Web page there.)
You can drag these links around on the toolbar to put them into a different order, or
remove a link by dragging it away—directly into the Recycle Bin, if you like. (They’re
only shortcuts; you’re not actually deleting anything important.) To rename something
here—a good idea, since horizontal space in this location is so precious—right-click
it and choose Rename from the shortcut menu.
Tip: Dragging a Web link from the Links toolbar to the desktop or an Explorer window creates an Internet
shortcut file. When double-clicked, this special document connects to the Internet and opens the specified
Web page.
Tablet PC Input Panel
This toolbar is useful only if you’re working on a tablet PC, which has a touch screen
and stylus. It provides quick access to Windows’s handwriting-recognition software.
Chapter 19 has the details.
Desktop Toolbar
The Desktop toolbar (Figure 2-35, bottom) offers quick access to whichever icons
are sitting on your desktop—the Recycle Bin, for example, and whatever else you’ve
put there. As a convenience, it also lists a few frequently used places that aren’t on
the desktop, including your Personal folder, your libraries, Homegroup, Network,
Control Panel, and so on.
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When it first appears, the Desktop toolbar takes the form of a >> button at the right
end of the taskbar. You can widen the Desktop toolbar if you like, making its buttons
appear horizontally on the taskbar. But if you leave it compressed, then many of its
icons sprout pop-up submenus that give you direct access to their contents. That’s a
useful way to get at your stuff when your screen is filled with windows.
Redesigning Your Toolbars
To change the look of a toolbar, first unlock it. (Right-click it; from the shortcut menu,
choose “Lock the taskbar,” if necessary, so that the checkmark disappears. Later, repeat
this procedure to lock the taskbar again.)
Next, right-click any blank spot on the toolbar. The resulting shortcut menu offers
these choices, which appear above the usual taskbar shortcut menu choices:
Bringing Back the Quick Launch Toolbar
The whole point of the old Quick Launch toolbar was to
display the icons of programs you used a lot—exactly like the
new Windows 7 taskbar itself. So Microsoft took the Quick
Launch toolbar out behind the barn and shot it.
Besides, if “a toolbar filled with icons of my choosing, ready
for one-click opening” is the idea behind the Quick Launch
toolbar, why not use the Links toolbar or the “build your
own” toolbar described on these pages?
Well, all right. If you really feel it’s that important to have the
Quick Launch toolbar—the
actual, original one—you can
bring it back.
Start by creating a folder
that contains the icons for
everything you want displayed on the toolbar.
Now right-click a blank spot on the taskbar. From the shortcut
menu, choose ToolbarsÆNew Toolbar. In the resulting
dialog box, type this (AutoComplete is there to help you
save typing)…
%appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
…and then click Select Folder.
And presto: The Quick Launch toolbar now appears on your
taskbar. It works exactly like the Links toolbar, in that you
can drag anything onto it for easy access: folder, file, disk,
shortcut, program…anything with an icon.
It still doesn’t look much like the old Quick Launch toolbar,
though. But you can fix that.
First, unlock the taskbar. (Right-click it; from the shortcut
menu, choose “Lock the taskbar,” if necessary, so that the
checkmark disappears.)
Now right-click the Quick Launch toolbar itself; turn off
Show Title and Show Text.
Drag the dotted “grip strip”
handle at the toolbar’s left
edge all the way to the left
so that it’s right next to the
Start menu, where the old
Quick Launch toolbar used to be. Drag the right-side “grip
strip” to adjust the width. Relock the taskbar, if you like.
From now on, you can install any file, folder, or disk onto
this toolbar just by dragging it there. It shows up, tiny but
legible, ready for opening with one click.
If you change your mind, you can get rid of the Quick
Launch toolbar. Right-click the taskbar; from the shortcut
menu, choose ToolbarsÆQuick Launch toolbar, so that the
checkmark disappears.
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•View lets you change the size of the icons on the toolbar.
•Open Folder works only with the Quick Launch and Links toolbars.
It turns out that the icons on these toolbars reflect the contents of corresponding
folders on your PC. To see one, right-click a blank spot on the toolbar itself; from
the shortcut menu, choose Open Folder.
Why is that useful? Because it means you can add, rename, or delete icons en masse,
by working in the folder instead of on the toolbar itself. Of course, you can also
delete or rename any icon on these toolbars by right-clicking it and choosing Delete
or Rename from the shortcut menu. But a window isn’t nearly as claustrophobic
as the toolbar itself.
•Show Text identifies each toolbar icon with a text label.
•Show Title makes the toolbar’s name (such as “Quick Launch” or “Desktop”) ap-
pear on the toolbar.
•Close Toolbar makes the toolbar disappear.
Tip: How much horizontal taskbar space a toolbar consumes is up to you. Drag the border at the left edge
of a toolbar to make it wider or narrower. That’s a good point to remember if, in fact, you can’t find a blank
spot to right-click on. (Sub-Tip: In a pinch, you can right-click the clock.) Don’t forget that you have to unlock
the toolbar before you can change its size (right-click, and then choose “Lock the taskbar” so the checkmark
disappears).
Figure 2-36:
To create a new
toolbar, begin by
making a folder.
Stock it with the
icons you want to
access from the
taskbar. Amaze
your friends!
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120 windows 7: the missing manual
Build Your Own Toolbars
The Quick Launch and Links toolbars are such a delight that you may find that having
only one isn’t enough. You may wish to create several different Links toolbars, each
stocked with the icons for a different project or person. One could contain icons for
all the chapters of a book you’re writing; another could list only your games.
Fortunately, it’s easy to create as many different custom toolbars as you like, each of
which behaves exactly like the Links toolbar.
Windows creates toolbars from folders; so before creating a toolbar of your own, you
must create a folder and fill it with the stuff you want to toolbar-ize.
Next, right-click a blank spot on the taskbar. From the shortcut menu, choose Tool-
barsÆNew Toolbar to open the New Toolbar dialog box, as shown in Figure 2-36.
Find and click the folder you want, and then click Select Folder.
Now there’s a brand-new toolbar on your taskbar, whose buttons list the contents of
the folder you selected. Feel free to tailor it as described—by changing its icon sizes,
hiding or showing the icon labels, or installing new icons onto it by dragging them
from other Explorer windows.
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 121
Every disk, folder, file, application, printer, and networked computer is repre-
sented on your screen by an icon. To avoid spraying your screen with thousands
of overlapping icons seething like snakes in a pit, Windows organizes icons into
folders, puts those folders into other folders, and so on. This folder-in-a-folder-in-a-
folder scheme works beautifully at reducing screen clutter, but it means that you’ve
got some hunting to do whenever you want to open a particular icon.
Helping you find, navigate, and manage your files, folders, and disks with less stress
and greater speed was one of the primary design goals of Windows 7—and of this
chapter. The following pages cover Search, plus icon-management life skills like
selecting them, renaming them, moving them, copying them, making shortcuts of
them, assigning them to keystrokes, deleting them, and burning them to CD or DVD.
Tip: To create a new folder to hold your icons, right-click where you want the folder to appear (on the
desktop or in any desktop window except Computer), and choose NewÆFolder from the shortcut menu.
The new folder appears with its temporary “New Folder” name highlighted. Type a new name for the folder
and then press Enter.
Meet Windows Search
All Versions
Every computer offers a way to find files. And every system offers several different
ways to open them. But Search combines these two functions in a way that’s so fast,
so efficient, and so spectacular, it reduces much of what you’ve read in the previous
chapters to irrelevance. It works like Google Desktop (or Spotlight on the Macintosh),
in that it finds files as you type what you’re looking for—not like Windows XP, which
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122 windows 7: the missing manual
doesn’t start searching until you’re finished typing and takes a very long time to find
things at that.
It’s important to note, though, that you can search for files on your PC using the
superfast Search box in two different places:
•The Start menu. The Start Search box at the bottom of the Start menu searches
everywhere on your computer.
•Explorer windows. The Search box at the top of every desktop window searches
only that window (including folders within it). You can expand it, too, into some-
thing called the Search pane—a way to limit the scope of your search to certain
file types or date ranges, for example.
Search boxes also appear in the Control Panel window, Internet Explorer, Windows
Mail, Windows Media Player, and other spots where it’s useful to perform small-time,
limited searches. The following pages, however, cover the two main Search boxes, the
ones that hunt down files and folders.
Search from the Start Menu
All Versions
Start by opening the Start menu, either by using the mouse or by pressing the w key.
The “Search programs and files” box appears at the bottom of the Start menu; you
can immediately begin typing to identify what you want to find and open (Figure
3-1). For example, if you’re trying to find a file called “Pokémon Fantasy League.doc,”
typing just pok or leag will probably work.
Capitalization doesn’t count, and neither do accent marks; typing cafe finds files with
the word “café” just fine. (You can change this, however; see page 136.)
As you type, the familiar Start menu items are replaced by search results (Figure 3-1).
This is a live, interactive search; that is, Windows modifies the menu as you type—you
do not have to press Enter after entering your search phrase.
The results menu lists every file, folder, program, email message, address book entry,
calendar appointment, picture, movie, PDF document, music file, Web bookmark,
and Microsoft Office document (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel) that contains what
you typed, regardless of its name or folder location.
Meet Windows
Search
Directories vs. Folders
Before Windows took over the universe, folders were called
directories, and folders inside them were called subdirecto-
ries. Keep that in mind the next time you’re reading an old
user guide, magazine article, or computer book.
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 123
Windows isn’t just searching icon names. It’s also searching their contents—the
words inside your documents—as well as all your files’ metadata. (That’s descriptive
text information about what’s in a file, like its height, width, size, creator, copyright
holder, title, editor, created date, and last modification date. Page 86 has the details.)
Note: Windows is constantly updating its invisible index (page 132) in real time. You can prove it to yourself
like this: Open a text document (in WordPad, for example). Type an unusual word, like wombat. Save the
document using a different name—say, “Fun Pets.” Now immediately do a search. Hit the w key and type
wom, for example. You’ll see that Windows finds “Fun Pets” even though it’s only moments old. That’s a
far cry from, for example, the old Windows Indexing Service, which updated its index only once a day, in
the middle of the night!
If you see the icon you were hoping to dig up, double-click it to open it. Or use the
arrow keys to “walk down” the menu, and then press Enter to open it.
Search from the
Start Menu
Figure 3-1:
Press w, or click the
Start-menu icon, to
see the Search box.
As you type, Win-
dows builds the list
of every match it can
find, neatly arranged
in categories: Pro-
grams, Documents,
and so on.
You don’t have to
type an entire word.
Typing kumq will
find documents
containing the
word “kumquat.”
However, it’s worth
noting that Windows
recognizes only the
beginnings of words.
Typing umquat won’t
find a document
containing—or even
named—“Kumquat.”
Press the , or .
keys keys to walk
through the list one
item at a time.
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124 windows 7: the missing manual
If you choose a program (programs are listed first in the results menu), well, that
program pops onto the screen. Selecting an email message opens that message in
your email program. And so on.
As you’ll soon learn, Search threatens to make all that folders-in-folders business nearly
pointless. Why burrow around in folders when you can open any file or program with
a couple of keystrokes?
The “More Results” Window
Windows’s menu shows you only about 15 results. Unless you own one of those
extremely rare 60-inch Skyscraper Displays, there just isn’t room to show you the
whole list.
Instead, Windows uses some fancy behind-the-scenes analysis to calculate and dis-
play the 15 or so most likely matches for what you typed. They appear grouped into
categories like Programs, Pictures, Control Panel, and Documents. The number in
parentheses shows how many items are in each category.
Tip: If you click one of these category headings, you open a window containing just the search results in
that category. Kind of handy, really.
Having such a short list of likely suspects means it’s easy to arrow-key your way to
the menu item you want to open. But at the bottom of the menu, a link called “See
more results” is a reminder that there may be many other candidates. Click it to open
the results window, shown in Figure 3-2.
Now you have access to the complete list of matches, listed in typical Explorer-window
format, using the new Content view (so that you can read the first few lines of text in
each file, for example). As a bonus, the text that matches your search query is high-
lighted in each file’s name, also shown in Figure 3-2. You can sort this list, group it,
or filter it exactly as described in Chapter 2.
Figure 3-2:
You can open this window by clicking
a link called “See more results” in
the Start menu’s results list. “More,”
in this case, means “every thing
Windows found except programs and
Control Panel items.”
Search from the
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 125
The only difference is that the task toolbar (Organize, Views, and so on) offers a but-
ton that doesn’t usually adorn standard folder windows, called “Save search.” Details
on this item later in this chapter.
This Search Results window offers a suite of additional tools for continuing your
quest. For example, if you choose OrganizeÆLayoutÆPreview pane, you open the
right-hand Preview panel. It shows you the contents of each icon you click in the list
(a picture, a playable movie or sound, the text in a Word file, and so on), which can
be a great help in trying to figure out what these things are.
You can also click one of the “Search again in:” icons at the bottom of the results list.
They represent specialized places where you can repeat the same search: just in your
libraries, on the Internet, across your homegroup (page 775), or whatever. If you want
to repeat the search in a particular folder or disk, click Custom to specify it.
Limit by Size, Date, Rating, Tag, Author…
Suppose you’re looking for a file called Big Deals.doc. But when you type big into the
Search box, you wind up wading through hundreds of files that contain the word “big.”
It’s at times like these that you’ll be grateful for Windows’s little-known criterion
searches. These are syntax tricks that help you create narrower, more targeted searches.
All you have to do is prefix your search query with the criterion you want, followed
by a colon.
One example is worth a thousand words, so several examples should save an awful
lot of paper:
•name: big finds only documents with “big” in their names. Windows ignores any-
thing with that term inside the file.
•tag: crisis finds only icons with “crisis” as a tag—not as part of the title or contents.
•created: 7/25/10 finds everything you wrote on July 25, 2010. You can also use
modified: today or modified: yesterday, for that matter. Or don’t be that specific.
Just use modified: July or modified: 2010.
You can use symbols like < and >, too. To find files created since yesterday, you
could type created: >yesterday.
Or use two dots to indicate a range. To find all the email you got in the first two
weeks of March 2010, you could type received: 3/1/2010..3/15/2010. (That two-dot
business also works to specify a range of file sizes, as in size: 2 MB..5 MB.)
Tip: That’s right: Windows recognizes human terms like today, yesterday, this week, last week, last month,
this month, and last year.
•size: >2gb finds all the big files on your PC.
•rating: <*** finds documents to which you’ve given ratings of three stars or fewer.
•camera model: Nikon D90 finds all the pictures you took with that camera.
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126 windows 7: the missing manual
•kind: email finds all the email messages.
That’s just one example of the power of kind. Here are some other kinds you can
look for: calendar, appointment, or meeting (appointments in Outlook, or iCal or
vCalendar files); communication (email and attachments); contact or person (vCard
and Windows Contact files, Outlook contacts); doc or document (text, Office, PDF,
and Web files); folder (folders, .zip files, .cab files); link (shortcut files); music or
song (audio files, Windows Media playlists); pic or picture (graphics files like JPEG,
PNG, GIF, and BMP); program (programs); tv (shows recorded by Windows Media
Center); and video (movie files).
• The folder: prefix limits the search to a certain folder or library. (The starter words
under:, in:, and path: work the same way.) So folder: music confines the search
to your Music library, and a search for in: documents turtle finds all files in your
Documents library containing the word “turtle.”
Tip: You can combine multiple criteria searches, too. For example, if you’re pretty sure you had a document
called “Naked Mole-Rats” that you worked on yesterday, you could cut directly to it by typing mole modified:
yesterday or modified: yesterday mole. (The order doesn’t matter.)
So where’s the master list of these available criteria? It turns out that they correspond
to the column headings at the top of an Explorer window that’s in Details view: Name,
Date modified, Type, Size, and so on.
You’re not limited to just the terms you see now; you can use any term that can be
an Explorer-window heading. To see them all, right-click any of the existing column
headings in a window that’s in Details view. From the shortcut menu, choose More.
There they are: 115 different criteria, including Size, Rating, Album, Bit rate, Camera
model, Date archived, Language, Nickname, and so on. Here’s where you learn that,
Wildcards
Windows recognizes two traditional wildcard characters—*
and ?— in its searches.
A wildcard character means “whatever.” So if you search
for *tion, your search will find files named things like mo-
tion, nation, intimidation, intuition, and so on. A search like
in*ble would match terms like intangible, incredible, and
indistinguishable.
(Footnote: When placed at the beginning or in the middle
of a search query, these wildcards don’t work to find words
inside your files—only filenames. And there’s not much point
in putting a wildcard character at the end of your search
query, because Windows always acts as though there’s a
wildcard at the end. That is, if you search for fil, you’ll get
results like filly, filibuster, filbert, and so on, even without *
at the end. The * is more useful at the beginning or middle
of search terms—when searching filenames.)
Here’s a cool tip: When you open an Explorer window, typing
* into the Search box produces a flat, simple list of every
single file in it. That’s a great time-saver when you want to
scan for a certain file but don’t feel like opening all the folders
within folders within folders to find it.
Windows also recognizes the ? wildcard. The difference is
that ? means “One character appears here,” whereas the *
can stand for any number of characters (or no characters).
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 127
for example, to find all your Ohio Address Book friends, you’d search for home state
or province: OH.
Dude, if you can’t find what you’re looking for using all those controls, it probably
doesn’t exist.
Special Search Codes
Certain shortcuts in the Search boxes can give your queries more power. For example:
•Document types. You can type document to find all text, spreadsheet, and Pow-
erPoint files. You can also type a filename extension—.mp3 or .doc or .jpg, for
example—to round up all files of a certain file type.
Tip: That sort of search will include both files whose names end with that filename extension as well as
files whose text contains that extension. If you find that searching for (for example) .jpg produces too many
results, you can try ext: .jpg, or fileext: .jpg, or extension: .jpg, or even fileextension: .jpg. They all work the
same way: They limit the results to files whose names actually end with those filename extensions.
•Tags, authors. This is payoff time for applying tags or author names to your files
(page 87). In a Search box, you can type, or start to type, Gruber Project (or any
other tag you’ve assigned), and you get an instantaneous list of everything that’s
relevant to that tag. Or you can type Mom or Casey or any other author’s name to
see all the documents that person created.
•Utility apps. Windows comes with a bunch of geekhead programs that aren’t listed
in the Start menu and have no icons—advanced technical tools like RegEdit (the
Registry Editor), (the command line), and so on. By far the quickest way to open
them is to type their names into the Search box.
In this case, however, you must type the entire name—regedit, not just rege. And
you have to use the program’s actual, on-disk name (regedit), not its human name
(Registry Editor).
•Quotes. If you type in more than one word, Search works just the way Google does.
That is, it finds things that contain both words somewhere inside.
If you’re searching for a phrase where the words really belong together, though,
put quotes around them. For example, searching for military intelligence rounds up
documents that contain those two words, but not necessarily side by side. Searching
for “military intelligence” finds documents that contain that exact phrase. (Insert
your own political joke here.)
•Boolean searches. Windows also permits combination-search terms like AND and
OR, better known to geeks as Boolean searches.
That is, you can round up a single list of files that match two terms by typing, say,
vacation AND kids. (That’s also how you’d find documents coauthored by two
specific people—you and a pal, for example.)
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128 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: You can use parentheses instead of AND, if you like. That is, typing (vacation kids) finds documents
that contain both words, not necessarily together.
If you use OR, you can find icons that match either of two search criteria. Typing
jpeg OR mp3 will turn up photos and music files in a single list.
The word NOT works, too. If you did a search for dolphins, hoping to turn up sea-
mammal documents, but instead find your results contaminated by football-team
listings, then by all means repeat the search with dolphins NOT Miami. Windows
will eliminate all documents containing “Miami.”
Note: You must type Boolean terms like AND, OR, and NOT in all capitals.
You can even combine Boolean terms with the other special search terms described
in this chapter. Find everything created in the past couple of months by search-
ing for created: September OR October, for example. If you’ve been entering your
name into the Properties dialog box of Microsoft Office documents, you can find
all the ones created by Casey and Robin working together using author: (Casey
AND Robin).
Results Menu Tips
It should be no surprise that a feature as important as Search comes loaded with
options, tips, and tricks. Here it is—the official, unexpurgated Search Tip-O-Rama:
Natural Language
OK, so very cool: You can search for author: (Casey OR
Robin NOT Smith) created: <yesterday.
That’s powerful, all right, but also totally intimidating. Ask
yourself: Would your mother have any idea what that means?
The New Microsoft, the one that created Windows 7 and
tried to make it user-friendly and elegant, is way ahead of
you on this one. It has given you an alternative way to set
up criteria searches: natural-language searching. That just
means using plain English phrases instead of the usual codes.
To turn on this feature, open Folder Options. (Quickest
route: Open the Start menu and type enough of the word
folder until you see Folder Options in the results list. Click
it.) Click the Search tab and turn on “Use natural language
search.” Click OK.
From now on, you can type in search phrases like these:
documents created last week
music by Beethoven
email from Xavier
email from Robin sent yesterday
pictures of Casey taken January 2009
classical music rated *****
It may take you some time to experiment to a point where
you can trust these searches, but they’re certainly easier
than using a bunch of colons and parentheses. (Which
you can still use, by the way, even when natural language
search is turned on.)
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 129
• You can open anything in the results menu by highlighting it and then pressing
Enter to open it.
It’s incredibly convenient to open a program using this technique, because the
whole thing happens very quickly and you never have to take your hands off the
keyboard. That is, you might hit w to open the Start menu, type calc (to search
for Calculator), and press Enter.
Why does pressing Enter open Calculator? Because it’s the first item in the list of
results, and its name is highlighted.
• If Windows doesn’t find a program whose name matches what you’ve typed, it
doesn’t highlight anything in the list. In that case, pressing Enter has a different
effect: It opens up the Search Results window, which has no length limit and offers
a lot more features (page 125). (Pressing Enter, in this case, is the same as clicking
the “See more results” list at the bottom.)
Alternatively, you can use the mouse or the arrow-key/Enter method described
above to open one of the search results.
• You can learn more about a search result by pointing to it without clicking. The
pop-up tooltip balloon shows you the details. For a file, you see size, date, and
other info; for a program or control panel, you see a description.
• You can jump to the actual icon of a search result, sitting there in its actual window,
instead of opening it. To do that, right-click its name, and, from the shortcut menu,
choose “Open file location.” The Esc key (top-left corner of your keyboard) is a
quick “back out of this” keystroke. Tap it to close the results menu and restore the
Start menu to its original form.
• To clear the Search box—either to try a different search or just to get the regularly
scheduled Start menu back—click the little X at the right end of the Search box.
Beyond Your Own Stuff
Ordinarily, Windows searches only what’s in your account—
your Personal folder (page 33). From the Start menu, you
can’t search what’s inside somebody else’s stuff.
Yet you can search someone else’s account—just not from
the Start menu and not without permission.
Start by opening the Start menuÆComputerÆUsers folder.
Inside, you’ll find folders for all other account holders. Open
the one you want to search, and then search using the Search
box at the top of the Explorer window.
You won’t be given access, though, without first supplying
an administrator’s password. (You don’t necessarily have to
know it; you could just call an administrator over to type it
in personally.) After all, the whole point of having different
accounts is to ensure privacy for each person—and only the
administrator, or an administrator, has full rein to stomp
through anyone’s stuff.
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130 windows 7: the missing manual
• When you need to look up a number in Address Book, don’t bother opening Mail;
it’s faster to use Search. You can type somebody’s name or even part of someone’s
phone number.
• Among a million other things, Windows tracks the tags (keywords) you’ve applied
to your pictures. As a result, you can find, open, or insert any photo at any time,
no matter what program you’re using. This is a fantastic way to insert a photo into
an outgoing email message, a presentation, or a Web page you’re designing. (In
a page-layout program, for example, use the Insert command, and then use the
Search box that appears at the top of the Open dialog box.)
Explorer-Window Searches
All Versions
See the Search box at the top right of every Explorer window? This, too, is a piece
of the Search empire. But there’s a big difference: The Search box in the Start menu
searches your entire computer. The Search box in an Explorer window searches only
that window (and folders within it).
As you type, the window changes to show search results (in Content view) as you
type into the Search box, much the way the Start menu changes. As described on the
previous pages, a whole range of power tips is available to you, including file-type
searches, AND searches, OR searches, and so on.
The beauty of an Explorer-window search is that it’s not limited to 15 results, as the
Start menu is. If there are a lot of results, you see all of them in one massively scroll-
ing window.
Tip: What if you want to do an Explorer-window search, but no window is open? Press w-F (for “Find,”
get it?) or F3. You get what amounts to an empty Explorer window, with the insertion point already in the
Search box, ready for typing.
Unlike the Start menu search, though, the Explorer-window search offers a bonus
search feature, which Microsoft calls Search Builder and normal people call search
filters.
Search filters
As soon as you start typing into the Search box, a few words appear just beneath
it—blue links that say things like “Authors,” “Date modified,” and “Size.” These are
search filters that help you weed down a big list of results.
When you click one, a pop-up menu appears to help you specify what author you
want, or which dates modified, or how big the file is; Figure 3-3 should make this clear.
Which search filters appear depends on what kind of folder or library you’re in. In the
Documents library, your choices include Authors, Type, Date modified, Size, Name,
Folder path, Tags, and Title; for the Pictures library, you get Date taken, Tags, Type,
Search from the
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 131
Date modified, Name, Size, Folder Path, and Rating; for Music, you get Album, Artists,
Genre, Length, Folder Path, Year, Rating, and Title; and so on.
Tip: If you make the Search box bigger—by dragging the divider bar (between the address bar and the Search
box) to the left—then Windows has enough room to show you more search filters. Usually, there are eight in all.
As soon as you set up a filter like this, two alarming things happen:
•The Search box fills up with codes. You’ll see, for example, datemodified:last week,
or size:medium in blue text. These are, in fact, exactly the same codes described
on page 125. In other words, these clickable search filters are nothing more than
user-friendlified, quicker ways of entering the same search codes. If you’re more
of a keyboard person than a mouse person, it’s perfectly OK to type those codes
into the Search box manually; the result is exactly the same.
You can use as many of these filters as you want. The more you click them (or
type the corresponding shorthand), the longer the codes are in the Search box. If
you want to find medium files created by Casey last year with the tag Murgatroid
project, go right ahead.
Tip: You can adjust the second part of each code just by clicking it. For example, if you chose size:small and
you really wanted size:medium—or if the size:small query didn’t produce any results—click the word small.
The pop-up menu of sizes appears again so you can adjust your selection.
•The results window changes. Search filters work by hiding all the icons that don’t
match. So don’t be alarmed if you click Size and then Small—and most of the
files in your window suddenly disappear. Windows is doing what it thinks you
wanted—showing you only the small files—in real time, as you adjust the filters.
At any time, you can bring all the files back into view by clicking the little X at the
right end of the Search box.
Figure 3-3:
Left: As soon as you
begin typing into an
Explorer window’s
Search box, you get
clickable Search
filters like Date taken,
Tags, and Type.
Right: Clicking one
opens this pop-up
menu that controls
how to restrict your
search.
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132 windows 7: the missing manual
In any case, once the results appear in the main window, you can change the window
view if that’s helpful, or sort, filter, and group them, just as you would in any other
Explorer window.
The Search Index
All Versions
You might think that typing something into the Search box triggers a search. But to
be technically correct, Windows has already done its searching. In the first 15 to 30
minutes after you install Windows 7—or in the minutes after you attach a new hard
drive—it invisibly collects information about everything on your hard drive. Like a
kid cramming for an exam, it reads, takes notes on, and memorizes the contents of
all your files.
And not just the names of your files. That would be so 2004!
No, Windows actually looks inside the files. It can read and search the contents of text
files, email, Windows Contacts, Windows Calendar, RTF and PDF documents, and
documents from Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).
In fact, Windows searches over 115 bits of text associated with your files—a staggering
collection of tidbits, including the names of the layers in a Photoshop document, the
tempo of an MP3 file, the shutter speed of a digital-camera photo, a movie’s copyright
holder, a document’s page size, and on and on. (Technically, this sort of secondary
information is called metadata. It’s usually invisible, although a lot of it shows up in
the Details pane described in Chapter 2.)
Windows stores all this information in an invisible, multimegabyte file called, creatively
enough, the index. (If your primary hard drive is creaking full, you can specify that
you want the index stored on some other drive; see page 137.)
Once it’s indexed your hard drive in this way, Windows can produce search results
in seconds. It doesn’t have to search your entire hard drive—only that single card-
catalog index file.
After the initial indexing process, Windows continues to monitor what’s on your
hard drive, indexing new and changed files in the background, in the microseconds
between your keystrokes and clicks.
Where Windows Looks
Windows doesn’t actually scrounge through every file on your computer. Searching
inside Windows’s own operating-system files and all your programs, for example,
would be pointless to anyone but programmers. All that useless data would slow
down searches and bulk up the invisible index file.
What Windows does index is everything in your Personal folder (page 33): email,
pictures, music, videos, program names, entries in your Address Book and Calendar,
Office documents, and so on. It also searches all your libraries (page 81), even if they
contain folders from other computers on your network.
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Similarly, it searches offline files that belong to you, even though they’re stored some-
where else on the network (page 622). Finally, it indexes everything in the Start menu.
Note: Windows indexes all the drives connected to your PC, but not other hard drives on the network. You
can, if you wish, add other folders to the list of indexed locations manually (page 133).
Windows does index the Personal folders of everyone else with an account on your
machine (Chapter 23), but you’re not allowed to search them from the Start menu.
So if you were hoping to search your spouse’s email for phrases like “meet you at
midnight,” forget it.
The Older, Slower Kind of Search
If you try to search anything Windows hasn’t incorporated into its index—in a Win-
dows system folder, for example, or a hard drive elsewhere on the network—a message
appears. It lets you know that because you’re working beyond the index’s wisdom,
the search is going to be slow, and the search will include filenames only—not file
contents or metadata.
Furthermore, this kind of outside-the-index searching doesn’t find things as you
type. This time, you have to press Enter after typing the name (or partial name) of
what you want to find.
Adding New Places to the Index
On the other hand, suppose there’s some folder on another disk (or elsewhere on the
network) that you really do want to be able to search the good way—contents and all,
nice and fast. You can do that by adding it to your PC’s search index.
And you can do that in a couple of ways:
•Add it to a library. Drag any folder into one of your libraries (page 81). After a
couple of minutes of indexing, that folder is now ready for insta-searching, contents
and all, just as though it were born on your own PC.
•Add it to the Indexing Options dialog box. Windows maintains a master list of
everything in its search index. That’s handy, because it means you can easily add
folders to the index—folders from an external hard drive, for example—for speedy
searches.
You can remove folders from the index, too, maybe because you have privacy con-
cerns (for example, you don’t want your spouse searching your stuff while you’re
away from your desk). Or maybe you just want to create more focused searches,
removing a lot of old, extraneous junk from Windows’s database.
Either way, the steps are simple. Open the Indexing Options control panel; the
quickest way is to open the Start menu and start typing indexing until you see
Indexing Options in the search results. Click it, and proceed as shown in Figure 3-4.
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134 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: If you’re trying to get some work done while Windows is in the middle of building the index, and the
indexing is giving your PC all the speed of a slug in winter, you can click the Pause button. Windows will cool
its jets for 15 minutes before it starts indexing again.
Customizing Search
You’ve just read about how Search works fresh out of the box. But you can tailor its
behavior, both for security reasons and to customize it to the kinds of work you do.
Unfortunately for you, Microsoft has stashed the various controls that govern search-
ing into three different places. Here they are, one area at a time:
Folder Options
The first source is in the Folder OptionsÆSearch dialog box. To open it, choose
OrganizeÆ“Folder and search options” in any Explorer window. In the resulting
dialog box, click the Search tab. You wind up at the dialog box shown in Figure 3-5.
•What to search. As the previous pages make clear, the Windows search mecha-
nism relies on an index—an invisible database that tracks the location, contents,
and metadata of every file. If you attach a new hard drive, or attempt to search
another computer on the network that hasn’t been indexed, Windows ordinarily
just searches its files’ names. After all, it has no index to search for that drive.
Figure 3-4:
You can add or remove disks,
partitions, or folders in the
list of searchable items. Start
by opening Indexing Options
(left), then click Modify. Now
expand the flippy triangles,
if necessary, to see the list of
folders on your hard drive.
Turn a folder’s checkbox on
(to have Windows index it)
or off (to remove it from the
index, and therefore from
searches). In this example,
you’ve just told Windows to
stop indexing your Downloads
folder. Click OK.
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If Windows did attempt to index those other drives, you’d sometimes have to wait
awhile, at least the first time, because index-building isn’t instantaneous. That’s why
the factory setting here is: “In indexed locations, search file names and contents.
In non-indexed locations, search file names only.”
But if you really want Windows to search the text inside the other drives’ files,
even without an index—which can be painfully slow—turn on “Always search file
names and contents” instead.
•Include subfolders in search results when searching in file folders. When you use
the Search box at the top of an Explorer window, Windows ordinarily searches the
currently open window and the folders inside it. Turn off this option if you want
to search only what you see in the window before you.
•Find partial matches. Turn this off if you want Windows to find only whole-word
matches, meaning that you’ll no longer be able to type waff to find Mom’s Best
Waffle Recipes of the Eighties.doc.
•Use natural language search. See the box on page 128.
Figure 3-5:
Search actually works beautifully right out of
the box. For the benefit of the world’s tweakers,
however, this dialog box awaits, filled with
technical adjustments to the way Search works.
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136 windows 7: the missing manual
•Don’t use the Index when searching in file folders for system files. If you turn
this item on, Windows won’t use its internal Dewey Decimal System for searching
Windows itself. It will, instead, perform the names-only, slower type of search.
So who on earth would want this turned on? You, if you’re a programmer or system
administrator and you’re worried that the indexed version of the system files might
be out of date. (That happens, since system files change often, and the index may
take some time to catch up.)
•Include system directories. When you’re searching a disk that hasn’t been indexed,
do you want Windows to look inside the folders that contain Windows itself (as
opposed to just the documents people have created)? If yes, turn this on.
•Include compressed files (.zip, .cab…). When you’re searching a disk that hasn’t
been indexed, do you want Windows to search for files inside compressed archives,
like .zip and .cab files? If yes, turn on this checkbox. (Windows doesn’t ordinarily
search archives, even on an indexed hard drive.)
Indexing Options
The dialog box shown in Figure 3-6 is the master control over the search index, the
massive, invisible, constantly updated database file that tracks your PC’s files and
what’s in them. As described on page 133, you can use this dialog box to add or remove
folders from what Windows is tracking.
But there are a few more handy options here, too:
Advanced Indexing Options
To find this third area of search options, start in the Indexing Options dialog box
(Control Panel) and click Advanced. Authenticate if necessary (see page 726). Now
you’re ready to perform these powerful additional tweaks:
•Index encrypted files. Some Windows 7 versions (Professional, Enterprise, and
Ultimate) can encrypt files and folders with a quick click, making them unread-
able to anyone who receives one by email, say, and doesn’t have the password. This
checkbox lets Windows index these files (the ones that you’ve encrypted, of course;
this isn’t a back door to files you can’t otherwise access).
•Treat similar words with diacritics as different words. The word “ole,” as might
appear cutely in a phrase like “the ole swimming pool,” is quite a bit different from
“olé,” as in, “You missed the matador, you big fat bull!” The difference is a diacritical
mark (øne öf mâny littlé lañguage märks).
Ordinarily, Windows ignores diacritical marks; it treats “ole” and “olé” as the same
word in searches. That’s designed to make it easier for the average person who can’t
remember how to type a certain marking, or even which direction it goes. But if
you turn on this box, Windows will observe these markings and treat marked and
unmarked words differently.
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 137
•Troubleshoot searching. If the Search command ever seems to be acting wacky—
for example, it’s not finding a document you know is there—Microsoft is there
to help you.
Your first step should be to click “Troubleshoot search and indexing.” (It appears
both here, on the Advanced panel, and on the main Indexing Options panel.) The
resulting step-by-step sequence may fix things.
If it doesn’t, click Advanced, and then click Rebuild. Now Windows wipes out the
index it’s been working with, completely deleting it—and then begins to rebuild it.
You’re shown a list of the disks and folders Windows has been instructed to index;
the message at the top of the dialog box lets you know its progress. With luck, this
process will wipe out any funkiness you’ve been experiencing.
•Move the index. Ordinarily, Windows stores its invisible index file on your main
hard drive. But you might have good reason for wanting to move it. Maybe your
main drive is getting full. Or maybe you’ve bought a second, faster hard drive; if
you store your index there, searching will be even faster.
In the Advanced Options dialog box, click “Select new.” Navigate to the disk or
folder where you want the index to go, and then click OK. (The actual transfer of
the file takes place the next time you start up Windows.)
Figure 3-6:
Using the “How should this file be indexed”
options at the bottom of the box, you can also
make Windows stop searching these files’
contents—the text within them—for better speed
and a smaller index.
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138 windows 7: the missing manual
•Teach Windows about new kinds of files. Windows ordinarily searches for just
about every kind of useful file: audio files, program files, text and graphics files,
and so on. It doesn’t bother peering inside things like Windows operating system
files and applications, because what’s inside them is programming code with little
relevance to most people’s work. Omitting these files from the index keeps the
index smaller and the searches fast.
But what if you routinely traffic in very rare Venezuelan Beekeeping Interchange
Format (VBIF) documents—a file type your copy of Windows has never met
before? You won’t be able to search for their contents unless you specifically teach
Windows about them.
In the Advanced Options dialog box, click the File Types tab. Type the filename
extension (such as VBIF) into the text box at the lower left. Click Add and then
OK. From now on, Windows will index this new file type.
•Turn off categories. If you find that Windows uses up valuable search-results menu
space listing, say, Web bookmarks—stuff you don’t need to find very often—you
can tell it not to bother. Now the results menu’s precious 15 slots will be allotted
to icon types you care more about.
To remove file types from searches, click the Advanced button in the dialog box
shown in Figure 3-4, authenticate if necessary, and then click the File Types tab
in the resulting dialog box (Figure 3-6). Turn the checkboxes on or off to make
Windows start or stop indexing them.
Saved Searches
All Versions
When you do a search that winds up in an Explorer window (for example, you hit
“See more results” in the Start menu, or you started in an Explorer window to begin
with), you may notice a little button in the toolbar called “Save search.”
This button generates a saved search. Whenever you click it, you get an instantaneous
update of the search you originally set up. (Behind the scenes, it’s a special document
with the filename extension .search-ms.)
To create a saved search, open an Explorer window and perform a search. By all means,
use the search filters described on page 130 for more exactitude.
Now, as you survey the search results, click “Save search” in the task toolbar (Figure
3-7, top). You’re asked to name and save your search. Windows proposes stashing it
in your Saved Searches folder (which is in your Personal folder), but you can expand
the Save As box and choose any location you like—including the desktop.
Either way, you also wind up with an icon for your saved search. Unless you changed
the location manually, it shows up as an icon in the Favorites section of the Naviga-
tion pane in every Explorer window.
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Here’s a common example: Suppose that every week you want to round up all the
documents authored by either you or your business partner that pertain to the Hig-
gins proposal and burn them onto a CD. A search folder can do the rounding-up
part with a single click.
So you open your Documents library (or even your Personal folder) and set up a
search. In the search box, you type tags: Higgins authors: casey OR authors: robin. That
text turns blue, meaning that Windows understands what you’re looking for: anything
with the Higgins tag that was written by Casey or Robin (or whatever your names are).
(Of course, you’ve been painstakingly tagging your documents with author names
and tags, in readiness for this glorious moment.)
You click “Save search.” You name the search something like “Our Higgins Files” and
save it to your hard drive (Figure 3-7).
From now on, whenever you click that Search icon in your Navigation pane, it opens
to reveal all the files you’ve worked on that were tagged with “Higgins” and written
by you or your partner. The great part is that these items’ real locations may be all
Figure 3-7:
Windows can preserve
your search as a saved
search that does its
duties instantly every
time you click it.
Top: First, do the search
using the usual controls.
Click “Save search,”
shown here.
Middle: Save the search
folder wherever you like,
but it’ll be easy to find
it if you stash it in the
Saved Searches folder,
as Windows is suggesting
here.
Bottom: Your saved
search is ready to use!
Its icon appears in the
Favorite Links list at the
left side of every window.
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140 windows 7: the missing manual
over the map, scattered in folders throughout your PC. But through the magic of the
saved search, they appear as though they’re all in one neat window.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to edit a search folder. If you decide your original
search criteria need a little fine-tuning, then the simplest procedure is to set up a new
search—correctly this time—and save it with the same name as the first one; accept
Windows’s offer to replace the old one with the new.
Tip: Speaking of memorized searches: You might have noticed that the Search box in every Explorer window
maintains a running list of all the searches you’ve performed so far. They appear in a drop-down menu when
you click in the Search box.
If that list contains, ahem, some searches of a personal nature, or maybe just some annoying typos, you
might wish you could delete individual items from this list. You can. Press , or . to highlight the one you
want (or, rather, don’t want), and then press Delete.
The Folders of Windows 7
All Versions
The top-level, all-encompassing, mother-ship window of your PC is the Computer
window. From within this window, you have access to every disk, folder, and file on
your computer. Its slogan might well be, “If it’s not in here, it’s not on your PC.”
To see it, choose StartÆComputer.
Figure 3-8:
The Computer window is
the starting point for any
and all folder-digging.
It shows the “top-level”
folders: the disk drives
of your PC. If you
double-click the icon of
a removable-disk drive
(such as your CD or DVD
drive), you receive only
a “Please insert a disk”
message, unless there’s
actually a disk in the
drive.
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You wind up face to face with the icons of every storage gizmo connected to your
PC: hard drives, CD and DVD drives, USB flash drives, digital cameras, and so on
(Figure 3-8).
Tip: Ordinarily, every drive has an icon in here, even if no disk or memory card is in it. That can be annoying
if your laptop has, for example, four memory-card slots, each for a different kind of card, labeled D:, E:, F:,
and G:, and your Computer window is getting a little hard to navigate.
Fortunately, a new option in Windows 7 hides your drive icons when they’re empty, just as on the Mac. To
turn it on or off, open Folder Options (type folder into the Start menu Search box to find it quickly). Click the
View tab. Click “Hide empty drives in the Computer folder,” and then click OK.
If you leave this option on, then your removable-disk/card drives appear only when something’s in them—a
CD, DVD, or memory card, for example.
Most people, most of the time, are most concerned with the Local Disk (C:), which
represents the internal hard drive preinstalled in your computer. (You’re welcome to
rename this icon, by the way, just as you would any icon.)
Tip: The drive lettering, such as C: for your main hard drive, is an ancient convention that doesn’t offer much
relevance these days. (Back at the dawn of computing, the A: and B: drives were floppy drives, which is why
you rarely see those letters anymore.)
Since Windows now displays icons and plain-English names for your drives, you might consider the drive-
letter display to be a bit old-fashioned and cluttery. Fortunately, you can hide the drive letter (page 100).
What’s in the Local Disk (C:) Window
If you double-click the Local Disk (C:) icon in Computer—that is, your primary hard
drive—you’ll find, at least, these standard folders:
PerfLogs
Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor is one of those hidden maintenance
apps, as described on pages 706-707, that knowledgeable tech gurus can use to mea-
sure your PC’s health and speed. This folder is where it dumps its logs, or reports.
Program Files
This folder contains all your applications—Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, your
games, and so on.
Of course, a Windows program isn’t a single, self-contained icon. Instead, it’s usu-
ally a folder, housing both the program and its phalanx of support files and folders.
The actual application icon itself generally can’t even run if it’s separated from its
support group.
Program Files (x86)
If you’ve installed a 64-bit version of Windows 7 (page 263), this folder is where
Windows puts all your older 32-bit programs.
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142 windows 7: the missing manual
Users
Windows’s accounts feature is ideal for situations where different family members,
students, or workers use the same machine at different times. Each account holder
will turn on the machine to find her own separate, secure set of files, folders, desktop
pictures, Web bookmarks, font collections, and preference settings. (Much more about
this feature in Chapter 23.)
In any case, now you should see the importance of the Users folder. Inside is one folder
—one Personal folder—for each person who has an account on this PC. In general,
standard account holders (page 716) aren’t allowed to open anybody else’s folder.
Note: On page 81, you can read about libraries. Well, inside the Documents library, you’ll see Public Docu-
ments; in the Music library, you’ll see Public Music; and so on. These are nothing more than pointers to the
master Public folder that you can also see here, in the Users folder. (Anything you put into a Public folder is
available for inspection by anyone else with an account on your PC, or even other people on your network.)
Windows
Here’s a folder that Microsoft hopes you’ll just ignore. This most hallowed folder
contains Windows itself, the thousands of little files that make Windows, well, Win-
dows. Most of these folders and files have cryptic names that appeal to cryptic people.
In general, the healthiest PC is one whose Windows folder has been left alone.
Your Personal Folder
Everything that makes your Windows experience your own sits inside the Local Disk
(C:)ÆUsersÆ[your name] folder. This is your Personal folder, where Windows stores
your preferences, documents, email, pictures, music, Web favorites, cookies (described
below), and so on. You can get to it more directly by choosing your name from the
top right of the Start menu.
Tip: Actually, it would make a lot of sense for you to install your Personal folder’s icon in the Favorites list
at the left side of every Explorer window. The easiest way to do that is to open your Personal folder (choose
your name from the Start menu’s right side) and then drag the tiny icon from the left end of the address
bar directly into the Favorites list.
Inside your Personal folder, you’ll find folders like these:
•Contacts. An address-book program called Windows Contacts came with Win-
dows Vista, but Microsoft gave it the ol’ pink slip for Windows 7. All that’s left is
this folder, where it used to stash the information about your social circle. The
toolbar still has some buttons like New Contact and New Contact Group, but no
other programs tap into whatever “cards” you make here. (Some other companies’
address-book programs can use this folder, too.)
•Desktop. When you drag an icon out of a folder or disk window and onto your
desktop, it may appear to show up on the desktop. But that’s just an optical
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illusion—a visual convenience. In truth, nothing in Windows is ever really on the
desktop; it’s just in this Desktop folder, and mirrored on the desktop.
Remember that everyone who shares your machine will, upon logging in (page
737), see his own stuff sitting out on the desktop. Now you know how Windows
does it; there’s a separate Desktop folder in every person’s Personal folder.
You can entertain yourself for hours trying to prove this. If you drag something out
of your Desktop folder, it also disappears from the actual desktop. And vice versa.
Note: A link to this folder appears in the Navigation pane of every Explorer window.
•Downloads. When you download anything from the Web, Internet Explorer sug-
gests storing it on your computer in this Downloads folder. The idea is to save
you the frustration of downloading stuff and then not being able to find it later.
Tip: The Downloads folder appears in your Favorite Links list, too, so you can find your downloaded goodies
with a single click.
•Favorites. This folder stores shortcuts of the files, folders, and other items you’ve
designated as favorites (that is, Web bookmarks). This can be handy if you want to
delete a bunch of your favorites all at once, rename them, or whatever.
•Links. This folder’s icons correspond exactly to the easy-access links in the Favorite
Links list at the left side of your Explorer windows (page 77). Knowing this little
tidbit can be handy if you want to delete these links, rename them, or add to them.
(Yes, you can perform these duties directly in the Favorite Links lists, but only one
link at a time.)
Why “My” is Back
OK, I remember that Windows XP and earlier versions had
“My” in front of all the folder names. You know: My Pictures,
My Music, My Documents. I always thought it looked a little
goofy, like, you know, it was My First Operating System.
Then the “My” disappeared in Windows Vista, which I
thought was great.
But now “My” is back on those folder names in Windows
7! What gives?
In testing, Microsoft found that potential Windows 7 users
were getting confused. They couldn’t tell the difference
between the Documents library and each individual’s Docu-
ments folder. (Review Chapter 2 for the difference.)
Now, it’s true that your My Documents folder is one of the
folders that makes up the Documents library, but it’s still
really easy to get confused.
So Microsoft put “My” back on those folder names so you
can tell them apart from the libraries that have similar names.
If the “My” on the names of your folders (in your Personal
folder) bugs you, though, no biggie. You can rename these
folders just as you would any other folder. Take off the “My,”
if you’re so inclined. No harm done.
frequently asked question
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144 windows 7: the missing manual
•My Documents. Microsoft suggests that you keep your actual work files in this
folder. Sure enough, whenever you save a new document (when you’re working
in Word or Photoshop Elements, for example), the Save As box proposes storing
the new file in this folder.
Tip: You can move the My Documents folder, if you like. For example, you can move it to a removable
drive, like a pocket hard drive or USB flash drive, so that you can take it back and forth to work with you and
always have your latest files at hand.
To do so, open your My Documents folder. Right-click a blank spot in the window; from the shortcut menu,
choose Properties. Click the Location tab, click Move, navigate to the new location, and click Select Folder.
What’s cool is that the Documents link in every Explorer window’s Navigation pane still opens your My
Documents folder. What’s more, your programs still propose storing new documents there—even though
it’s not where Microsoft originally put it.
•My Music, My Pictures, My Videos. You guessed it: These are Microsoft’s proposed
homes for your multimedia files. These are where song files from ripped CDs,
photos from digital cameras, and videos from camcorders go.
•Saved Games. When you save a computer game that’s already in progress, it should
propose storing it here, so you can find it again later. (Needless to say, it may take
some time before all the world’s games are updated to know about this folder.)
•Searches. This folder stores shortcuts that correspond to any search folders you
create and lists the starter set that Microsoft provides. Its contents show up in the
Favorites list of the Navigation pane.
Note: Your Personal folder also stores a few hidden items reserved for use by Windows itself. One of them
is AppData, a very important folder that stores all kinds of support files for your programs (it was called Ap-
plication Data in Windows XP). For example, it stores word-processor dictionaries, Web cookies, your Media
Center recordings, Internet Explorer security certificates, changes you’ve made to your Start menu, and so
on. In general, there’s not much reason for you to poke around in them, but in this book, here and there,
you’ll find tips and tricks that refer you to AppData.
Life with Icons
All Versions
Windows Explorer, the program that runs automatically when you turn on your PC,
has only one purpose in life: to help you manage your file, folder, and disk icons. You
could spend your entire workday just mastering the techniques of naming, copying,
moving, and deleting these icons—and plenty of people do.
Here’s the crash course:
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Renaming Your Icons
To rename a file, folder, printer, or disk icon, you need to open up its “renaming
rectangle.” You can do so with any of the following methods:
• Highlight the icon and then press the F2 key at the top of your keyboard.
• Click carefully, just once, on a previously highlighted icon’s name.
• Right-click the icon and choose Rename from the shortcut menu.
Tip: You can even rename your hard drive so you don’t go your entire career with a drive named “Local
Disk.” Just rename its icon (in the Computer window) as you would any other.
In any case, once the renaming rectangle has appeared, type the new name you want,
and then press Enter. Use all the standard text-editing tricks: Press Backspace to fix a
typo, press the < and > keys to position the insertion point, and so on. When you’re
finished editing the name, press Enter to make it stick. (If another icon in the folder
has the same name, Windows beeps and makes you choose another name.)
Tip: If you highlight a bunch of icons at once and then open the renaming rectangle for any one of them,
you wind up renaming all of them. For example, if you’ve highlighted three folders called Cats, Dogs, and
Fish, then renaming one of them Animals changes the original set of names to Animals (1), Animals (2),
and Animals (3).
If that’s not what you want, press Ctrl+Z (that’s the keystroke for Undo) to restore all the original names.
A folder or filename can technically be up to 260 characters long. In practice, though,
you won’t be able to produce filenames that long; that’s because that maximum must
also include the file extension (the three-letter suffix that identifies the file type) and
even the file’s folder path (like C:\Users\Casey\My Pictures).
Note, too, that because they’re reserved for behind-the-scenes use, Windows doesn’t
let you use any of these symbols in a Windows filename: \ / : * ? “ < > |
You can give more than one file or folder the same name, as long as they’re not in
the same folder.
Note: Windows 7 comes factory-set not to show you filename extensions. That’s why you sometimes might
think you see two different files called, say, “Quarterly Sales, ” both in the same folder.
The explanation is that one filename may end with .doc (a Word document), and the other may end with
.xls (an Excel document). But because these suffixes are hidden (page 242), the files look like they have
exactly the same name.
Icon Properties
Properties are a big deal in Windows. Properties are preference settings that you can
change independently for every icon on your machine.
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146 windows 7: the missing manual
To view the properties for an icon, choose from these techniques, the first four of
which open the Properties dialog box:
• Right-click the icon; choose Properties from the shortcut menu.
• Highlight the icon in an Explorer window; choose OrganizeÆProperties.
• While pressing Alt, double-click the icon.
• Highlight the icon; press Alt+Enter.
• Open the Details pane in an Explorer window (page 75), and then click an icon
in the window.
Figure 3-9:
The Properties dialog
boxes are different for
every kind of icon. In
the months and years to
come, you may find many
occasions when adjusting
the behavior of some icon
has big benefits in simplic-
ity and productivity.
Top left: The old System
Properties dialog box,
which opens when you
click some of the links on
the left side of the new
dialog box (bottom).
Top right: The Properties
dialog box for a Word
document.
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Tip: You can also see some basic info about any icon (type, size, and so on) by pointing to it without clicking.
A little info balloon pops up, saving you the trouble of opening the Properties box or even the Details pane.
These settings aren’t the same for every kind of icon, however. Here’s what you can
expect when opening the Properties dialog boxes of various icons (Figure 3-9):
Computer
There are about 500 different ways to open the Properties dialog box for your Com-
puter icon. The quickest is to right-click Computer in the Start menu. Another is to
open the System icon in the Control Panel (Chapter 8).
Either way, the System Properties window is packed with useful information about
your machine: what kind of processor is inside, how much memory (RAM) your PC
has, its overall “Experience Index” (horsepower score), and what version of Windows
you’ve got.
The panel at the left side of the window (shown in Figure 3-9) includes some useful
links—Device Manager, Remote settings, System protection, and Advanced system
settings—all of which are described in the appropriate chapters of this book.
Note, however, that most of them work by opening the old System Properties Control
Panel, also shown in Figure 3-9. Its tabs give a terse, but more complete, look at the
tech specs and features of your PC. These, too, are described in the relevant parts of
this book—all except “Computer Name.” Here, you can type a plain-English name
for your computer (“Casey’s Laptop,” for example). That’s how it will appear to other
people on the network, if you have one.
Disks
In a disk’s Properties dialog box, you can see all kinds of information about the disk
itself, like its name (which you can change), its capacity (which you can’t change),
and how much of it is full.
This dialog box’s various tabs are also gateways to a host of maintenance and backup
features, including Disk Cleanup, Error-checking, Defrag, Backup, and Quotas; all of
these are described in Chapters 20 and 21.
Data files
The properties for a plain old document depend on what kind of document it is. You
always see a General tab, but other tabs may also appear (especially for Microsoft
Office files).
•General. This screen offers all the obvious information about the document—
location, size, modification date, and so on. The read-only checkbox locks the
document. In the read-only state, you can open the document and read it, but you
can’t make any changes to it.
Note: If you make a folder read-only, it affects only the files already inside. If you add additional files later,
they remain editable.
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Hidden turns the icon invisible. It’s a great way to prevent something from being
deleted, but because the icon becomes invisible, you may find it a bit difficult to
open yourself.
The Advanced button offers a few additional options. “File is ready for archiving”
means, “Back me up.” This message is intended for the Backup and Restore program
described in Chapter 22, and it indicates that this document has been changed
since the last time it was backed up (or that it’s never been backed up). “Index this
file for faster searching” lets you indicate that this file should, or should not, be part
of the quick-search index described earlier in this chapter.
“Compress contents to save disk space” is described later in this chapter. Finally,
“Encrypt contents to secure data” is described on page 681. (These features aren’t
available in the cheaper versions of Windows 7.)
•Custom. As explained below, the Properties window of Office documents includes
a Summary tab that lets you look up a document’s word count, author, revision
number, and many other statistics. But you should by no means feel limited to
these 21 properties—nor to Office documents.
Using the Custom tab, you can create properties of your own—Working Title,
Panic Level, Privacy Quotient, or whatever you like. Just specify a property type
using the Type pop-up menu (Text, Date, Number, Yes/No); type the property
name into the Name text box (or choose one of the canned options in its pop-up
menu); and then click Add.
You can then fill in the Value text box for the individual file in question (so that
its Panic Level is Red Alert, for example).
Note: This is an older form of tagging files—a lot like the tags feature described on page 86—except that you
can’t use Windows Search to find them. Especially technical people can, however, perform query-language
searches for these values.
• The Summary tab reveals the sorts of details—tags, categories, authors, and so
on—that are searchable by Windows’s search command. You can edit these little
tidbits right in the dialog box.
This box also tells you how many words, lines, and paragraphs are in a particular
Word document. For a graphics document, the Summary tab indicates the graphic’s
dimensions, resolution, and color settings.
• The Previous Versions tab (Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of
Windows only) lets you revert a document or a folder to an earlier version. It’s part
of the Shadow Copy automatic backup system described on page 700.
Folders
The Properties dialog box for a folder offers five (or six) tabs:
•General. Here you find the same sorts of checkboxes as you do for data files,
described above.
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•Sharing makes the folder susceptible to invasion by other people—either in person,
when they log into this PC, or from across your office network (see Chapter 26).
•Security has to do with the technical NTFS permissions of a folder, technical on/
off switches that govern who can do what to the contents (page 744). You see it
only if your PC is running a high-end version of Windows 7, and only if the hard
drive is formatted with NTFS.
•Location. This tab appears only for folders you’ve included in a library (page 81).
It identifies where the folder really sits.
•Previous Versions lets you rewind a document to an earlier state; see page 700.
•Customize. The first pop-up menu here lets you apply a folder template to any
folder: General Items, Documents, Pictures, Music, or Videos. A template is noth-
ing more than a canned layout with a predesigned set of task toolbar buttons, icon
sizes, column headings, and Search-box filters.
You may already have noticed that your Pictures library displays a nice big thumb-
nail icon for each of your photos, and your Music library presents a tidy Details-
view list of all your songs, with toolbar buttons like “Play all,” “Share with,” and
“Burn.” Here’s your chance to apply those same expertly designed templates to
folders of your own making.
This dialog box also lets you change the icon for a folder, as described in the next
section.
Program files
There’s not much here that you can change yourself, but you certainly get a lot to look
at. For starters, there are the General and Details tabs described above.
But there’s also an important Compatibility tab, which may one day come to save
your bacon. As described on page 259, it lets you trick a pre-Windows 7 program into
running on Microsoft’s latest.
Changing Your Icons’ Icons
You can change the actual, inch-tall illustrations that Windows uses to represent the
little icons replete in your electronic world. You can’t, however, use a single method
to do so; Microsoft has divided up the controls between two different locations.
Standard Windows icons
First, you can also change the icon for some of the important Windows desktop
icons: the Recycle Bin, Documents, and so on. To do so, right-click a blank spot on
the desktop. From the shortcut menu, choose Personalize. (This isn’t available in the
Starter edition of Windows 7.)
In the resulting window, click “Change desktop icons” in the task pane at the left side.
You’ll see a collection of those important Windows icons. Click one, and then click
Change Icon to choose a replacement from a collection Microsoft provides. (You
haven’t lived until you’ve made your Recycle Bin look like a giant blue thumbtack!)
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Folder or shortcut icons
Ordinarily, when your Explorer window is in Tiles, Content, or a fairly big Icon view,
each folder’s icon resembles what’s in it. You actually see a tiny photo, music album,
or Word document peeking out of the open-folder icon.
This means, however, that the icon may actually change over time, as you put different
things into it. If you’d rather freeze a folder’s icon so it doesn’t keep changing, you can
choose an image that will appear to peek out from inside that folder.
Note: The following steps also let you change what a certain shortcut icon looks like. Unfortunately, Windows
offers no way to change an actual document’s icon.
Actually, you have two ways to change a folder’s icon. Both begin the same way: Right-
click the folder or shortcut whose icon you want to change. From the shortcut menu,
choose Properties, then click the Customize tab. Now you have a choice (Figure 3-10):
•Change what image is peeking out of the file-folder icon. Click Choose File. Win-
dows now lets you hunt for icons on your hard drive. These can be picture files,
icons downloaded from the Internet, icons embedded inside program files and
.dll files, or icons you’ve made yourself using a freeware or shareware icon-making
program. Find the graphic, click it, click Open, and then click OK.
It may take a couple of minutes for Windows to update the folder image, but
eventually, you see your hand-selected image “falling out” of the file-folder icon.
•Completely replace the file-folder image. Click Change Icon. Windows offers up
a palette of canned graphics; click the one you want, and then click OK. Instantly,
the original folder bears the new image.
Selecting Icons
All Versions
Before you can delete, rename, move, copy, or otherwise tamper with any icon, you
have to be able to select it somehow. By highlighting it, you’re essentially telling Win-
dows what you want to operate on.
Figure 3-10:
Left: The original folder icon.
Middle: You’ve replaced the image that seems to be falling out
of it.
Right: You’ve completely replaced the folder icon.
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Use the Mouse
To select one icon, just click it once. To select multiple icons at once—in preparation
for moving, copying, renaming, or deleting them en masse, for example—use one
of these techniques:
•Select all. Highlight all the icons in a window by choosing OrganizeÆSelect all.
(Or press Ctrl+A, its keyboard equivalent.)
•Highlight several consecutive icons. Start with your cursor above and to one side
of the icons, and then drag diagonally. As you drag, you create a temporary shaded
blue rectangle. Any icon that falls within this rectangle darkens to indicate that
it’s been selected.
Alternatively, click the first icon you want to highlight, and then Shift+click the
last file. All the files in between are automatically selected, along with the two icons
you clicked. (These techniques work in any folder view: Details, Icon, Content,
or whatever.)
Tip: If you include a particular icon in your diagonally dragged group by mistake, Ctrl+click it to remove it
from the selected cluster.
•Highlight nonconsecutive icons. Suppose you want to highlight only the first, third,
and seventh icons in the list. Start by clicking icon No. 1; then Ctrl+click each of
the others. (If you Ctrl+click a selected icon again, you deselect it. A good time to
use this trick is when you highlight an icon by accident.)
Tip: The Ctrl key trick is especially handy if you want to select almost all the icons in a window. Press Ctrl+A
to select everything in the folder, then Ctrl+click any unwanted subfolders to deselect them.
Use the Keyboard
You can also highlight one icon, plucking it out of a sea of pretenders, by typing the
first few letters of its name. Type nak, for example, to select an icon called “Naked
Chef Broadcast Schedule.”
Checkbox Selection
It’s great that you can select icons by holding down a key and clicking—if you can
remember which key must be pressed.
Turns out novices were befuddled by the requirement to Ctrl+click icons when they
wanted to choose more than one. So Microsoft did something in Windows that
nobody’s ever done before—it created a checkbox mode. In this mode, any icon you
point to temporarily sprouts a little checkbox that you can click to select (Figure 3-11).
To turn this feature on, open any Explorer window, and then choose OrganizeÆFolder
and search options. Click the View tab, scroll down in the list of settings, and then
turn on “Use check boxes to select items.” Click OK.
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152 windows 7: the missing manual
Now, anytime you point to an icon, an on/off checkbox appears. No secret keystrokes
are necessary now for selecting icons; it’s painfully obvious how you’re supposed to
choose only a few icons out of a gaggle.
Eliminating Double-Clicks
In some ways, an Explorer window is just like Internet Explorer, the Web browser. It
has a Back button, an address bar, and so on.
If you enjoy this PC-as-browser effect, you can actually take it one step further. You
can set up your PC so that one click, not two, opens an icon. It’s a strange effect that
some people adore—and others turn off as fast as their little fingers will let them.
In any Explorer window, choose OrganizeÆFolder and search options.
The Folder Options control panel opens. Turn on “Single-click to open an item (point
to select).” Then indicate when you want your icon’s names turned into underlined
links by selecting “Underline icon titles consistent with my browser” (that is, all icons’
names appear as links) or “Underline icon titles only when I point at them.” Click
OK. The deed is done.
Now, if a single click opens an icon, you’re entitled to wonder how you’re supposed
to select an icon (which you’d normally do with a single click). Take your pick:
• Point to it for about a half-second without clicking. (To make multiple selections,
press the Ctrl key as you point to additional icons. And to drag an icon, just ignore
all this pointing stuff—simply drag as usual.)
• Turn on the checkbox mode described above.
Selecting Icons
Figure 3-11:
Each time you point
to an icon, a clickable
checkbox appears. Once
you turn it on, the check-
box remains visible,
making it easy to select
several icons at once.
What’s cool about the
checkboxes feature is
that it doesn’t preclude
your using the old click-
to-select method; if you
click an icon’s name,
you deselect all check-
boxes except that one.
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Copying and Moving Folders and Files
All Versions
Windows offers two techniques for moving files and folders from one place to another:
dragging them and using the Copy and Paste commands.
Whichever method you choose, you start by showing Windows which icons you want
to copy or move—by highlighting them, as described on the previous pages. Then
proceed as follows:
Copying by Dragging Icons
You can drag icons from one folder to another, from one drive to another, from a
drive to a folder on another drive, and so on. (When you’ve selected several icons,
drag any one of them, and the others will go along for the ride.)
Here’s what happens when you drag icons in the usual way (using the left mouse
button):
• Dragging to another folder on the same disk moves the folder or file.
• Dragging from one disk to another copies the folder or file.
• Holding down the Ctrl key while dragging to another folder on the same disk
copies the icon. (If you do so within a single window, Windows creates a duplicate
of the file called “[Filename] - Copy.”)
• Pressing Shift while dragging from one disk to another moves the folder or file
(without leaving a copy behind).
Tip: You can move or copy icons by dragging them either into an open window or directly onto a disk or
folder icon.
The right-mouse-button trick
Think you’ll remember all those possibilities every time you drag an icon? Probably
not. Fortunately, you never have to. One of the most important tricks you can learn
is to use the right mouse button as you drag. When you release the button, the menu
shown in Figure 3-12 appears, letting you either copy or move the selected icons.
Tip: Press the Esc key to cancel a dragging operation at any time.
Dragging icons into the Navigation pane
You may find it easier to copy or move icons using the Navigation pane (page 77),
since the two-pane display format makes it easier to see where your files are and
where they’re going.
Just expand the triangles of the Navigation pane until you can see the destination
folder.
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154 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: If you accidentally click a folder in the Navigation pane, its contents will pop up in the right pane,
covering up the icon you wanted to copy. Click the Back button to get back to where you once belonged.
Then find the icon you want to move in the right pane, and drag it to the appropriate
folder in the left pane (Figure 3-13), or vice versa. Windows copies the icon.
Figure 3-13:
A set of three documents is
being dragged to the folder
named A Deeply Nested Folder
(in the My Documents folder).
As the cursor passes each folder
in the left pane, the folder’s
name darkens. Release the
mouse when it’s pointing to the
correct folder or disk.
Copying and Moving
Folders and Files
Figure 3-12:
Thanks to this
shortcut menu,
right-dragging
icons is much easier
and safer than
left-dragging when
you want to move
or copy something.
The handy numeric
“badge” on the icon
you’re dragging
reminds you how
many things you’re
about to move or
copy.
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 155
Tip: This situation is also a good time to use Windows 7’s new Aero Snap feature. Drag the icon’s home
window against the right side of your screen; drag the destination window against the left side. Now they’re
perfectly set up for drag-copying between them.
Copying with Copy and Paste
Dragging icons to copy or move them feels good because it’s so direct; you actually
see your arrow cursor pushing the icons into the new location.
Secrets of the “Send to” Command
If you find yourself copying or moving certain icons to certain
folders or disks with regularity, it’s time to exploit the “Send
to” command that lurks in the shortcut menu for almost
every icon. (If you press the Alt key to make the menu bar
appear, the “Send to” command is also in the File menu of
every Explorer window.)
This command offers a quick
way to copy and move high-
lighted icons to popular desti-
nations. For example, you can
teleport a copy of a highlighted
file directly to your CD burner
by choosing Send toÆDVD-
RW Drive, or to the desktop
background by choosing Send
toÆDesktop (create shortcut).
Then there’s the Send toÆMail
Recipient, which bundles the
highlighted icon as an email
attachment that’s ready to send.
You can also zip up a folder (see
the end of this chapter) by choosing Send toÆCompressed
(zipped) Folder.
If you start getting into “Send to”—and you should—check this
out. If you press Shift while you right-click, you get a much
longer list of “Send to” options, including all the essential
folders (Downloads, Desktop, Favorites, Links, Searches,
and so on). Cool.
But if the folder you want isn’t there, it’s easy enough to make
the “Send to” command accommodate your own favorite
or frequently used folders. Lurking in your Personal folder
(page 33) is a folder called SendTo. Any shortcut icon you
place here shows up instantly in the “Send to” menus within
your desktop folders and shortcut menus.
Alas, this folder is among those Microsoft considers inap-
propriate for inspection by novices. As a result, the SendTo
folder is hidden.
You can still get to it, though. In
the address bar of any Explorer
window, type shell:sendto,
and then press Enter. (That’s a
quick way of getting to the C:\
Users\[your name]\AppData\
Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\
SendTo folder.)
Most people create shortcuts
here for folders and disks
(such as your favorite backup
disk). When you highlight an
icon and then choose “Send
toӮBackup Disk, for example,
Windows copies the icon to that disk. (Or, if you simultane-
ously press Shift, you move the icon to the other disk or
folder.) You can even add shortcuts of applications (program
files) to the SendTo folder. By adding WinZip to this “Send
to” menu, for example, you can drop-kick a highlighted icon
onto the WinZip icon (for decompressing) just by choosing
Send toÆWinZip. Or add a Web server to this menu, so you
can upload a file with a quick right-click. You can even create
shortcuts for your printer or fax modem so you can print or
fax a document just by highlighting its icon and choosing
FileÆ”Send to”Æ [printer or fax modem’s name].
power users’ clinic
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156 windows 7: the missing manual
But you also pay a price for this satisfying illusion. That is, you may have to spend
a moment or two fiddling with your windows, or clicking in the Explorer folder
hierarchy, so you have a clear “line of drag” between the icon to be moved and the
destination folder.
Fortunately, there’s a better way. You can use the Cut, Copy, and Paste commands to
move icons from one window into another. The routine goes like this:
1. Highlight the icon or icons you want to move.
Use any of the tricks described on page 150.
2. Right-click one of the icons. From the shortcut menu, choose Cut or Copy.
Alternatively, you can choose OrganizeÆCut or OrganizeÆCopy, using the toolbar
at the top of the window. (You may want to learn the keyboard shortcuts for these
commands: Ctrl+C for Copy, Ctrl+X for Cut.)
The Cut command makes the highlighted icons appear dimmed; you’ve stashed
them on the invisible Windows Clipboard. (They don’t actually disappear from
their original nesting place until you paste them somewhere else—or hit the Esc
key to cancel the operation.)
The Copy command also places copies of the files on the Clipboard, but it doesn’t
disturb the originals.
3. Right-click the window, folder icon, or disk icon where you want to put the icons.
Choose Paste from the shortcut menu.
Once again, you may prefer to use the appropriate menu bar option, Orga-
nizeÆPaste (Ctrl+V).
Either way, you’ve successfully transferred the icons. If you pasted into an open
window, you see the icons appear there. If you pasted onto a closed folder or disk
icon, you need to open the icon’s window to see the results. And if you pasted right
back into the same window, you get a duplicate of the file called “[Filename] - Copy.”
The Recycle Bin
All Versions
The Recycle Bin is your desktop trash basket. This is where files and folders go when
they’ve outlived their usefulness. Basically, the Recycle Bin is a waiting room for data
oblivion, in that your files stay there until you empty it—or until you rescue the files
by dragging them out again.
While you can certainly drag files or folders onto the Recycle Bin icon, it’s usually
faster to highlight them and then perform one of the following options:
• Press the Delete key.
• Choose FileÆDelete.
• Right-click a highlighted icon and choose Delete from the shortcut menu.
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Windows asks if you’re sure you want to send the item to the Recycle Bin. (You don’t
lose much by clicking Yes, since it’s easy enough to change your mind, as noted below.)
Now the Recycle Bin icon looks like it’s brimming over with paper.
You can put unwanted files and folders into the Recycle Bin from any folder window
or even from inside the Open File dialog box of many applications (see Chapter 6).
Note: All these methods put icons from your hard drive into the Recycle Bin. But deleting an icon from a
removable drive (flash drives, for example), from other computers on the network, or from a .zip file, does
not involve the Recycle Bin. Those files go straight to heaven, giving you no opportunity to retrieve them.
(Deleting anything with the Command Prompt commands del or erase bypasses the Recycle Bin, too.)
Making the Recycle Bin Less Naggy
When you get right down to it, you really have to work to get rid of a file in Windows.
First you have to put the thing in the Recycle Bin. Then you have to confirm that, yes,
you’re sure. Then you have to empty the Recycle Bin. Then you have to confirm that,
yes, you’re sure about that.
Fortunately, those are just the factory settings. There are all kinds of ways to eliminate
some of these quadruplicate confirmations. For example:
•Squelch the “Are you sure?” message. Right-click the Recycle Bin. From the short-
cut menu, choose Properties, and turn off “Display delete confirmation dialog.”
Now you’ll never get that message when you put something into the Recycle Bin.
Figure 3-14:
Use the Recycle Bin Properties dialog box to govern the
way the Recycle Bin works, or even if it works at all. If
you have multiple hard drives, the dialog box offers a
tab for each of them so you can configure a separate
and independent Recycle Bin on each drive.
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158 windows 7: the missing manual
•Bypass the Recycle Bin just this time. Press the Shift key while you delete a file.
Doing so—and then clicking Yes in the confirmation box (or hitting Enter)—de-
letes the file permanently, skipping its layover in the Recycle Bin. The Shift-key
trick works for every method of deleting a file: pressing the Delete key, choosing
Delete from the shortcut menu, and so on.
•Bypass the Recycle Bin for good. If you, a person of steely nerve and perfect judg-
ment, never delete a file in error, then your files can always bypass the Recycle Bin.
No confirmations, no second chances. You’ll reclaim disk space instantly when you
press the Delete key to vaporize a highlighted file or folder.
To set this up, right-click the Recycle Bin. From the shortcut menu, choose Proper-
ties. Select “Don’t move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when
deleted” (Figure 3-14).
And voilà! Your safety net is gone (especially if you also turn off the “Display delete
confirmation dialog” checkbox—then you’re really living dangerously.)
Note: That really is living dangerously. The Shift-key trick might be a better safety/convenience compromise.
Restoring Deleted Files and Folders
If you change your mind about sending something to the software graveyard, simply
open the Recycle Bin by double-clicking. A window like the one in Figure 3-15 opens.
To restore a selected file or a folder—or a bunch of them—click the “Restore this
item” link on the task toolbar. Or right-click any one of the selected icons and choose
Restore from the shortcut menu.
Restored means returned to the folder from whence it came—wherever it was on your
hard drive when deleted. If you restore an icon whose original folder has been deleted
in the meantime, Windows even recreates that folder to hold the restored file(s). (If
nothing is selected, the toolbar button says “Restore all items,” but be careful: If there
are weeks’ worth of icons in there, and Windows puts them all back where they came
from, recreating original folders as it goes, you might wind up with a real mess.)
Tip: You don’t have to put icons back into their original folders. By dragging them out of the Recycle Bin
window, you can put them back into any folder you like.
Emptying the Recycle Bin
While there’s an advantage to the Recycle Bin (you get to undo your mistakes), there’s
also a downside: The files in the Recycle Bin occupy as much disk space as they did
when they were stored in folders. Deleting files doesn’t gain you additional disk space
until you empty the Recycle Bin.
That’s why most people, sooner or later, follow up an icon’s journey to the Recycle
Bin with one of these cleanup operations:
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 159
• Right-click the Recycle Bin icon, or a blank spot in the Recycle Bin window, and
choose Empty Recycle Bin from the shortcut menu.
• Click “Empty the Recycle Bin” on the toolbar in the Recycle Bin window.
• In the Recycle Bin window, highlight only the icons you want to eliminate, and
then press the Delete key. (Use this method when you want to nuke only some of
the Recycle Bin’s contents.)
• Wait. When the Recycle Bin accumulates so much stuff that it occupies a signifi-
cant percentage of your hard drive space, Windows empties it automatically, as
described in the next section.
The first three of these procedures produce an “Are you sure?” message.
Figure 3-15:
When you double-click
the Recycle Bin (top),
its window (bottom)
displays information
about each folder and
file it holds. It’s a regular
Explorer window, so you
can inspect a selected
item in the Details pane,
if you like.
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160 windows 7: the missing manual
Auto-emptying the Recycle Bin
The Recycle Bin has two advantages over the physical trash can behind your house:
First, it never smells. Second, when it’s full, it can empty itself automatically.
To configure this self-emptying feature, you specify a certain fullness limit. When the
Recycle Bin contents reach that level, Windows begins deleting files (permanently)
as new files arrive in the Recycle Bin. Files that arrived in the Recycle Bin first are
deleted first.
Unless you tell it otherwise, Windows reserves 10 percent of your drive to hold Re-
cycle Bin contents.
To change that percentage, right-click the Recycle Bin. From the shortcut menu, choose
Properties. Now you can edit the “Maximum size” number, in megabytes (Figure
3-15). Keeping the percentage low means you’re less likely to run out of the disk space
you need to install software and create documents. On the other hand, raising the
percentage means you have more opportunity to restore files you decide to retrieve.
Note: Every disk has its own Recycle Bin, which holds files and folders you’ve deleted from that disk. As
you can see in the Recycle Bin Properties dialog box, you can give each drive its own trash limit and change
the deletion options shown in Figure 3-15 for each drive independently. Just click the drive’s name before
changing the settings.
Shortcut Icons
All Versions
A shortcut is a link to a file, folder, disk, or program (see Figure 3-16). You might
think of it as a duplicate of the thing’s icon—but not a duplicate of the thing itself.
(A shortcut occupies almost no disk space.) When you double-click the shortcut icon,
the original folder, disk, program, or document opens. You can also set up a keystroke
for a shortcut icon so you can open any program or document just by pressing a
certain key combination.
Shortcuts provide quick access to the items you use most often. And because you can
make as many shortcuts of a file as you want, and put them anywhere on your PC,
you can, in effect, keep an important program or document in more than one folder.
Just create a shortcut to leave on the desktop in plain sight, or drag its icon onto the
Start button or the Links toolbar. In fact, everything listed in the StartÆAll Programs
menu is a shortcut. So is every link in the top part of your Navigation pane.
Tip: Don’t confuse the term shortcut, which refers to one of these duplicate-icon pointers, with shortcut menu,
the context-sensitive menu that appears when you right-click almost anything in Windows. The shortcut menu
has nothing to do with the shortcut icons feature; maybe that’s why it’s sometimes called the context menu.
Among other things, shortcuts are great for getting to Web sites and folders elsewhere
on your network, because you’re spared having to type out their addresses or bur-
rowing through network windows.
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 161
Creating and Deleting Shortcuts
To create a shortcut, use any of these tricks:
• Right-click an icon. From the shortcut menu, choose “Create shortcut.”
• Right-drag an icon from its current location to the desktop. When you release
the mouse button, choose “Create shortcuts here” from the menu that appears.
Tip: If you’re not in the mood to use a shortcut menu, just left-drag an icon while pressing Alt. A shortcut
appears instantly. (And if your Alt key is missing or broken—hey, it could happen—drag while pressing
Ctrl+Shift instead.)
• Drag the tiny icon at the left end of the address bar onto the desktop or into a
window.
Tip: This also works with Web sites. If your browser has pulled up a site you want to keep handy, drag that
little address-bar icon onto your desktop. Double-clicking it later will open the same Web page.
You can delete a shortcut the same as any icon, as described in the Recycle Bin dis-
cussion earlier in this chapter. (Of course, deleting a shortcut doesn’t delete the file
it points to.)
Figure 3-16:
Left: You can dis-
tinguish a desktop
shortcut from its
original in two ways.
First, the tiny arrow
“badge” identifies it
as a shortcut; second,
its name contains the
word “shortcut.”
Right: The Properties
dialog box for a short-
cut indicates which
actual file or folder this
one “points” to. The
Run drop-down menu
(shown open) lets
you control how the
window opens when
you double-click the
shortcut icon.
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162 windows 7: the missing manual
Unveiling a Shortcut’s True Identity
To locate the original icon from which a shortcut was made, right-click the shortcut
icon and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. As shown in Figure 3-16, the
resulting box shows you where to find the “real” icon. It also offers you a quick way
to jump to it, in the form of the Open File Location button.
Shortcut Keyboard Triggers
Sure, shortcuts let you put favored icons everywhere you want to be. But they still
require clicking to open, which means taking your hands off the keyboard—and that,
in the grand scheme of things, means slowing down.
Lurking within the Shortcut Properties dialog box is another feature with intrigu-
ing ramifications: the Shortcut Key box. By clicking here and then pressing a key
combination, you can assign a personalized keystroke for the shortcut. Thereafter,
by pressing that keystroke, you can summon the corresponding file, program, folder,
printer, networked computer, or disk window to your screen, no matter what you’re
doing on the PC. It’s really useful.
Three rules apply when choosing keystrokes to open your favorite icons:
• The keystrokes work only on shortcuts stored on your desktop or in the Start menu.
If you stash the icon in any other folder, the keystroke stops working.
• Your keystroke can’t incorporate the space bar or the Enter, Backspace, Delete,
Esc, Print Screen, or Tab keys.
• Your combination must include Ctrl+Alt and another key.
Windows enforces this rule rigidly. For example, if you type a single letter key into
the box (such as E), Windows automatically adds the Ctrl and Alt keys to your
combination (Ctrl+Alt+E). This is the operating system’s attempt to prevent you
from inadvertently duplicating one of the built-in Windows keyboard shortcuts
and thoroughly confusing both you and your computer.
Tip: If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a programmer, try this. In the Shortcut Properties dialog box
(Figure 3-16), use the Run drop-down menu at the bottom of the dialog box to choose “Normal window,”
“Minimized,” or “Maximized.” By clicking OK, you’ve just told Windows what kind of window you want to
appear when opening this particular shortcut. (See page 60 for a discussion of these window types.)
Controlling Windows in this way isn’t exactly the same as programming Microsoft Excel, but you are, in your
own small way, telling Windows what to do.
If you like the idea of keyboard shortcuts for your files and programs, but you’re not
so hot on Windows 7’s restrictions, consider installing a free macro program that lets
you make any keystroke open anything anywhere. The best-known one is AutoHot-
Key, which is available from this book’s “Missing CD” page at missingmanuals.com,
but there are plenty of similar (and simpler) ones. (Check them out at, for example,
shareware.com.)
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Compressing Files and Folders
All Versions
Windows is especially effective at compressing files and folders to reduce the space they
occupy on your hard drive—which is ironic, considering the fact that hard drives these
days have enough capacity to stretch to Steve Ballmer’s house and back three times.
Even so, compressing files and folders can occasionally be useful, especially when hard
drive space is running short, or when you want to email files to someone without
dooming them to an all-night modem-watching session. Maybe that’s why Microsoft
has endowed Windows with two different schemes for compressing files and folders:
NTFS compression and zipped folders.
NTFS Compression
Windows 7, since you asked, requires a hard drive that’s formatted using a software
scheme called NTFS (short for NT file system; see page 676 for details). It’s a much
more modern formatting scheme than its predecessor, something called FAT32—and
among its virtues is, you guessed it, NTFS compression.
This compression scheme is especially likable because it’s completely invisible. Win-
dows automatically compresses and decompresses your files, almost instantaneously.
At some point, you may even forget you’ve turned it on. Consider:
• Whenever you open a compressed file, Windows quickly and invisibly expands
it to its original form so you can edit it. When you close the file again, Windows
instantly recompresses it.
• If you send compressed files (via disk or email, for example) to a PC whose hard
drive doesn’t use NTFS formatting, Windows once again decompresses them,
quickly and invisibly.
• Any file you copy into a compressed folder or disk is compressed automatically. (If
you only move it into such a folder from elsewhere on the disk, however, it stays
compressed or uncompressed—whichever it was originally.)
There’s only one downside to all this: You don’t save a lot of disk space using NTFS
compression (at least not when compared with Zip compression, described in the next
section). Even so, if your hard drive is anywhere near full, it might be worth turning
on NTFS compression. The space you save could be your own.
Compressing files, folders, or disks
To turn on NTFS compression, right-click the icon for the file, folder, or disk whose
contents you want to shrink; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Proceed as
shown in Figure 3-17.
Tip: To compress an entire hard drive, the steps in Figure 3-17 are even simpler. Just right-click the drive’s icon
(in your Computer window); choose Properties; and turn on “Compress this drive to save disk space.” Click OK.
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164 windows 7: the missing manual
Many Windows veterans wind up turning on compression for the entire hard drive,
even though it takes Windows several hours to do the job. (If you plan to go see
a movie while Windows is working, though, wait until the appearance of the first
message box letting you know about some “open file” that can’t be compressed; then
click Ignore All. A few files will remain uncompressed when you get back from the
Cineplex, but at least you won’t have had to stay home, manually clicking to dismiss
every “open file” complaint box.)
When Windows is finished compressing files, their names appear in a different color,
a reminder that Windows is doing its part to maximize your disk space.
Note: If the files don’t change color, somebody—maybe you—must have turned off the “Show encrypted or
compressed NTFS files in color” option (see page 100).
Zipped Folders
As noted above, NTFS compression is ideal for freeing up disk space while you’re
working at your PC. But as soon as you email your files to somebody else or burn
them to a CD, the transferred copies bloat right back up to their original sizes.
Fortunately, there’s another way to compress files: Zip them. If you’ve ever used Win-
dows before, you’ve probably encountered Zip files. Each one is a tiny little suitcase,
an archive, whose contents have been tightly compressed to keep files together, save
space, and transfer them online faster (see Figure 3-18). Use this method when you
want to email something to someone, or when you want to pack up a completed
project and remove it from your hard drive to free up space.
Compressing Files
and Folders
Figure 3-17:
In the Properties dialog box for any file or folder,
click Advanced. Turn on “Compress contents to
save disk space,” and then click OK. For a folder,
Windows offers to compress all the files and fold-
ers inside this one, too.
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 165
Creating zipped folders
You can create a Zip archive in either of two ways:
• Right-click any blank spot on the desktop or an open window. From the shortcut
menu, choose NewÆCompressed (zipped) Folder. Type a name for your newly
created, empty archive, and then press Enter.
Now, each time you drag a file or folder onto the archive’s icon (or into its open
window), Windows automatically stuffs a copy of it inside.
Of course, you haven’t exactly saved any disk space, since now you have two cop-
ies (one zipped, one untouched). If you’d rather move a file or folder into the
archive—in the process deleting the full-size version and saving disk space—right-
drag the file or folder icon onto the archive icon. Now from the shortcut menu,
choose Move Here.
• To turn an existing file or folder into a Zip archive, right-click its icon. (To zip up
a handful of icons, select them first, and then right-click any one of them.) Now,
from the shortcut menu, choose Send ToÆCompressed (zipped) Folder. You’ve
just created a new archive folder and copied the files or folders into it.
Figure 3-18:
Top: A Zip archive looks
just like an ordinary
folder—except for the tiny
little zipper.
Bottom: Double-click one
to open its window and
see what’s inside. Notice
(in the Ratio column) that
JPEG and GIF graphics
usually don’t become
much smaller than they
were before zipping,
since they’re already
compressed formats. But
word processing files,
program files, and other
file types reveal quite a
bit of shrinkage.
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166 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: At this point, you can right-click the zipped folder’s icon and choose Send ToÆMail Recipient. Windows
automatically whips open your email program, creates an outgoing message ready for you to address, and
attaches the zipped file to it. It’s now set for transport.
Working with zipped folders
In many respects, a zipped folder behaves just like any ordinary folder. Double-click
it to see what’s inside.
If you double-click one of the files you find inside, however, Windows opens up a
read-only copy of it—that is, a copy you can view, but not edit. To make changes to
a read-only copy, you must use the FileÆSave As command and save it somewhere
else on your hard drive first.
Note: Be sure to navigate to the desktop or Documents folder, for example, before you save your edited
document. Otherwise, Windows will save it into an invisible temporary folder, where you may never see it again.
To decompress only some of the icons in a zipped folder, just drag them out of the
archive window; they instantly spring back to their original sizes. Or, to decompress
the entire archive, right-click its icon and choose Extract All from the shortcut menu
(or, if its window is already open, click the “Extract all files” link on the toolbar). A
dialog box asks you to specify where you want the resulting files to wind up.
Tip: Windows no longer lets you password-protect a zipped folder, as you could in Windows XP. But the
Web is teeming with zip-file utilities, many of them free, that do let you assign a password. You might try, for
example, SecureZIP Express. It’s available from this book’s “Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.
Burning CDs and DVDs from the Desktop
All Versions
Burning a CD or DVD is great for backing stuff up, transferring stuff to another
computer, mailing to somebody, or archiving older files to free up hard drive space.
These days, you can buy blank CDs and DVDs very inexpensively in bulk via the Web
or a discount store.
Your Turn to Drive
Hey, my Dell has two CD/DVD burners. How do I specify
which one is the default for burning blank discs?
All in good time, grasshoppa.
Choose StartÆComputer. Right-click the icon of the burner
you want; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Click
the recording tab; use the drive menu to choose the one
you want to do the heavy lifting. (Authenticate yourself if
necessary, as described on page 726.)
frequently asked question
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 167
In ancient times—you know, like 2002—every PC came with a CD-ROM drive.
Nowadays, the drives on all new PCs can burn both CDs and DVDs.
Before you dig in, however, here’s a brief chalk talk about CD data formats.
A Tale of Two Formats
Turns out Windows can burn blank CDs and DVDs using your choice of two formats:
•Mastered (ISO). This is what most of the world is used to. It’s what everybody
burned before Windows Vista and Windows 7 came along. The primary virtue
of discs burned this way is compatibility; they play in just about any computer,
including Macs, PCs, and CD or DVD players that play MP3 CDs and digital video.
To make one, insert the blank disc and then drag files and folders into its window.
The PC duplicates the items, parking them in an invisible, temporary holding area
until you’re ready to burn. You burn all the files and folders at once.
Trouble is, you’re therefore doubling the space requirement of the files you intended
to burn. If you’re burning a DVD to get older files off your hard drive because
you’re running low on space, you could wind up in a Catch-22. You can’t free up
drive space without burning a DVD—but you don’t have enough drive space to
burn a DVD!
Tip: To be fair, you can change the location of the temporary holding folder—if you have another hard
drive. In your Computer window, right-click your burner’s icon; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties.
Click the Recording tab; from the drive menu, choose the hard drive you prefer, authenticating (page 726)
when you’re asked.
•Live File System (UDF). This newer, more modern format—Windows 7’s factory
setting—is light-years more convenient. It lets you use a blank CD or DVD ex-
actly as though it’s a USB flash drive. You can drag files and folders onto it, move
icons around on it, rename them, and so on. There’s no momentous Moment of
Burn; files are copied to the CD in real time, whenever you put them there. You
can leave a disc in your drive, dragging stuff onto it throughout the week as it’s
convenient—without ever having to click a Burn button.
What’s more, you can the eject the CD, store it, or share it—and then, later, put it
back into your PC and burn more stuff onto it. That’s right—you can burn a single
CD as many times as you like. And we’re talking regular, cheapie CD-R discs, not
CD-RW (rewritable).
What Windows creates, in other words, is a multisession disc.
Of course, the downside is that discs you burn this way play back only on relatively
recent Macs and PCs. And you can record more stuff onto them only on a PC run-
ning Windows XP or later.
Tip: If it helps you to remember which format is which, here’s a mnemonic for you: The last letter of the
format name (ISO, UDF) lets you know whether this is the Older format or the Future one.
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168 windows 7: the missing manual
Burning, Step by Step
Now that, with luck, you understand the difference between the Mastered (ISO) and
Live File System (UDF) formats, you’re ready to proceed.
1. Insert a blank disc into your PC.
The AutoPlay dialog box appears, asking whether you intend for this CD or DVD
to hold computer files or music (Figure 3-19, top left). If you want to burn a music
CD, skip ahead to Chapter 15.
Note: If you always want to create data CDs (or always burn music CDs), turn on “Always do this for blank
CDs” to save yourself a step each time.
Windows duly records your preference in the AutoPlay applet of the Control Panel. If you ever change your
mind, you can always open that applet and reverse yourself, as described in Chapter 8.
Otherwise, continue to step 2.
2. Click the “Burn files to disc” link.
Windows asks you to name the CD or DVD.
3. Type a name for the disc.
Burning CDs & DVDs
from the Desktop
Figure 3-19:
Top: What do you
want to do with the
blank disc? Click
“Burn files to disc.”
Top right: Name your
disc. If you want to
change the burn
format, click “Show
formatting options.”
Lower right: Choose
the super-convenient
Live File System
format (here called
“Like a USB flash
drive”) or the older
Mastered format
(“With a CD/DVD
player”). If you click
Change Version
(lower left), you can
even specify a version
of UDF.
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 169
But don’t click Next yet. This crucial moment is your only chance to change the
disc’s format.
If you’re OK with burning in the delicious, newfangled UDF format described
above, leave “Like a USB flash drive” selected; skip to step 4.
If you want this disc to be usable by a CD or DVD player, or somebody using a
version of Windows before Windows XP, though, you want to take this moment
to click “With a CD/DVD player.” Figure 3-19 shows the full life cycle of a disc
you’re burning.
Once that’s done, you can go on to step 4.
4. Click Next.
Your PC takes a moment—a long one—to format the blank disc.
When it’s finished, it presents a small window offering an “Open folder to view
files” button. Click it.
5. Begin putting files and folders into the disc’s window.
You can use any combination of these three methods:
First, you can scurry about your hard drive, locating the files and folders you want
on the CD. Drag their icons into the open CD/DVD window, or onto the disc
burner’s icon in the Computer window.
Second, you can highlight the files and folders you want burned onto the CD.
Choose OrganizeÆCopy. Click in the CD or DVD’s window, and then choose
OrganizeÆPaste to copy the material there.
Finally, you can explore your hard drive. Whenever you find a file or folder you’d
like backed up, right-click it. From the shortcut menu, choose Send toÆDVD/
CD-RW Drive (or whatever your burner’s name is).
To finish the job, see “The final steps,” below, for the kind of disc you’re burning.
Tip: The Details pane at the bottom of the CD/DVD window gives you a running tally of the disc space you’ve
filled up so far. (It may say, for example, “223.2 MB of 702.8 used on disc.”) At last you have an effortless
way to exploit the blank disc’s capacity with precision.
The final steps: Mastered (ISO) format
When you put files and folders into the disc’s window, Windows actually copies them
into a temporary, invisible holding-tank folder. (If you must know, this folder is in
your Personal folderÆLocal SettingsÆAppDataÆLocalÆMicrosoftÆWindowsÆ
BurnÆTemporary Burn Folder.)
In other words, you need plenty of disk space before you begin burning a CD—at
least double the size of the CD files themselves.
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170 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: Remember that a standard CD can hold only about 650 MB of files. To ensure that your files and fold-
ers will fit, periodically highlight all the icons in the ComputerÆCD window (choose OrganizeÆSelect All).
Then inspect the Details pane to confirm that the size is within the legal limit.
What you see in the disc’s window, meanwhile, is nothing but shortcuts (denoted by
the downward arrows on their icons). The little down arrows mean, “This icon hasn’t
been burned to the disc yet. I’m just waiting my turn.”
Tip: If you change your mind about including some of the files, highlight their icons in the disc window. On
the task toolbar, click “Delete temporary files.” You’ve just reclaimed the disc space those duplicates were using.
At last, when everything looks ready to go, click the “Burn to disc” link in the task
toolbar. Or right-click the burner’s icon, or any blank spot in its window, and, from
the shortcut menu, choose “Burn to disc.”
The CD Writing Wizard appears to guide you through the process of naming and
burning the disc. The PC’s laser proceeds to record the CD or DVD, which can take
some time. Feel free to switch into another program and continue working.
When the burning is over, the disc pops out, and you have a freshly minted CD or
DVD, whose files and folders you can open on any PC or even Macintosh.
Burning CDs & DVDs
from the Desktop
Closing the Session
Every time you eject a Live File System disc, Windows closes
the session, which means sort of shrink-wrapping the disc
so it can be used on other computers. (Even computers
that can’t understand Live File System, like Macs or pre-XP
PCs, can play these discs. They just can’t record more stuff
onto them.)
But each time Windows does that, you lose another 20
megabytes of disc space and 2 minutes of your time.
If you, the power user, would like session-closing to be a
decision left up to you, you can make Windows stop auto-
matically closing sessions. Right-click the burner’s icon in
your Computer window; from the shortcut menu, choose
Properties. In the dialog box, click the Recording tab and
then the Global Settings button.
Here, you can turn off “Single session-only discs are ejected,”
which makes Windows stop auto-closing discs that can be
burned only once (DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, DVD+R
DL, DVD-R DL, and BD-RE).
Or turn off “Multi session-capable discs are ejected,” which
refers to discs that you can record onto many times (CD-R,
CD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, and BD-R discs).
From now on, Windows won’t close your session—or use up
20 megabytes—unless you click the “Close session” link on
the toolbar (or right-click your burner’s icon in the Computer
window and choose “Close session”). This way, you can
maximize the space and speed of CDs and DVDs that you
keep on your desk and don’t distribute to other people.
Tip: If you try the CD or DVD in somebody else’s machine
and it doesn’t work—and you realize that you forgot to close
the session—all is not lost. You can always return the disc to
your machine and close the session there.
And now, help yourself to some aspirin.
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chapter 3: searching & organizing your files 171
The final steps: Live File System (UDF) format
If you’ve been dragging files and folders into the window of a Live File System-
formatted disc, there are no more steps. You can eject the disc and put it to use.
To eject the disc, right-click your burner’s icon; from the shortcut menu, choose Eject.
Windows takes a moment to “close the session” and then ejects the disc.
You can play this disc on Macs or PCs running Windows XP and later.
Better yet, you can put this disc back into any XP-or-later PC and pick up right where
you left off, adding and erasing files as though it’s a big flash drive.
Final Notes
Here are a few final notes on burning CDs and DVDs at the desktop:
• Not sure what kinds of disks your PC can burn? Choose StartÆComputer. Study
the name of the burner. There it is, plain as day: a list of the formats your machine
can read and write (that is, burn). If you have a combo drive (can burn and play
CDs, but can only play DVDs), for example, you’ll see something like “DVD/CD-
RW Drive.” If your burner can both play and record both CDs and DVDs, it will
say “DVD-RW Drive.”
• To erase an RW type disc (rewritable, like CD-RW or DVD-RW), open your
Computer window. Right-click the burner’s icon; from the shortcut menu, choose
Format. Change the file-system format if you like, and then turn on Quick Format.
Finally, click Start to erase the disc.
Tip: Of course, you don’t have to erase the disc completely. You can always select and delete individual
icons from it using the Delete key.
• If you do a lot of disc burning, a full-fledged burning program like Nero adds
myriad additional options. Only with a commercial CD-burning program can you
burn MP3 music CDs, create mixed-mode CDs (containing both music and files),
create Video CDs (low-quality video discs that play on DVD players), and so on.
Burning CDs & DVDs
from the Desktop
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 173
Without a doubt, Windows 7 looks a heck of a lot better than previous ver-
sions of Windows. The new system font alone, so much clearer and more
graceful than the one that’s labeled your icons for decades, contributes to
the new look. (It must have been driving Microsoft nuts that little old Apple, with
its 8 percent market share, was getting all the raves for the good looks and modern
lines of its operating system.)
And then there’s Aero, the visual design scheme described on page 23. Its transparent
window edges may not add much to your productivity, but they do look cool.
Still, these changes aren’t for everybody. Fortunately, Win7 is every bit as tweakable
as previous versions of Windows. You can turn off Aero, or just selected parts of it.
You can change the picture on your desktop, or tell Windows to change it for you
periodically. You can bump up the text size for better reading by over-40 eyeballs.
As Microsoft might say, “Where do you want to redesign today?”
Note: Customizing the Start menu is described in Chapter 1; customizing the taskbar is covered in Chapter 2.
Aero or Not
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
If you ask Microsoft, the whole Aero thing is a key benefit of Windows 7.
“Aero” refers to a whole motley collection of eye-candy effects: transparent window
edges, preview thumbnails of taskbar programs, full-size previews of windows when
you press Alt+Tab, the Flip 3D display of all open windows, window buttons that
Interior Decorating
Windows
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174 windows 7: the missing manual
glow when you point to them, shrinking/growing animations when you close or open
windows, windows that snap against the edges of your screen, and so on.
All of it is neato—and all of it collectively saps your system of a little bit of memory
and speed. It’s not anything most people notice on modern PCs. But if your computer
is older and slower, turning off Aero might make a noticeable speed difference.
Besides, some people just miss the less flashy, more utilitarian look of Windows XP.
Fortunately, Microsoft rarely takes a step forward without offering a step back to those
who want it. Here’s how to turn off Aero—one feature at a time.
Turning Off Only Transparent Window Edges
It’s hard to think of how see-through window edges can boost your productivity. Truth
is, depending on what’s showing through them, they can look a little murky and ugly.
To turn them off, open the Start menu. In the Search box, start typing transparency
until you see “Enable or disable transparent glass on windows.” Click it.
In the resulting window, turn off “Enable transparency.” Click “Save changes.”
Turning Off Window Snapping and Shaking
In Windows 7, if you drag a window close to the top edge of your screen, the window
expands to fill the whole screen. If you drag it close to a side of your screen, the win-
dow expands to fill half the screen. If all this auto-snapping makes you crazy, turn it
off as described on page 65.
Turning Off the Inch-Tall Taskbar
The Windows 7 taskbar shows giant, inch-tall icons—with no text labels. And you no
longer get one button for each open window; Windows consolidates open windows
within each program to save taskbar space.
You can make the taskbar look like it did in Vista or even Windows XP, if you like.
Details are on page 105.
Turn Off All Those Glitzy Animations
Then there are all those other things Windows does to show off: Windows seem to
zoom open or closed; the Close, Minimize, and Maximize buttons glow when you
point to them; menu commands and tooltips fade open and closed; and so on.
It turns out that there’s a master list of these effects, filled with individual on/off
switches for Win7’s various animations, pop-up previews, simulated mouse and
window shadows, and so on.
To see it, open the Start menu. Start typing effects until you see “Adjust the appearance
and performance of windows.” Click it.
Now you’re in the Performance Options dialog box (see Figure 4-1). Now, these aren’t
exactly the kind of special effects they make at Industrial Light & Magic for use in Star
Wars movies. In fact, they’re so subtle, they’re practically invisible. Some examples:
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 175
•Enable Aero Peek. Yes, you can turn off the Aero Peek feature, which lets you (a)
point to a taskbar thumbnail to see its full-size window pop to the fore and (b)
point to the Show Desktop button (right end of the taskbar) to make all windows
transparent.
•Smooth edges of screen fonts. If you look very closely at the characters on your
screen, they look a bit ragged on the curves. But when this option is turned on,
Windows softens the curves, making the text look more professional (or slightly
blurrier, depending on your point of view).
•Show shadows under windows/mouse pointer. Take a look: In Windows 7, open
windows actually seem to cast faint, light gray drop shadows, as though floating
an eighth of an inch above the surface behind them. It’s a cool, but utterly super-
fluous, special effect.
•Show window contents while dragging. If this option is off, then when you drag
a window, only a faint outline of its border is visible; you don’t see all the items in
the window coming along for the ride. As soon as you stop dragging, the contents
reappear. If this option is on, however, then as you drag a window across your
screen, you see all its contents, too—a feature that can slow the dragging process
on really slow machines.
Aero or Not
Figure 4-1:
Select “Adjust for best performance” to turn every-
thing off, leaving you with, more or less, Windows
XP. Alternatively, turn off only the animations you
can live without.
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176 windows 7: the missing manual
Turning Off the Aero Look (and Aero App Switchers)
Turning off the look of Aero—see-through window edges, taskbar thumbnail previews,
and so on—is as easy as choosing a different theme. (A theme is a design scheme.
Windows comes with a bunch of them.) For step-by-steps, read on.
A Gallery of Themes
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
As you can see in Figure 4-2, Windows includes a number of predesigned design
themes that affect the look of your desktop and windows.
Each design theme controls these elements of Windows:
• Your wallpaper (desktop picture).
Figure 4-2:
Most people with fast
enough computers
use the Aero look of
Windows (top). But
your computer may
look different, espe-
cially if you’ve turned
on one of the other
styles—like Windows
Classic (middle) or a
high-contrast theme
(bottom)—or if you’re
running a netbook that
has Windows Starter
Edition installed.
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 177
• Your screen saver.
• The design of icons like Computer, Network, Control Panel, and Recycle Bin.
• The color scheme for your window edges, plus any tweaks you make in the Color
and Appearance dialog box (font size, window border width, and so on).
• The size and shape of your arrow cursor.
• The sounds your PC uses as error and alert beeps.
It’s fun to customize your PC (especially because it’s your opportunity to replace, at
last, that huge Dell or HP logo that came as your preinstalled wallpaper). This is also
yet another way to shut off some of Aero’s cosmetics.
To see your theme choices, right-click a blank spot on the desktop. From the shortcut
menu, choose Personalize.
Note: There’s no Personalize option in the Starter Edition of Windows 7. What few appearance options are
available are described in the box on page 178.
The Personalization control panel opens, revealing a window full of factory-installed
icons for different visual themes (Figure 4-3). Clicking one applies its look to your
desktop world instantaneously, making it simple to try on different themes.
Figure 4-3:
A theme is more
than a color scheme.
It also incorporates a
desktop background,
a standard screen
saver, and even a
coordinated set of
alert sounds. The
four icons across the
bottom show you
the current desktop,
color, sound, and
screen saver settings
for whatever theme
you click.
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178 windows 7: the missing manual
Aero Themes
The Aero themes at the top come with all the Aero features turned on. There’s also a
“Get more themes online” link that takes you to a download-more-themes Web site.
Basic and High Contrast Themes
If you scroll down, you find the Basic and High Contrast themes. If you click one of
these, you shut down much of what makes Aero, Aero.
Window edges are no longer transparent. The taskbar no longer offers thumbnail
previews of open programs. The Show Desktop sliver (right end of the taskbar) no
longer hides windows when you just point to it. Pressing w+Tab no longer shows a
3-D stack of open programs for your switching pleasure, and pressing Alt+Tab shows
a much more toned-down, XP-ish program switcher.
Notable here are Windows 7 Basic, which gives you the clean, modern look of Win7
windows and buttons, a rounded black glass look for the taskbar and Start menu, and
so on; and Windows Classic, which returns your PC to the visual look of Windows
Server 2003/Windows 2000.
Note: The High Contrast themes in the list are designed to help out people with limited vision, who require
greater differences in color between window elements. High-contrast themes do not use any of the Aero
features and more closely resemble the squared-off windows and dialog boxes of Windows 2000.
The real fun, however, awaits when you choose one of the canned themes and then
modify it. Four of the modification tactics are represented by buttons at the bottom
of the window (Desktop Background, Window Color, Sounds, and Screen Saver);
two more are represented by links at the left side of the window (Desktop Icons and
Mouse Pointers). The following pages cover each of these elements in turn.
Interior Decorating the Starter Edition
Man, when Microsoft strips down Windows, it doesn’t kid
around.
The Starter Edition of Windows 7, which comes on some
netbooks and computers in poor countries, doesn’t have
the Personalize control panel. It doesn’t even let you change
your wallpaper, for heaven’s sake.
In fact, personalizing the look of the Starter Edition pretty
much boils down to what you can access from the Display
control panel (StartÆControl PanelÆAppearanceÆDis-
play).
For example, the “Change color scheme” link opens the
Window Color and Appearance dialog box. You can choose
from the Windows 7 Basic scheme, Windows Classic (for
that Windows 2000 look), and four high-contrast schemes.
The “Change screen saver” link lets you choose one of the
built-in screen savers.
In addition, you can change the screen resolution and make
some low-level tweaks to your color calibration, ClearType
font settings, and text DPI settings.
But that’s about it.
frequently asked question
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 179
Desktop Background (Wallpaper)
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Windows 7 has a whole new host of desktop pictures, patterns, and colors for your
viewing pleasure. You want widescreen images for your new flat-panel monitor? You
got ’em. Want something gritty, artsy, in black and white? They’re there, too. And you
can still use any picture you’d like as your background as well.
To change yours, right-click the desktop; choose Personalize; and, at the bottom of
the box, click Desktop Background.
Now you’re looking at the box shown in Figure 4-4. It starts you off examining the
Microsoft-supplied photos that come with Windows. Use the “Picture locations”
pop-up menu to choose a category:
•Windows Desktop Backgrounds includes 37 absolutely gorgeous photos.
•Pictures Library displays all your own photos—at least those in your Pictures
library. It’s more fun to use one of your own pictures on the desktop. That might
be an adorable baby photo of your niece, or it might be Britney Spears with half
her clothes off; the choice is yours.
Feel free to click Browse to forage through other photo folders on your PC, if you
have them.
•Top Rated Photos displays the photos in your collection to which you’ve given the
highest star ratings (page 544).
•Solid Colors is just a palette of simple, solid colors for your desktop background.
It’s not a bad idea, actually; it’s a little easier to find your icons if they’re not lost
among the rocks and trees of a nature photo.
Free Photos of Many Lands
You know how the standard set of Windows desktop back-
grounds has a category called United States (or whatever
your country is)? Yep, those are photos from your moth-
erland. But unbeknownst to you, Windows comes with
photos from other people’s motherlands, too, and they all
make great desktop pictures. Too bad Microsoft has hidden
them—and then buried them.
But you, the enterprising Windows master, can unearth
them. Open the Start menu. Start typing location until you
see “Change location” in the results list; click it.
In the resulting dialog box, use the pop-up menu to select
some other countries, clicking Apply after each selection.
If you’re using the U.S. version of Windows, for example,
choose Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and South Africa.
Finally, switch back to United States (or whatever your
actual country is).
Now, when you right-click the desktop and choose Person-
alize, all of those countries’ photo sets are available in the
Desktop Background dialog box.
Click and enjoy your newfound desktop worldliness.
gem in the rough
Desktop Background
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180 windows 7: the missing manual
If you see something you like, you can click it to slap it across the entire background
of your desktop.
Or—and this is a big or—you can use the new Windows 7 feature that changes your
desktop picture periodically, so you don’t get bored.
Auto–Picture Changing
The novelty of any desktop picture is likely to fade after several months of all-day
viewing. Fortunately, in Windows 7, you can choose multiple desktop pictures from
the gallery; see Figure 4-5.
Now, from the “Change picture every:” pop-up menu, specify when you want your
background picture to change: every day, every hour, every 5 minutes, or whatever.
(If you’re really having trouble staying awake at your PC, you can choose every 10
seconds.)
Finally, turn on “Shuffle,” if you like. If you leave it off, your desktop pictures change
in the sequence shown in the gallery.
Now, at the intervals you specified, your desktop picture changes automatically,
smoothly cross-fading between the pictures in your chosen source folder like a slide-
show. You may never want to open another window, because you’d hate to block your
view of the show.
Desktop Background
(Wallpaper)
Figure 4-4:
Desktop back-
grounds have
come a long way
since Windows 3.1.
The desktop back-
grounds include
outdoors scenes,
illustrations, and
more. There are
lots to choose
from, so feel free
to look around.
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 181
Note: If you have a laptop, by all means turn on “When using battery power, pause the slide show to save
power.” Changing wallpapers is nice and all, but not if it means showing up for your talk with a dead laptop.
Making the Pictures Fit
No matter which source you use to choose a photo, you have one more issue to deal
with. Unless you’ve gone to the trouble of editing your chosen photo so that it matches
the precise dimensions of your screen (1280 × 800 or whatever), it probably isn’t
exactly the same size as your screen.
Fortunately, Windows offers a number of solutions to this problem. Using the “Picture
position” pop-up menu, you can choose any of these options:
•Fill. Enlarges or reduces the image so that it fills every inch of the desktop without
distortion. Parts may get chopped off, but this option never distorts the picture.
•Fit. Your entire photo appears, as large possible without distortion or cropping.
If the photo doesn’t precisely match the proportions of your screen, you get “let-
terbox bars” on the sides or at top and bottom.
Figure 4-5:
To select an assortment of
rotating wallpaper shots,
turn on the checkboxes of the
pictures you want. Or just use
the usual icon-selection tech-
niques; for example, Ctrl+click
all the wallpapers you want to
include, one at a time. Or click
Select All, and then Ctrl+click
the ones you don’t want.
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182 windows 7: the missing manual
•Stretch. Makes your picture fit the screen exactly, come hell or high water. Larger
pictures may be squished vertically or horizontally as necessary, and small pictures
are drastically blown up and squished, usually with grisly results.
•Tile. This option makes your picture repeat over and over until the multiple im-
ages fill the entire monitor.
•Center. Centers the photo neatly on the screen. If the picture is smaller than the
screen, it leaves a swath of empty border all the way around. If it’s larger, the outer
edges get chopped off.
Other Ways to Choose Desktop Photos
Really, the Desktop Backgrounds screen described above is the wallpaper headquarters.
But there are “Set as desktop background” commands hiding everywhere in Windows,
making it simple to turn everyday images into wallpaper. You’ll find that command,
for example, when you do any of the following:
• Right-click a graphics icon in an Explorer window.
• Right-click a picture you’ve opened up in Windows Photo Viewer or Windows
Live Photo Gallery.
• Right-click a photo you’ve found on a Web page.
• Open the first menu (to the left of the Home tab) in Paint, Windows’s little paint-
ing program.
Window Color
All Versions
Choosing a theme or a desktop background is practically idiot-proof; even an adult
could do it. The real geektastic fun, however, awaits when you click Window Color
(at the bottom of the window shown in Figure 4-3) and then click “Advanced ap-
pearance settings.”
Note: In Windows 7 Starter Edition, you get here by opening the Control Panel, then clicking AppearanceÆ
DisplayÆ“Change color scheme”ÆAdvanced.
Now you find yourself in a dialog box that lets you change every single aspect of the
selected visual theme independently (Figure 4-6).
Note: The controls in this dialog box don’t work if you’re using one of the Aero themes as your starting
point. Microsoft put a lot of work into the look of Windows 7, and it doesn’t especially want people diluting
it with their own random changes. “If you want the new look,” the company is saying, “it’s all or nothing.”
In other words, you should start your customization odyssey by clicking a theme icon in the Basic and High
Contrast category. Otherwise, the changes you make in the Window Color and Appearance box will have
no effect.
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 183
Proceed with your interior-decoration crusade in either of two ways:
• Change the elements of the scheme one at a time. Start by choosing from the
Item drop-down list (or by clicking a piece of the illustration at the top half of
the dialog box, like a title bar or a button). Then use the Size, Color 1, and Color 2
drop-down lists to tailor the chosen element—such as Desktop or Scrollbar—to
suit your artistic urges.
• Some of the screen elements named in the Item drop-down list have text associ-
ated with them: Icon, Inactive Title Bar, Menu, Message Box, ToolTip, and so on.
When you choose one of these text items, the Font drop-down list at the bottom
of the dialog box comes to life. Using this menu, you can change the typeface (font,
color, and size) used for any of these screen elements. If you have trouble reading
the type in dialog boxes (because you have a high-resolution, tiny-type screen), or
you wish your icon names showed up a little more boldly, or you’d prefer a more
graceful font in your menus, these controls offer the solution.
When you’ve exhausted your options—or just become exhausted—click OK to return
to the Personalization dialog box.
Figure 4-6:
Click a part of the View pane (Desktop, Scroll-
bar, and so on). Then use the menus to choose
colors and type sizes for the chosen interface
element.
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184 windows 7: the missing manual
Sounds
All Versions
Windows plays beeps and bloops to celebrate various occasions: closing a program,
yanking out a USB drive, logging in or out, getting a new fax, and so on. You can turn
these sounds on or off, or choose new sounds for these events.
Sounds, too, are part of a Windows 7 theme. To edit the suite of sounds that goes
with your currently selected theme, click Sounds at the bottom of the Personalization
dialog box (Figure 4-3).
Note: In Windows 7 Starter Edition, go to Control Panel, and then click Hardware and SoundƓChange
system sounds.” The Sound control panel opens, with the Sound tab ready to go.
See the list of Program Events? A speaker icon represents the occasions when a sound
will play. Double-click a sound (or click the Test button) to see what it sounds like.
Or, if you click the name of some computer event (say, Low Battery Alert), you can
make these adjustments:
• Remove a sound from the event by choosing (None) from the Sounds drop-down
list.
• Change an assigned sound, or add a sound to an event that doesn’t have one, by
clicking Browse and choosing a new sound file from the list in the Open dialog box.
Tip: When you click the Browse button, Windows opens the Local Disk (C:)ÆWindowsÆMedia folder,
which contains the .wav files that provide sounds. If you drag .wav files into this Media folder, they become
available for use as Windows sound effects. Many people download .wav files from the Internet and stash
them in the Media folder to make their computing experience quirkier, more fun, and richer in Austin Pow-
ers sound snippets.
When you select a sound, its filename appears in the Sounds drop-down list. Click
the Test button to the right of the box to hear the sound.
Tip: Each set of sounds is called a sound scheme. Sometimes the sound effects in a scheme are even sonically
related. (Perhaps the collection is totally hip-hop, classical, or performed on a kazoo.) To switch schemes,
use the Sound Scheme pop-up menu.
You can also define a new scheme of your own. Start by assigning individual sounds to events, and then
click the Save As button to save your collection under a name that you create.
Screen Savers
All Versions
The term “screen saver” is sort of bogus; today’s flat-panel screens can’t develop “burn-
in.” (You’re too young to remember, but screen savers were designed to bounce around
a moving image to prevent burn-in on those old, bulky, CRT screens.)
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 185
No, screen savers are mostly about entertainment, pure and simple—and Windows’s
built-in screen saver is certainly entertaining.
The idea is simple: A few minutes after you leave your computer, whatever work
you were doing is hidden behind the screen saver; passers-by can’t see what’s on the
screen. To exit the screen saver, move the mouse, click a mouse button, or press a key.
Choosing a Screen Saver
To choose a screen saver, click Screen Saver at the bottom of the Personalize dialog
box (Figure 4-3). The Screen Saver Settings dialog box appears.
Note: In Windows 7 Starter Edition, go to Control Panel, and then click AppearanceÆDisplayÆ“Change
screen saver.”
Now use the “Screen saver” drop-down list. A miniature preview appears in the preview
monitor on the dialog box (see Figure 4-7).
To see a full-screen preview, click the Preview button. The screen saver display fills
your screen and remains there until you move your mouse, click a mouse button, or
press a key.
Figure 4-7:
“On resume, display logon
screen” is a handy security
measure. It means you’ll have to
input your password to get back
into your PC once the screen
saver has come on—a good
barrier against nosy coworkers
who saunter up to your PC while
you’re out getting coffee.
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186 windows 7: the missing manual
The Wait box determines how long the screen saver waits before kicking in, after
the last time you move the mouse or type. Click the Settings button to play with the
chosen screen saver module’s look and behavior. For example, you may be able to
change its colors, texture, or animation style.
Desktop Icons: Sorting and Spacing
No matter how hard Microsoft tries to make people stop
leaving icons out on the desktop—remember the Automatic
Desktop Cleanup Wizard in Windows XP?—we keep doing
it. People like leaving icons out on the desktop. Things are
handy that way. Gives people a sense of control, of order.
“Well, fine,” Microsoft seems to say. “But as long as you’re
going to leave your junk strewn everywhere, at least make
it look neat.” And sure enough, you can control the sorting,
spacing, size, and even the visibility of the icons you put
on the desktop.
Icon size. You can make all the desktop icons larger or
smaller by turning your mouse’s scroll wheel while pressing
the Ctrl key. (Or use the ViewÆLarge, Medium, or Small
commands.)
Visibility. You can also hide all those desktop icons—for
example, when you’re trying to show someone the beauti-
ful baby photo that’s your desktop wallpaper, but your
Quarterly Expense Reports folder is covering her eye. To do
that, right-click the desktop; from the shortcut menu, choose
ViewÆ“Show desktop icons” so that the checkmark disap-
pears—along with all your icons. Use the same command
to make the icons reappear.
Align to grid. Right-click a blank spot on the desktop. In the
shortcut menu, the View command offers submenus called
“Auto arrange icons” and “Align icons to grid.”
If both of these options are turned off, then you can drag
icons anywhere. For example, some people like to keep
current project icons at the top of the window and move
older stuff to the bottom.
Ordinarily, though, Windows tries to impose a little discipline
on you. It aligns your icons neatly to an invisible grid. If you
choose this option, then all icons on the desktop jump to the
closest positions on the invisible underlying grid.
Even so, this setting doesn’t move icons into the most
compact possible arrangement. If one or two icons have
wandered off from the herd to a far corner of the window,
then they’re merely nudged to the grid points closest to their
current locations. They aren’t moved all the way back to the
group of icons elsewhere in the window.
Consolidate. If you’d rather have icons sorted and bunched
together on the underlying grid—no strays allowed—then
choose ViewÆ“Auto arrange icons.” This command places
the icons as close as possible to one another on the desktop,
rounding up any strays.
Sort. Right-click a blank spot on the desktop or in a window.
The “Sort by” menu sorts the icons according to different
criteria: name, date, and so on. Now if you add more icons
to the window, they jump into correct alphabetical position;
if you remove icons, the remaining ones slide over to fill in
the gaps. This setup is perfect for neat freaks.
Adjust the grid spacing. Finally, you can control the spacing
of the grid used for your desktop icons—in a place you’d
never think of looking.
Open the Start menu. In the Search box, type enough of
the word metrics until “Change window colors and metrics”
appears in the results list; click it. (In Windows 7 Starter Edi-
tion, type enough of the word color until “Change the Color
Scheme” appears in the results list; click it, and then click
Advanced from the dialog box that appears.)
Now you see the dialog box shown in Figure 4-6. From the
Items pop-up menu, choose Icon Spacing (Horizontal) or
Icon Spacing (Vertical), and then adjust the Size number
accordingly to nudge the grid spacing larger or smaller.
Click Apply as you go to check your work; click OK when
the desktop icons look perfect.
power users’ clinic
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 187
At the bottom of this tab, click “Change power settings” to open the Power Options
window described on page 326.
Tip: If you keep graphics files in your Pictures folder, try selecting the Photos screen saver. Then click the
Settings button and choose the pictures you want to see. When the screen saver kicks in, Windows puts on
a spectacular slideshow of your photos, bringing each to the screen with a special effect (flying in from the
side, fading in, and so on).
Desktop Icons
All Versions
Thanks to the “Change desktop icons” link at the left side of the Personalize screen,
you can specify which standard icons sit on your desktop for easy access, and what
they look like.
Note: In Windows 7 Starter Edition, open the Start menu, type icons into the Search box, and then click
“Show or hide common icons on the desktop.”
To choose your icons, just turn on the checkboxes for the ones you want (see Figure
4-8).
Figure 4-8:
Microsoft has been cleaning up the Windows
desktop in recent years, and that includes
sweeping away some useful icons, like
Computer, Control Panel, Network, and your
Personal folder. But you can put them back,
just by turning on these checkboxes.
Screen Savers
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188 windows 7: the missing manual
Yo u c a n a l s o s u b s t i t u t e d i f f e r e n t icons for your icons. Click, for example, the Com-
puter icon, and then click Change Icon. Up pops a collection of pre-drawn icons in a
horizontally scrolling selection box. If you see a picture you like better, double-click it.
Click OK if you like the change, Cancel if not.
Mouse Makeover
All Versions
If your fondness for the standard Windows arrow cursor begins to wane, you can
assert your individuality by choosing a different pointer shape. For starters, you
might want to choose a bigger arrow cursor—a great solution on today’s tinier-pixel,
shrunken-cursor monitors.
Begin by clicking “Change mouse pointers” at the left side of the Personalize dialog
box shown in Figure 4-3. In a flash, you arrive at the dialog box shown in Figure 4-9.
Figure 4-9:
Left: The Pointers dialog box, where you
can choose a bigger cursor (or a differently
shaped one).
Right: The Pointer Options tab. Ever lose
your mouse pointer while working on a lap-
top with a dim screen? Maybe pointer trails
could help. Or have you ever worked on a
desktop computer with a mouse pointer that
seems to take forever to move across the
desktop? Try increasing the pointer speed.
Desktop Icons
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 189
Note: As usual, it’s different In Windows 7 Starter Edition. Open the Control Panel, and then click Hardware
and SoundÆMouseÆPointers.
At this point, you can proceed in any of three ways:
•Scheme. There’s more to Windows cursors than just the arrow pointer. At vari-
ous times, you may also see the spinning circular cursor (which means, “Wait;
I’m thinking,” or “Wait; I’ve crashed”), the I-beam cursor (which appears when
you’re editing text), the little pointing-finger hand that appears when you point
to a Web link, and so on.
All these cursors come prepackaged into design-coordinated sets called schemes.
To look over the cursor shapes in a different scheme, use the Scheme drop-down
list; the corresponding pointer collection appears in the Customize list box. The
ones whose names include “large” or “extra large” offer jumbo, magnified cursors
ideal for very large screens or failing eyesight. When you find one that seems like
an improvement over the Windows Aero (system scheme) set, click OK.
•Select individual pointers. You don’t have to change to a completely different
scheme; you can also replace just one cursor. To do so, click the pointer you want
to change, and then click the Browse button. You’re shown the vast array of cursor-
replacement icons (which are in the Local Disk (C:)ÆWindowsÆCursors folder).
Click one to see what it looks like; double-click to select it.
•Create your own pointer scheme. Once you’ve replaced a cursor shape, you’ve also
changed the scheme to which it belongs. At this point, either click OK to activate
your change and get back to work, or save the new, improved scheme under its
own name, so you can switch back to the original when nostalgia calls. To do so,
click the Save As button, name the scheme, and then click OK.
Tip: The “Enable pointer shadow” checkbox at the bottom of this tab is pretty neat. It casts a shadow on
whatever’s beneath the cursor, as though it’s skimming just above the surface of your screen.
Pointer Options
Clicking the Pointer Options tab offers a few more random cursor-related functions
(Figure 4-9, right).
•Pointer speed. It comes as a surprise to many people that the cursor doesn’t move
five inches when the mouse moves five inches on the desk. Instead, you can set
things up so that moving the mouse one millimeter moves the pointer one full
inch—or vice versa—using the “Pointer speed” slider.
It may come as an even greater surprise that the cursor doesn’t generally move
proportionally to the mouse’s movement, regardless of your “Pointer speed” setting.
Instead, the cursor moves farther when you move the mouse faster. How much
farther depends on how you set the “Select a pointer speed” slider.
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190 windows 7: the missing manual
The Fast setting is nice if you have an enormous monitor, since it prevents you
from needing an equally large mouse pad to get from one corner to another. The
Slow setting, on the other hand, can be frustrating, since it forces you to constantly
pick up and put down the mouse as you scoot across the screen. (You can also turn
off the disproportionate-movement feature completely by turning off “Enhance
pointer precision.”)
•Snap To. A hefty percentage of the times when you reach for the mouse, it’s to
click a button in a dialog box. If you, like millions of people before you, usually
click the default (outlined) button—such as OK, Next, or Yes—then the Snap To
feature can save you the effort of positioning the cursor before clicking.
When you turn on Snap To, every time a dialog box appears, your mouse pointer
jumps automatically to the default button so that all you need to do is click. (And
to click a different button, like Cancel, you have to move the mouse only slightly
to reach it.)
•Display pointer trails. The options available for enhancing pointer visibility (or
invisibility) are mildly useful under certain circumstances, but mostly they’re just
for show.
If you turn on “Display pointer trails,” for example, you get ghost images that trail
behind the cursor like a bunch of little ducklings following their mother. In general,
this stuttering-cursor effect is irritating. On rare occasions, however, you may find
that it helps locate the cursor—for example, if you’re making a presentation on a
low-contrast LCD projector.
•Hide pointer while typing is useful if you find that the cursor sometimes gets in
the way of the words on your screen. As soon as you use the keyboard, the pointer
disappears; just move the mouse to make the pointer reappear.
•Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key. If you’ve managed to lose
the cursor on an LCD projector or a laptop with an inferior screen, this feature
helps you gain your bearings. After turning on this checkbox, Windows displays
an animated concentric ring each time you press the Ctrl key to pinpoint the
cursor’s location.
Tip: You can also fatten up the insertion point—the cursor that appears when you’re editing text. See page 288.
Preserving Your Tweaks for Posterity
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
The previous pages describe six ways to modify one of Windows 7’s canned themes.
You can change the desktop picture, the window color schemes, the sound scheme,
the screen saver, the desktop icons, and the mouse-pointer shapes. The basic concept
is simple: You choose one of Microsoft’s canned themes as a starting point and then
adjust these six aspects of it as suits your mood.
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 191
When that’s all over, though, you return to the Personalization box, where all the
modifications you’ve made are represented at the top of the screen—as an icon called
Unsaved Theme (Figure 4-10).
Well, you wouldn’t want all that effort to go to waste, would you? So click “Save theme,”
type a name for your new, improved theme, and click Save.
From now on, the theme you’ve created (well, OK, modified) shows up in a new row
of the Personalization dialog box called My Themes. From now on, you can recall the
emotional tenor of your edited look with a single click on that icon.
If you make further changes to that theme (or any other theme), another Unsaved
Theme icon appears, once again ready for you to save and name. You can keep going
forever, adding to your gallery of experimentation.
You can also delete a less-inspired theme (right-click its icon; from the shortcut menu,
choose Delete Theme). On the other hand, when you strike creative gold, you can pack-
age up your theme and share it with other computers—your own, or other people’s
online. To do that, right-click the theme’s icon; from the shortcut menu, choose “Save
theme for sharing.” Windows asks you to name and save the new .themepak file, which
you can distribute to the masses. (Just double-clicking a .themepak file installs it in
the Personalize dialog box.)
Note: If your theme uses sounds and graphics that aren’t on other people’s PCs, they won’t see those ele-
ments when they install your theme.
Figure 4-10:
You may notice,
after applying
a theme, that
its name seems
to be “Unsaved
Theme.” This
happens when-
ever you apply a
theme and then
change any single
component of
it, including the
desktop back-
ground. Windows
takes note and
reports the theme
you are using as
modified.
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192 windows 7: the missing manual
Monitor Settings
All Versions
You wouldn’t get much work done without a screen on your computer. It follows,
then, that you can get more work done if you tinker with your screen’s settings to
make it more appropriate to your tastes and workload. And boy, are there a lot of
settings to tinker with.
Three Ways to Enlarge the Screen
There are two reasons why Windows 7 introduced a quick-and-easy way to magnify
everything on the screen.
First, people tend to get older—even you. Come middle age, your eyes may have
trouble reading smaller type.
Second, the resolution of computer screens gets higher every year. That is, more and
more dots are packed into the same-sized screens, and therefore those dots are getting
smaller, and therefore the type and graphics are getting smaller.
Microsoft finally decided enough was enough. That’s why, in Windows 7, there’s a
one-click way to enlarge all type and graphics, with crisp, easier-to-see results.
There are also various older schemes for accomplishing similar tasks. Here’s a run-
down of all of them:
Change the resolution
Your screen can make its picture larger or smaller to accommodate different kinds
of work. You perform this magnification or reduction by switching among different
resolutions (measurements of the number of dots that compose the screen).
When you use a low-resolution setting, such as 800 × 600, the dots of your screen
image get larger, enlarging (zooming in on) the picture—but showing a smaller slice
of the page. Use this setting when playing a small movie on the Web, for example, so
that it fills more of the screen.
At higher resolutions, such as 1280 × 1024, the screen dots get smaller, making your
windows and icons smaller but showing more overall area. Use this kind of setting
when working on two-page spreads in your page-layout program, for example.
Unfortunately, adjusting the resolution isn’t a perfect solution if you’re having trouble
reading tiny type. On a flat-panel screen—that is, the only kind sold today—only one
resolution setting looks really great: the maximum one. That’s what geeks call the
native resolution of that screen.
That’s because on flat-panel screens, every pixel is a fixed size. At lower resolutions,
the PC does what it can to blur together adjacent pixels, but the effect is fuzzy and
unsatisfying. (On the old, bulky CRT monitors, the electron gun could actually make
the pixels larger or smaller, so you didn’t have this problem.)
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 193
If you still want to adjust your screen’s resolution, here’s how you do it. Right-click
the desktop. From the shortcut menu, choose “Screen resolution.” In the dialog box
(Figure 4-11), use the Resolution pop-up menu.
Tip: Depending on your monitor, you may see a weird Orientation pop-up menu here. Believe it or not, this
control lets you flip your screen image upside-down or left/right, forming a mirror image.
These options make hilarious practical jokes, of course, but they were actually designed to accommodate
newfangled PC designs where, for example, the screen half of a laptop flips over, A-frame style, so people
across the table from you can see it.
In any case, once you choose an orientation and click Apply or OK, a dialog box lets you either keep or
discard the setting. Which is lucky, because if the image is upside-down on a regular PC, it’s really hard to
get any work done.
Enlarge just the type and graphics
This new Windows 7 feature is one of Microsoft’s most inspired, most useful—and
least publicized. It turns out that you can enlarge the type and graphics on the screen
without changing the screen’s resolution. So type gets bigger without getting blurrier,
and everything else stays sharp, too.
Figure 4-11:
Use the Resolution slider to change
the magnification of the entire
screen. On flat-panel screens, only
the highest resolution is sharp,
which is a good argument for leav-
ing this setting alone.
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194 windows 7: the missing manual
To make this adjustment, right-click the desktop; from the shortcut menu, choose
Resolution. In the resulting dialog box, click “Make text and other items larger or
smaller.”
Now you arrive at a new dialog box; proceed as directed in Figure 4-12.
Blurry Bigger Text
This business about getting larger, easier-to-read type with-
out changing your screen’s resolution is a neat Windows 7
trick indeed. And it works beautifully on the pieces of your
world controlled by Microsoft.
But older, pre-Windows 7 programs don’t know anything
about the new type-scaling features. If you’ve used one of
the type-enlarging features described on these pages, the
text might be blurry just in those apps.
If a particular program is giving you that sort of blurry text
after you’ve scaled up your type, you can tell it not even to
bother. Right-click the program’s icon or its name in the Start
menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties; click the
Compatibility tab.
Turn on “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.”
Now the app won’t magnify its text at all, but at least what’s
there will be crisp.
troubleshooting moment
Monitor Settings
Figure 4-12:
Top: Click either Medium or
Larger, and then click Apply.
A message lets you know,
“You must log off your com-
puter.” Click “Log off now.”
When the computer logs you
in anew, you see larger type
and graphics.
Bottom: If you prefer an in-
between magnification, or a
higher amount (up to 500%),
drag right or left on the ruler
until the sample text looks
good to you; click OK. Older
apps may not respond to the
text-scaling feature, so you
may get blurry text at large
degrees of magnification.
The “Use Windows XP style
DP scaling” option is sup-
posed to fix that, although it
has side effects, too; it may
produce weird-looking dialog
boxes and chopped-off text
in some programs.
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 195
Tip: The box in Figure 4-12 offers only two fixed degrees of magnification: 125% and 150%. You can actually
dial up any amount you like, though. Click “Set custom text size (DPI)” to produce the dialog box shown at
bottom in Figure 4-12.
The Magnifier
If your “type is too small” problem is only occasional, you can call up Windows’s
Magnifier. It’s like a software magnifying glass that fills the top portion of your screen;
as you move your pointer around the real-size area beneath, the enlarged image scrolls
around, too. Details are on page 195.
Colors
Today’s monitors offer different color depth settings, each of which permits the screen
to display a different number of colors simultaneously. You usually have a choice
between settings like Medium (16-bit), which was called High Color in early versions
of Windows; High (24-bit), once known as True Color; and Highest (32-bit).
Monitor Settings
Some Clear Talk About ClearType
ClearType is Microsoft’s word for a sneaky technology that
makes type look sharper on your screen than it really is.
Imagine a lowercase s at a very small point size. It looks great
on this page, because this book was printed at 1,200 dots
per inch. But your monitor’s resolution is far lower—maybe
96 dots per inch—so text doesn’t look nearly as good. If
you were to really get up
close, you’d see that the
curves on the letters are
actually a little jagged.
Each dot on an LCD
screen is actually com-
posed of three subpix-
els (mini-dots): red,
green, and blue. What
ClearType does is simu-
late smaller pixels in the
nooks and crannies of
letters by turning on only
some of those subpixels. In the curve of that tiny s, for ex-
ample, maybe only the blue subpixel is turned on, which to
your eye looks like a slightly darker area, a fraction of a pixel;
as a result, the type looks finer than it really is.
In Windows 7, ClearType’s behavior is adjustable. To see
the options, open the Start menu. In the Search box, type
enough of the word cleartype until “Adjust ClearType text”
appears in the results list; click it.
On the first screen, you have an on/off checkbox for
ClearType. It’s there just for the sake of completeness,
because text on an LCD
screen really does look
worse without it.
If you click Next, Win-
dows walks you through
a series of “Which type
sample looks better to
you?” screens, where all
you have to do is click
the “Quick Brown Fox
Jumps Over the Lazy
Dog” example that you
find easiest to read. Be-
hind the scenes, of course, you’re adjusting ClearType’s
technical parameters without even having to know what
they are. When it’s all over, you’ll have the best-looking
small type possible.
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196 windows 7: the missing manual
In the early days of computing, higher color settings required a sacrifice in speed.
Today, however, there’s very little downside to leaving your screen at its highest setting.
Photos, in particular, look best when you set your monitor to higher-quality settings.
To check your settings, right-click the desktop. From the shortcut menu, choose
“Screen resolution.” In the dialog box, click “Advanced settings” to open the Proper-
ties dialog box for your monitor. Click the Monitor tab, and use the Colors pop-up
menu to choose your color depth.
Multiple Monitors
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
If your computer has a jack for an external monitor (most do these days—includ-
ing the video-output jacks on laptops), then you can hook up a second monitor or
a projector. You can either display the same picture on both screens (which is what
you’d want if your laptop were projecting slides for an audience), or you can create
a gigantic virtual desktop, moving icons or toolbars from one monitor to another.
The latter setup also lets you keep an eye on Web activity on one monitor while you
edit data on another. It’s a glorious arrangement, even if it does make the occasional
family member think you’ve gone off the deep end with your PC obsession.
What’s especially great is that Windows 7 has a wicked-cool keystroke just for setups
like this (two monitors, or laptop+projector): w+P. When you press it, you see the
display in Figure 4-13.
Tip: Actually, just plugging in a projector generally inspires Windows to present something like the options
in Figure 4-13. This is an extremely thoughtful touch for laptop luggers, because it avoids the staggeringly
confusing keyboard-based system you previously had to use. That’s where you’d press, for example, F8
three times to cycle among the three modes: image on laptop only (projector dark), image on projector only
(laptop screen dark), or image on both at once. Win7’s method is much easier.
You can also adjust the monitor settings independently for your two screens. To do
that, right-click the desktop. From the shortcut menu, choose “Screen resolution.”
In the resulting dialog box (Figure 4-14), you see icons for both screens (or even more,
if you have them, you lucky thing). It’s like a map. Click the screen whose settings (like
resolution) you want to change. If Windows seems to be displaying these miniatures
out of sequence—if your external monitor is really to the left of your main screen, and
Monitor Settings
Figure 4-13:
Click how you want your
two screens to work: one
screen on and the other
off, both screens showing
the same thing, or some
additional real estate.
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chapter 4: interior decorating windows 197
Windows is showing it to the right—you can actually drag their thumbnails around
until they match reality. (Click Identify if you get confused; that makes an enormous
digit fill each real screen, which helps you match it to the digits on the miniatures.)
To bring about that extended-desktop scenario, use the “Multiple displays” pop-up
menu. It offers commands like “Duplicate these displays” and “Extend these displays.”
Advanced Settings
If you click the Advanced button on the Settings tab, you’re offered a collection of
technical settings for your particular monitor model. Depending on your video driver,
there may be tab controls here that adjust the refresh rate to eliminate flicker, install
an updated adapter or monitor driver, and so on. In general, you rarely need to adjust
these controls—except on the advice of a consultant or help-line technician.
Monitor Settings
Figure 4-14:
When you have multiple moni-
tors, the controls on the Settings
tab change; you now see
individual icons for each monitor.
When you click a screen icon, the
settings in the dialog box change
to reflect its resolution, color
quality, and so on.
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5
chapter 5: getting help 199
Getting Help
Windows 7 may be better than any version of Windows before it, but improv-
ing something means changing it. And in Windows 7, a lot has changed;
otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be reading a book about it.
Fortunately, help is just around the corner—of the Start menu, that is. Windows’s
electronic Help system was completely new in Windows Vista and has been further
enhanced in Win7; it’s got little videos, links to Web articles, and even links that do
certain jobs for you. It may take all weekend, but eventually you should find written
information about this or that Windows feature or problem.
This chapter covers not only the Help system, but also some of the ways Windows can
help you get help from a more experienced person via your network or the Internet.
Navigating the Help System
All Versions
To open the Help system, choose StartÆHelp and Support, or press w+F1. The Help
and Support window appears, as shown in Figure 5-1. From here, you can home in
on the help screen you want using one of two methods: using the Search command,
or clicking your way from the Help home page.
Search the Help Pages
By typing a phrase into the Search Help box at the top of the main page and then
pressing Enter (or clicking the tiny magnifying glass button), you instruct Windows
to rifle through its 10,000 help pages—and many more that reside online—to search
for the phrase you typed.
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200 windows 7: the missing manual
Navigating the
Help System
Here are a few pointers:
• When you enter multiple words, Windows assumes you’re looking for help screens
that contain all those words. For example, if you search for video settings, then help
screens that contain both the words “video” and “settings” (although not neces-
sarily next to each other) appear.
Figure 5-1:
The ”, ’, O,
and Search
controls on the
Help system’s
toolbar may
look like the
corresponding
tools in a Web
browser, but
they refer only
to your travels
within the Help
system. Other
buttons at the
top let you print
a help article or
change the type
size.
Links in Help
Along with the nicely rewritten help information, you may
find, here and there in the Help system, a few clickable links.
Sometimes you see a phrase that appears in green type;
that’s your cue that clicking it will produce a pop-up defini-
tion.
Sometimes you see blue links to other help screens.
And sometimes you see help links that automate the task
you’re trying to learn. These goodies, denoted by a blue
compass icon, offer you two ways of proceeding: Either
Windows can do the whole job for you, or it can show you
step by step, using blinking, glowing outlines to show you
exactly where to click.
There aren’t nearly enough of these automated help top-
ics—but when you stumble onto one, turn down the lights,
invite the neighbors, and settle back for an unforgettable 5
minutes of entertainment.
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chapter 5: getting help 201
Navigating the
Help System
• To search for an exact phrase, put quotes around it (“video settings”).
• Once you’ve clicked your way to an article that looks promising, you can search
within that page, too. Open the Options pop-up menu (upper-right corner of the
Help window) and choose “Find (on this page).”
Tip: Unless you turn off “Improve my search results by using online Help” (under OptionsÆSettings),
Windows ordinarily searches both the Help system on your PC and additional articles online. But it doesn’t
search the entire Microsoft Knowledge Base, as Windows XP did. (That’s an enormous technical Web site
filled with troubleshooting and help articles.)
You can search it right from the Help screen, though. On the Help-screen toolbar, click Ask, and then click the
link that says “Microsoft Customer Support. ” Then take the phone off the hook for the rest of the afternoon.
Drilling Down
If you’re not using the same terminology as Microsoft, you won’t find your help topic
by using the Search box. Sometimes, you may have better luck unearthing a certain
help article by drilling down through the Table of Contents.
Figure 5-2:
As you arrive on each
more finely grained
subtable of subcontents,
you’ll see a “bread-crumb
trail” of topics at the top
of the window. These ˘
arrows illustrate the levels
through which you’ve
descended on your way
to this help page; you can
backtrack by clicking one
of these links.
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202 windows 7: the missing manual
Start by clicking one of the three main browse options: “How to get started with your
computer,” “Learn about Windows Basics,” or “Browse Help contents.”
Each one lists subtopics. Keep clicking until you arrive at an actual help article (Figure
5-2).
Remote Assistance
All Versions
You may think you know what stress is: deadlines, breakups, downsizing. But noth-
ing approaches the frustration of an expert trying to help a PC beginner over the
phone—for both parties.
The expert is flying blind, using Windows terminology that the beginner doesn’t know.
Meanwhile, the beginner doesn’t know what to look for and describe on the phone.
Every little step takes 20 times longer than it would if the expert were simply seated
in front of the machine. Both parties are likely to age 10 years in an hour.
Fortunately, that era is at an end. Windows’s Remote Assistance feature lets somebody
having computer trouble extend an invitation to an expert, via the Internet. The
expert can actually see the screen of the flaky computer and can even take control
of it by remotely operating the mouse and keyboard. The guru can make even the
most technical tweaks—running utility software, installing new programs, adjusting
hardware drivers, even editing the Registry (Appendix B)—by long-distance remote
control. Remote Assistance really is the next best thing to being there.
Remote Assistance: Rest Assured
Of course, these days, most people react to the notion of Remote Assistance with stark
terror. What’s to stop some troubled teenager from tapping into your PC in the middle
of the night, rummaging through your files, and reading your innermost thoughts?
Plenty. First of all, you, the help-seeker, must begin the process by sending a specific
electronic invitation to the expert. The invitation has a time limit: If the helper doesn’t
respond within, say, an hour, then the electronic door to your PC slams shut again.
Second, the remote-control person can only see what’s on your screen. She can’t
actually manipulate your computer unless you grant another specific permission.
Remote Assistance
Help for Dialog Boxes
In Windows XP, whenever you faced a dialog box contain-
ing a cluster of oddly worded options, the “What’s This?”
feature came to the rescue. It made pop-up captions appear
for text boxes, checkboxes, option buttons, and other dialog
box elements.
You summoned these pop-up identifiers by clicking the
? button in the upper-right corner of the dialog box and then
clicking the element you wanted identified.
In Windows 7, there’s still a ? button in some dialog boxes.
But it doesn’t offer anything like pop-up captions. Instead,
it opens an article from the standard Windows Help center
that explains the relevant dialog box as a whole.
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chapter 5: getting help 203
Finally, you must be present at your machine to make this work. The instant you see
something fishy going on, a quick tap on your Esc key disconnects the interloper.
Tip: If you still can’t stand the idea that there’s a tiny keyhole into your PC from the Internet, open the Start
menu. Start typing remote until you see “Allow remote access to your computer” in the results list; click it.
In the resulting dialog box, turn off “Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer.” Click OK. Now
you’ve effectively removed the use of the Remote Assistance feature from Windows.
Starting Up Remote Assistance: If You’re Both on Windows 7
There’s a new feature in Windows 7 that greatly shortens the number of steps neces-
sary to set up a Remote Assistance session. It’s called, self-explanatorily enough, Easy
Connect. But it works only if both of you are using Windows 7.
If the novice or the expert is using an older version of Windows, then skip to the
next section.
Instructions for the novice
OK, let’s say you’re the one who needs help. And you’re running Windows 7. And
you know somebody else with Windows 7 who might be able to help you by remote
control. Here’s what you do:
1. Open Windows Remote Assistance.
There are a bunch of ways to do that, but the quickest is to open the Start menu.
Start typing remote in the Search box until you see “Windows Remote Assistance”
in the results list; click it.
You now arrive at a “Do you want to ask for or offer help?” screen.
Remote Assistance
Invitation Expiration Dates
If you’re the one who wants help, you’ll be sending out an
invitation to invade your machine. For security’s sake, it
has an expiration date. If your guru doesn’t cash in on the
opportunity within six hours, the ticket expires, and you’ll
have to reissue the invitation another time.
It’s worth pointing out that you can adjust that expiration
period. Open the Start menu. Start typing remote until you
see “Allow remote access to your computer”; click it. In the
System Properties dialog box, click Advanced (the button, not
the tab). Here, you find two key security options:
Allow this computer to be controlled remotely. This is
the master switch for permitting your guru to operate your
PC from afar, not just see what’s onscreen.
Invitations. Here’s where you specify how quickly an
invitation to a guru expires. It may give you an extra level
of comfort knowing that after, say, three hours of waiting
for your guru to come home and get your invitation, the
window of opportunity will close. On the other hand, if you
change it to, say, 99 days, and you’re not especially worried
that somebody might try to hack into your system (you do
have to be present and approve the connection, of course),
then you’ll save yourself some time and effort the next time
you need help.
Click OK twice to close the dialog boxes.
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204 windows 7: the missing manual
2. Click “Invite someone you trust to help you.”
If you now see an error message (“This computer is not set up to send invitations”),
click Repair. Usually, the problem is that the Windows Firewall (page 339) is
blocking the outgoing signal—and usually, clicking Repair fixes it after a moment.
Note: You also may have trouble if your router doesn’t offer a feature called Peer Name Resolution Protocol.
How can you find out? Use the Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool. It’s available on Microsoft’s Web site
at http://bit.ly/91EBbJ.
At this point, what you see depends on whether you’ve used Easy Connect before.
If so, you see a list of people who’ve helped you in the past; you can resend an
invitation to your usual savior just by clicking that person’s name.
If you’re inviting someone new, on the other hand, you get the bottom box shown
in Figure 5-3, offering three ways to send the invitation to your friendly neighbor-
hood guru.
3. Click Use Easy Connect.
Now Windows shows you a 12-character password (Figure 5-3, middle).
4. Provide the password to your expert friend.
You can send it by email, read it to her over the phone, type it to her in a chat
program, send a text message, whatever.
If your expert friend does indeed have a clue, then in a moment, you see a message
from that person asking permission to see your screen (“Would you like to allow
Casey to connect to your computer?”). Close whatever windows on the screen
might be displaying incriminating information, and then—
5. Click Yes.
And voilà: Your guru friend can now see what you’re doing—and what you’re
doing wrong.
Instructions for the expert
If you and your clueless friend are both using Windows 7 and you receive an invita-
tion to help out—in the form of the 12-character Easy Connect password described
above—here’s what to do with it:
1. Open Windows Remote Assistance.
Once again, the quickest way is to start typing remote into the Start menu until
you see “Windows Remote Assistance” in the results list; click it.
2. Click “Help someone who has invited you.”
Now you’re shown a list of people you’ve helped out before (if any). If you see your
desperate friend’s name, click it. Otherwise…
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chapter 5: getting help 205
3. Click “Help someone new.” In the next window, click Use Easy Connect.
Now Windows asks you for that 12-character password.
4. Type in the 12-character password (Figure 5-3, bottom).
Capitals don’t matter. Press Enter when you’re finished.
If your inviter approves the connection, after a moment, the session begins, as
described below.
Starting Up Remote Assistance: If You’re Not Both on Windows 7
If the helper and the helpee aren’t both using Windows 7, you can still use Remote
Assistance; there are just more steps.
Figure 5-3:
Top: You have a
choice of three
ways to cry for
help.
Middle: Both
parties have to
be very, very
sure they want
this connection
to take place. If
you’re the begin-
ner seeking help,
communicate
this crazy pass-
word to your
helper buddy
elsewhere on the
Internet.
Bottom: You,
the expert, must
type in the pass-
word provided
by the struggling
novice who
asked for help.
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206 windows 7: the missing manual
In fact, anybody with Windows XP, Vista, or Server 2003/2008 can help anyone else
with one of those operating systems.
The steps, however, are different depending on whether you’re the flailer or the helper.
In the following steps, suppose you’re running Windows 7. (It’s a pretty good assump-
tion; you’re reading a book about Windows 7, aren’t you?)
Tip: If you and your guru are both fans of Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft’s chat program, you have
at your disposal a more direct way of starting a Remote Assistance session. When you see that your guru is
online in Messenger, choose ActionsÆStart Request Remote Assistance.
If the guru accepts, and you accept the acceptance, then a Remote Assistance session begins, without your
having to go through all the email rigmarole described below.
Instructions for the novice
If you’re the novice, and you have Windows 7, and you need help, here’s how to request
it from your more experienced friend:
1. Open the Windows Remote Assistance program.
The quickest way is to open the Start menu. Start typing remote in the Search box
until you see “Windows Remote Assistance” in the results list; click it.
2. Click “Invite someone you trust to help you.”
The phrase “you trust” is Microsoft’s little way of reminding you that whomever
you invite will be able to see anything you’ve got open on the screen. (Those who
would rather keep that private know who they are.)
Note: If you now see an error message (“This computer is not set up to send invitations”), click Repair. As
noted above, Windows will fix your Windows Firewall so that you can connect; then read on.
In any case, now the “How do you want to invite your trusted helper?” screen
appears.
Tip: If you click “Save this invitation as a file” at this point, then Windows invites you to save a ticket file—a
standalone invitation file—to your hard drive. You have to do that if you have a Web-based email account
like Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail. (Make up a password first—see step 5, below, for an explanation—and
then attach the file you’ve saved in this step when sending a message to your guru.)
Saving the file is also handy because you can save some steps by resending it to your guru the next time
you’re feeling lost.
3. Click “Use email to send an invitation.”
This assumes, of course, that you have a working email program on your PC. If
not, set up your account as described in Chapter 12. Or get on the phone and ask
your guru to drive over to your place to help you in person.
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chapter 5: getting help 207
If you do have working email, your email program now opens, and Windows com-
poses an invitation message for you. “Hi,” it begins. “I need help with my computer.
Would you please use Windows Remote Assistance to connect to my computer so
you can help me?” (You’re welcome to edit this message, of course—perhaps to
something that does a little less damage to your ego.)
Now Windows displays a password like the one shown in Figure 5-3. It’s designed
to ensure that your guru, and only your guru, can access your machine.
4. Type your guru’s email address into the “To:” box, and then send the message.
Windows sends an electronic invitation to your good Samaritan.
5. Let your guru know the password.
Of course, you need to find some way of telling that person the password—maybe
calling on the phone, sending a text message, or sending a separate email. The
password isn’t automatically included in the invitation mail.
Now there’s nothing to do but sit back, quietly freaking out, and wait for your guru
to get the message and connect to your PC. (See the next section.)
If your buddy accepts the invitation to help you, then Windows asks if you’re abso-
lutely, positively sure you want someone else to see your screen. If you click Yes, the
assistance session begins.
If you get a note that your expert friend wants to take control of your PC, and that’s
cool with you, click OK.
Now watch in amazement and awe as your cursor begins flying around the screen,
text types itself, and windows open and close by themselves (Figure 5-4).
As noted earlier, if the expert’s explorations of your system begin to unnerve you, feel
free to slam the door by clicking the “Stop sharing” button on the screen—or just by
pressing the Esc key. Your friend can still see your screen but can no longer control
it. (To close the connection completely so that your screen isn’t even visible anymore,
click the Disconnect button.)
Instructions for the expert
When the novice sends you an email invitation, it arrives in your email program with
an attachment—a tiny file called Invitation.msrcincident. This is your actual invita-
tion, a Remote Assistance ticket.
When you open it, you’re asked to supply the password that your helpless newbie
created in step 5 above. Once that’s done, the online help session can begin.
Tip: And by the way, if the novice, a trusting individual, sends you a Remote Assistance ticket that doesn’t
expire for a very long time (99 days, for example), keep it around on your desktop or in your Start menu.
From now on, both of you can skip all of the invitation-and-response rigmarole. Now, whenever he needs
your help, he can just call you up or email you. And all you have to do is double-click your ticket and wait
for the OK from the other side.
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208 windows 7: the missing manual
Once You’re Connected
Once you, the expert, and your little novice friend have completed all the inviting
and permission-granting, you observe a strange sight: the other person’s screen in a
special Remote Assistance window (Figure 5-4). To communicate with your troubled
comrade, chat on the phone, if you like, or click the Chat button to type back and forth.
Tip: If the victim’s screen isn’t exactly the same size as yours, click the “Actual size” button. With each click
on that button, you cycle your display between two modes.
In the first one, the other person’s screen is represented at full size, although you may have to scroll around
to see all of it. With another click, Windows compresses (or enlarges) the other person’s screen image to fit
inside your Remote Assistance window, even though the result can be distorted and ugly.
When you want to take control of the distant machine, click “Request control” on
the toolbar at the top of your screen. Of course, all you’ve actually done is just ask
permission to take control.
If it’s granted, you can now use your mouse, keyboard, and troubleshooting skills to
do whatever work you need to do. You can type messages back and forth (click Chat
on the toolbar) or even send files back and forth (click Send Files on the toolbar).
You can do anything to the distant PC that the novice would be able to do—and you
can’t do anything the novice isn’t allowed to do. (For example, if the novice doesn’t
have an administrative account, you won’t be able to do administratory things like
installing apps or creating accounts.)
Figure 5-4:
This is what you
see, wise master,
as you watch the
flailing beginner
from across the
Internet. You are
now ready to tell
him what he’s
doing wrong.
The beginner’s controls Your controls Beginner’s desktop Your desktop
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chapter 5: getting help 209
When your job is done, click the window’s Close button—or wait for your grateful
patient to click Cancel on the toolbar.
Tip: Once you’ve taken control of the other person’s screen, your first instinct might be to close the gargan-
tuan Remote Assistance window that’s filling most of the screen. Don’t. If that window closes, the connection
closes, too. What you really want is to minimize it, so it’s out of your way but not closed.
If you’re the person being helped, by the way, your toolbar has some useful options,
too. “Stop sharing” is your emergency Off button if you think the remote guru is
getting into places you consider private. You can also click Pause, which freezes the
image the other person is seeing so that you can do something personal without fear
of being watched.
Getting Help from Microsoft
All Versions
If you run into trouble with installation—or with any Windows feature—the world
of Microsoft is filled with sources of technical help. For example, you can follow any
of these avenues, all of which have direct links from the Ask page of the Help system
(choose StartÆHelp and Support, and then click Ask on the toolbar):
•Windows Answers. This link takes you to a special Web site about Windows issues.
You can post questions to the multitudes all over the Internet and return later to
read the answers.
•Microsoft Customer Support. This Web site offers a summary of all the different
ways you can get help from Microsoft: phone numbers, pricing plans, links to
other help sources, and so on.
You’ll discover there that if you bought Windows separately (that is, it didn’t come
on your computer), then you can call Microsoft for free during business hours.
The company is especially interested in helping you get Windows installed. In fact,
you can call as often as you like on this subject.
After that, you can call for everyday Windows questions for free—twice. You’re
asked to provide your 20-digit product ID number, which you can look up by
right-clicking Computer in your Start menu and clicking the Properties tab. The
not-toll-free number is listed in the packaging of your Windows installation DVD.
(If Windows came preinstalled on your machine, on the other hand, you’re sup-
posed to call the computer company with your Windows questions.)
Once you’ve used up your two free calls, you can still call Microsoft—for $35 per
incident. (They say “per incident” to make it clear that if it takes several phone calls
to solve a particular problem, it’s still just one problem.) This service is available
24 hours a day; the U.S. number is (800) 936-5700.
Tip: If you’re not in the United States, direct your help calls to the local Microsoft office in your country. You
can find a list of these subsidiaries at http://support.microsoft.com.
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210 windows 7: the missing manual
•Microsoft TechNet. This link takes you to a special Web site for network admin-
istrators, programmers, and other IT (information technology) pros. At this site
you’ll find articles on deployment, corporate security, and so on.
•Windows Web site. This is the mother lode: the master Web site for help and
instructions on running Windows. You can search it, use its links to other pages,
read articles, study FAQs (frequently asked questions), or burrow into special-
topic articles.
Of course, a lot of these online articles are built right into the regular Help system
described at the beginning of this chapter. Unless you’ve opened the Help pro-
gram, clicked OptionsÆSettings, and turned off “Improve my search results by
using online Help,” you generally don’t have to go online to search a second time.
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6
chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 213
Programs, Documents,
& Gadgets
When you get right down to it, an operating system is nothing more than
a home base from which to launch applications (programs). And you, as
a Windows person, are particularly fortunate, since more programs are
available for Windows than for any other operating system on earth.
But when you launch a program, you’re no longer necessarily in the world Microsoft
designed for you. Programs from other software companies work a bit differently,
and there’s a lot to learn about how Windows handles programs that were born
before it was.
This chapter covers everything you need to know about installing, removing, launch-
ing, and managing programs; using programs to generate documents; understand-
ing how documents, programs, and Windows communicate with one another; and
exploiting Windows 7’s hybrid document/program entity, the gadget.
Opening Programs
All Versions
Windows lets you launch (open) programs in many different ways:
• Choose a program’s name from the StartÆAll Programs menu.
• Click a program’s icon on the taskbar.
• Double-click an application’s program-file icon in the ComputerÆLocal Disk
(C:)ÆProgram FilesÆapplication folder, or highlight the application’s icon and
then press Enter.
• Press a key combination you’ve assigned to be the program’s shortcut (page 160).
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214 windows 7: the missing manual
Opening Programs • Press w+R, type the program file’s name in the Open text box, and then press Enter.
• Let Windows launch the program for you, either at startup (page 31) or at a time
you’ve specified (see Task Scheduler, page 654).
• Open a document using any of the above techniques; its “parent” program opens
automatically. For example, if you used Microsoft Word to write a file called Last
Will and Testament.doc, then double-clicking the document’s icon launches Word
and automatically opens that file.
What happens next depends on the program you’re using (and whether or not you
opened a document). Most programs present you with a new, blank, untitled docu-
ment. Some, such as FileMaker and Microsoft PowerPoint, welcome you instead with
a question: Do you want to open an existing document or create a new one? And a
few oddball programs don’t open any window at all when launched. The appearance
of tool palettes is the only evidence that you’ve even opened a program.
Exiting Programs
All Versions
When you exit, or quit, an application, the memory it was using is returned to the
Windows pot for use by other programs.
If you use a particular program several times a day, like a word processor or calen-
dar, you’ll save time in the long run by keeping it open all day long. (You can always
minimize its window when you’re not using it.)
But if you’re done using a program for the day, exit it, especially if it’s a memory-
hungry one like, say, Photoshop. Do so using one of these techniques:
• Choose FileÆExit.
• Click the program window’s Close box, or double-click its Control-menu spot (at
the upper-left corner of the window).
• Right-click the program’s taskbar button; from the shortcut menu, choose Close
or Close Group.
• Point to the program’s taskbar button; when the thumbnail preview pops up,
point to the little X button in its upper-right corner. (If the program had only one
window open, the program exits.)
• Press Alt+F4 to close the window you’re in. (If it’s a program that disappears entirely
when its last document window closes, you’re home.)
• Press Alt+F, then X.
After offering you a chance to save any changes you’ve made to your document, the
program’s windows, menus, and toolbars disappear, and you “fall down a layer” into
the window that was behind it.
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chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 215
When Programs Die:
The Task Manager
When Programs Die: The Task Manager
All Versions
Windows may be a revolution in stability (at least if you’re used to, say, Windows Me),
but that doesn’t mean that programs never crash or freeze. They crash, all right—it’s
just that you rarely have to restart the computer as a result.
When something goes horribly wrong with a program, your primary interest is
usually exiting it. But when a program locks up (the cursor moves, but menus and
tool palettes don’t respond) or when a dialog box tells you a program has “failed to
respond,” exiting may not be so easy. After all, how do you choose FileÆExit if the
File menu doesn’t open?
As in past versions of Windows, the solution is to open up the Task Manager dialog box.
Tip: Actually, there may be a quicker solution. Try right-clicking the frozen program’s taskbar button; from
the shortcut menu, choose Close. This trick doesn’t always work—but when it does, it’s much faster than
using the Task Manager.
Sending an Error Report to Microsoft
Whenever Windows detects that a program has exited, shall
we say, eccentrically—for example, it froze and you had to
terminate it—your PC quietly sends a report back to Microsoft,
the mother ship, via the Internet. It provides the company
with the technical details about whatever was going on at
the moment of the freeze, crash, or premature termination.
The information includes the name and version number of
the program, the date and time, and other details. Microsoft
swears that it doesn’t collect any information about you.
Microsoft says it has two interests in getting this information.
First, it collates the data into gigantic electronic databases,
which it then analyzes using special software tools. The
idea, of course, is to find trends that emerge from studying
hundreds of thousands of such reports. “Oh, my good-
ness, it looks like people who own both Speak-it Pro 5 and
Beekeeper Plus who right-click a document that’s currently
being printed experience a system lockup,” an engineer
might announce one day. By analyzing the system glitches
of its customers en masse, the company hopes to pinpoint
problems and devise software patches with much greater
efficiency than before.
Second, Microsoft’s computers may also react to the infor-
mation on the spot and send you a dialog box that lets you
know about an available fix.
Windows XP did this report-sending, too, but it asked you
each time a program crashed. In Windows Vista, the report-
sending feature was either turned on all the time or off all
the time. In Windows 7, these automatic connections are
once again up to you.
To adjust the settings, open the Start menu. In the search box,
start typing problems until you see “Choose how to report
problems”; click it. There, before you, are the controls for
the auto-reporting. You can opt to have Windows check for
solutions, check for solutions and report to Microsoft what
happened, ask for permission before each sending, or never
check for solutions.
This dialog box offers various other privacy controls. For
example, you can “Select programs to exclude from report-
ing.” (This one’s for you, owners of Music Piracy Plus 4.0.)
For details on Windows’s automatic error-reporting system,
see page 705.
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216 windows 7: the missing manual
Here are three ways to do it:
• Invoke the new “three-fingered salute,” Ctrl+Shift+Esc.
• Press the old “three-fingered salute,” Ctrl+Alt+Delete. That keystroke opens the
Windows Security screen (Figure 6-1). From here you can get to the Task Man-
ager—by clicking Start Task Manager (Figure 6-1, top).
• Right-click the taskbar and, from the shortcut menu, choose Task Manager from
the shortcut menu.
In any case, now you see a list of every open program. The Status column should make
clear what you already know: that one of your programs—labeled “Not respond-
ing”—is ignoring you.
Tip: Now, “not responding” could just mean, “in the middle of crunching away.” If the nonresponsive
program is some huge mega-hog and you just chose some command that’s going to take awhile, give it a
chance to finish before you conclude that it’s locked up.
Figure 6-1:
Top: Click the Task Manager button on the
Windows Security dialog box to check on the
status of a troublesome program.
Bottom: As if you didn’t know, one of these
programs is “not responding.” Highlight its
name and then click End Task to slap it out
of its misery. Once the program disappears
from the list, close the Task Manager and get
on with your life. You can even restart the
same program right away—no harm done.
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chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 217
As shown in Figure 6-1, shutting down the troublesome program is fairly easy; just
click its name and then click the End Task button. (If yet another dialog box appears,
telling you that “This program is not responding,” click the End Now button.)
When you jettison a recalcitrant program this way, Windows generally shuts down
the troublemaker gracefully, even offering you the chance to save unsaved changes
to your documents.
If even this treatment fails to close the program, you might have to slam the door the
hard way. Right-click the program’s name on the Applications tab; from the short-
cut menu, choose Go to Process. You switch to the Process tab, where the program’s
cryptic abbreviated name is already highlighted. Click the End Process button. (The
Processes list includes dozens of programs, including many that Windows runs be-
hind the scenes.)
Using this method, you lose any unsaved changes to your documents—but at least
the frozen program is finally closed.
Tip: If you click a program’s taskbar button but its window doesn’t appear, the program may be frozen. In
that case, try right-clicking the taskbar button; from the shortcut menu, choose Restore.
Saving Documents
All Versions
In a few programs, such as Calculator or Solitaire, you don’t actually create any docu-
ments; when you close the window, no trace of your work remains.
Most programs, however, are designed to create documents—files you can reopen for
further editing, send to other people, back up on another disk, and so on.
That’s why these programs offer FileÆSave and FileÆOpen commands, which let
you preserve the work you’ve done, saving it onto the hard drive as a new file icon so
that you can return to it later.
The Save Dialog Box
When you choose FileÆSave for the first time, you’re asked where you want the new
document stored on your hard drive (Figure 6-2). In Windows 7, this Save As dialog
box is crystal-clear; in fact, it’s a full Explorer window, complete with taskbar, Naviga-
tion pane, Search box, Views menu, and Organize menu. All the skills you’ve picked up
working at the desktop come into play here; you can even delete a file or folder right
from within the Save or Open box. (The Delete command is in the Organize menu.)
To give it a try, launch any Windows program that has a Save or Export command—
WordPad , for example. (Not all programs from other software companies have up-
dated their Save dialog boxes yet.) Type a couple of words and then choose FileÆSave.
The Save As dialog box appears (Figure 6-2).
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218 windows 7: the missing manual
Saving into Your Documents Folder
The first time you use the FileÆSave command to save a file, Windows suggests put-
ting your newly created document in your Documents library.
For many people, this is an excellent suggestion. First, it means that your file won’t
accidentally fall into some deeply nested folder where you’ll never see it again. Instead,
it will be waiting in the Documents library, which is very difficult to lose.
Second, it’s very easy to make a backup copy of your important documents if they’re
all in one folder. There’s a third advantage, too: The Documents folder is also what
Windows displays whenever you use a program’s FileÆOpen command. In other
words, the Documents library saves you time both when creating a new file and when
retrieving it.
Figure 6-2:
When the Save box first
opens, it may appear
in the collapsed form
shown at top. Click
the Browse Folders
button to expand it into
the full-blown dialog
box shown at bottom.
Type a name, choose
a folder location, and
specify the format for
the file you’re saving.
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chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 219
Tip: If the Documents library becomes cluttered, feel free to make subfolders inside it to hold your various
projects. You could even create a different default folder in Documents for each program. See page 81 for
more on libraries.
Saving into Other Folders
Still, the now-familiar Navigation pane, address bar, and Search box also appear in
the Save dialog box. (The Nav pane appears only in the Save box’s expanded form; see
Figure 6-2, bottom.) You always have direct access to other places where you might
want to save a newly created file.
All the usual keyboard shortcuts apply: Alt+,, for example, to open the folder that
contains the current one. There’s even a “New folder” button on the toolbar, so you
can generate a new, empty folder in the current list of files and folders. Windows asks
you to name it.
Dialog Box Basics
To the delight of the powerful Computer Keyboard Lobby,
you can manipulate almost every element of a Windows
dialog box by pressing keys
on the keyboard. If you’re
among those who feel that
using the mouse to do some-
thing takes longer, you’re
in luck.
The rules for navigating a
dialog box are simple: Press
Tab to jump from one set
of options to another, or
Shift+Tab to move backward.
If the dialog box has multiple
tabs, like the one shown here,
press Ctrl+Tab to “click” the
next tab, or Ctrl+Shift+Tab to
“click” the previous one.
Each time you press Tab, the PC’s focus shifts to a different
control or set of controls. Windows reveals which element
has the focus by using text highlighting (if it’s a text box or
drop-down menu), or a dotted-line outline (if it’s a button).
In the illustration shown here, the “Large icons” checkbox
has the focus.
Once you’ve highlighted a
button or checkbox, simply
press the space bar to “click”
it. If you’ve opened a drop-
down list or a set of mutually
exclusive option buttons (or
radio buttons) then press the
, or . keys. (Once you’ve
highlighted a drop-down list’s
name, you can also press the
F4 key to open it.)
Each dialog box also contains
larger, rectangular buttons at
the bottom (OK and Cancel,
for example).
Efficiency fans should re-
member that tapping the Enter key is always the equivalent
of clicking the default button—the one with the darkened
or thickened outline (the Close button in the illustration
here). And pressing Esc almost always means Cancel (or
“Close this box”).
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220 windows 7: the missing manual
In fact, if on some project you often find yourself having to navigate to some deeply
buried folder, press w+D to duck back to the desktop, open any Explorer window,
and drag the folder to your Favorites list. From now on, you’ll have quick access to it
from the Save dialog box.
Tip: Many programs let you specify a different folder as the proposed location for saved (and reopened)
files. In Microsoft Word, for example, you can change the default folders for the documents you create, where
your clip art is stored, and so on.
Navigating the List by Keyboard
When the Save As dialog box first appears, the “File name” text box is automatically
selected so you can type a name for the newly created document.
But a Windows dialog box is elaborately rigged for keyboard control. In addition to
the standard Tab/space bar controls, a few special keys work only within the list of
files and folders. Start by pressing Shift+Tab (to shift Windows’s attention from the
“File name” text box to the list of files and folders) and then do the following:
• Press various letter keys to highlight the corresponding file and folder icons. To
highlight the Program Files folder, for example, you could type PR. (If you type
too slowly, your keystrokes are interpreted as separate initiatives—highlighting
first the People folder and then the Rodents folder, for example.)
• Press the Page Up or Page Down keys to scroll the list up or down. Press Home or
End to highlight the top or bottom item in the list.
• Press the , or . keys to highlight successive icons in the list.
• When a folder (or file) is highlighted, you can open it by pressing the Enter key
(or double-clicking its icon, or clicking the Open button).
Why You See Document Names in the Save Dialog Box
In the Save dialog box, Windows displays a list of both fold-
ers and documents (documents that match the kind you’re
about to save, that is).
It’s easy to understand why folders appear here: so you can
double-click one if you want to save your document inside
it. But why do documents appear here? After all, you can’t
very well save a document into another document.
Documents are listed here so you can perform one fairly
obscure stunt: If you click a document’s name, Windows
copies its name into the “File name” text box at the bottom
of the window. That’s a useful shortcut if you want to replace
an existing document with the new one you’re saving. By
saving a new file with the same name as the existing one,
you force Windows to overwrite it (after asking your permis-
sion, of course).
This trick also reduces the amount of typing needed to
save a document to which you’ve assigned a different
version number. For example, if you click the Thesis Draft
3.1 document in the list, Windows copies that name into
the “File name” text box; doing so keeps it separate from
earlier drafts. To save your new document as Thesis Draft
3.2, you need to change only one character (change the 1
to 2) before clicking the Save button.
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The File Format Drop-Down Menu
The Save As dialog box in many programs offers a menu of file formats (usually re-
ferred to as file types) below or next to the “File name” text box. Use this drop-down
menu when preparing a document for use by somebody whose computer doesn’t
have the same software.
For example, if you’ve typed something in Microsoft Word, you can use this menu to
generate a Web page document or a Rich Text Format document that you can open
with almost any standard word processor or page-layout program.
Closing Documents
All Versions
You close a document window just as you’d close any window, as described in Chap-
ter 2: by clicking the close box (marked by an X) in the upper-right corner of the
window, by double-clicking the Control menu spot just to the left of the File menu,
by clicking the X in its taskbar icon’s preview thumbnail, or by pressing Alt+F4. If
you’ve done any work to the document since the last time you saved it, Windows of-
fers a “Save changes?” dialog box as a reminder.
Sometimes closing the window also exits the application, and sometimes the appli-
cation remains running, even with no document windows open. And in a few really
bizarre cases, it’s possible to exit an application (like Windows Mail) while a document
window (an email message) remains open on the screen, lingering and abandoned!
The Open Dialog Box
All Versions
To reopen a document you’ve already saved and named, you can pursue any of these
avenues:
• Open your Documents library (or whichever folder contains the saved file).
Double-click the file’s icon.
• If you’ve opened the document recently, choose its name from the Start menu’s
jump list for that program, the taskbar’s jump list, or the StartÆRecent Items
menu (if you’ve turned it on).
• If you’re already in the program that created the document, choose FileÆOpen.
(Or check the bottom of the File menu, where many programs add a list of recently
opened files.)
• Type the document’s path and name into the Run dialog (w+R) or the address
bar. (You can also browse for it.)
The Open dialog box looks almost identical to the Save As dialog box. Once again, you
start out by perusing the contents of your Documents folder; once again, the dialog
box otherwise behaves exactly like an Explorer window. For example, you can press
Backspace to back out of a folder you’ve opened.
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222 windows 7: the missing manual
When you’ve finally located the file you want to open, double-click it or highlight it
(from the keyboard, if you like), and then press Enter.
Most people don’t encounter the Open dialog box nearly as often as the Save As
dialog box. That’s because Windows offers many more convenient ways to open a file
(double-clicking its icon, choosing its name from the StartÆDocuments command,
and so on), but only a single way to save a new file.
Moving Data Between Documents
All Versions
You can’t paste a picture into your Web browser, and you can’t paste MIDI music into
your word processor. But you can put graphics into your word processor, paste movies
into your database, insert text into Photoshop, and combine a surprising variety of
seemingly dissimilar kinds of data. And you can transfer text from Web pages, email
messages, and word processing documents to other email and word processing files;
in fact, that’s one of the most frequently performed tasks in all of computing.
Cut, Copy, and Paste
Most experienced PC users have learned to quickly trigger the Cut, Copy, and Paste
commands from the keyboard—without even thinking.
Bear in mind that you can cut and copy highlighted material in any of three ways. First,
you can use the Cut and Copy commands in the Edit menu; second, you can press
Ctrl+X (for Cut) or Ctrl+C (for Copy); and third, you can right-click the highlighted
material and, from the shortcut menu, choose Cut or Copy (Figure 6-3).
Figure 6-3:
Suppose you want
to email some text
from a Web page
to a friend.
Left: Start by drag-
ging through it
and then choosing
Copy from the
shortcut menu (or
choosing EditÆ
Copy).
Right: Now switch
to your email pro-
gram and paste it
into an outgoing
message.
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chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 223
When you do so, Windows memorizes the highlighted material, stashing it on an
invisible Clipboard. If you choose Copy, nothing visible happens; if you choose Cut,
the highlighted material disappears from the original document.
Pasting copied or cut material, once again, is something you can do either from a
menu (choose EditÆPaste), from the shortcut menu (right-click and choose Paste),
or from the keyboard (press Ctrl+V).
The most recently cut or copied material remains on your Clipboard even after you
paste, making it possible to paste the same blob repeatedly. Such a trick can be useful
when, for example, you’ve designed a business card in your drawing program and
want to duplicate it enough times to fill a letter-sized printout. On the other hand,
whenever you next copy or cut something, whatever was previously on the Clipboard
is lost forever.
Drag-and-Drop
As useful and popular as it is, the Copy/Paste routine doesn’t win any awards for speed;
after all, it requires four steps. In many cases, you can replace that routine with the
far more direct (and enjoyable) drag-and-drop method. Figure 6-4 illustrates how
it works.
Tip: To drag highlighted material offscreen, drag the cursor until it approaches the top or bottom edge of
the window. The document scrolls automatically; as you approach the destination, jerk the mouse away from
the edge of the window to stop the scrolling.
Several of the built-in Windows programs work with the drag-and-drop technique,
including WordPad and Mail. Most popular commercial programs offer the drag-
and-drop feature, too, including email programs and word processors, Microsoft
Office programs, and so on.
Note: Scrap files—bits of text or graphics that you can drag to the desktop for reuse later—no longer exist
in Windows.
As illustrated in Figure 6-4, drag-and-drop is ideal for transferring material between
windows or between programs. It’s especially useful when you’ve already copied
something valuable to your Clipboard, since drag-and-drop doesn’t involve (and
doesn’t erase) the Clipboard.
Figure 6-4:
You can drag
highlighted text (left)
to another place in
the document—or a
different window or
program (right).
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224 windows 7: the missing manual
Its most popular use, however, is rearranging the text in a single document. In, say,
Word or WordPad, you can rearrange entire sections, paragraphs, sentences, or even
individual letters, just by dragging them—a terrific editing technique.
Tip: Using drag-and-drop to move highlighted text within a document also deletes the text from its original
location. By pressing Ctrl as you drag, however, you make a copy of the highlighted text.
Export/Import
When it comes to transferring large chunks of information from one program to
another—especially address books, spreadsheet cells, and database records—none
of the data-transfer methods described so far in this chapter does the trick. For such
purposes, use the Export and Import commands found in the File menu of almost
every database, spreadsheet, email, and address-book program.
These Export/Import commands aren’t part of Windows, so the manuals or help
screens of the applications in question should be your source for instructions. For
now, however, the power and convenience of this feature are worth noting. Because
of these commands, your four years’ worth of collected names and addresses in, say,
an old address-book program can find its way into a newer program, such as Mozilla
Thunderbird, in a matter of minutes.
When Formatting Is Lost
How come pasted text doesn’t always look the same as
what I copied?
When you copy text from Internet Explorer, for example, and
then paste it into another program, such as Word, you may
be alarmed to note that the formatting of that text (bold, italic,
font size, font color, and so on) doesn’t reappear intact. In
fact, the pasted material may not even inherit the current
font settings in the word processor. There could be several
reasons for this problem.
First, not every program offers text formatting—Notepad
among them. And the Copy command in some programs
(such as Web browsers) doesn’t pick up the formatting along
with the text. So when you copy something from Internet
Explorer and paste it into Word or WordPad, you may get
plain, unformatted text. (There is some good news along
these lines, however. Word maintains formatting pasted
from the latest Internet Explorer.)
Finally, a note on text wrapping. Thanks to limitations
built into the architecture of the Internet, email messages
aren’t like word processor documents. The text doesn’t
flow continuously from one line of a paragraph to the next,
reflowing as you adjust the window size. Instead, email
programs insert a press of the Enter key at the end of each
line within a paragraph.
Most of the time, you don’t even notice that your messages
consist of dozens of one-line “paragraphs.” When you see
them in the email program, you can’t tell the difference.
But if you paste an email message into a word processor,
the difference becomes painfully apparent—especially if you
then attempt to adjust the margins.
To fix the text, delete the invisible carriage return at the end
of each line. (Veteran PC users sometimes use the word
processor’s search-and-replace function for this purpose.)
Or, if you just need a quick look, reduce the point size (or
widen the margin) until the text no longer breaks oddly.
frequently asked question
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Speech Recognition
All Versions
For years, there’s been quite a gulf between the promise of computer speech recogni-
tion (as seen on Star Trek) and the reality (as seen just about everywhere else). You
say “oxymoron”; it types “ax a moron.” (Which is often just what you feel like doing,
frankly.)
Microsoft has had a speech-recognition department for years. But until recently, it
never got the funding and corporate backing it needed to do a really bang-up job.
The speech recognition in Windows 7, however, is another story. It can’t match the
accuracy of its chief rival, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, but you might be amazed to
discover how elegant its design is now, and how useful it can be to anyone who can’t,
or doesn’t like to, type.
In short, Speech Recognition lets you not only control your PC by voice—open
programs, click buttons, click Web links, and so on—but also dictate text a heck of a
lot faster than you can type.
To make this all work, you need a PC with a microphone. The Windows Speech Rec-
ognition program can handle just about any kind of mike, even the one built into
your laptop’s case. But a regular old headset mike—“anything that costs over $20 or
so,” says Microsoft—will give you the best accuracy.
Take the Tutorial
The easiest way to fire up Speech Recognition for the first time is to open the Start
menu and then type spee. Using the mouse takes way too much time (StartÆAll
ProgramsÆAccessoriesÆEase of AccessÆWindows Speech Recognition).
In any case, the first time you open Speech Recognition, you arrive at a very slick,
very impressive full-screen tutorial/introduction, featuring a 20-something model in,
judging by the gauzy whiteness, what appears to be heaven.
Click your way through the screens. Along the way, you’re asked to do the following:
• Specify what kind of microphone you have. Headset, desktop, array, or built-in?
• Read a sample sentence, about how much Peter loves speech recognition, so your
PC can gauge the microphone’s volume.
• Give permission to Windows to study your documents and email collection. Need-
less to say, there’s no human rooting through your stuff, and none of what Speech
Recognition finds is reported back to Microsoft. But granting this permission is
a great way to improve your ultimate accuracy, since the kinds of vocabulary and
turns of phrase you actually use in your day-to-day work will be built right into
Speech Recognition’s understanding of your voice.
• Print the reference card. This card is critical when you’re first learning how to oper-
ate Windows by voice. Truth is, however, you don’t really need to print it. The same
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226 windows 7: the missing manual
information appears in this chapter, and you can always call the reference card up
on the screen by saying into your microphone, “What can I say?”
• Practice. The tutorial is excellent; it’ll take you about half an hour to complete.
It teaches you how to dictate and how to operate buttons, menus, windows, pro-
grams, and so on.
But there’s another, better reason to try the tutorial: At the outset, Windows is
just simulating its responses to what you say. But behind the scenes, it’s actually
studying your real utterances, learning about your voice, and shaping your voice
profile. This, in other words, is the “voice training” session you ordinarily have to
perform with commercial dictation programs.
Now you’re ready to roll. Operating Windows by voice entails knowing three sets of
commands:
• Controlling Speech Recognition itself.
• Controlling Windows and its programs.
Dictating.
The following sections cover these techniques one at a time.
Controlling Windows Speech Recognition
Slip on your headset, open Windows Speech Recognition, and have a gander at these
all-important spoken commands:
•“Start listening”/“Stop listening.” These commands tell your PC to start and stop
listening to you. That’s important, because you don’t want it to interpret everything
you say. It would not be so great if it tried to act when you said to your roommate,
“Hey, Chris, close the window.”
So say, “Start listening” to turn on your mike—you see the microphone button
on the Speech palette (Figure 6-5) darken. Say “Stop listening” when you have to
take a phone call.
Tip: Once you’ve opened the Speech Recognition program, you can hit a keystroke to turn listening on and
off instead. That key combo is Ctrl+w. Get it? “Control Windows”?
•“What can I say?” This one’s incredibly important. If you can’t figure out how
to make Windows do something, look it up by saying this. You get the Speech
Recognition page of the Windows Help system, complete with a collapsible list of
the things you can say.
•“Show Speech Options.” This command opens the shortcut menu for the Speech
palette, as shown in Figure 6-5. From this menu, you can leap into further training,
open the “What can I say?” card, go to the Speech Recognition Web site, and so on.
•“Hide Speech Recognition”/“Show Speech Recognition” hides or shows the Speech
palette itself when screen real estate is at a premium.
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chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 227
Controlling Windows and Its Programs
The beauty of controlling Windows by voice is that you don’t have to remember what
to say; you just say whatever you would click with the mouse.
For example, to open the little Calculator program using the mouse, you’d click the
Start button (to open the Start menu), then All Programs, then Accessories, and fi-
nally Calculator. To do the same thing using speech recognition, you just say all that:
“Start…All Programs…Accessories…Calculator.” And presto—the Calculator appears.
Actually, that’s a bad example; you can open any program just by saying “Start Cal-
culator” (or whatever its name is). But you get the idea.
Here’s the cheat sheet for manipulating programs. In this list, any word in italics is
meant as an example (and other examples that work just as well are in parentheses):
• Start Calculator (Word, Excel, Internet Explorer…). Opens the program you named,
without your having to touch the mouse. Super convenient.
• Switch to Word (Excel, Internet Explorer…). Switches to the program you named.
•File. Open. You operate menus by saying whatever you would have clicked with the
mouse. For example, say “Edit” to open the Edit menu, then “Select All” to choose
that command, and so on.
•Print (Cancel, Desktop…). You can also click any button (or any tab name in a
dialog box) by saying its name.
•Contact us (Archives, Home page…). You can also click any link on a Web page
just by saying its name.
Figure 6-5:
The Speech palette is how
Windows holds up its end of
the conversation. If it doesn’t
understand something you
said, for example, its text
says, “What was that?” The
Speech shortcut menu opens
when you say “Show Speech
Options.” It’s as though you
right-clicked the little palette.
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228 windows 7: the missing manual
• Double-click Recycle Bin. You can tell Windows to “double-click” or “right-click”
anything you see.
• Go to Subject (Address, Body…). In an email message, Web browser, or dialog
box, “Go to” puts the insertion point into the text box you name. “Address,” for
example, means the address bar.
•Close that. Closes the frontmost window. Also “Minimize that,” “Maximize that,”
“Restore that.”
• Scroll up (down, left, right). Scrolls the window. You can say “up,” “down,” “left,”
or “right,” and you can also append any number from one to 20 to indicate how
many lines: “Scroll down 10.”
• Press F (Shift-F, capital B, down arrow, X three times…). Makes Windows press
the key you named.
Tip: You don’t have to say “press” before certain critical keys: Delete, Home, End, Space, Tab, Enter, Back-
space. Just say the key’s name: “Tab.”
Show numbers
It’s great to know you can click any button or tab by saying its name. But what if you
don’t know its name? What if it’s some cryptic little icon on a toolbar? You can’t exactly
say, “Click the little thing that looks like a guy putting his head between two rollers.”
For this purpose, Microsoft has created a clever command called “Show numbers.”
When you say that, the program overlays every clickable thing with superimposed
colorful numbers; see Figure 6-6.
Figure 6-6:
When you say
a number, that
number turns green
and changes into an
OK logo—your clue
that you must now
say “OK” to confirm
the selection. (You
can run these ut-
terances together
without pausing—for
example, “Three
OK.”) Not all pro-
grams respond to
the “Show numbers”
command, alas.
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chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 229
The numbers appear automatically if there’s more than one button of the same name
on the screen, too—several Settings buttons in a dialog box, for example. Say, “One
OK.”
Tip: This trick also works great on Web pages. Say “Show numbers” to see a number label superimposed
on every clickable element of the page.
Controlling Dictation
The real Holy Grail for speech recognition, of course, is dictation—you speak, and
Windows transcribes your words, typing them into any document. (This feature is
especially important on Tablet PCs that don’t have keyboards.)
Windows’s dictation accuracy isn’t as good as, say, Dragon NaturallySpeaking’s. But
it’s a close second, it’s free, and it’s a lot of fun.
It’s also very easy. You just talk—at regular speed, into any program where you can
type. The only real difference is that you have to say the punctuation. You know: “Dear
Mom (comma, new line), How are things going (question mark)? Can’t believe I’ll be
home for Thanksgiving in only 24 more weeks (exclamation mark)!”
Mousegrid
The voice commands described in this section are all well
and good when it comes to clicking onscreen objects. But
what about dragging them?
When you say “Mouseg-
rid,” Speech Recognition
superimposes an enor-
mous 3 x 3 grid on your
screen, its squares num-
bered 1 through 9.
Say “Five” and a new,
much smaller 3 x 3 grid,
also numbered, appears
in the space previously oc-
cupied by the five square.
You can keep shrinking
the grid in this way until you’ve pinpointed a precise spot
on the screen.
Dragging something—say, an icon across the desktop—is a
two-step process.
First, use Mousegrid to home in on the exact spot on the
screen where the icon lies; on your last homing-in, say, “Four
mark.” (In this example, the icon you want lies within the
four square. “Mark” means
“This is what I’m going to
want to drag.”)
When you say “mark,” the
Mousegrid springs back
to the full-screen size;
now you’re supposed to
home in on the destina-
tion point for your drag.
Repeat the grid-shrinking
exercise—but in the last
step say, “Seven click.”
Watch in amazement as Windows magically grabs the icon
at the “mark” position and drags it to the “click” position.
You can use Mousegrid as a last resort for any kind of click
or drag when the other techniques (like saying button or
menu names, or saying, “Show numbers”) don’t quite cut it.
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230 windows 7: the missing manual
Correcting errors
Sooner or later—probably sooner—Speech Recognition is going to misunderstand
you and type out the wrong thing. It’s very important that you correct such glitches—
for two reasons. First, you don’t want your boss/family/colleagues to think you’re
incoherent. Second, each time you make a correction, Windows learns. It won’t make
that mistake again. Over time, over hundreds of corrections, Speech Recognition gets
more and more accurate.
Suppose, then, that you said, “I enjoyed the ceremony,” and Speech Recognition typed
out, “I enjoyed this era money.” Here’s how you’d proceed:
1. Say, “Correct this era money.”
Instantly, the Alternates panel pops up (Figure 6-7).
2. If the correct transcription is among the choices in the list, say its number and
then “OK.”
As noted in Figure 6-7, you don’t have to pause before “OK.”
3. If the correct transcription doesn’t appear in the list, then speak the correct text
again.
In this example, you’d say, “the ceremony.” Almost always, the version you wanted
now appears in the list. Say its number and then “OK.”
Figure 6-7:
You make
your correc-
tions in the
Alternates
panel. It
shows a num-
bered list of
other possible
interpreta-
tions of what
you said. To
choose one
of these al-
ternates, say
its number
and then OK
(no pause
needed)—for
example,
“Two OK.”
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4. If the correct transcription still doesn’t appear in the list, say “Spell it.”
You arrive at the Spelling panel; see Figure 6-8.
When you finally exit the Alternates panel, Speech Recognition replaces the corrected
text and learns from its mistake.
More commands
Here are the other things you can say when you’re dictating text. The first few are
extremely important to learn.
• Select next (previous) two (10, 14, 20…) words (sentences, paragraphs). Highlights
whatever you just specified—for example, “Select previous five sentences.”
At this point, you’re ready to copy, change the font or style, say “Cap that” to capi-
talize the first words—or just redictate to replace what you wrote.
Tip: If the phrase you want to highlight is long, you can say, “Select My country through land of liberty.”
Windows highlights all of the text from the first phrase through and including the second one.
• Correct ax a moron. Highlights the transcribed phrase and opens the Alternates
panel, as described above. (You can say a whole phrase or just one word.)
• Undo. Undoes the last action.
• Scratch that. Deletes the last thing you dictated. (“Delete that” works, too.)
• Delete your stupid parents. Instantly deletes the text you identified.
Figure 6-8:
Just spell out the word you
really wanted: “F-I-S-H,” for
example. For greater clarity,
you can also use the “pilot’s
alphabet”: Alpha, Bravo,
Charlie, Delta, and so on—or
even “A as in alligator” (any
word you like). If it mishears
a letter you’ve spoken, say
the number over it (“three”)
and then repronounce the
letter. Say “OK” once you’ve
gotten the word right.
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232 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: If you use commands like Delete, Select, Capitalize, or Add hyphens to on a word that occurs more than
once in the open window, Speech Recognition doesn’t try to guess. It puts colorful numbered squares on every
occurrence of that word. Say, “One OK” (or whatever the number is) to tell it which occurrence you meant.
• Go to little. Puts the insertion point right before the word “little.”
• Go after lamb. Puts the insertion point right after the word “lamb.”
• Go to the start (end) of the sentence (paragraph, document). Puts the insertion
point where you said.
• Caps. Capitalizes the next word you dictate (no pause is necessary). Saying “All
caps” puts the next word ENTIRELY in caps.
• Ready no space Boost. Types ReadyBoost—no space.
• He typed the word literal comma. The command “literal” tells Speech Recognition to
type out the word that follows it (“comma”), rather than transcribing it as a symbol.
• Add hyphen to 3D. Puts a hyphen in the word (“3-D”).
• Start typing I, P, C, O, N, F, I, G; stop typing. When you say “Start typing” (and then
pause), you enter Typing mode. Now you can spell out anything, letter by letter,
in any program on earth. It’s a handy way to dictate into programs that don’t take
dictation well, like PowerPoint and Excel.
Speech Recognition tips
There are zillions of secrets, tips, and tricks lurking in Speech Recognition—but here
are a few of the most useful:
• You can teach Speech Recognition new words—unusual last names, oddball ter-
minology—by adding them directly to its dictionary. Say “Show speech options”
to open the shortcut menu, and then click (or say) “Open the Speech Dictionary.”
Text to Speech
The big-ticket item, for sure, is that speech-to-text feature.
But Windows can also convert typed text back to speech,
using a set of voices of its very own.
To hear them, open the Start menu. Start typing text to until
you see “Change text to speech settings” in the results list;
click it. Click Preview Voice to hear the astonishing realism
of Microsoft Anna, the primary voice of Windows. You can
even control her speaking rate using the “Voice speed” slider.
So when can you hear Microsoft Anna do her stuff? Primarily
in Narrator (page 290). If you master the Narrator keyboard
shortcuts, Anna can read back whatever you want, like stuff
you’ve written or articles you find on the Web. Why not
let her read the morning news to you while you’re getting
breakfast ready each day?
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You’re offered the chance to add words, change existing words, or stop certain
words from being transcribed.
• When you want to spell out a word, say, “Spell it,” and then launch right into the
spelling: “F, R, E, A, K, A, Z, O, I, D.” You don’t have to pause between letters or
commands.
• In the Spelling window, say the digit over the wrong letter, and then say “A,” or
“Alpha,” or “A as in alligator” (or any word that starts with that letter).
• Beginning any utterance with “How do I” opens up Windows Help; the next part
of your sentence goes into the Search box.
• “Computer” forces the interpretation of your next utterance as a command; “Insert”
forces it to be transcribed.
Figure 6-9:
In this dialog box, you can find
the “Number of spaces to insert
after punctuation” (meaning
“periods”) pop-up menu near
the bottom. The other controls
here let you create new voice
files (“speech profiles”)—one
for your quiet home office, for
example, and another for use in
a busy, humming office.
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234 windows 7: the missing manual
• Out of the box, Speech Recognition puts two spaces after every period—a very
1980s thing to do. Nowadays, that kind of gap looks a little amateurish. Fortunately,
you can tell Speech Recognition to use only one space.
Making this change requires you to visit the little-known Advanced Speech Op-
tions dialog box. Open the Start menu. Start typing speech until you see “Speech
Recognition” in the results list; click it. In the task pane at left, click “Advanced
speech options” (Figure 6-9).
Gadgets
All Versions
As you know, the essence of using Windows is running programs, which often produce
documents. In Windows 7, however, there’s a third category: a set of weird hybrid
entities that Microsoft calls gadgets.
They debuted in Windows Vista, as part of a new entity called the Sidebar (which
bore a startling resemblance to Mac OS X’s Dashboard). They appeared, all at once,
floating in front of your other windows, at the right side of the screen, when you first
fired up Vista, or whenever you pressed w+space bar.
In Windows 7, though, gadgets have been unleashed. Now they don’t need no stinkin’
Sidebar; they can stand tall on their own. You can park them anywhere on the screen,
where they just float.
To make them appear, right-click the desktop; from the shortcut menu, choose Gad-
gets. You’ve just opened the Gadget Gallery, a semi-transparent catalog of all your
gadgets, even the ones that aren’t currently on the screen (Figure 6-10). Open one by
double-clicking its icon.
Tip: You may have to scroll the Gadget Gallery to see all the gadgets, by clicking the Page arrows at the top left
of the window. When you’re finished opening new gadgets, close the Gadget Gallery by clicking its g button.
What are these weird hybrid entities, anyway? They’re not really programs, because
they don’t create documents or have listings in the All Programs menu. They’re cer-
tainly not documents, because you can’t name or save them. What they most resemble,
actually, are little Web pages. They’re meant to display information, much of it from
the Internet, and they’re written using Web programming languages like DHTML,
JavaScript, VBScript, and XML.
Note: They’re generally distributed as .zip files that, when decompressed, have the filename extension .gadget.
Many gadgets require an Internet connection, preferably an always-on connection like
a cable modem. If your PC loses its connection, the gadget displays the information
from the last time it went online, and a little readout tells you exactly when that was.
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chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 235
Gadget Tip-o-Rama
The starter gadgets include a calculator, current weather reporter, stock ticker, clock,
and so on. Mastering the basics won’t take you long at all:
• To move a gadget, drag it around the screen. It doesn’t have to stay where it first
appeared.
Tip: If the gadget doesn’t seem to want to move when you drag it, you’re probably grabbing it by a clickable
portion. Try to find a purely graphical spot—the spiral binding of the calendar, for example. Or use the grip
strip (˝) that appears off to the right when you point to it.
• To close a gadget, point to it. The square g button appears at the gadget’s top-left
corner; click it. (You can also right-click a gadget and choose Close Gadget from
its shortcut menu.)
• To get rid of a gadget for good, right-click it; from the shortcut menu, choose
Uninstall.
• Hide all gadgets by right-clicking a blank spot on the desktop. From the shortcut
menu, choose ViewÆ“Show desktop gadgets” so that the checkmark disappears.
Figure 6-10:
The Gadgets
gallery offers
a selection
of floating
miniprograms
that convey
or convert all
kinds of useful
information.
Click one, then
click “Show
details” to
read about
its function.
Double-click
one to make
it appear on
the right side
of your screen,
or just drag
one out of the
gallery to park
it somewhere
specific.
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236 windows 7: the missing manual
This technique just hides the gadgets. Any gadget you’ve moved onto your screen
is still technically running, using memory. (To bring them back, use the same
command again or just right-click the desktop and choose Gadgets.)
• Bring hidden gadgets to the front by pressing w+G. (Do this when, for example,
another window is covering them up.)
• Open more than one copy of the same gadget. Just double-click its icon more
than once in the Gadget Gallery. You wind up with multiple copies of it on your
screen: three clocks, two weather trackers, or whatever. That’s a useful trick when,
for example, you want to track the time or weather in more than one city, or when
you maintain two different stock portfolios.
• Fiddle with a gadget’s settings. If you point to a gadget without clicking, three or
four tiny icons appear to its right. One is the g (Close button), which you’ve already
met. The © button opens the gadget’s Settings dialog box, where, for example, you
can specify which stocks you want to track, or which town’s weather you want to
see. (As noted above, the ˝ icon is a “grip strip” that lets you drag the gadget to a
new spot on the screen. Some icons, like Weather, have a G icon, too, which means
“make this gadget bigger.”) See Figure 6-11.
• “Tab” through the gadgets, highlighting one after another, by repeatedly pressing
w+G. When a certain gadget is highlighted, you can manipulate it. Close it, for
example, by pressing Alt+F4.
• Search for a gadget in your Gallery window using the “Search gadgets” box in the
top right. It’s a real sanity saver for the hard-core gadget collector. But if you click
the ≥ to its right, the pop-up menu lets you restrict your search to only “Recently
installed gadgets.”
Figure 6-11:
Every gadget has a few little
buttons on the side (they vary).
They appear when you point to the
gadget without clicking.
Close
Enlarge/Reduce
Options
“Move” handle
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chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 237
Gadget Catalog
Here’s a rundown of the standard gadgets that come preinstalled in Windows. True,
they look awfully simple, but some of them harbor a few secrets.
Tip: If you right-click an individual gadget, the shortcut menu offers, among other commands, an Opacity
control. That is, you can make any individual gadget more or less see-through—something that makes more
sense for, say, the clock than the photo slideshow.
Calendar
Sure, you can always find out today’s date by checking the right end of your taskbar.
And this gadget isn’t much of a calendar. It doesn’t show your appointments, and it
doesn’t hook into Windows Calendar.
But it’s much nicer looking than the taskbar one. And besides, you can use this calendar
to look ahead or back. Here’s the scheme of things you can click:
• Double-click today’s orange “page” to open the month-view calendar.
• Navigate to a different month by clicking the ¯ or ˘ buttons. Change the year by
clicking the current year digits at the top of the month view.
• Double-click a date square to see its “page,” identifying its day and date. (Not that
you learn much by doing this—clicking Wednesday, June 22, makes the big date
squares read “Wednesday, June 22.” Ooooh!)
• Click the red peeking corner to return to the month-view calendar.
• Click G icon to see both the month-view calendar and the big today’s-date display
simultaneously.
The Disappearing Notes, Stocks, or Weather
Hey! I filled my Notes gadget with grocery lists and Web
addresses, and now they’re gone!
Hey! I set up my home city in the Weather gadget, and now
it’s showing Redmond, Washington!
Hey! I painstakingly typed in all my stocks, and now it’s
forgotten them all!
Welcome to gadget hell, buddy.
Remember, gadgets are not actually programs. They don’t,
therefore, have their own preference files stashed away on
the hard drive.
And so—here’s the bad news—anytime you close a gadget,
you lose all the data you had typed into it. When you reopen
Weather, it always shows Redmond, Washington (Microsoft’s
hometown); when you reopen Stocks, it always shows the
NASDAQ and S&P indexes; when you reopen Notes, the
sticky notes are always empty; and so on.
And so, a word to the wise: Don’t click that X button unless
you really mean it!
frequently asked question
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238 windows 7: the missing manual
Clock
Sure, this clock shows the current time, but your taskbar does that. The neat part is
that you can open up several of these clocks—double-click Clock in the Gadget Gallery
repeatedly—and set each one up to show the time in a different city. The result looks
like the row of clocks in a hotel lobby, making you look Swiss and precise.
• Point to the analog clock without clicking to see a digital rendition of the current
time (“5:34 p.m.”).
• Click the © button for a choice of eight good-looking analog clock faces. The Op-
tions dialog box also lets you choose each clock’s time zone, add a sweep-second
hand, and name this clock—“New York” or “London,” for example. This name
appears on the clock’s face.
CPU Meter
A power user’s dream—now you can watch your PC wheeze and gasp under its load
in real time, with statistical accuracy.
CPU Meter has two gauges. The left-side one shows how hard you’re driving your
CPU (central processing unit—that is, your Intel or AMD chip), expressed as a per-
centage of its capacity. The smaller dial shows how much of your computer’s RAM
(memory) you’re using at the moment. Watch the needles rise and fall as you open
and close your programs! (Watch them go nuts when you open Microsoft Office!)
Currency
This one’s for you, world travelers (or global investors). This little gadget can convert
dollars to euros, or pounds to francs, or whatever to whatever.
From the upper pop-up menu, choose the currency type you want to convert from:
U.S. Dollar, Norwegian Krone, or whatever. Into the text box, type how many of those
you want to convert.
Use the lower pop-up menu to specify which units you want to convert to.
You don’t have to click anything or press any key; the conversion is performed for
you instantly and automatically as you type. (Never let it be said that technology isn’t
marching forward.)
Some of Currency’s features are available only when you click this gadget’s G button
on the right side. For example:
• See more details about your currency’s current situation by clicking the little ~
button to the left of each pop-up menu. (This button is visible only in the gadget’s
enlarged state.) Your Web browser opens and takes you to the MSN Money Web
site, already opened to a details page about that currency and its history.
• Convert more currencies at once by clicking the + button (lower-right of the gad-
get). That is, you can see $20 represented as dinars, baht, and shekels simultaneously.
• Find out where the data comes from by clicking the words Data Providers.
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Note: This gadget actually does its homework. It goes online to download up-to-the-minute currency rates
to ensure that the conversion is accurate.
Feed Headlines
An RSS feed is a newfangled Internet feature, in which the headlines from various
Web sites are sent to you automatically (see page 414 for details). Internet Explorer
can accept RSS feeds, of course—but you don’t have to fire it up every time you want
to know the news of the world. Just take a look at this little gadget.
Actually, don’t look yet; out of the box, this gadget doesn’t show much at all. But if
you click its “View headlines” link, you get to see 100 recent headlines, mostly from
Microsoft and U.S. government news sources.
• Substitute your own feeds. This gadget is much more attractive when you fill it with
your own favorite feeds—The New York Times, sports-score sites, favorite online
columnists, and so on. Fortunately, the gadget inherits its list of feeds from those
you’ve subscribed to in Internet Explorer, as described on page 417.
Once you’ve subscribed to a feed there, click this gadget’s © button. Use the “Dis-
play this feed” list to choose the feed you want displayed.
Tip: You can choose only one item from the “Display this feed” pop-up menu. Fortunately, that doesn’t
mean only one feed. If you take the effort to create a folder for your favorite feeds when storing them in
Internet Explorer, you can choose that folder’s name in this gadget, thereby getting a rotating list of multiple
favorite feeds.
• Scroll the list by clicking the ≤ or ≥ buttons.
• See more of each headline by clicking the G button on the right side.
Picture Puzzle
For generations, Microsoft Windows fans had their Solitaire game—and only oc-
casionally looked over the backyard fence to see the Tile Game that their Macintosh
friends were playing. The idea, of course, is to click the tiles of the puzzle, using logic to
rearrange them back into the original sequence, so that they eventually slide together
into the put-together photograph.
• Change the photo by clicking the © button.
• Pause the timer (upper-left corner) by clicking the tiny clock.
• See the finished photo, so you know what the goal is, by holding the cursor down
on the little ? button.
• Give up by clicking the double-arrow button in the upper-right corner of the
puzzle window. (The same button rescrambles the puzzle.)
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Slide Show
So you’ve got a digital camera and a hard drive crammed with JPEGs. What are you
gonna do with ’em all?
Slide Show offers an ingenious way to savor your handiwork all day long. It’s just
what it says: a small slideshow that presents one photo at a time for a few seconds
each. Think of it as an electronic version of the little spouse ’n’ kids photo that cubicle
dwellers prop up on their desks—except that the picture changes every 15 seconds.
The buttons in the tiny translucent control bar at the bottom of the picture corre-
spond to Previous Photo, Pause/Resume, Next Photo, and View (which opens up the
picture—much larger now—in Windows Photo Gallery).
• Substitute your own photos. When you first install Windows, this gadget presents
Microsoft’s favorite nature photos. But where’s the fun in that? Once you’re sick
of them, click the © button. In the dialog box, use the Folder controls to choose
a folder full of your own pictures.
• Set up the show timing. Fifteen seconds is an awfully long time to stare at one photo,
of course. Then again, if the pix change too often, they’ll be distracting, and you
won’t get any work done. Nonetheless, the Options dialog box lets you keep each
slide on the screen for as little as 5 seconds or as long as 5 minutes.
The Options box also lets you create a crossfade effect as one slide morphs into
the next. And the Shuffle checkbox, of course, makes Slide Show present your pix
in a random order, rather than their alphabetical order in the folder.
Tip: If you click this gadget’s G icon on the right side, you get to see your photos at a larger, more pleasant size.
Weather
This gadget shows a handy current-conditions display for your city (or any other city)
and, at your option, even offers a three-day forecast.
Before you get started, the most important step is to click the © button. In the Options
dialog box, you see where you can specify your city and state or Zip code. Type it in
and press Enter; the gadget goes online to retrieve the latest Weather.com info. You
can also specify whether you prefer degrees Celsius or degrees Fahrenheit. Click OK.
Now the front of the gadget displays the name of your town, general conditions, and
current temperature.
• See more details by clicking the G button. Now you see today’s predicted high and
low, the sky situation (like “Clear”), the current temperature, and the three-day
forecast.
• See the complete weather report by clicking the underlined location (such as “Cen-
tral Park, NY”) to open your Web browser and call up the full-blown Weather.com
page for that location.
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More Gadgets
The gadgets that come with Windows are meant to be only examples—a starter col-
lection. The real beauty of gadgets is that people can write new ones for the whole
world to enjoy: gadgets that show your local movie listings, regional gas prices, your
email Inbox, upcoming Outlook appointments, and so on (Figure 6-12).
To see the current list of goodies that have been vetted by Microsoft, click “Get more
gadgets online” in the Gadget Gallery described above. That takes you to the Mi-
crosoft Gadgets Gallery downloads page. (Alternatively, go straight to http://gallery.
microsoft.com.)
You should have no problem finding gadgets that tell you local traffic conditions, let
you know if your flight will be on time, help you track FedEx packages, provide a
word (or joke, or comic strip) of the day, and so on.
Figure 6-12:
Not all good
things come from
Microsoft. Here’s
a handful of neat
gadgets written by
other people.
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242 windows 7: the missing manual
Installing a gadget
Downloading and installing a gadget isn’t hard, but there are a number of warnings
and permission boxes along the way. Fortunately, once it’s over, the new gadget should
be proudly floating on your screen.
Uninstalling a gadget
If you decide you don’t want a gadget, you can just close it (right-click it; from the
shortcut menu, choose “Close gadget”). That leaves it on your PC, but dormant.
If, on the other hand, you really doubt you’ll ever need it again, open your Gadget
Gallery. Right-click the offending gadget; from the shortcut menu, choose Uninstall.
Now it’s really, truly gone.
Filename Extensions and File Associations
All Versions
Every operating system needs a mechanism to associate documents with the applica-
tions that created them. When you double-click a Microsoft Word document icon,
for example, Word launches and opens the document.
In Windows, every document comes complete with a normally invisible filename
extension (or just file extension)—a period followed by a suffix that’s usually three
letters long.
Here are some common examples:
When you double-click this icon… …this program opens it.
Fishing trip.docx Microsoft Word
Quarterly results.xlsx Microsoft Excel
Home page.htm Internet Explorer
Agenda.wpd Corel WordPerfect
A home movie.avi Windows Media Player
Sudoku.gadget Sidebar gadget
Animation.dir Macromedia Director
Tip: For an exhaustive list of every file extension on the planet, visit www.whatis.com; click the link for “Every
file extension in the world.”
Behind the scenes, Windows maintains a massive table that lists every extension and
the program that “owns” it. More on this in a moment.
Displaying Filename Extensions
It’s possible to live a long and happy life without knowing much about these extensions.
Because file extensions don’t feel very user-friendly, Microsoft designed Windows to
hide the suffixes on most icons (Figure 6-13). If you’re new to Windows, you may
never have even seen them.
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Some people appreciate the way Windows hides the extensions, because the screen
becomes less cluttered and less technical-looking. Others make a good argument for
the Windows 3.1 days, when every icon appeared with its suffix.
For example, in a single Explorer window, suppose one day you discover that three
icons all seem to have exactly the same name: PieThrower. Only by making file-
name extensions appear would you discover the answer to the mystery: that one of
them is called PieThrower.ini, another is an Internet-based software updater called
PieThrower.upd, and the third is the actual PieThrower program, PieThrower.exe.
If you’d rather have Windows reveal the file suffixes on all icons, open an Explorer
window. Choose OrganizeÆ“Folder and search options.” In the Folder Options
dialog box, click the View tab. Turn off “Hide extensions for known file types,” and
then click OK.
Now the filename extensions for all icons appear (Figure 6-13).
Hooking Up an Unknown File Type
Every now and then, you might try to open a mystery icon—one whose extension is
missing, or whose extension Windows doesn’t recognize. Maybe you’ve been sent some
weirdo document created by a beekeeper or a banjo transcriber using a program you
don’t have, or maybe you’re opening a document belonging to an old DOS program
that doesn’t know about the Windows file-association feature. What will happen
when you double-click that file?
Windows asks you.
In the dialog box shown in Figure 6-14, Windows offers you two buttons:
Figure 6-13:
As a rule, Windows shows filename extensions only on
files whose extensions it doesn’t recognize. The JPEG
graphics at left, for example, don’t show their suffixes.
Right: You can ask Windows to display all extensions,
all the time.
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244 windows 7: the missing manual
•Use the Web service to find the appropriate program. In other words, Windows
will take your PC onto the Internet and look up the mystery file extension on the
Microsoft Web site.
•Select the program from a list of installed programs. Windows displays a dialog
box that looks like the one at bottom in Figure 6-14. Click the name of the pro-
gram you want, and then turn on “Always use the selected program to open this
kind of file,” if you like.
Hooking Up a File Extension to a Different Program
Windows comes with several programs that can open text files with the extension
.txt—Notepad and WordPad, for example. There are also at least two Windows apps
(Paint and Photo Gallery) that can open picture files with the extension .jpg. So how
does it decide which program to open when you double-click a .txt or .jpg file?
Easy—it refers to its internal database of preferred default programs for various file
types. But at any time, you can reassign a particular file type (file extension) to a dif-
ferent application. If you’ve just bought Photoshop, for example, you might want it
to open up your JPEG files, rather than Photo Gallery.
This sort of surgery has always confused beginners. Yet it was important for Micro-
soft to provide an easy way of reprogramming documents’ mother programs; almost
everyone ran into programs like RealPlayer that, once installed, “stole” every file as-
sociation they could. The masses needed a simple way to switch documents back to
their preferred programs.
So in Vista (and Windows 7), Microsoft ripped up its File Types dialog boxes and
started from scratch. Whether or not the three new file-association mechanisms are
actually superior to the one old one from XP—well, you be the judge.
Tip: The File Types tab of the Folder Options dialog box, once the headquarters of document-to-program
relationships, no longer exists in Windows 7.
Method 1: Start with the document
Often, you’ll discover a misaligned file-type association the hard way. You double-click
a document and the wrong program opens it.
For that reason, Microsoft has added a new way of reprogramming a document—one
that starts right in Explorer, with the document itself.
Right-click the icon of the file that needs a new parent program. From the shortcut
menu, choose Open With.
If you’re just trying to open this document into the new program this once, you may
be able to choose the new program’s name from the Open With submenu (Figure
6-15, top). Windows doesn’t always offer this submenu, however.
If you choose Choose Default Program from the submenu, or if there’s no submenu
at all, then the new Open With dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 6-15 (bot-
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chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 245
tom). It’s supposed to list every program on your machine that’s capable of opening
the document.
And now, a critical decision: Are you trying to make this document only open in a
different program? Or all documents of this type?
If it’s just this one, click OK and stop reading. If it’s all files of this type (all JPEGs, all
MP3s, all .doc files…), then also turn on “Always use the selected program to open
this kind of file,” and click OK.
Figure 6-14:
Top: Sometimes
Windows doesn’t
know what to do
with an icon you’ve
just double-clicked.
If you’re pretty
sure your PC has a
program that can
open it, then give
it a little help—click
“Select a program
from a list of in-
stalled programs,”
and then click OK.
Bottom: Use this
window to select a
program for open-
ing the mystery
file. It’s sometimes
useful to associate
a particular docu-
ment type with a
program that didn’t
create it, by the
way. For example,
if you double-click
a text file, and the
Open With dialog
box appears, you
might decide that
you want such
documents to open
automatically into
WordPad.
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246 windows 7: the missing manual
You should now be able to double-click the original document—and smile as it opens
in the program you requested.
Note: If the program isn’t listed, click the Browse button and go find it yourself. And if you don’t seem to have
any program on your PC that will open the document, click “look for the appropriate program on the Web.”
You go online to a File Associations Web page, which lists programs that Microsoft knows can open the file.
Figure 6-15:
Top: To reassign a
document to a new
parent program,
use its Open With
shortcut menu. If
you’re lucky, you
get a submenu of
available programs
that can open the
document.
Bottom: Windows
is prepared to show
you a list of every
program that can
open the mystery
file. Scroll through
the list of installed
programs to select
the one you want.
By turning on the
checkbox at the
bottom of the dia-
log box, you create
a file association
that will handle
similar files (those
with the same file
extension) in the
future.
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Method 2: Start with the program
If you’d prefer to edit the master database of file associations directly, a special control
panel awaits. You can approach the problem from either direction:
• Choose a program and then choose which file types you want it to take over; or
• Choose a filename extension (like .aif or .ico) and then choose a new default
program for it.
Here’s how to perform the first technique:
1. Open the Start menu. Start typing default until you see “Set your default pro-
grams” in the results list; click it.
The Default Programs control panel opens.
2. Click “Set your default programs.”
A curious dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 6-16 at top. It’s a list of every
program on your machine that’s capable of opening multiple file types.
3. Click the name of a program.
For example, suppose a program named FakePlayer 3.0 has performed the dreaded
Windows Power Grab, claiming a particular file type for itself without asking you.
In fact, suppose it has elected itself King of All Audio Files. But you want Windows
Media Player to play everything except FakePlayer (.fkpl) files.
In this step, then, you’d click Windows Media Player.
If you want Media Player to become the default player for every kind of music and
video file, you’d click “Set this program as default.” But if you want it to open only
some kinds of files, proceed like this:
4. Click “Choose defaults for this program.”
Now yet another dialog box opens (Figure 6-16, bottom). It lists every file type the
selected program knows about.
5. Turn on the checkboxes of the file types for which you want this program to be
the default opener.
Of course, this step requires a certain amount of knowledge that comes from
experience—how the heck would the average person know what, say, a .wvx file
is?—but it’s here for the power user’s benefit.
6. Click Save, and then OK.
Method 3: Start with the file type
Finally, you can approach the file-association problem a third way: by working through
a massive alphabetical list of filename extensions (.aca, .acf, .acs, .aif, and so on) and
hooking each one up to a program of your choice.
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248 windows 7: the missing manual
1. Open the Start menu. Start typing defaults until you see Default Programs in the
results list; click it.
The Default Programs control panel opens.
Figure 6-16:
Top: Each soft-
ware program
you install
must register
the file types it
uses. The link
between the
file type and
the program
is called an
association.
This dialog box
displays each
program on
your PC that’s
capable of
opening docu-
ments.
Bottom: If you
click “Choose
defaults for
this program,”
you get this
box, where
you can manu-
ally inform
Windows of
which file
types the se-
lected program
is allowed to
open. In this
example, the
box tells you
which types of
files will open
in QuickTime
Player when
double-clicked.
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Program Access and Defaults
OK, I’ve just barely understood your description of the
control panel where I can hook up documents to programs
or programs to documents. So what, exactly, is this other
link in that panel, called “Set program access and computer
defaults?”
Well, it’s kind of a long story.
In its 2002 agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice,
Microsoft agreed to give other companies a fighting chance
at competing with programs like Internet Explorer, Outlook
Express, and Windows Media Player.
If you open the Default Pro-
grams applet and click “Set
program access and com-
puter defaults,” you get the
dialog box shown here. After
you authenticate yourself
(page 726), you’re offered
three or four options:
Microsoft Windows means,
“Use all of Microsoft’s utility
programs, just as Windows
has been doing from Day
One.” You’re saying you pre-
fer Microsoft’s Web browser
(Internet Explorer), email
program (Windows Mail), music/video player (Windows
Media Player), and instant messaging program (Windows
Messenger).
Selecting this option doesn’t prevent you from using other
browsers, email programs, and so on—you can still find
them listed in the StartÆAll Programs menu. But this option
does put the Internet Explorer and Windows Mail icons, for
example, into prime positions at the top of your Start menu
for quick and easy access.
Non-Microsoft means, “Use anything but Microsoft’s pro-
grams! Instead, use Netscape Navigator, Eudora, RealPlayer,
Sun’s Java, or whatever—just nothing from Microsoft.”
You should install your preferred alternate programs before
selecting this option. Otherwise, the only programs this
feature “sees” are Microsoft programs, which would make
selecting this option a tad pointless.
As with the “Microsoft” option, choosing this option places
your preferred programs’ icons at the top of your Start
menu. Unlike the “Microsoft” option, however, this option
removes access to the corresponding Microsoft programs. If
you choose a non-Microsoft program as your email program,
for example, Windows Mail disappears completely from the
All Programs menu and its folder (in C:ÆProgram Files).
Of course, Microsoft’s pro-
grams aren’t really gone—
they’re just hidden. They pop
right back when you choose
the “Microsoft Windows”
option, or when you choose
Custom and then click the
associated “Enable access
to this program” checkbox.
Just remember to click OK to
apply your changes.
Computer Manufacturer
means, “Use whatever pro-
grams are recommended by
Dell” (or whoever made the PC and signed deals with AOL,
Real, and so on). This option doesn’t appear on all PCs.
Custom lets you choose each kind of program indepen-
dently, whether it comes from Microsoft or not. For example,
you can choose Firefox, Internet Explorer, or any other Web
browser as your default browser. (They’ll all be listed here
when you click the double-arrow button to expand the
dialog box.)
During your selection process, note the “Enable access to
this program” checkbox. It really means, “List this baby at
the top of the Start menu, and also put its icon on the Quick
Launch toolbar, the Desktop, and wherever else important
programs are listed.”
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250 windows 7: the missing manual
2. Click “Associate a file type or protocol with a program.”
After a moment, a massive filename extensions list opens, as shown in Figure 6-17.
3. Select the filename extension you want, and then click “Change program.”
Now the Open With dialog box appears (the same one shown in Figure 6-15).
4. Click the name of the new default program.
Once again, if you don’t see it listed here, you can click Browse to find it yourself.
5. Click OK and then Close.
Installing Software
All Versions
As you probably know, Microsoft doesn’t actually sell PCs (yet). Therefore, you
bought your machine from a different company, which probably installed Windows
on it before you took delivery.
Many PC companies sweeten the pot by preinstalling other programs, such as Quicken,
Microsoft Works, Microsoft Office, more games, educational software, and so on. The
great thing about preloaded programs is that they don’t need installing. Just double-
Figure 6-17:
Yet another way
to reprogram
your docu-
ments: Start
with the file
type. This
massive list of
thousands of
file types makes
you realize just
how many pos-
sible combina-
tions of three
letters there
really are.
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click their desktop icons, or choose their names from the StartÆAll Programs menu,
and you’re off and working.
Sooner or later, though, you’ll probably want to exploit the massive library of Windows
software and add to your collection. Today, almost all new software comes to your PC
from one of two sources: a disc (CD or DVD) or the Internet.
An installer program generally transfers the software files to the correct places on
your hard drive. The installer also adds the new program’s name to the StartÆAll
Programs menu, tells Windows about the kinds of files (file extensions) it can open,
and makes certain changes to your Registry (Appendix B).
The Preinstallation Checklist
You can often get away with blindly installing some new program without heeding
the checklist below. But for the healthiest PC and the least time on hold with tech
support, answer these questions before you install anything:
•Are you an administrator? Windows derives part of its security and stability by
handling new software installations with suspicion. For example, you can’t install
most programs unless you have an administrator account (see page 716).
Who Gets the Software?
As you’re probably becoming increasingly aware, Microsoft
designed Windows to be a multiuser operating system, in
which each person who logs in enjoys an independent envi-
ronment—from the desktop pattern to the email in Windows
Mail. The question thus arises: When someone installs a new
program, does every account holder have equal access to it?
In general, the answer is yes. If an administrator (page 716)
installs a new program, it usually shows up on the StartÆAll
Programs menu of every account holder.
Occasionally, a program’s installer may offer you a choice:
Install the new software so that it’s available either to every-
body or only to you, the currently logged-in account holder.
Also occasionally, certain programs might just install software
into your own account, so nobody else who logs in even
knows the program exists.
In that case, you can proceed in either of two ways. First,
you can simply log into each account, one after another,
reinstalling the program.
Second, you may be able to get away with moving the
program’s shortcut from your Personal folder to the cor-
responding location in the All Users folder. Windows actu-
ally maintains two different types of Programs folders: one
that’s shared by everybody, and another for each individual
account holder.
Here’s where that information pays off. Open your StartÆAll
Programs menu; right-click the name of the program you
want everyone to be able to access, and then choose Copy
from the shortcut menu. Now right-click the StartÆAll Pro-
grams menu (not the Start menu itself, as in previous Win-
dows versions); from the shortcut menu, choose Open All
Users. In the window that appears, right-click the Programs
folder, and then choose Paste from the shortcut menu. The
program now appears on the Start menu of everybody who
uses the machine.
power users' clinic
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252 windows 7: the missing manual
•Does it run in Windows 7? If the software or its Web site specifically says it’s com-
patible with 7, great. Install away. Otherwise, consult the Microsoft Web site, which
includes a list—not a complete one, but a long one—of Win7-compatible programs.
Tip: See “Running Pre-Win7 Programs” later in this chapter for compatibility tips.
•Is the coast clear? Exit all your open programs. You should also turn off your virus-
scanning software, which may take the arrival of your new software the wrong way.
•Am I prepared to backtrack? If you’re at all concerned about the health and safety
of the software you’re about to install, remember that the System Restore feature
(page 695) takes an automatic snapshot of your system just before any software
installation. If the new program turns out to be a bit hostile, you can rewind your
system to its former, happier working condition.
Installing Software from a Disc
Most commercial software these days comes on a CD or DVD. On each one is a pro-
gram called Setup.exe, which, on most installation discs, runs automatically when
you insert the disc into the machine. You’re witnessing the AutoPlay feature at work.
If AutoPlay is working (page 315), a few seconds after you insert the disc, the “wait”
cursor appears. A few seconds later, the welcome screen for your new software ap-
pears, and you may be asked to answer a few onscreen questions (for example, to
specify the folder into which you want the new program installed). Along the way,
the program may ask you to type in a serial number, which is usually on a sticker on
the disc envelope or the registration card.
When the installation is over—and sometimes after restarting the PC—the words All
Programs appear with orange highlighting in the Start menu. If you click, the new
program’s name also appears highlighted in orange, and your StartÆAll Programs
menu is now ready for action.
Installing Downloaded Software
When you download a new program from the Internet (see Figure 6-18), you have a
couple of decisions to make:
Microsoft InstallShield?
I’m a bit confused. I bought a program from Infinity Work-
ware. But when I run its installer, the Welcome screen says
InstallShield. Who actually made my software?
Most of the time, the installer program isn’t part of the
software you bought or downloaded, and doesn’t even
come from the same company. Most software companies
pay a license to installer-software companies. That’s why,
when you’re trying to install a new program called, say,
JailhouseDoctor, the first screen you see says InstallShield.
(InstallShield is the most popular installation software.)
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•Are you darned sure? Internet downloads are the most common sources of PC
virus infections. If you’re downloading from a brand-name site like Shareware.com
or Versiontracker.com (or a software company’s site, like Microsoft.com), you’re
generally safe. But if the site is unfamiliar, be very, very afraid.
•Run or Save? As shown in Figure 6-18, when you download a program from the
Web, you’re asked if you want to Run its installer or Save it. Most of the time, Run
is fine; that means your PC will download the installer program to your hard drive,
open the installer, install the software you wanted, and then completely disappear.
There’s no cleanup to worry about.
If you click Save instead, your browser will download the installer program to your
hard drive—and that’s it. Your job is to find that installer program, double-click
it, install the program—and then delete the installer program later, if you have
no further use for it.
Installing Windows Components
The Windows installer may have dumped over a gigabyte of software onto your hard
drive, but it was only warming up. Plenty of second-tier programs and features came
on the Windows DVD—stuff that Microsoft didn’t want to burden you with right off
the bat, but copied to your hard drive just in case.
Figure 6-18:
You can find thousands of Windows programs
(demos, free programs, and shareware) at
Web sites like www.download.com, www.
tucows.com, or www.versiontracker.com.
Top: When you click a link to download some-
thing, this box appears. Click the Run button
to download and install the program, or Save
to retain the installer program on your hard
drive for later.
Bottom: Internet Explorer proposes storing a
download in your Downloads folder; some
people prefer clicking the Desktop button in
the left-side pane instead so the download
will be easier to find. After the download is
complete, quit your browser. Unzip the file,
if necessary, and then run the downloaded
installer.
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254 windows 7: the missing manual
Want to see the master list of software components you have and haven’t yet installed?
The quickest method is to open the Start menu. Start typing features until you see
“Turn Windows features on or off” in the results list; click it.
You’ve just opened the Windows Features Wizard—basically a list of all the optional
Windows software chunks. Checkmarks appear next to some of them; these are the
ones you already have. The checkboxes that aren’t turned on are the options you still
haven’t installed. As you peruse the list, keep in mind the following:
• To learn what something is, point to it without clicking. A description appears in
a tooltip balloon.
• Turn on the checkboxes for software bits you want to install. Turn off the checkboxes
of elements you already have but that you’d like Windows to hide.
Note: Turning off an optional feature doesn’t remove it from your hard drive, as it did in Windows XP. Turn-
ing off a feature simply hides it and doesn’t return any disk space to you. You can make a feature magically
reappear just by turning the checkbox back on (without having to hunt down your Windows installation disc).
• Some of these checkboxes’ titles are just catch-alls for bigger groups of independent
software chunks (see Figure 6-19).
Figure 6-19:
Most of the optional installations involve
networking and administrative tools de-
signed for corporate computer technicians.
Still, you might want to turn off Games if
you don’t have that kind of time to kill, or
Tablet PC Optional Components if your
computer doesn’t have a touch screen.
(On the other hand, turning off Tablet PC
Optional Components also turns off the
Snipping Tool described on page 279.)
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Uninstalling Software
All Versions
When you’ve had enough of a certain program and want to reclaim the disk space it
occupies, don’t just delete its folder. The typical application installer tosses its soft-
ware components like birdseed all over your hard drive; therefore, only some of the
program is actually in the program’s folder.
Instead, ditch software you no longer need using the Programs and Features program.
(Open the Start menu. Start typing programs until you see “Programs and Features”
in the results list; click it.)
Now your master list of installed programs (and driver updates) appears, as shown in
Figure 6-20. Click the one you no longer want, and then click Uninstall on the toolbar.
Tip: If your computer is a member of a workgroup and you’re using Fast User Switching (see page 736), then
don’t delete a program until you’ve verified that it isn’t running in somebody else’s account behind the scenes.
Even after you uninstall a program, the folder that contained it may still exist, especially
if it contains configuration files, add-ons, or documents you created while the program
was still alive. If you’re sure you won’t need those documents, it’s safe to remove the
folder (discussed later in this section), along with the files inside it.
Figure 6-20:
To vaporize a
program, click its
name to reveal
the toolbar above
it, as shown here,
and then click
Uninstall. Here’s a
tip—right-click the
column headings
to add or remove
columns. If you
choose More, you
see some really
useful ones, like
Last Used On
(shows you the
last date you ran
this program)
and Used (how
often you’ve
run it).
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256 windows 7: the missing manual
Note: In Windows XP, the list in this dialog box was cluttered up with dozens upon dozens of “Windows
Hotfixes”—the little security patches Microsoft sends out weekly or monthly via the Internet just to make
your life interesting.
In Windows 7, though, they get a list of their own. Click “View installed updates” (one of the links in the
task pane at the left side). That’s useful to remember if you suspect one day that a certain patch has broken
something on your PC.
When Uninstalling Goes Wrong
That’s the theory of uninstalling Windows programs, of course. In practice, you’ll
probably find that the Programs and Features program should more accurately
be called the “Add or I’ll-Make-My-Best-Effort-to-Remove-Programs-But-No-
Guarantees” program. A disappointing percentage of the time, one error message or
another pops up, declaring that the uninstallation can’t proceed because Windows
can’t find this or that component.
Most of the time, it’s not the fault of Windows. Programs and Features is simply a list
of links, like the All Programs section of your Start Menu. When you highlight an entry
and click Uninstall, Windows just fires up the program’s own uninstaller program.
When the uninstaller doesn’t work, thanks to some bug or glitch, the fun begins.
The truth is, the world won’t end if you just leave the crippled program on board
your PC. You can join millions of other PC fans who slog along, hard drives corroded
with bits of software they can’t seem to remove. Apart from the waste of space and
the uneasy feeling that your PC is getting clogged arteries, there’s no harm done.
But if you’d rather wipe the slate clean, start by visiting the Web site of the company
that made your program. Dig into its support section to see if the company has
provided a fix or any removal instructions. (Some companies discover bugs in their
uninstaller utilities just like they might in any other part of their programs, and then
release patches—or even special removal tools—that let their customers remove
their software.)
If that step doesn’t lead anywhere, you can get serious by eliminating the stubborn
bits by hand. Because the process is manual and technical—and because, heaven
This File Is in Use
Hey, I tried to uninstall a program using Programs and
Features, like you said. But during the process, I got this
scary message saying that one of the deleted program’s
files is also needed by other programs. It asked me if I was
sure I wanted to delete it! Heck, I wouldn’t have the faintest
idea. What should I do?
Don’t delete the file. Leaving it behind does no harm, but
deleting it might render one of your other applications
nonfunctional.
frequently asked question
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willing, you won’t need it often—it’s been offloaded to a free bonus article called
“Removing Stubborn Programs.” You can find it on this book’s “Missing CD” page
at www.missingmanuals.com.
Program Compatibility Modes
All Versions
“You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” If that’s not Microsoft’s
motto, it should be. Each successive version of Windows may be better than the pre-
vious one, but each inevitably winds up “breaking” hundreds of programs, utilities,
and drivers that used to run fine.
Microsoft is well aware of this problem and has pulled every trick in the book to ad-
dress it. Here, for example, is the chain of second chances you’ll experience:
Warning When You Upgrade to Windows 7
In theory, you’ll know about incompatible programs well in advance. You’ll have run
the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor app (page 819) before you even installed Windows 7,
for example, and learned which programs will give you trouble. Even if you skip that
step, the Windows installer is supposed to quarantine all incompatible programs (369).
Really Ancient Apps
Will Windows 7 run my really old, really important app?
You’ll never really know until you try. And this chapter
outlines all the tools available to help you make the old app
run. But here are some specifics on what you can expect.
16-bit programs are so old, they were written when Win-
dows 3.1 roamed the earth and the first George Bush was
president. (Programs written for Windows 95 and later are
known as 32-bit programs; Windows 7 can even run 64-
bit programs.) But amazingly enough, the 32-bit versions
of Windows 7 (though not the 64-bit versions) can run
most of these programs. They do so in a kind of software
simulator—a DOS-and-Windows 3.1 PC impersonation called
a virtual machine.
As a result, these programs don’t run very fast, don’t un-
derstand the long filenames of modern-day Windows, and
may crash whenever they try to “speak” directly to certain
components of your hardware. (The simulator stands in their
way, in the name of keeping Windows stable.) Furthermore,
if just one of your 16-bit programs crashes, all of them crash,
because they all live in the same memory bubble.
Even so, it’s impressive that they run at all, 10 years later.
DOS programs are 16-bit programs, too, and therefore they
run just fine in 32-bit versions of Windows, even though DOS
no longer lurks beneath the operating system.
To open the black, empty DOS window that’s familiar to PC
veterans, press w+R, type command.com, and press Enter.
(See page 272.)
For the best possible compatibility with DOS programs—and
to run DOS programs in a 64-bit copy of Windows—try out
DOSBox (www.dosbox.com/), which emulates a classic 16-
bit computer, complete with DOS compatibility. It’s great for
those old DOS games that haven’t run correctly on Windows
since the days of Windows 95.
Programs written for Windows 95, 2000, and XP usually run
OK in the Compatibility mode described on these pages.
frequently asked question
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258 windows 7: the missing manual
Warning Right When You Install an Older App
If you try to install an old, incompatible program later, the Program Compatibility
Assistant may appear to bring you the bad news.
This app works by consulting a database of programs that Microsoft has determined
to have problems with Windows 7. It might tell you a newer version is available for
downloading.
Or it might announce that the installation didn’t go smoothly. In that case, you can
click “Reinstall using recommended settings,” which makes Windows run the installer
again using different compatibility settings. (For example, it might use one of the
compatibility modes described below.)
Compatibility Mode
In principle, programs that were written for recent versions of Windows should run
fine in Windows 7. Unfortunately, some of them contain software code that delib-
erately sniffs around to find out what Windows version you have. These programs
(or even their installer programs) may say, “Windows what?”—and refuse to open.
Fortunately, Windows 7’s Compatibility mode has some sneaky tricks that can fool
them into running. You can use it to make “let me run!” changes to a stubborn app
either the non-techie way (you just answer questions in a screen-by-screen interview
format, and let Windows make the changes behind the scenes) or the expert way
(changing compatibility settings manually).
Compatibility mode: the wizardy way
To let Windows fix your compatibility headache, open the Start menu. Start typing
compatibility until you see “Run programs made for previous versions of Windows”
in the results list. Press Enter.
Tip: Here’s another way to get to the wizard: Right-click a program’s icon, or its shortcut’s icon, or even its
name in the Start menu; from the shortcut menu, choose “Troubleshoot compatibility.”
The Program Compatibility program opens. It’s a wizard—a series of dialog boxes
that interview you. On the way, you’re asked to click the name of the program you’re
having trouble with. On the following screen, you have a choice of automatic or
manual modes:
• Try recommended settings means, “Let Windows try to figure out how to make my
stubborn program run. I don’t really care what it has to tinker with under the hood.”
• Troubleshoot program means, “Let me adjust the compatibility settings myself.”
You’ll be asked to choose from options like, “The program worked in earlier versions
of Windows,” “The program opens but doesn’t display correctly,” and so on. Work
through the question screens the best you can. When it’s all over, you get a “Start
the program” button that lets you see if the program finally runs without problems.
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Whether things are fixed or not, after you’ve checked out the app, return to the
troubleshooting wizard and click Next. You’ll be able to (a) save the fixed settings
for the future, (b) start a new round of troubleshooting, or (c) send a report to
Microsoft that you never did solve the problem.
Compatibility mode: the manual way
If you know what you’re doing, you can save some time and cut to the chase by invoking
Compatibility mode yourself. To do that, right-click a program’s icon (or its shortcut’s
icon). From the shortcut menu, choose Properties; click the Compatibility tab.
Now the dialog box shown in Figure 6-21 appears. The options here are precisely
the same choices Windows makes for you automatically when you use the wizard
described above—it’s just that now you can adjust them yourself. Here’s what you get:
•Compatibility mode. This is the part that tricks the program into believing you’re
still running Windows 95, Windows XP, or whatever.
•Run in 256 colors. Makes the program switch your screen to certain limited-colors
settings required by older games.
Figure 6-21:
By turning on “Run this program in compatibility
mode for” and choosing the name of a previous
version of Windows from the list, you can fool that
program into thinking it’s running on Windows 95,
Windows Me, Windows NT, or whatever.
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260 windows 7: the missing manual
•Run in 640 × 480 pixel resolution. Runs the app in a small window—the size
monitors used to be in the olden days. You might try this option if the app doesn’t
look right when it runs.
•Disable visual themes. Turns off the new Windows look, which often solves prob-
lems when the program’s menus or buttons look odd.
•Disable desktop composition refers to the fancy eye candy in Windows 7, like
transparent window edges and animations. Once again, turn this off if you’re see-
ing weird cosmetic glitches.
•Disable display scaling on high DPI settings. If you’ve bumped up the type size
for your screen as described on page 193, but your fonts are looking really weird
in an older app, turn on this checkbox.
•Run this program as an administrator lets you run the program as though you
have an administrator account (page 716; it’s not available if you are actually
logged in as an administrator).
This mode is designed to accommodate poorly written programs that, in the XP
days, had to be run in administrative mode, back when everyone ran their PCs
that way and didn’t realize how many virus doors that left open. The downside of
turning on this option is that you’ll have to authenticate yourself (page 726) every
time you run the program.
•Change settings for all users. If more than one person has an account on this PC,
this applies the changes you’ve just made to everyone’s accounts.
Finally, two footnotes:
• You’re much better off securing an updated version of the program, if it’s avail-
able. Check the program’s Web site to see if a Win7-compatible update is available.
• Don’t try this “fake out the app” trick with utilities like virus checkers, backup
programs, CD-burning software, and hard drive utilities. Installing older versions
of these with Windows 7 is asking for disaster.
Windows XP Mode
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Microsoft would love it if the whole world embraced each new version of Windows,
but let’s not kid ourselves. Two years after the introduction of Windows Vista, the
most popular, most-used Windows version on earth was still—Windows XP.
It should come as no surprise, then, that there are more programs for Windows XP
than any other version of Windows—including Win7.
Unfortunately, a huge number of those XP programs won’t be updated for Windows 7
compatibility. Maybe the company that wrote the app is out of business. Maybe your
company commissioned a specialty app, and the people who wrote it are long gone.
Maybe the company that made your fancy graphics or sound card has no intention
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of rewriting a more modern driver, because it would much rather have people buy
an all-new card.
But if you have a high-end version of Windows 7, you won’t care. You can download
a free copy of Windows XP and run it on top of Windows 7, with 100 percent XP
compatibility. It’s a wild arrangement (see Figure 6-22).
Note: No matter how cool this arrangement is, however, it’s a lot more trouble (and uses up a lot more
memory and disk space) than the easier tweaks described on the previous pages. Running an old app right
in Windows 7 means better speed, convenience, and security. (For example, Microsoft emphasizes that you’ll
want to install another antivirus program within your Windows XP world to protect it.)
In short, Windows XP Mode is a last-ditch solution. If you can make your older app work with one of the
simpler steps described above, you probably should.
To set this up, you need a few special ingredients:
•The right hardware. You need a PC whose processor can do hardware-assisted
virtualization (the geek name for this “pretending to be a different operating
system” feature). Some processors do, some don’t.
It’s easy enough to find out if your processor is one of the blessed, however; just
download (what else?) the Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool. It’s
Figure 6-22:
Windows XP
Mode, any-
body? Yes, it’s
a full-blown XP
computer running
in a window on
your Windows 7
machine, thanks
to the magic of
emulation.
You’re running XP in a window...in Windows 7.
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262 windows 7: the missing manual
on Microsoft’s Web site here— http://bit.ly/9QfSY—and it will give you a simple
yes or no.
•The right software. You also have to download two big, free software chunks from
Microsoft. One is called Windows Virtual PC, which is the software that simulates
a PC-within-your-PC. The other is called Windows XP Mode, which includes a
full working copy of Windows XP. You can download both of these programs
here: http://bit.ly/lvAjC.
Follow the Web site’s instructions for installing these two software chunks.
When it’s all over, you can fire up Windows XP whenever you want. Choose StartÆAll
ProgramsÆWindows Virtual PCÆWindows XP Mode (or just type xp mode into
the Search box).
The first time you start up XP Mode, you’re asked to assign a password to the starter
(administrator) account. (Unless you turn off the “Remember” checkbox, you won’t
have to enter the password again.) You’re also asked to turn on Automatic Updates
(a good idea), and to wait a good while, while XP Mode is fired up for the first time.
• Then that’s it! You have a full-blown Windows XP computer running in a window
on your Windows 7 PC’s screen. Here’s everything you have to know: Make the
window fill your screen by clicking its Maximize button, by dragging the title bar
against the top of your screen, or by choosing ActionÆView Full Screen. (Click
Restore on the toolbar to go back to floating-window mode.)
• You can copy and paste between Windows XP and Windows 7 programs.
• To install software on a CD or DVD, you can’t just insert the disc and expect the
installer to open automatically, as it does in Windows 7; after all, your computer
doesn’t know which operating system the installer should open into. So to run it
in Windows XP, you have to open the Setup program manually. Choose StartÆ
Computer, double-click the CD or DVD’s name, and then double-click the Setup
program.
• When you want to open a program you’ve installed in Windows XP, choose its
name from the Windows 7 StartÆAll ProgramsÆWindows XP Mode Applications
menu. That is, you can open them directly, without having to start up XP Mode first.
XP Mode programs take longer to open, but they run at full speed. What’s espe-
cially wild is that when you open them from the Start menu that way, you don’t
even see the rest of the Windows XP world; these programs just act like regular
Windows 7 programs, with very few reminders that they’re actually running a
simulated operating system.
• In the Computer window of your Windows XP world, the XP computer’s “hard
drive” shows up as its C: drive as usual. The real hard drive, the one running Win-
dows 7, shows up as a D: drive.
• External USB storage drives like hard drives, memory cards, and flash drives show
up in both worlds (XP and Windows 7).
Windows XP Mode
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chapter 6: programs, documents, & gadgets 263
• Other USB gadgets, like music players, are a little more complicated. You have to
tell your computer when Windows XP is allowed to use them.
To make one available to your XP world, connect it, turn it on, and then choose
USBÆAttach iPod (or whatever the thing’s name is). Then, when you’re finished
using it in the XP world, choose USBÆRelease iPod so you can use it in Win-
dows 7 again.
• Exit XP Mode by clicking the Close button on the toolbar or title bar.
A Little Bit About 64 Bits
Every version of Windows 7 except Starter is available in both
32-bit and 64-bit versions. (Both come in the same package.)
Right. 64-what?
If you want your eyes to glaze over, you can read the details
on 64-bit computing in Wikipedia. But the normal-person’s
version goes like this:
For decades, the roadways for memory and information
passed through PCs were 32 “lanes” wide—they could
manage 32 chunks of data at once. It seemed like plenty
at the time. But as programs and even documents grew
enormous, and computers came with the capacity to have
more and more memory installed, engineers began to dream
of 64-lane circuitry.
To reach 64-bit nirvana, however, you need a 64-bit com-
puter running the 64-bit version of Windows.
Sometimes, you don’t have a choice. For example, if your
PC comes with at least 4 gigabytes of memory, it has 64-bit
Windows, like it or not. And if you buy a netbook, it probably
comes with the 32-bit version.
Otherwise, though, you probably have a choice. Which
version should you go for?
In the short term, the most visible effect of having a 64-bit
computer is that you can install a lot more memory. A
top-of-the-line 32-bit PC, for example, is limited to 4 GB
of RAM—and only about 3 GB is actually available to your
programs. That once seemed like a lot, but it’s suffocatingly
small if you’re a modern video editor, game designer, or
number-crunchy engineer.
On a 64-bit PC with 64-bit Windows, though, you can install
just a tad bit more memory: 192 GB. (In the Home Premium
version of Windows 7, the cap is 16 GB).
Eventually, there may be other benefits to a 64-bit PC.
Programs can be rewritten to run faster. Security can be
better, too. For now, though, there are some downsides
to going 64-bit.
For example, much of the world’s software has yet to be
rewritten as 64-bit apps. The older, 32-bit programs mostly
run fine on a 64-bit machine. But some won’t run at all, and
32-bit drivers for your older hardware (sound card, graphics
card, printer, and so on) may give you particular headaches.
(That’s why, for example, 64-bit Windows 7 actually runs the
32-bit version of Internet Explorer—because the world’s In-
ternet Explorer plug-ins are mostly 32-bit, and they wouldn’t
work with the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer.)
You can’t run 16-bit programs at all in 64-bit Windows,
either (at least not without an add-on program like DOSBox).
If you have taken the 64-bit plunge, you generally don’t
have to know whether your apps are running in 32- or
64-bit mode; every kind of program runs in the right mode
automatically. If you ever want to see how many of your
apps are actually 32-bitters, though, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc
to open the Task Manager; then click the Processes tab.
The 32-bit programs you have open are indicated by “*32”
after their names.
up to speed
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264 windows 7: the missing manual
Note: Your XP machine goes into the old Hibernate mode, meaning that all your open windows and programs
will be right where they were the next time you start up your Windows XP “computer.” If you’d rather have
the Close box mean Shut Down or Turn Off, change the settings in SettingsÆTools.
Windows XP Mode
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7
chapter 7: the freebie apps 265
The Freebie Apps
Even after a fresh installation of Windows 7, a glance at your StartÆAll
Programs menu reveals a rich array of preinstalled programs—as an infomercial
might put it, they’re your free bonus gifts. This chapter offers a tour of these
programs. (A few of them merit chapters of their own in this book.)
For your reference pleasure, they’re described here semi-alphabetically—that is, just
as they appear in the All Programs menu (Figure 7-1).
For example, Accessories doesn’t appear here first, because it appears way down the
list in your All Programs menu.
Windows Live Essentials
All Versions
Before the software tour begins, however, a word about Windows Live Essentials.
If you can believe it, this version of Windows doesn’t come with an email program!
It doesn’t come with a chat program, calendar, address book, video-editing app, or
even basic photo-management software, either.
It’s not because Microsoft doesn’t have the talent; Windows Vista, after all, came with
all this stuff.
No, it’s because of the lawyers. Microsoft grew sick and tired of defending itself in
antitrust lawsuits (“If you include all the software anybody would ever need, you’re
stifling your competition!”). So in Windows 7, Microsoft left out all those contro-
versial programs.
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266 windows 7: the missing manual
Windows Live
Essentials
Well, they’ve been left out, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually gone. These pro-
grams are one click away, a one-shot free download from the Web, in a package called
Windows Live Essentials (formerly known as Microsoft Lawsuit Bait).
Most of them, anyway. The Windows Live Essentials suite includes these apps:
•Mail. Yes, it’s the classic free Microsoft email program. Once, long ago, it went by
the name Outlook Express.
•Photo Gallery. This is Microsoft’s “digital shoebox” program for managing, orga-
nizing, and touching up all your photos.
•Messenger. It’s the chat program that uses Microsoft’s chat network, rival to AIM
and Yahoo IM.
•Movie Maker, DVD Maker. Simple video-editing/DVD-burning programs.
•Family Safety. A naughty-Web-page blocker for your kids.
Figure 7-1:
In Windows 7, many of the listings in
the All Programs menu are nothing
more than links to other programs
and places on your PC. Many of the
big-ticket items that appear in the
All Programs menu have their own
chapters or sections in this book.
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chapter 7: the freebie apps 267
Windows Live
Essentials
•Toolbar. A toolbar for your Web browser that taps into Microsoft’s mail, chat, and
other services.
•Writer. A tool for composing blog posts.
If you’re observant, you might have noticed what this list does not include: Windows
Calendar and Windows Contacts. They came with Vista, but they’re no longer avail-
able for Windows 7, even as a download.
Microsoft says, “Hey, there’s a calendar and a contacts list built right into Mail! Just
use that!” Well, great, except that those are super-basic programs that can’t sync with
your cellphone, can’t hook into online sites like Google Calendar, and require opening
up your email program just to check your calendar.
Ah, well. Steve Ballmer giveth, and Steve Ballmer taketh away.
The following pages assume that you have, in fact, downloaded the Windows Live
Essentials, which you do like this:
Open the Start menu. Start typing essentials until you see “Go online to get Windows
Live Essentials” in the results list; click it. Your Web browser opens to the download
page. Click Download and follow the instructions.
Default Programs
All Versions
This item is a link to the Default Programs control panel. It’s described in Chapter 6.
Desktop Gadget Gallery
All Versions
Choose this item to make your gadgets (small, floating, single-purpose apps) appear
on the screen. (It’s the same thing as right-clicking the desktop and choosing Gadgets.)
Chapter 6 covers gadgets in detail.
Internet Explorer
All Versions
Yes, it’s that Internet Explorer—Microsoft’s world-famous Web browser. Full details
are in Chapter 11.
Note: If you’ve installed the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer, you see listed in your All Programs menu both
“Internet Explorer” and “Internet Explorer (64-bit).” In general, the plain Internet Explorer version will give
you fewer headaches, because it works with all the existing browser plug-ins, and the 64-bit version doesn’t.
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268 windows 7: the missing manual
Windows Anytime Upgrade
Starter • Home Basic • Home Premium • Professional
As you’re probably aware, Windows 7 comes in a number of different editions: Home
Premium, Business, Ultimate, and so on. (Details are in the Introduction.)
But what if you buy, say, the Home Premium version, but you later decide that you
really want the file-encryption and laptop-projector features of Professional? Or
maybe you bought Professional, but you crave the BitLocker drive encryption features
of Ultimate?
Not to worry; Microsoft has made sure you’ll be taken care of. Believe it or not, you
already have the Ultimate version on your hard drive. Microsoft has simply hidden the
additional features from you, disk space be damned.
Using Anytime Upgrade, you can upgrade your version of Windows 7 to a higher
version; all you need is a valid credit-card number and a few bucks in your account.
Tip: The scheme of upgrades is complicated, actually. You can use Anytime Upgrade only in certain countries.
You can’t switch from the 32-bit version to the 64-bit or vice versa. If you upgraded from Windows Vista, then
whatever you started with affects what you can migrate to. And so on.
If you value your sanity, download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor before you begin; it will analyze your
current installation, your free hard drive space, and what programs may run into trouble with the upgrade,
and provide you with a concise report. This free little program is available at http://windows.microsoft.com/
upgradeadvisor.
When you open Windows Anytime Upgrade, a dialog box appears that offers two
choices:
•Go online to choose the edition of Windows 7 that’s best for you. Click this to go
online to see which versions you can buy, and the prices. Once you plug in your
credit-card information, the Web site shows you a long serial number; you’ll need
it only if you decide to reinstall Windows 7 later. Otherwise, the upgrade is fairly
automatic—and quick, about 10 minutes. (It’s nothing like the complete Windows
reinstallation that was required by Windows Vista’s Anytime Upgrade.)
The upgrade process doesn’t disturb any of your programs, settings, or documents.
Everything remains exactly where it was.
•Enter an upgrade key. You can also buy Windows 7 upgrade kits in stores, con-
taining that long Microsoft serial number. In that case, click this option and type
the thing in.
During the upgrade, the PC will restart once, and then you’re good to go, with your
new, fancier edition of Windows 7.
Windows Anytime
Upgrade
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chapter 7: the freebie apps 269
Windows DVD Maker
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
DVD Maker can turn your camcorder (or digital-camera) masterpieces into stan-
dard DVDs that play on the TVs of your adoring public. For details on DVD Maker,
download the free PDF appendix, “Movie Maker & DVD Maker,” from this book’s
“Missing CD” at www.missingmanuals.com.
Windows Fax and Scan
All Versions
See Chapter 17 for full details on sending and receiving faxes from your PC—and on
scanning documents using a scanner.
Windows Media Center
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
The software that once required a special-edition PC is now available to anyone with
the right version of Windows. See Chapter 16 for more.
Windows Media Player
All Versions
This massive music and video player is described in Chapter 15.
Note: What happened to Windows Meeting Space, which would ordinarily appear here in the alphabetical
list? It’s gone. Microsoft has eliminated it. The requirements were too steep, the setup was too confusing,
and pretty much nobody used it. Then again, Microsoft SharedView offers pretty much the same features in
a free, simpler form: http://connect.microsoft.com/site94.
Windows Live Movie Maker
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
It’s Microsoft’s basic video-editing program—the iMovie of the PC world. It’s part
of Windows Live Essentials, and it’s described in the free PDF appendix to this book,
“Windows Live Movie Maker & DVD Maker.” You can download it from this book’s
“Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.
Windows Update
All Versions
This program is Microsoft’s system for patching your copy of Windows via the Internet.
Full coverage appears in Chapter 20.
Windows DVD
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270 windows 7: the missing manual
XPS Viewer
All Versions
This little app is dedicated to letting you read XPS files that people send you. (Hint:
Nobody will.) For details on XPS, see the box below.
Accessories
All Versions
The programs in this suite have two things in common: First, they’re all smallish,
single-purpose programs (or just links to them) that you’ll probably use only occa-
sionally. Second, you get to them from the StartÆAll ProgramsÆAccessories menu.
Bluetooth File Transfer
This program lets you send and receive files over Bluetooth, a wireless networking
technology that lets computers and devices exchange information quickly. It’s not as
fast as WiFi, but Bluetooth—if your computer has this feature—is good for quick
and dirty ad-hoc exchanges of files.
Microsoft XPS = Adobe PDF
What, exactly, is Microsoft XPS? I see an icon for it in my
Print dialog box.
Well, you know how Microsoft always comes up with its
own version of anything popular? PalmPilot, iPod, Web
browser, whatever?
Its latest target is the PDF document, the brainchild of Adobe.
A PDF document, of course, is a file that opens up on any
kind of computer—Mac, Windows, Unix, anything—looking
exactly the way it did when it was created, complete with
fonts, graphics, and other layout niceties. The recipient can’t
generally make changes to it, but can search it, copy text from
it, print it, and so on. It’s made life a lot easier for millions of
people because it’s easy, free, and automatic.
And now Microsoft wants a piece o’ dat. Its new Microsoft
XPS document format is pretty much the same idea as PDF,
only it’s Microsoft’s instead of Adobe’s.
To turn any Windows document into an XPS document, just
choose FileÆPrint. In the Print dialog box, choose Microsoft
XPS Document Writer as the “printer,” and then click Print.
You’re asked to name it and save it.
The result, when double-clicked, opens up in Internet Ex-
plorer. (Yes, Internet Explorer is the new Acrobat Reader.)
You might not even notice the two tiny toolbars that appear
above and below the main browser window, but they offer
the usual PDF-type options: Save a copy, find a phrase,
jump to a page, zoom in or out, switch to double-page
view, and so on.
Microsoft plans to release XPS readers for other versions of
Windows—and, eventually, other kinds of computers. Even
so, Microsoft has a long battle ahead if it hopes to make the
XPS format as commonplace as PDF.
But then again, long battles have never fazed it before.
frequently asked question
XPS Viewer
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chapter 7: the freebie apps 271
Calculator
At first glance, this calculator looks like nothing more than a thinner version of every
pocket calculator you’ve ever seen (Figure 7-2). You can operate it either by clicking
the buttons with your mouse or by pressing the corresponding keys on your keyboard.
Tip: Choosing ViewÆDigit Grouping instructs Calculator to display numbers with commas (123,456,789),
making large numbers (123456789) a lot easier to read.
Most of the buttons look just like the ones on the plastic calculator that’s probably
in your desk drawer at this very moment, but several require special explanation:
•/. The slash means “divided by” in computerese.
•*. The asterisk is the multiplication symbol.
•sqrt. Click this button to find the square root of the currently displayed number.
•%. Type in one number, click the * button, type a second number, and then click
this button to calculate what percentage the first number is of the second.
•1/x. Here’s a ratio button. It makes the currently displayed number appear as the
denominator of a fraction. That is, it turns 4 into ¼, which it expresses as 0.25.
Figure 7-2:
After ducking into a phone
booth, the humble Calcula-
tor (lower right) emerges
as Scientific Calculator
(upper left), which contains
a hexadecimal/decimal/
octal/binary converter for
programmers, mathemati-
cal functions for scientists,
and enough other buttons
to impress almost anyone.
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272 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: This calculator may appear to have almost every feature you could desire, but it lacks a paper-tape
feature—and we all know how easy it is to get lost in the middle of long calculations.
The solution is simple: Type your calculation, such as 34+(56/3)+5676+(34*2)=, in a word processor. High-
light the calculation you’ve typed, choose EditÆCopy, switch to Calculator, and then choose EditÆPaste.
The previously typed numbers fly into the calculator in sequence, finally producing the grand total on its
screen. (You can then use the EditÆCopy command to copy the result back out of the calculator, ready for
pasting into another program.)
But by choosing ViewÆScientific, you turn this humble five-function calculator into
a full-fledged scientific number-cruncher, as shown in Figure 7-2.
Command Prompt
The Command Prompt opens a command line interface: a black, empty screen with
the time-honored C:> prompt where you can type out instructions to the computer.
This is a world without icons, menus, or dialog boxes; even the mouse is almost useless.
Surely you can appreciate the irony. The whole breakthrough of Windows was that
it eliminated the DOS command-line interface that was still the ruling party on the
computers of the day. Most nongeeks sighed with relief, delighted that they’d never
have to memorize commands again. Yet here’s Windows 7, Microsoft’s supposedly
ultramodern operating system, complete with a command line! What’s going on?
Actually, the command line never went away. At universities and corporations
worldwide, professional computer nerds kept right on pounding away at the little
C:> prompts, appreciating the efficiency and power such direct computer control
afforded them.
You never have to use the command line. In fact, Microsoft has swept it far under the
rug, obviously expecting that most people will use the beautiful icons and menus of
the regular desktop.
Tip: You can also open the Command Prompt directly from the Start menu. Just type command into the
Search box, and then press Enter.
Clipboard Viewer
Hey, what happened to the Clipboard Viewer? It used to be
in the System Tools group of my StartÆProgramsÆAcces-
sories menu, and now it’s gone.
Yes, Clipboard Viewer was a cool little program for seeing
the material you’d most recently copied.
It’s gone. You can’t even use the Run command to issue the
Clipbrd.exe command anymore.
Fortunately, the shareware world is ready to step into the
breach. Take a look, for example, at AccelClip (available,
among other places, from this book’s “Missing CD” page at
www.missingmanuals.com).
frequently asked question
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If you have a little time and curiosity, however, the Command Prompt opens up a
world of possibilities. It lets you access corners of Windows that you can’t get to from
the regular desktop. (Commands for exploring network diagnostics are especially
plentiful—ping, netstat, and so on.) It lets you perform certain tasks with much
greater speed and efficiency than you’d get by clicking buttons and dragging icons.
And it gives you a fascinating glimpse into the minds and moods of people who live
and breathe computers.
Here are a few examples:
Command Purpose Example
control Opens a Control Panel applet control date/time
ping Checks to see if a server is responding ping nytimes.com
ipconfig Reveals your PC’s IP address and
other network info ipconfig
mkdir Make directory (that is, create a folder) mkdir \Reports
copy Copy files from one folder to another copy c:\Reports\*.* \Backup
You can also type the true, secret name of any program to open it, quickly and ef-
ficiently, without having to mouse around through the Start menu. For example, you
can type winword to open Word, or charmap to open Character Map.
To learn a few of the hundreds of commands at your disposal, consult the Internet,
which is filled with excellent lists and explanations. To find them, visit a search page
like www.google.com and search for Windows command line reference. You’ll find nu-
merous ready-to-study Web sites that tell you what to type at the Command Prompt.
(Here’s an example from Microsoft: http://bit.ly/bx0xo4.)
Tip: You can open a Command Prompt for any folder just by Shift+right-clicking a folder. From the shortcut
menu, choose Open Command Window Here.
Connect to a Network Projector
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Talk about a program you won’t use every day!
This little wizard is designed to detect, and connect your PC to, a network projector—a
video projector that can project the image from any computer on the network. You,
the pitchmaster, can stand in the conference room on the eighth floor (where the
projector is), showing your awestruck coworkers a PowerPoint presentation that’s
actually sitting on your PC in Accounting down on the fourth.
Note: This feature isn’t available in the Home Basic or Home Premium versions of Windows 7.
If such a projector is already set up and turned on, you should be able to find it and
connect to it by clicking “Search for a projector.” You’re asked for a password, if nec-
essary, and whether you want to mirror (display the same thing as) or extend (act as
additional area of) the screen on your fourth-floor PC.
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274 windows 7: the missing manual
If the projector is not on the same subnet (chunk of the network), however, the wizard
won’t see it. In that case, you need to click “Enter the projector address” instead. Tap
in the projector’s network address (supplied by your friendly network administrator,
of course).
Note: Don’t use videos in your network-projected pitches. They’ll show up choppy when transmitted over
the network.
Connect to a Projector
Choosing this program’s name is the same as pressing w+P. It brings up the handy
choice of multi-monitor displays shown on page 196.
Getting Started
Opens the Getting Started guide that appears at the top of the Start menu after you
installed Windows 7, complete with links to personalizing Windows, transferring files
from an old PC, backing up files, adjusting screen type size, and so on.
Math Input Panel
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
This new, unsung little freebie is intended for an elite group indeed: mathemati-
cians with touchscreen computers. You’re supposed to write out math equations in
the writing area using your finger or a touchscreen stylus and marvel as Windows 7
translates your handwriting into a typed-out mathematical expression. (You can use
this program with a mouse; it just might feel a little odd.)
Most of the time, you’ll want to use MIP when you’re writing in a word processor—
preparing a math test for students, writing a white paper, whatever.
Note: This program can insert its finished math expressions only into programs that recognize something
called MathML (Mathematical Markup Language). Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint do, and so does
the free OpenOffice.org. (Yes, the software itself has the same name as its Web site.)
In the unlikely event that you have a tablet PC and you’re working in the Windows
Journal program, you can also use MIP to analyze your previously handwritten math
expressions and make them properly typeset. (Use the selection tool to highlight your
handwriting, then drag the expression into the MIP window.)
To use MIP on any other computer, write out the mathematical expression, as neatly
as you can, in the writing area. In the Preview area (see Figure 7-3), you see Windows’s
stab at recognizing your handwriting.
If it’s all correct, tap Insert to drop the equation into your word processor.
If something needs correcting, you can show MIP what it got wrong in one of several
ways:
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chapter 7: the freebie apps 275
• Right-click the mistake. Or, if the mistaken transcription is more than one symbol,
circle the error while pressing the right mouse button.
• Tap the mistake while pressing your stylus’s button. (Or, again, circle the mistake
while pressing the pen’s button.)
Click the Select and Cancel button. Now tap the erroneous symbol, or circle the
larger part that’s wrong.
Tip: It’s better to correct errors after you’ve written out the whole thing.
Immediately, a pop-up menu of alternative transcriptions appears. Proceed as shown
in Figure 7-3.
If the expression is now complete, tap Insert. If you have more to write, just keep on
going. (If you got into symbol-correction mode by tapping Select and Cancel, then
you have to tap Write before you continue.)
Tip: You can tap any entry in the History menu to re-input an expression you’ve entered before. When
you’re working on, for example, a proof, or a drill with many similar problems, that can save you a lot of time.
Notepad
Notepad is a bargain-basement text editor, which means it lets you open, create, and
edit files that contain plain, unformatted text, like the ReadMe.txt files that often
accompany new programs. You can also use Notepad to write short notes or to edit
text that you intend to paste into your email program after editing it.
Figure 7-3:
To correct an error
in Math Input Pan-
el, right-click the
error. Then, from
the list of sugges-
tions, tap the one
that’s what you
intended. (If none
of the guesses are
right, rewrite the
portion you’ve
selected.)
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276 windows 7: the missing manual
Notepad basics
Notepad opens automatically when you double-click text files (those with the file
extension .txt). You can also open Notepad by choosing StartÆAll ProgramsÆ
AccessoriesÆNotepad—or, more efficiently, by typing notep into the Start menu’s
Search box.
You’ll quickly discover that Notepad is the world’s most frill-free application. Its list
of limitations is almost longer than its list of features.
For example, the Notepad window has no toolbar and can work with only one file
at a time.
Above all, Notepad is a text processor, not a word processor. That means you can’t use
any formatting at all—no bold, italic, centered text, and so on. That’s not necessarily
bad news, however. The beauty of text files is that any word processor on any kind of
computer—Windows, Mac, Unix, whatever—can open plain text files like the ones
Notepad creates.
About Word Wrap
In the old days, Notepad didn’t automatically wrap lines of text to make everything fit
in its window. As a result, chunks of text often went on forever in a single line or got
chopped off by the right side of the window, which could produce disastrous results
when you were trying to follow, say, a soufflé recipe.
In Windows 7, lines of text wrap automatically, exactly as they do in a word proces-
sor. But you’re still seeing nothing more than the effects of the FormatÆWord Wrap
command—an option you can turn off, if you like, by choosing the command again.
(You can tell when Word Wrap is on by the presence of a checkmark next to the com-
mand in the Format menu.)
Notepad Log Files
As stripped-down as it is, Notepad has one surprising feature
not available in any other text processor or word processor:
automated log files. Every time you open a certain file,
Notepad can automatically insert the current date and time
at the bottom of the file, creating a tidy record of when you
last worked on it—a nifty way to keep any type of a log, like
a record of expenditures or a secret diary.
To set this up, create a new Notepad document (choose
FileÆNew). Then type the phrase .LOG at the top of the
new document. (Capitalize “LOG,” and put nothing, not even
a space, before the period.)
Now save the document (FileÆSave) wherever you like,
and give it a name. (Notepad adds the extension .txt au-
tomatically.)
When you next open the file, Notepad types out the date
and time automatically and puts your cursor on the next line.
Now you’re ready to type the day’s entry.
To make your log file easier to read, press the Enter key to
insert a blank line after each entry before saving the file.
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Paint
You can use Paint to “paint” simple artwork or to edit graphics files from other sources.
You might say Paint is something like Adobe Photoshop (well, in the same way you
might say the local Cub Scout newsletter is something like The New York Times).
Common tasks for this program include making quick sketches, fixing dust specks
on scanned photos, and entertaining kids for hours on end.
When you first open Paint, you get a small, empty painting window. It’s been visually
overhauled in Windows 7—there’s a tool “ribbon” now—but the essentials haven’t
changed. Go like this:
1. From the Paint menu (to the left of the Home tab), choose Properties to specify
the dimensions of the graphic you want to create. Click OK.
Later in your life, you can revisit that command to adjust your graphic’s dimensions.
2. Click a tool on the Home tab, like the Pencil.
If you need help identifying one of these tools, point to it without clicking. A
tooltip identifies the icon by name, and a help message appears at the bottom of
the window.
3. Click a “paint” color from the palette.
You may also want to change the “brush” by clicking the Brushes palette, like the
spray-paint splatter shown in Figure 7-4.
4. If you’ve selected one of the enclosed-shape tools, use the Fill pop-up menu to
specify a texture (Watercolor, Crayon, or whatever); click Color 2, and then a
color swatch, to specify the color for the inside of that shape.
Figure 7-4:
The Paint tools
include shapes,
pens for special
uses (straight
lines and
curves), and
coloring tools
(including an
airbrush). The
Select tools don’t
draw anything.
Instead, they
select portions
of the image for
cutting, copying,
or dragging to a
new location.
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Some tools produce enclosed shapes, like squares and circles. You can specify one
color for the border, and a second color for the fill color inside.
5. Finally, drag your cursor in the image area (see Figure 7-4).
As you work, don’t forget that you can click the Undo button (the counterclock-
wise arrow at the very top edge of the window), “taking back” the last painting
maneuvers you made.
For fine detail work, click the View tab, and then click Zoom In. You’ve just enlarged
it so every dot is easily visible.
Paint can open and create several different file formats, including BMP, JPEG, and
GIF—every file format you need to save graphics for use on a Web site.
Tip: Paint also offers a nifty way to create wallpaper (see page 179). After you create or edit a graphic, open
the Paint menu. Choose “Set as desktop background”; from the submenu, choose Fill, Tile, or Center to
transfer your masterpiece to your desktop.
Remote Desktop Connection
Remote Desktop Connection lets you sit at your home PC and operate your office
PC by remote control. Details are in Chapter 27.
Run
When you want to open something with just a few keystrokes, the little Run command-
line window is there for you. See page 55 for details.
Snipping Tool
Snipping Tool takes pictures of your PC’s screen, for use when you’re writing up
instructions, illustrating a computer book, or collecting proof of some secret screen
you found buried in a game. You can take pictures of the entire screen or capture only
the contents of a rectangular selection. When you’re finished, Snipping Tool displays
your snapshot in a new window, which you can print, close without saving, edit, or
save (as a JPEG, GIF, PNG, or embedded HTML file), ready for emailing or inserting
into a manuscript or page-layout program.
Note: Snipping Tool isn’t available in the Starter Edition of Windows 7.
Now, as experienced PC enthusiasts already know, Windows has always had shortcuts
for capturing screenshots: Press the Print Screen (or PrtScn) key to print a picture of
the whole screen; add the Alt key to copy it to your Clipboard.
So why use Snipping Tool instead? Because it’s infinitely more powerful and flexible.
Here’s how it works:
1. Open Snipping Tool.
The screen goes foggy and light, and the Snipping Tool palette appears on your
screen.
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2. From the New shortcut menu, specify what area of the screen you want to capture.
These are your choices:
Free-form Snip, which means you can drag your cursor in any crazy, jagged,
freehand, nonrectangular shape. Snipping Tool conveniently outlines it with a
red border.
Tip: You can change the border color in the Options dialog box. It appears when you click Options on the
main Snipping palette, or when you choose ToolsÆOptions in the editing window.
Rectangular Snip lets you drag diagonally across the frozen screen image, thus
capturing a square or rectangular area. Unfortunately, you can’t adjust the rectangle
if your aim was a little off; the instant you release the mouse button, the program
captures the image in the rectangle.
A Window Snip neatly captures an entire window, automatically cropping out the
entire background. And which window does it capture? That’s up to you. As you
point to each window, a red border appears around it to illustrate what Snipping
Tool thinks you intend to capture. When the correct one is highlighted, click the
mouse to capture.
Tip: A “window,” in this context, doesn’t have to be a window. It can also be the taskbar, a Sidebar gadget,
the Start menu logo, a dialog box, and so on.
And a Full-screen Snip, of course, captures the entire screen.
3. Specify what you want to capture, if necessary.
That is, drag across the screen for a Free-form or Rectangular snip, or click the
window (object) you want for a Window Snip. (Skip this step if you chose Full-
May I Please See a Menu?
Snipping Tool, as you’ve already seen, is a heck of a lot better
than the old PrtScn keystroke. But at first glance, you might
assume that it still can’t take a picture of a menu or a shortcut
menu. After all, the instant you try to drag to highlight the
menu, the menu closes!
Actually, you can capture menus—if you know the secret.
Open Snipping Tool, and then minimize it, which hides its
window but keeps it running.
Now open the menu you want to capture, using the mouse
or keyboard. Once the menu is open, press Ctrl+PrtScn.
That’s all it takes; Snipping Tool is smart enough to know
that you intend to capture just the menu.
That’s workable, but still a bit complicated. That’s why, if
you’re actually going to write a computer book or manual,
you probably want a proper screen-capture program like
Snagit (www.techsmith.com). It offers far more flexibility than
any of Windows’s own screenshot features. For example, you
have a greater choice of file formats and capture options, you
can dress up the results with arrows or captions, and (with
its companion program, Camtasia) you can even capture
movies of screen activity.
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screen Snip. In that case, Snipping Tool pretty much knows what to do.) Now the
editing window appears (Figure 7-5).
What you do with your finished graphic is up to you. For example:
•Paste it. The edited image may be in the window in front of you, but the original,
unedited image is also on your invisible Windows Clipboard. Close the editing
window without saving changes, pop into your graphics, word processing, or
email program, and paste (Ctrl+V) what you’ve copied. Often, that’s exactly what
you want to do.
Tip: On the other hand, the Snipping Tool’s tendency to copy everything to the Clipboard can be bad if
there was already something on the Clipboard you wanted to keep. (The Clipboard can hold only one thing
at a time.) If that syndrome is driving you nuts, you can turn off the copy-to-Clipboard feature in Options.
•Send it. The little envelope button on the editing-window toolbar automatically
prepares an outgoing email message with your graphic already pasted in (or, if
Figure 7-5:
After you capture
a snip, the editing
window appears, with
your screen grab right
in the middle of it. The
Pen, Highlighter, and
Eraser tools are there
to help you annotate,
draw attention to, or
erase parts of your
illustration. (The Eraser
works only on pen and
highlighter strokes—not
the snip itself.)
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your email program is set to send plain, unformatted text messages only, as an
attachment).
•Save it. If your intention is to save the capture as a file, click the Save (floppy-disk)
icon, or choose FileÆSave, or press Ctrl+S. When the Save As dialog box appears,
type a name for your graphic, choose a file format for it (from the “Save as type”
pop-up menu), specify a folder location, and then click Save.
Tip: If you capture the screen of a Web page and save it in HTML format, Snipping Tool helpfully prints the
original URL (Web address) at the bottom of the image, so you’ll know where it came from. You can turn
off this “subtitling” feature in the Options dialog box of Snipping Tool.
Sound Recorder
Windows comes with a generous assortment of sound files you can use as error
beeps, as described in Chapter 4. But no error beep is as delightful as one you’ve
made yourself—of your 2-year-old saying, “Nope!” for example, or your own voice
saying, “Dang it!”
Using Sound Recorder (Figure 7-6) requires a sound card, speakers, and a microphone.
If your PC is appropriately equipped, you can use this little program to record vari-
ous snippets of your life, which can serve a number of purposes, including becoming
error beeps.
Recording a new sound
Here’s how to do it:
1. Choose StartÆAll ProgramsÆAccessoriesÆSound Recorder.
Or start typing recorder into the Start menu Search box until Sound Recorder pops
up in the list. The window shown in Figure 7-6 appears.
2. Click Start Recording. Make the sound, and then click Stop Recording as soon as
possible thereafter.
If you see the green animated bar dance in the Sound Recorder window, great;
that’s your VU (sound level) meter. It tells you that the PC is hearing you. If you
don’t see this graphic, however, then the sound isn’t getting through. Most likely,
the problem is that your PC control panel isn’t set to record the appropriate sound
source. Visit the Control Panel and open the Sound panel to investigate.
As soon as you click Stop Recording, the Save As box appears.
Figure 7-6:
Sound Recorder has been lobotomized since the
Windows XP version, but it does the job.
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3. Type a name for your sound file in the “File name” text box, choose a folder for
it, and then click the Save button.
You’ve just created a .wma file, a standard kind of Windows sound file.
What to do with sounds
When you double-click a .wma file, the file opens in Windows Media Player and plays
back immediately. (Press Esc to halt playback.) Sound files are ideal for emailing to
other people, posting on Web sites, transferring over the network, and so on. Many a
Bart Simpson sound bite proliferates via the Internet in exactly this way.
Sticky Notes
Sticky Notes creates virtual Post-it notes that you can stick anywhere on your screen—a
triumphant software answer to the thousands of people who stick notes on the edges
of their actual monitors.
You can type quick notes and to-do items, paste in Web addresses or phone numbers
you need to remember, or store any other little scraps and snippets of text you come
across (Figure 7-7).
Creating notes
To create a new note, click the + button in the upper-left corner of the starter note,
or press Ctrl+N. Then fill the note by typing or pasting.
Note the resize handle on the lower-right corner of each note. Drag it to make notes
larger or smaller onscreen.
Figure 7-7:
You can apply some limited formatting
to your sticky notes, but only by using
keyboard shortcuts. Sticky Notes doesn’t
come with Windows 7 Starter Edition, by
the way.
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Formatting notes
You can format the text of a note—a little bit. There are no menus, of course, so you
have to use keyboard shortcuts:
•Bold, Italic, Underline. Press Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, or Ctrl+U.
•Strikethrough style. Press Ctrl+T.
•Create a bulleted list. Press Ctrl+Shift+L.
Tip: Press Ctrl+Shift+L a second time to produce a numbered list.
•Change the type size. Press Ctrl+Shift+> (larger font) or Ctrl+Shift+< (smaller).
You can also change the “paper” color for a note to any of five other pastel colors. To
do that, right-click the note and then choose from the shortcut menu.
Deleting notes
To get rid of a note, click the little x in the upper-right corner. (You may have to
point to it to see it.) When the program asks if you’re sure, click Yes.
On the other hand, you can exit Sticky Notes without worrying that you’ll lose what
you’ve already typed. Right-click the Sticky Notes icon on the taskbar, for example,
and choose “Close window” from the shortcut menu. The program disappears, but
all your notes will be there the next time you open it.
Sync Center
This program is the terminal for Windows’s offline files feature. (This feature is great
for laptop owners who want to take work home from the office network, or network
domain members who want to keep working on documents even if the server that
houses them goes down.) See page 635 for Sync Center details.
Windows Explorer
Windows Explorer just means “desktop windows.” Choosing this command opens
one up for you—namely, your Libraries window.
Windows Mobility Center
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
The Mobility Center gives you a single, centralized dashboard for managing laptop
features. Here, in one window, you can turn wireless networking on and off, change
display settings to suit the environment, change the display orientation, and even sync
your palmtop or phone with your PC. Page 621 has the full rundown.
WordPad
WordPad is a basic word processor (see Figure 7-8), and it received a major face-lift
in Windows 7. Among other blessings, WordPad now has a toolbar ribbon for quick
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access to formatting commands, and it can now open and create Microsoft Word
files. Yes, you can get away with not buying Microsoft Office, and none of your email
business partners will ever know the difference.
And it’s not just Word files. WordPad also can open and create plain text files, Rich
Text Format (RTF) documents, and OpenOffice.org files.
Using WordPad
When WordPad first opens, you see an empty sheet of electronic typing paper. Just
above the ruler, you find a ribbon full of drop-down menus and buttons that affect
Figure 7-8:
WordPad’s new
formatting ribbon
makes it an even
closer relative to
Microsoft Word .
Text-Selection Fundamentals
Before doing almost anything to text in a word processor,
like making it bold, changing its typeface, or moving it to a
new spot in your document, you have to highlight the text
you want to affect. For millions of people, this entails drag-
ging the cursor extremely carefully, perfectly horizontally,
across the desired text. And if they want to capture an
entire paragraph or section, they click at the beginning, drag
diagonally, and release the mouse button when they reach
the end of the passage.
That’s all an enormous waste of time. Selecting text is the
cornerstone of every editing operation in a word processor,
so there are faster and more precise ways of going about it.
For example, double-clicking a word highlights it, instantly
and neatly. In fact, by keeping the mouse button pressed on
the second click, you can now drag horizontally to highlight
text in crisp one-word chunks—a great way to highlight text
faster and more precisely. These tricks work anywhere you
can type.
In most programs, including Microsoft’s, additional shortcuts
await. For example, triple-clicking anywhere within a para-
graph highlights the entire paragraph. (Once again, if you
keep the button pressed at the end of this maneuver, you
can then drag to highlight your document in one-paragraph
increments.)
In many programs, including Word and WordPad, you can
highlight exactly one sentence by clicking within it while
pressing Ctrl.
Finally, here’s a universal trick that lets you highlight a large
blob of text, even one that’s too big to fit on the current
screen. Start by clicking to position the insertion point cur-
sor at the very beginning of the text you want to capture.
Now scroll, if necessary, so the ending point of the passage
is visible. Shift+click there. Windows instantly highlights
everything between your click and your Shift+click.
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the formatting of your text, as shown in Figure 7-9. As in any word processor, you
can apply these formats (like bold, italic, or color) to two kinds of text:
• Text you’ve highlighted by dragging the mouse across it.
• Text you’re about to type. In other words, if you click the I button, the next characters
you type will be italicized. Click the I button a second time to turn off the italics.
The Font formatting buttons let you change the look of selected text: font, size, color,
subscript, and so on. The Paragraph formatting buttons affect entire paragraphs, as
shown in Figure 7-9.
WordPad doesn’t offer big-gun features like spell checking, style sheets, or tables. But
it does offer a surprisingly long list of core word-processing features. For example:
•Find, Replace. Using the Find button (right end of the Home toolbar), you can
locate a particular word or phrase instantly, even in a long document. The Replace
command takes it a step further, replacing that found phrase with another one
(a great way to change the name of your main character throughout your entire
novel, for example).
Figure 7-9:
These buttons make
paragraphs flush left,
centered, flush right, or
bulleted as a list. You
can drag through sev-
eral paragraphs before
clicking these buttons,
or you can click these
buttons to affect just
the paragraph where
your insertion point
already is. The dotted
lines in this illustration
indicate how each
press of the Tab key
lines up the text with
one of the tab stops
you click onto the ruler.
(Centered) (Flush right)(Bulleted)
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•Indents and Tab stops. As shown in Figure 7-9, you click on the ruler to place tab
stops there. Each time you press the Tab key, your insertion point cursor jumps
in line with the next tab stop.
•Bulleted lists. You’re reading a bulleted list right now. To apply bullets to a bunch
of paragraphs, click the Bullets button (b). If you click the ≥ next to it, you can
create a numbered or lettered list instead.
•Insert object. This button lets you create or slap in a picture, graph, chart, sound,
movie, spreadsheet, or other kind of data. (The “Paint drawing” button opens up
a temporary Paint window so that you can whip up a quick sketch that then gets
dropped into your WordPad document.)
Mouse Keys, Sticky Keys, Toggle Keys, Filter Keys
The Ease of Access center offers a single page of options
designed to make the keyboard easier to use if you have
limited dexterity. There are four primary features here:
Mouse Keys lets you use the number keypad to control the
arrow cursor. (It’s useful if you can’t use the mouse, or if you
can but you want more precision in a graphics program.)
Pressing the 2, 4, 6, and 8 keys on this pad moves the mouse
around your screen—down, left, up, and right.
If you click “Set up mouse keys,” you see where you can
control how fast the cursor moves. You can also turn on
“Hold down Ctrl to speed up and Shift to slow down” to do
just what it says: Make the cursor jump in larger increments
when you press Ctrl or smaller increments when you press
Shift. As a convenience, you can also indicate that when
the NumLock key is tapped, you want the numbers to type
numbers instead of moving the cursor.
Sticky Keys is for people who have difficulty pressing two or
more keys (such as Ctrl, Alt, and Shift combinations) at once.
Once this feature has been turned on, you can press keys of
a specified combination one at a time instead of simultane-
ously. To do so, press the first key (Ctrl, Alt, or Shift) twice,
which makes it “stick.” Then press the second key (usually
a letter key). Windows responds exactly as though you had
pressed the two keys simultaneously.
Here again, a setup page awaits—click “Set up Sticky Keys.”
Here, you can indicate that you want to be able to turn on
Sticky Keys by pressing the Shift key five times in a row.
Another option makes Windows beep when a key is double-
pressed and “stuck”—a confirmation that you’re about to
trigger a keyboard shortcut.
Toggle Keys makes the computer beep whenever you press
the Caps Lock, Num Lock, or Scroll Lock keys. You don’t
have to be disabled to find this option attractive, since the
confirmation beep prevents you from looking up after five
minutes of typing to find a page of text tHAT lOOKS lIKE tHIS.
Finally, there’s Filter Keys. In Windows, holding down a key
for longer than a fraction of a second produces repeated
keystrokes (such as TTTTTTT). When you turn on Filter
Keys, though, Windows treats a repeated key as a single
keystroke, which can be useful if you have trouble pressing
keys lightly and briefly.
The “Set up Filter Keys” link offers an option that lets you
use the right-side Shift key as the on/off switch for the filter-
ing mode (by pressing Shift for 8 seconds): “Turn on Filter
Keys when right SHIFT [key] is pressed for 8 seconds.” It’s
also the home to the new Bounce Keys option, which helps
filter out unwanted keystrokes, and an option that puts a
stopwatch-like icon in the Notification Area when you’re in
Filter Keys mode.
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Tip: If you click “Date and time,” you get a dialog box full of date and time formats (12/18/2010; 12-Dec-
2010; Saturday, December 18, 2010, and so on). Double-click one to insert that date into your document at
the insertion point.
•Drag-and-drop editing. Instead of using the three-step Copy and Paste routine
for moving words and phrases around in your document, you can simply drag
highlighted text from place to place on the screen. See page 223 for details.
Ease of Access
If you have trouble using your keyboard or making out small text on the screen, the
programs in the StartÆAll ProgramsÆAccessoriesÆEase of Access folder may be just
what you need. (In previous versions of Windows, this accessibility center was called
Universal Access, which pretty much explains why its keyboard shortcut is w+U.)
Windows gets disability-friendlier with every new version. It includes a long list of
features that let the PC magnify, speak, or otherwise boost the elements of the screen.
The Ease of Access item in the Start menu is actually yet another folder. It contains
these items:
Ease of Access Center
This new control panel gathers together all of Windows 7’s accessibility features
under one roof.
At the top of the window are the triggers for four of the big-ticket accessibility items:
Magnifier, On-Screen Keyboard, Narrator, and High Contrast. You can click one of
these buttons with your mouse, or, if you can’t use the mouse, just wait; a blue rect-
angle highlights one after another, pausing a few seconds at each stop. Tap the space
bar to open a highlighted option. (The four features are described below.)
At the bottom of the window, you find a tidy list of controls that tweak the PC’s
audio, visual, mouse, and keyboard settings in special ways to help out people with
limited hearing, vision, or mobility. When you click one of these links (such as “Use
the computer without a display”), a special, very peculiar window opens, half Explorer
window and half dialog box, that’s filled with checkboxes. Here’s the rundown.
Tip: These features aren’t useful only to people with disabilities. If you have a flat-panel screen, for example,
you may have noticed that everything on the screen is smaller than it might be on a traditional CRT screen.
The result is that the cursor is sometimes hard to find, and the text is sometimes hard to read—but these
features let you make it more visible.
•Use the computer without a display. If you have trouble seeing the screen, turn on
Narrator (described on page 290) here. You can also turn on Audio Description, in
which a disembodied voice describes the action in movies. (Of course, this assumes
that the movie comes with a description track, and few do.) This screen also lets
you make Windows alert boxes go away by themselves after a while—a solution to a
blind person’s typical dilemma (the PC doesn’t seem to react to anything, because,
unbeknownst to you, there’s a dialog box on the screen holding up the works).
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•Make the computer easier to see. Here’s the on/off switch for High Contrast mode
(Figure 7-10)—or, rather, the on/off switch for the keystroke that turns on High
Contrast mode (Alt+Left Shift+PrtScn).
This screen also offers yet another way to turn on Narrator and Magnifier
(described on page 289), plus a link to the control panel where you can make text
and icons bigger.
Most interesting of all, you can use the options at the bottom of the box to make
the “focus” rectangle, or even the blinking word processor insertion point, thicker
and easier to see.
•Use the computer without a mouse or keyboard. This window offers an on/off
switch for the onscreen keyboard (described below), and a link to turn on Speech
Recognition (page 225).
•Make the mouse easier to use. Very cool: a palette of nine cursor (and
insertion-point) styles, in various color schemes and enlarged sizes. One click is
all it takes.
Also here: an on/off switch for Mouse Keys (described below) and “Activate a win-
dow by hovering over it with the mouse” (switch windows by pointing, not clicking).
Figure 7-10:
In High Contrast
mode, text is white
against a black
background, and all
subtleties and shad-
ings are turned off.
The idea is to make
the screen easier to
read for people with
limited vision. You can
also click “Choose a
High Contrast Theme”
to open the Personal-
ize dialog box, where
you can choose from
several variations of
High Contrast.
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•Make the keyboard easier to use. These features—Mouse Keys, Sticky Keys, and
so on—have been with Windows for several generations, but they finally have a
home that makes sense. See the box on page 286 for full details.
•Use text or visual alternatives for sounds. If you’re deaf, a computer that beeps to
get your attention isn’t especially helpful. But this feature, formerly called Sound
Sentry, instructs Windows to make your screen flash or blink when a sound occurs.
You choose which part of the screen you want to use as a warning: the title bar
(“caption bar”) of the window, the window itself, or the entire desktop.
Note: “Turn on text captions for spoken dialog” refers to subtitles on DVDs and videos. It works only if (a) sub-
titles have been prepared for the movie you’re watching, and (b) the video-playback software is Win7-capable.
•Make it easier to focus on tasks. Man, who doesn’t occasionally wish it were easier
to focus on tasks?
Of course, Microsoft has a slightly more literal meaning in mind here. In truth,
this page is nothing more than yet another set of on/off switches for features that
appear on other Ease of Access pages: Narrator, Sticky Keys, Toggle Keys, and so on.
Magnifier
Magnifier is like a software magnifying glass that fills the top portion of your screen.
(The actual-size version appears in the bottom half.) The magnified area scrolls as you
move your cursor, tab through a dialog box, or type, enlarging whatever part of the
screen contains the action. Using the Magnifier Settings dialog box shown in Figure
7-11, you can specify how much magnification you want (1 to 16 times), which area
of the screen gets magnified, and so on.
Figure 7-11:
Magnifier enlarges
whatever part of the
screen your cursor
is touching. You can
adjust the size of the
magnification pane
by dragging its edge.
You can also tear the
pane away from the
edge of the screen so
it becomes a floating
window; just drag
anywhere inside it.
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Tip: Whenever Magnifier is turned on, you can zoom in or out by pressing Ctrl+plus sign or Ctrl+minus
sign, respectively.
Narrator
As the little welcome screen tells you, Narrator is a program that can read aloud
whatever text appears on the screen—dialog boxes, error messages, menus, text you’ve
typed, and so on. Narrator doesn’t work in all programs, and it sounds a little bit
like a Norwegian who’s had a few beers. Still, if you have trouble reading text on the
screen, or if you just like to hear your email read back to you, it’s better than nothing.
In the Windows XP days, Narrator could read only what you see listed in the Nar-
rator dialog box:
•User’s Keystrokes. That is, Narrator pronounces each letter as you type it—a handy
safeguard if you can’t see what you’re doing.
•System Messages. Windows error messages and other alert boxes.
•Scroll Notification. You’re be told when the screen has scrolled, to better keep
your bearings.
In Windows 7, however, Narrator is quite a bit more flexible. If you click the Quick
Help button, you can scroll down to see an elaborate chart of keystrokes that tell
Narrator what to read. Here are a few of the most useful commands:
Read the frontmost window Ctrl+Shift+space bar
Stop reading Ctrl
Read the selected word Insert+F4
Read the selected line Insert+F5
Read the selected paragraph Insert+F6
Read the whole document Insert+F8
Read you the details about the highlighted icon Ctrl+Shift+Enter
Figure 7-12:
Use the Keyboard
menu to choose a dif-
ferent key layout, and
the Settings menu to
change the typeface
that appears on the
keys.
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Tip: You can fiddle with Anna, if you like. She’s the voice of Windows, and she’s adjustable.
If you click Voice Settings, you open a dialog box where you can use pop-up menus to make Anna speak
faster or slower, louder or softer, and higher or lower.
On-Screen Keyboard
If you’re having trouble typing, keep the On-Screen Keyboard program in mind.
It lets you type just by clicking the mouse (Figure 7-12)—an option you may find
useful in a pinch.
Windows Speech Recognition
Windows 7 offers a surprisingly useful (and accurate) speech-recognition feature.
You can read all about it in Chapter 6.
System Tools
This folder (StartÆAll ProgramsÆAccessoriesÆSystem Tools) is designed to be
a toolbox for basic Windows administration, maintenance, and troubleshooting
programs. Many of these programs are described elsewhere in this book:
Computer Chapter 1
Control Panel Chapter 8
Disk Cleanup Chapter 20
Disk Defragmenter Chapter 20
Resource Monitor Chapter 20
System Restore Chapter 22
Task Scheduler Chapter 20
Windows Easy Transfer Appendix A
Three items in this submenu, however, have nothing to do with PC health and fit-
ness, and were stashed here perhaps because Microsoft couldn’t find a more logical
place to stash them: Character Map, Internet Explorer (No Add-ons), and Private
Character Editor.
Character Map
Your computer is capable of creating hundreds of different typographical symbols—
the currency symbols for the yen and British pound, diacritical markings for French
and Spanish, various scientific symbols, trademark and copyright signs, and so on.
Obviously, these symbols don’t appear on your keyboard; to provide enough keys,
your keyboard would have to be the width of Wyoming. You can type the symbols,
but they’re hidden behind the keys you do see.
The treasure map that reveals their locations is the Character Map. When first opening
this program, use the Font pop-up menu to specify the font you want to use (because
every font contains a different set of symbols). Now you see every single symbol in
the font. As you click on each symbol, a magnified version of it appears to help you
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292 windows 7: the missing manual
distinguish them. See Figure 7-13 for details on transferring a particular symbol to
your document.
Tip: Some email programs can’t handle the fancy kinds of symbols revealed by the Character Map. That
explains why your copyright symbols, for example, can turn into a gibberish character on the receiving end.
Internet Explorer (No Add-ons)
Internet Explorer is far more secure than it was in the XP days. Its behavior can still
get flaky, however, especially when you go gunking it up with add-ons and plug-ins.
There may come a day when your main copy is behaving oddly, but you don’t have
the time to troubleshoot. In that case, choose this command. It opens a fresh, virginal
copy of Internet Explorer, with all of your add-on junk stripped away—a copy that,
in theory, should perform as smoothly as the day it was born.
Private Character Editor
If the Character Map doesn’t have enough strange characters for you, this cranky little
oddball app lets you create new font symbols all by yourself.
Note: As the name implies, these characters are private, which means they won’t appear on anyone else’s
computer.
Figure 7-13:
Double-click a character to transfer
it to the “Characters to copy” box,
as shown here. (Double-click several
in a row if you want to capture a
sequence of symbols.) You may have
to scroll down quite a bit in some of
today’s modern Unicode fonts, which
contain hundreds of characters.
Click Copy, and then Close. When
you’ve returned to your document,
use the Paste command to insert the
symbols.
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When you open Private Character Editor (and authenticate yourself, if necessary),
you’re shown the strange little character grid shown in Figure 7-14. Click an empty
square to proceed as shown in the figure.
Once you’ve designed a symbol or two, you can insert them into your everyday docu-
ments using the Character Map program described above. Just remember that you
won’t see your hand-drawn masterpiece in Character Map until you choose, from
the Font pop-up menu, All Fonts (Private Characters).
Tablet PC
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
These links take you to three programs that are especially (or exclusively) useful to
people who use PCs with touch screens—tablet PCs, as they’re known. All three—Per-
sonalize Handwriting Recognition, Tablet PC Input Panel, and Windows Journal—are
described in Chapter 19.
Figure 7-14:
Click an empty
square (left). You
get this Paint-like
editing window
(right). Use the
pencil, brush, line,
shape, selection,
and eraser tools to
draw a character
or symbol to
your satisfaction.
When you’re
finished, press
Ctrl+S (EditÆSave
Character).
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Windows PowerShell
Windows 7 introduces PowerShell 2.0, a command console and scripting language.
If you’re a programmer, PowerShell lets you write your own simple programs, called
cmdlets (“commandlets”) that can perform all kinds of automated drudgery for you:
Copy or move folders, manipulate files, open or quit programs, and so on.
You harness all this power by typing up scripts in PowerShell’s command-line interface
(which means no mouse, no menus, no windows—all text, like in the DOS days). In
short, PowerShell is not for the layperson. If you’re an ambitious layperson, however,
a Google search for PowerShell tutorial unveils all kinds of Web sites that teach you,
step-by-step, how to harness this very advanced tool.
Games
All Versions
Even if you have a corporate version of Windows, like the Professional or Enterprise
version, you still get a bunch of games for your procrastination pleasure. Happily, the
Windows 7 complement of games includes the return of Internet games, meaning that
you can play them against other people online. (They were removed from Windows
Vista as a security precaution.)
Note: Well, OK—Microsoft isn’t quite as generous as all that. The Starter Edition of Windows 7 is missing
several of the games described here—including the two Titans titles and all the Internet games.
Here’s the suite of Windows 7 games, all of which are listed in the StartÆAll
ProgramsÆGames submenu.
Tip: Complete instructions lurk within the Help menu of each game.
In Every Game, a Gem
Many of the games in Windows 7 bear the same names as
the ones in Windows XP and Vista—but they’re actually all
new. All nine have a consistent look, consistent menus, and
consistent options.
Each has two menus, Game and Help. The Game menu
always offers a way to start a new game, plus these intrigu-
ing options:
Statistics reveals your personal game-playing history: how
many times you’ve won, and so on.
Options lets you turn animations and pop-up tip boxes off
if you find them annoying or insulting. Here, too, you find
checkboxes for “Always save game on exit” and “Always
continue saved game,” which can help lend a through line
to your otherwise fractured, chaotic life.
And Change Appearance lets you redecorate your
game world. For example, if, in Chess Titans, you choose
GameÆChange Appearance, you can choose all kinds of
wacky materials for the look of your pieces (Wood, Porce-
lain, or Frosted Glass) and for your game board (Porcelain,
Marble, or Wood).
Use those options if you don’t have enough variety in
your life.
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Chess Titans
It’s not just chess—it’s computer-generated chess on a gorgeously rendered board
with a set of realistic 3-D pieces. You can rotate the board in space, as described in
Figure 7-15.
When you launch Chess, you’re asked what difficulty level you want. Then you’re
offered a fresh, new game that’s set up in Human vs. Computer mode—meaning
that you (the human, with the light-colored pieces) get to play against the computer
(your PC, on the dark side). Drag the chess piece of your choice into position on the
board, and the game is afoot.
If you’d rather trade piece colors with the PC, no biggie. Choose GameÆOptions and
select “Play against computer as black.”
Tip: Click a piece without dragging to see where it’s allowed to move, courtesy of light-up chessboard squares.
If you and a buddy are looking for something to do, you can play against each other.
Choose GameÆ“New game against human,” and enjoy the way Windows rotates the
chessboard after each person’s turn.
FreeCell
You might think of this card game as solitaire on steroids. When you choose
GameÆNew Game, the computer deals eight piles of cards before you. The goal
is to sort them into four piles of cards—one suit each and sequentially from ace to
king—in the spaces (the “home stacks”) at the upper-right corner of the screen. (To
move a card, click it once and then click where you want it moved to. You’re allowed
Figure 7-15:
How did this chess board
get rotated like this? On
Aero-capable PCs, you
can right-click a corner
of the board and rotate
it in 3-D space to study
your situation from a
different angle. (It snaps
back to its original angle
when you let go—unless,
of course, you choose
GameÆOptions and turn
off “Rotate board back
after free view.”) Cool!
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296 windows 7: the missing manual
to move only the bottom card from one of your eight stacks, or the cards in the free
cells, described next.)
You can use the upper-left placeholders, the “free cells,” as temporary resting places
for your cards. From there, cards can go either onto one of the upper-right piles or
onto the bottom of one of the eight piles in the second row. However, when moving
cards to the eight piles, you must place them alternating red/black, and in descend-
ing sequence.
Games Explorer
This is just a standard Explorer window containing all nine of Windows’s games.
Hearts
The object of this card game is to get rid of all the hearts you’re holding by passing
them off to other players. At the end of each round, all players count up their points:
one point for each heart, and 13 points for the dreaded queen of spades. The winner
is the person with the fewest points when the game ends (which is when somebody
reaches 100).
What makes it tricky is that even while you’re trying to ditch your hearts, somebody
else may be secretly trying to collect them. If you can collect all the hearts and the
queen of spades, you win big-time; everybody else gets 26 big fat points, and you get
off scot-free.
You can play Classic Hearts only against Windows, which manages the hands and
strategies of three other fictional players to play against you (named North, West,
and East).
Internet Backgammon, Internet Checkers, Internet Spades
Yes, kids, they’re back—three classic games, now playable against perfect strangers
on the Internet.
When you fire up one of the Internet games, a message appears to tell you that you’ll
be matched up at random with somebody else online, and that Microsoft won’t spy
on you.
Once the game begins, it’s assumed that you and your anonymous partner both know
the rules. You can “chat” with your opponent, but only by using a pop-up menu of
24 canned phrases (like “Hello,” “Nice try,” and “Good game”).
Overall, it’s good and creepy to see those pieces moving by themselves on your screen,
driven by some unknowable opponent, maybe thousands of miles away, with only
one thing in common for sure: You’re both bored enough to want to kill a little time
with these games.
Tip: If your unsportsmanlike opponent bails on you midgame, Microsoft’s computers are kind enough to
take over for her, so you don’t feel like you’ve wasted a game.
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Mahjong Titans
Here’s yet another kind of solitaire. In Mahjong, you use tiles instead of cards. When
the game begins, click the starting tile pile you want to work with. The idea is to click
pairs of matching tiles to make them disappear—but only free tiles (not pinned under
any others) can disappear.
Most of the time, the tiles have to match exactly, both in pattern and in number.
Flower tiles let you off easy, though—any flower is considered a match of any other.
Season tiles, same deal; any matches any.
Tip: If you get stuck, press the letter H key for a hint. Well, not so much a hint as a blatant giveaway; the
next pair of available matching tiles blinks at you.
Minesweeper
Under some of the grid cells are mines; under others, hints about nearby mines. Your
goal: Find the mines without blowing yourself up.
When clicking random squares, you run the risk of getting blown up instantly. If that
happens, you lose; them’s the breaks. But if you get lucky, you uncover little numbers
around the square you clicked. Each number reveals how many mines are hidden
in the squares surrounding it. Using careful mathematical logic and the process of
elimination, you can eventually figure out which squares have mines under them. (To
Why Mimesweeper Didn’t Make the Cut
Windows Vista was the first version of Windows to be written
in the age of blogs (Web diaries)—and Microsoft actually per-
mitted its programmers to participate by keeping Windows
fans updated on its progress.
Most of the blogs were pretty mundane, filled with program-
mery stuff. But Microsoft researcher David Vronay had PC
nuts splurting their coffee in laughter with this posting:
“One of the most common requests I get from people is
a list of features that didn’t make it [into Windows Vista].
I thought it would be interesting for readers to hear about
some of these things.
“As you may know, we have taken flack in the past for Mine-
sweeper and the use of mines. Although we don’t have land
mines in the USA, in many countries they are experienced in
daily life, and not something to make light of in a video game.
“So for Vista, we wanted to replace mines with something
that people also wanted to avoid finding. Thus we came up
with the concept of Mimesweeper.
“In Mimesweeper, you uncover street intersections on a
black-and-white striped grid in which several mimes are
hidden. Just like wandering around Paris, the goal is to
figure out where all of the mimes are without actually
encountering one.
“Unfortunately, beta feedback revealed a tremendous
amount of controversy over the use of mimes. Although we
do not have many mimes in the USA, apparently there are
many countries where running into a mime is common oc-
currence and not something to make light of in a video game.
“In the end, we pulled the concept and replaced it with a
garden of flowers.”
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298 windows 7: the missing manual
help keep track, you can right-click the squares to plant little flags that mean, “Don’t
step here.”) You win if you mark all the mine squares with flags.
Purble Place
Meet Microsoft’s nod to the next generation of Windows fans: Purble Place, which is
geared toward the elementary-school (or even preschool) set (Figure 7-16).
Which game you play depends on which of the three Fisher-Price-style buildings
you click first:
•Purble Pairs. It’s Ye Olde Memory Matching Game. Click any two tiles to reveal
what’s on their faces. If they match, they disappear. If not, they spin facedown
again; as the game goes on, you have to remember where you saw that darned hat,
or cake, or whatever. You’re racing against the clock.
•Comfy Cakes. The TV shows you what kind of cake the chef needs. As the naked
cake moves down the assembly lines, you have to click the right pan shape, batter
color, frosting flavor, and decoration by clicking the appropriate buttons below
the belt. The idea is to make the cake match the one shown on the TV. As you get
better, the conveyor belt speeds up (can you say I Love Lucy?).
•Purble Shop. Your mission is to build a Purble character whose features match
the mystery dude (marked by the question mark). Each time you assemble some
features from the shelves (eyes, nose, mouth) and click the checkmark button, the
Figure 7-16:
All three of the
games here
smack of the
games you
find on educa-
tional CDs like
Reader Rabbit.
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chapter 7: the freebie apps 299
game tells you how many of these features you got right—but not which ones.
Through trial and error, you’re supposed to deduce what the mystery dude actu-
ally looks like.
Solitaire
Here it is: the program that started it all, the application that introduced millions of
people to the joys of a graphic interface like Windows. (Ask the advanced-beginner
Windows fan to identify a good program-file code to type into the StartÆRun dialog
box, and he might not know winword or msconfig—but he’ll probably know sol.)
In Solitaire, the object is to build four piles of cards, one for each suit, in ascending
order (starting with aces). To help achieve this, you maintain seven smaller stacks of
cards in the second row. You can put cards onto these piles as long as you alternate
red and black, and as long as the cards go in descending order (a four of hearts can be
placed on a five of spades, for example). Click a facedown card on one of these piles to
turn it over. If it helps you to continue the red/black/red/black sequence you’ve started,
you can drag around stacks of faceup cards on these piles. And when you can’t find
any more moves to make, click the deck in the upper-left corner to reveal more cards.
Spider Solitaire
If your spirit needs a good game of solitaire, but you just don’t have the time or
patience for Solitaire or FreeCell, this kinder, gentler, easier game may be just the
ticket. Thanks to the built-in cheat mechanism, which suggests the next move with
Figure 7-17:
In the easiest level,
there’s no need to
worry about color
or suit, because the
game gives you only
spades. If you run
out of imagination,
just press the M or
H key to make the
program propose a
move. And if even
the game can’t find
a legal move, simply
click the deck in the
lower-right corner
to distribute another
round of cards, which
opens up a new
round of possibilities.
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300 windows 7: the missing manual
no penalty, you can blow through this game with all the satisfaction and none of the
frustration of traditional solitaire games.
You play with 104 cards. You get 10 stacks across the top of the screen, and the rest
in a pile in the lower-right corner of the screen (Figure 7-17). All you have to do is
create stacks of cards in descending order, from king down to ace, by dragging cards
around. As soon as you create such a stack, the cards fly off the playing board. The
goal is to remove all the cards from the playing board.
Sticking with the game to the very end delivers an animated fireworks display—and
a tiny, budding sense of achievement.
Maintenance
This folder contains four PC maintenance tools that may one day save your bacon:
•Backup and Restore is described in Chapter 22.
•Create a System Repair Disc is covered on page 689.
•Help and Support is the main online help system for Windows (Chapter 5).
•Windows Remote Assistance is the online connection mechanism that lets a guru
see your screen, and even operate your mouse, from afar (page 202).
Startup
The Startup folder contains documents, disks, folders, and programs you want to run
automatically when you log in. Maybe you begin your day with an email or calendar
check, for example; if so, drop their icons into this folder. Page 31 has the details.
Windows Live
Here, in the Windows Live folder, is the suite of Windows Live Essentials described
at the beginning of this chapter. These programs are described in the appropriate
chapters of this book:
•Windows Live Call is nothing more than a link to Windows Messenger, Microsoft’s
chat program. It’s just a reminder that you can use Windows Messenger to make
free voice calls over the Internet—from PC to PC rather than phone to phone.
(You can call from your PC to someone’s phone, too, but that part’s not free.) It’s
described in Chapter 13.
•Windows Live Family Safety is an Internet porn blocker, and it’s covered in
Chapter 10.
•Windows Live Mail, your basic email program, is described in Chapter 12.
•Windows Live Messenger is Microsoft’s chat program; it’s described at the end
of this chapter.
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•Windows Live Movie Maker is for editing your camcorder videos and other videos.
You can read all about it in “Movie Maker,” a free bonus PDF appendix to this chap-
ter that’s available from this book’s “Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.
•Windows Live Photo Gallery is the subject of Chapter 14.
•Windows Live Writer is described next.
Windows Live Writer
Windows Live Writer makes its debut in Windows 7. If WordPad is a basic word pro-
cessor, and Notepad is a basic text processor, then Writer is a basic blog processor. It’s
a simple program for composing blogs (Web logs—frequently updated Web pages full
of text and photos) and, more important, posting them online. If you don’t already
have a blog, Writer makes it easy to create one that’s hosted by Microsoft for free.
When you first open Writer, you’re asked to set up your new blog. After the welcome
screen, you have to specify where on the Web you want your blog to live:
•If you don’t already have a blog account, click “I don’t have a blog; create one on
Windows Live for me.” You’re asked for your Windows Live name and password.
Then, after a moment, Writer will create a brand-new blog Web site for you on
Microsoft’s free Windows Live blogging service.
•If you already have a blog account, either on one of Microsoft’s sites (Windows
Live Spaces or SharePoint) or one of its rivals (Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, or
some other site), click the appropriate button. When you click Next, you’re asked
for the blog’s Web address and your account name and password.
Note: There’s no reason you can’t maintain multiple blog accounts. Just choose ToolsÆAccounts at any
time, and click Add to add on a new account.
Then, after a moment, you name your new blog (“Cat Diaries” or whatever)—and
then you’re ready to begin writing!
The process goes like this:
•Make up a title for your post. Each new post (mini-article) on your blog needs a
title. Type it into the “Enter a post title” headline box.
•Write. Go ahead and type or paste into the big empty, white box. You can use
the formatting tools on the toolbar (see Figure 7-18) to dress up the formatting.
(Don’t miss the first pop-up menu at the left, which offers different canned styles
for headings.)
•Add pictures, links, tables, or videos. You can add a link to another Web page
by clicking the “Insert hyperlink” button, drop in a photo by clicking the “Insert
picture” button, or even insert a table (“Insert table”). In fact, you can even insert
a video or a map, using the Insert pop-up menu at the right end of the toolbar.
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302 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: When you click a photo you’ve inserted, the options pane at the right side of the window changes. It
now offers all kinds of options: You can make your text wrap around the photo, you can add a drop shadow
border, and so on. On the Advanced tab, you can even change the size of the photo, crop it, rotate it, or
adjust its contrast. The Effects tab even lets you apply cheesy special effects, like Black and White, Sharpen,
Emboss, and so on.
When it’s all over, and everything looks good, and you’ve checked your spelling (choose
ToolsÆCheck Spelling), and you’ve clicked Preview to see what the thing will look
like on the Web, you can publish your little writeup for your fans worldwide to enjoy.
Just click Publish on the toolbar (or choose FileÆPublish to Blog).
After a moment, your Web browser opens, with your fresh, hot, piping blog post in
all its glory. Now all you have to do is send the address of your blog to your friends
and loved ones so your fan base can start to grow.
Figure 7-18:
Writer is Microsoft’s
new blog-writing
tool. It lets you com-
pose fully formatted
and illustrated blog
posts (text, graphics,
links, tables) and
post them online
with just a couple of
clicks.
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Note: The free Windows Live blog-hosting service is very nice. It lets people leave comments about your
writings, subscribe to RSS feeds of them (automated summaries), sign up to have your posts sent to their
cellphones, and more. Of course, rival services like Blogger (Google’s similar free service) do the same thing.
It’s a glorious world for the cheapskate blogger.
Windows Live Messenger
Somewhere between email and the telephone lies a unique communication tool called
instant messaging. Messenger, of course, is Microsoft’s very own instant messenger
program.
Messenger does four things very well:
•Instant messaging. If you don’t know what instant messaging is, there’s a teenager
near you who does.
It’s like live email. You type messages in a chat window, and your friends type
replies back to you in real time. Instant messaging combines the privacy of email
and the immediacy of the phone.
•Free long distance. If your PC has a microphone, and your buddy’s does, too, the
two of you can also chat out loud, using the Internet as a free long-distance phone.
•Free videoconferencing. If you and your buddies all have broadband Internet
connections and cameras, you can have video chats, no matter where you happen
to be in the world. This arrangement is a jaw-dropping visual stunt that can bring
distant collaborators face to face without plane tickets—and it costs about $99,900
less than professional videoconferencing gear.
•File transfers. Got an album of high-quality photos or a giant presentation file
that’s too big to send by email? Forget about using some online file-transfer service
Status Messages
On the buddy-list (startup) screen, using the pop-up menu
just to the right of your name at the top, you can display your
current mental status to other
people’s buddy lists. You can
announce that you’re Avail-
able, Away, Busy, or—sneaki-
est of all—“Appear offline.”
(But of course you’re not;
you can still monitor who’s
coming and going, without being bothered.)
If you have music playing in Windows Media Player, you
can tell the world what you’re listening to at the moment
by choosing “Show what I’m listening to” from the pop-up
menu below your name.
Best of all, if you click that
status line beneath your
name, you open a text box
where you can type any
status message at all (“Having
soup,” “Makin’ copies”—or
whatever). That’s what other people will see beneath your
name in their buddy lists.
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304 windows 7: the missing manual
or networked server; you can drag that monster file directly to your buddy’s PC,
through Messenger, for a direct machine-to-machine transfer.
Tip: The following pages assume that you’ve made the Messenger menu bar appear (which it doesn’t
normally). To do that, click the Å button near the top of the buddy list; from the shortcut menu, choose
“Show the menu bar.”
Building the Buddy List
The first thing you need is a chatting companion, what’s called a buddy in instant-
messaging circles. It can be anyone with a Microsoft account (Hotmail, Xbox, Windows
Live, Messenger), or anyone with a Yahoo Messenger account. (The three big chat
networks are Microsoft’s, Yahoo’s, and AOL’s; only AOL chatters can’t communicate
with Windows Live Messenger.)
All your buddies are listed in the startup window, as shown 7-19.
Figure 7-19:
On this buddy list,
your favorite chat
partners appear at
the top. (And how
do you designate
someone a Favorite?
Right-click his name
and choose “Add
to favorites,” of
course.)
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Getting hold of these people’s chat addresses is up to you. Several tools are at your dis-
posal: the Search box at the top of the Messenger window, for example, and especially
the “Add contacts from other services” command. (To see it, click the Add button next
to the Search box at the top.) This command lets you invite contacts from Facebook,
Windows Live, LinkedIn, AOL, hi5, or your Google address book to become part of
your Messenger or Windows Live network.
Text Chats
As with any conversation, somebody has to talk first. In chat circles, that’s called
inviting someone to a chat.
Figure 7-20:
When someone wants to
chat, this message pops up
on your taskbar (top). Click
it to begin the conversation
(bottom).
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306 windows 7: the missing manual
They invite you
When someone tries to “page” you for a chat, a notification bubble pops up on your
system tray, and a little chime plays (Figure 7-20).
Tip: If you’re getting hassled by someone, right-click his name and choose “Block contact” from the shortcut
menu.
You invite them
To invite somebody in your buddy list to a chat, point to a name in the Messenger
buddy list without clicking. From the shortcut menu, choose “Send an instant mes-
sage.”
You can invite more than one person to the chat. Once you’re chatting away, click
Invite on the toolbar; you’re shown your list of buddies, so you can invite an additional
chatter. Everyone sees all the messages anyone sends.
Text chatting
A typed chat works like this: Each time you or your chat partner types something and
then presses Enter, the text appears on both of your screens (Figure 7-20).
Messenger displays each typed comment next to an icon—a profile picture. You can
change yours at any time by clicking the little ≥ next to it.
Tip: You can also make it not so huge. Click that little ≥ and, from the shortcut menu, choose SizeÆSmall.
You can make the other guy’s picture smaller this way, too—or even make it disappear completely (“Hide
display pictures”).
In-Chat Fun
Typing isn’t the only thing you can do during a chat. You can also perform any of
these stunts:
•Insert a smiley. When you choose a face (like Undecided, Angry, or Frown) from
this quick-access menu of smiley options (at the left end of the button bar), Mes-
senger inserts it as a graphic into your response.
On the other hand, if you know the correct symbols to produce smileys—that “:)”
means a smiling face, for example—you can save time by typing them instead of
using the pop-up menu. Messenger converts them into smiley icons on the fly, as
soon as you send your reply.
•Format your text. You can click the A|B button beneath the text box to open the
Change Font dialog box. Here, you can choose a font, style, size, and color for the
text you’re typing. (If you use some weird font that your chat partners don’t have
installed, they won’t see the same typeface.)
•Send a file. Choosing FileÆ“Send a file or photo” lets you send a file to all the
participants in your chat.
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Easier yet, you can drag a file’s icon from your Windows desktop right into the
box where you normally type. (This trick works well with pictures, because your
conversation partner sees the graphic right in his chat window.)
This is a fantastic way to transfer a file that would be too big to send by email. A
chat window never gets “full,” and no attachment is too large to send. And it even
works to send files between PCs and Macs.
This method halves the time of transfer, too, since your recipients get the file as
you upload it. They don’t have to wait 20 minutes for you to send the file and then
another 20 minutes to download it, as they would with email or FTP.
•Send email. If someone messages you, “Hey, will you email me directions?” you can
do so on the spot. Point to the person’s name in your buddy list; from the shortcut
menu, choose “Send e-mail.” Your email program opens up automatically so you
can send the note along; if your buddy’s email address is part of his profile, the
message is even preaddressed.
•Send a text message to a cellphone. This is really cool: You can send text messages
directly to your friends’ cellphones. Just point to the person’s name in your buddy
list and, from the shortcut menu, choose “Send mobile text (SMS).”
Note: If you’ve never entered this person’s cellphone number, the command says, “Enter a mobile number”
instead. Do it.
In the box that pops up, type a short message (a couple of sentences, tops), and
then press Enter. Instantly, that message shows up on the person’s cellphone!
Amazingly, you can even carry on an interactive conversation this way. If the per-
son writes you back from the phone, the message appears right in the Messenger
window, as though you were actually chatting.
•Change the background. You can change the white background to a faded, pale
photo, if that’s the kind of thing that floats your boat. Just click the Background
button at the bottom of the chat window (the sixth icon). You’re offered an array
of ready-to-use window backgrounds; you can see one of them in Figure 7-20.
To get rid of the background and revert to soothing white, choose the slashed-circle
background (lower right of the pop-up menu).
Audio Chats
Messenger becomes much more exciting when you exploit its AV Club capabilities.
You can conduct audio chats, speaking into your microphone and listening to the
responses from your speaker.
To begin an audio chat, you have two choices:
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• In the buddy list, choose ActionsÆCallÆ“Call a contact’s computer.” (To see the
Actions menu, tap Alt, or click the tiny Menu icon Å in the upper-right.)
• If you’re already in a text chat, click CallÆ“Call computer” on the toolbar.
Once your invitation is accepted, you can begin speaking to each other. World-over
long distance, computer to computer, absolutely free. There may be a delay, like you’re
calling overseas on a bad connection, but hey—it’s free.
Tip: You can also place a call to an actual phone number, thanks to a feature called Windows Live Call. To
do that, choose ActionsÆCallÆ”Call a contact’s phone” (or Æ”Call phone,” to enter a number not already
in your address book). Click the contact name (or enter the phone number, complete with 1 plus the area
code) and then click Call.
(Another way: Point to a contact’s name; from the shortcut menu, choose “Call mobile.”)
You’ll discover that this kind of calling is not free. However, it’s very cheap—2 cents a minute from the U.S. to
Europe, for example. You’ll be guided through the setup procedure, which involves depositing some money
up front, via a Web site.
Video Chats
If you and your partner both have broadband Internet connections and Web cam-
eras, an even more impressive feat awaits: You can conduct a free video chat. This
isn’t the jerky, out-of-audio-sync, Triscuit-sized video of days gone by. If you’ve got
the PC muscle and bandwidth, your partners are as crisp, clear, bright, and smooth
as television.
Tip: You and your buddy don’t both need the gear. If only you have a camera, for example, your less-equipped
buddy can see you but has to speak (audio only) or type in response.
To begin a video chat, you have the usual two choices:
• In the buddy list, choose ActionsÆCallÆ“Start a Video Call.” (To see the Actions
menu, tap Alt, or click the Å icon in the upper-right.)
Tip: If you want to see the other guy but you’re not presentable enough to show yourself, you can use “View
a contact’s webcam” instead, for a one-way effect.
• If you’re already in a text chat, click Video on the toolbar.
A window opens, showing both you and your pal (Figure 7-21).
And now, some video-chat notes:
• If your conversation partners seem unwilling to make eye contact, it’s not because
they’re shifty. They’re just looking at you, on the screen, rather than at the cam-
era—and chances are you aren’t looking into your camera, either.
• A headset gives much better sound quality (both ends) than mike and speaker.
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• This cutting-edge technology can occasionally present cutting-edge glitches. The
video quality deteriorates, the transmission aborts suddenly, the audio has an an-
noying echo, and so on. When problems strike, choose ToolsƓAudio and video
setup” to see if Messenger can fix it.
• You can save your typed transcripts of instant message conversations. Choose
ToolsÆOptionsÆMessages, and then turn on “Automatically keep a history of
my conversations.” Use the Change button to specify which folder you want to
contain the transcripts.
Cosmetic Tweaks
If you’ve done nothing but chat in Messenger, you haven’t even scratched the surface.
You can customize and tailor this thing to within an inch of its life.
Figure 7-21:
You’ll probably dis-
cover that you need
some kind of light in
front of you to avoid
being too shadowy.
Don’t forget that you
can keep type-chat-
ting in the right-side
area—great when
what you need to say
is, “I can see you, but
I can’t hear you!”
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To see your options, click the little Options button (the middle of the three next to
the Search box on the buddy list). In the Options dialog box, you have an enormous
number of settings to fiddle with. Some of the highlights:
•Personal. Controls how you want other people to see you: your name, your picture,
your profile, your status message, your Webcam.
•Layout. Governs what sections of your buddy list appear. For example, you can
hide the groups, the favorites, the what’s-new list, and so on. You also get to choose
how big people’s icons appear: Large, Medium, Small, or Invisible.
•Sign in. Do you want Messenger to open and sign in automatically when you
turn on the PC? Do you want to be able to sign in from more than one place (for
example, your PC and your phone)?
•Messages. Do you want to get nudges, winks, photos, and voice clips as people send
them to you? Do you want to hide smileys (because they are, after all, insufferable)?
Do you want Messenger to keep a transcript of your chats?
•Alerts. Do you want Messenger to beep and pop up a message when contacts come
online? When you get email? When your message is received?
•Sounds. What sounds do you want to hear when someone signs in? When someone
invites you to chat? When someone “nudges” you?
•File Transfer. Where do you want transferred files to go? Do you want them
scanned for viruses?
•Privacy. Here are the lists of people you want to block.
•Security. Various checkboxes for features intended to stop you from stumbling
onto viruses or spyware.
•Connection. Troubleshooting tools to use if you’re not getting good audio or
video quality.
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The Control Panel
Like the control panel in the cockpit of an airplane, the Control Panel is an
extremely important feature of Windows 7. It’s teeming with miniature appli-
cations (or applets) that govern every conceivable setting for every conceivable
component of your computer. Some are so important that you may use them (or their
corresponding notification-area icons) every day. Others are so obscure that you’ll
wonder what on earth inspired Microsoft to create them. This chapter covers them all.
Note: Here and there, within the Control Panel, you’ll spot a little Windows security-shield icon. It tells you
that you’re about to make an important, major change to the operating system, something that will affect
everyone who uses this PC—fiddling with its network settings, for example, or changing its clock. To prove
your worthiness (and to prove that you’re not an evil virus attempting to make a nasty change), you’ll be
asked to authenticate yourself; see the box on page 726 for details.
Many Roads to Control Panel
All Versions
There are two ways to change a setting on your PC. There’s the traditional way, which
begins with opening the Control Panel and drilling down from there. And there’s the
Windows 7 way, which involves jumping directly to the setting you want, using the
Start menu’s Search box. Herewith: the steps for both methods.
The Control Panel Itself
To have a look at your Control Panel applet collection, choose StartÆControl Panel
to open the Control Panel window.
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Many Roads to
Control Panel
You see that for the fourth-straight Windows edition, Microsoft has rejiggered the
layout in an attempt to make the thing easier to navigate. (Figure 8-1).
The “View by” pop-up menu (upper right) shows that there are three ways to view the
complete collection of control panels: by category or as a list of small or large icons.
Figure 8-1:
The Control Panel
categories have
been expanded
and rearranged
to make it
even easier for
novices to find
tasks. Clicking a
category heading
takes you to the
associated list of
tasks (and their
applets). For your
convenience,
several tasks
are listed under
more than one
category. It
seems that even
Microsoft couldn’t
decide where
each should
definitively go.
Control Panel Terminology Hell
The Control Panel continues to be an object of bafflement
for Microsoft, not to mention its customers; from version to
version of Windows, this window undergoes more reorga-
nizations than a bankrupt airline.
Windows 7 presents the most oddball arrangement yet.
There are far more icons in the Control Panel than ever
before—about 50 of them, in fact. But they’re not all the
same kind of thing.
Some are the traditional applets, meaning mini-applications
(little programs). Others are nothing more than tabbed
dialog boxes. Some open up wizards (interview dialog
boxes that walk you through a procedure) or even ordinary
Explorer windows. And even among the applets, the look and
substance of the Control Panel panels vary widely.
So what are people supposed to call these things? The world
needs a general term for the motley assortment of icons in
the Control Panel window.
To help you and your well-intentioned author from going
quietly insane, this chapter refers to all the Control Panel
icons as either icons (which they definitely are), control
panels, or applets (which most of them are—and besides,
that’s the traditional term for them).
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Many Roads to
Control Panel
Category view
Here’s a rundown of the new, improved Control Panel home categories:
•System and Security. In this category are system and administrative tasks like back-
ing up and restoring, setting your power options, and security options (firewall,
encryption, and so on).
•Network and Internet. This category contains settings related to networking, In-
ternet options, offline files (page 635), and Sync Center (to manage synchronizing
data between computers and network folders).
•Hardware and Sound. Here you find everything for managing gadgets connected to
your computer: printer settings, projector settings, laptop adjustments, and so on.
•Programs. You’ll probably use this one a lot. Here’s how you uninstall programs,
choose which program is your preferred one (for Web browsing or opening graph-
ics, for example), turn Windows features on and off, and manage your desktop
gadgets.
•User Accounts and Family Safety. This category contains the settings you need to
manage the accounts on the computer (Chapter 23), including the limited accounts
that parents can create for their children.
•Appearance and Personalization. Here’s a big category indeed. It covers all things
cosmetic, from how the desktop looks (plus taskbar, Sidebar, and personalization
settings) to folder options, fonts, and ease-of-access settings.
•Clock, Language, and Region. These time, language, and clock settings all have one
thing in common: They differ according to where in the world you are.
•Ease of Access. This revamped category replaces the Accessibility Options dialog
box from Windows XP. It’s one-stop shopping for every feature Microsoft has
dreamed up to assist the disabled. It’s also the rabbit hole into Speech Recogni-
tion Options.
Classic view
The category concept sounds OK in principle, but it’ll drive veterans nuts. You don’t
want to guess what category Fax wound up in—you just want to open the old Print
and Fax control panel, right now.
Fortunately, Classic view is still available. That’s where the Control Panel displays all
50 icons in alphabetical order (Figure 8-2).
Use the “View by” pop-up menu in the upper-right, and choose either “Small icons”
or “Large icons.” Then double-click the icon of the applet you’d like to use.
Control Panel via Search
Ever try to configure a setting in the Control Panel but forget which applet it’s in? Hap-
pens all the time. It’s perfectly possible to waste some time, clicking likely categories,
opening and closing a few applet icons, backing out, and trying again.
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314 windows 7: the missing manual
Use the Search box in the Start menu instead. It’s uncannily good at taking you to the
control panel you really want.
Quick: Where do you go to set up your monitor’s color settings? Would it be under the
System and Security category? Hardware and Sound? Appearance and Personalization?
Don’t worry about it. Press the w key to open the Start menu; type color; when you
see Color Management highlighted in the results list, press Enter to open it. (On other
quests, you might type fonts, sound, battery, accounts, date, CDs, speech, or whatever.)
Yes, you’ve had to type, just like in the ancient DOS days—but you saved a lot of time,
steps, and fumbling. It just works really well. (There’s a similar Search box right in
the Control Panel window itself.)
Tip: There are other shortcuts to the Control Panel, too, that don’t require typing.
First, you can turn on the feature that lets you choose a certain control panel’s name directly from the Start
menu, as described on page 44.
Or, if you don’t mind a cluttered desktop, make a shortcut for the applets you access most. To do that,
open the Control Panel. Right-click the icon you want; from the shortcut menu, choose “Create shortcut.”
It automatically places it on the desktop for you. Or, what the heck—drag an applet right out of the Control
Panel into the Start menu to install it there!
Figure 8-2:
Classic view might
be overwhelming for
novices, because the
task icons give little
indication about what
settings they actually
contain. Here’s a hint:
Remember that you
can just move your
mouse over a task
and pause there.
A tooltip pops up,
giving you an idea of
what’s inside.
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The Control Panel, Applet by Applet
All Versions
Icon view is the perfect structure for a chapter that describes each Control Panel ap-
plet, since it’s organized in alphabetical order. The rest of this chapter assumes you’re
looking at the Control Panel in one of the two Icon views.
Action Center
Here’s the new Windows 7 Action Center: a single, consolidated window listing every
security- and maintenance-related concern that Windows has at the moment. Be
grateful: These all used to be separate balloons harassing you from the right end of
the taskbar. For details, see Chapter 20.
Administrative Tools
This icon is actually a folder containing a suite of very technical administrative utilities.
These tools, intended for serious technowizards only, are explained in Chapter 20.
AutoPlay
What do you want to happen when you insert a CD? Do you want to see a window of
what’s on it? Do you want the music on it to start playing? Do you want to auto-run
whatever software installer is on it? Do you want whatever photos it contains to get
copied to your Pictures library?
The answer, of course, is, “Depends on what kind of CD it is,” and also, “That should
be up to me.”
That’s the purpose of the AutoPlay feature of Windows 7. It differentiates between
different kinds of audio CDs and DVDs, video CDs and DVDs, programs (like soft-
ware and games), pictures, video and audio files, blank CDs and DVDs, and even
proprietary kinds of discs, like Blu-ray, HD, and Super Video. It even lets you manage
how externally attached devices (like a camera or USB drive) are handled.
Each time you insert such a disc or drive, you get the dialog box shown at top in
Figure 8-3, asking how you want to handle it—this time, and every time you insert
What happened to AutoRun?
What the heck? I’ve inserted a flash drive that I know con-
tains a software installer, but it doesn’t run automatically
like it did in Windows Vista. What’s going on?
Microsoft made a big change in Windows 7: It turned off the
ability for software installers to autorun from USB gadgets
like flash drives.
Why? Because the bad guys were using the AutoRun feature
as an evil backdoor for installing viruses and other nasties
on your PC. You’d insert a flash drive, and bing!—something
would auto-install without your awareness.
Nowadays, if you really want to run an installer from a flash
drive, choose StartÆComputer, open the drive’s icon, and
run the installer manually by double-clicking it.
frequently asked question
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a similar gadget thereafter. For each kind of disc, the pop-up menu offers you obvi-
ous choices by disc type (like “Play audio CD” for music CDs), as well as standard
options like “Open folder to view files using Windows Explorer,” “Take no action,”
or “Ask me every time.”
Behind the scenes, your choices are recorded in the AutoPlay control panel, where
you can change your mind or just look over the choices you’ve made so far (Figure
8-3, bottom).
Figure 8-3:
Top: The AutoPlay
window appears
whenever you
insert a record-
able CD or DVD,
memory card, or
flash drive. You can
say what you want
to happen (like
“Import pictures” or
“Burn files to disc”)
just for this time,
or—by turning on
“Always do this”—
forever. But what if
you want to change
your mind?
Bottom: Finally: a
single, easy-to-use
place to change the
automatic actions
for all kinds of
discs and memory
sticks. To set what
happens when you
insert each type of
device or disc, open
the adjoining pop-
up menu. It displays
a list of possible
actions, like “Play
audio CD,” “Rip
music from CD,”
“Open folder to
view files,” or “Take
no action.”
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Tip: If you’ve never liked AutoPlay and you don’t want Windows to do anything when you insert a disc, just
turn off “Use AutoPlay for all media and devices” at the top of the window.
Backup and Restore Center
Backup and Restore Center controls how you back up your computer (and restore
it). Check out Chapter 22 for more detailed information.
BitLocker Drive Encryption
BitLocker encrypts the data on your drives to keep them from being accessed by the
bad guys who might steal your laptop. For details, see Chapter 21.
Color Management
Microsoft created this applet in conjunction with Canon in an effort to make colors
more consistent from screen to printer. Details are in Chapter 17.
Credential Manager
Credential Manager, formerly called “Stored User Names and Passwords,” lets you
teach Windows to memorize your corporate account names and passwords. It’s not
the same thing as the Web-browser feature that memorizes your passwords for every-
day Web sites (like banking sites). Instead, Credential Manager stores passwords for
shared network drives and corporate-intranet Web sites, the ones where you have to
enter a name and password before you even see the home page.
Date and Time
Your PC’s concept of what time it is can be very important. Every file you create or
save is stamped with this time, and every email you send or receive is marked with it.
When you drag a document into a folder that contains a different draft of the same
thing, Windows warns that you’re about to replace an older version with a newer one
(or vice versa)—but only if your clock is set correctly.
This program offers three tabs:
•Date and Time. Here’s where you can change the time, date, and time zone for
the computer (Figure 8-4)—if, that is, you’d rather not have the computer set its
own clock (read on).
Tip: In the “Time zone” section of the Date and Time tab, you can find exactly when Windows thinks daylight
saving time is going to start (or end, depending on what time of year it is). In addition, there’s an option to
remind you a week before the time change occurs, so you don’t wind up unexpectedly sleep-deprived on
the day of your big TV appearance.
•Additional Clocks. If you work overseas, or if you have friends, relatives, or clients
in different time zones, you’ll like this one; it’s the only thing that stands between
you and waking them up at three in the morning because you forgot what time
it is where they live.
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This feature shows you, at a glance, what time it is in other parts of the world. You
can give them any display name you want, like “Paris” or “Mother-in-Law time.”
Note that the additional clocks’ times are based on the PC’s own local time. So if
the computer’s main clock is wrong, the other clocks will be wrong, too.
Figure 8-5 shows how to check one of your additional clocks.
Tip: If you click the time on the taskbar instead of just pointing to it (Figure 8-5), you get three large, beautiful
analog clocks in a pop-up window.
•Internet Time. This option has nothing to do with Swatch Internet Time, a 1998
concept of time that was designed to eliminate the complications of time zones.
(Then again, it introduced complications of its own, like dividing up the 24-hour
day into 1,000 parts called “beats,” each one being 1 minute and 26.4 seconds long.)
Figure 8-4:
Top: The Date and
Time tab has a lovely
analog clock displaying
the time. You can’t
actually use it to set
the time, but it looks
nice. To make a change
to the date or time of
the computer, click
“Change date and
time.”
Bottom: At that point,
select the correct date
by using the calendar.
Specify the correct time
by typing in the hour,
minute, and seconds.
Yes, type it; the ≤ and
≥ next to the time field
are too inefficient,
except when you’re
changing AM to PM or
vice versa.
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Instead, this tab teaches your PC to set its own clock by consulting one of the
highly accurate scientific clocks on the Internet. To turn the feature on or off, or
to specify which atomic Internet clock you want to use as the master clock, click
Change Settings. (No need to worry about daylight saving time, either; the time
servers take that into account).
Note: Your PC resets its clock once a week—if it’s connected to the Internet at the time. If not, it gives up
until the following week. If you have a dial-up modem, in other words, you might consider connecting to
the Internet every now and then and using the “Update now” button to compensate for all the times your
PC unsuccessfully tried to set its own clock.
Default Programs
In an age when Microsoft is often accused of leveraging Windows to take over other
realms of software, like Web browsing and graphics, the company created this com-
mand center. It’s where you choose your preferred Web browser, music-playing
program, email program, and so on—which may or may not be the ones provided
by Microsoft.
You’re offered four links:
•Set your default programs. Here’s where you teach Windows that you want your
own programs to replace the Microsoft versions. For instance, you can say that,
when you double-click a music file, you want to open iTunes and not Windows
Media Player. For details, see page 319.
•Associate a file type or protocol. This window lets you specify exactly what kind
of file you want to have opened by what program. (That’s essentially what happens
in the background when you set a default program.) File associations are covered
in more depth on page 242.
•Change AutoPlay Settings. This option opens the AutoPlay applet described on
page 315.
•Set program access and computer defaults. Here, you can not only manage what
programs are used by default, like browsing with Internet Explorer or getting email
with Windows Mail, but also disable certain programs so that they can’t be used
Figure 8-5:
To see the time for the additional clocks, point without clicking over the
time in the notification area. You get a pop-up displaying the time on the
additional clock (or clocks) that you configured.
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at all. It’s organized in rather combative schemes: You can choose to prefer Micro-
soft products (disabling access to the non-Microsoft interlopers), Non-Microsoft
products (pro-third party, anti-Microsoft), or create a Custom scheme, in which
you can specifically choose a mix of both. See page 249 for more information.
Desktop Gadgets
This icon is nothing more than a shortcut to the Gadgets window described on page
235.
Device Manager
The Device Manager console shows you where all your hardware money was spent.
Here, you or your tech-support person can troubleshoot a flaky device, disable and
enable devices, and manage device drivers. If you’re comfortable handling these more
advanced tasks, then Chapter 18 is for you.
Devices and Printers
Double-click to open the new Devices and Printers window, where everything you’ve
attached to your PC—Webcam, printer, scanner, mouse, whatever—appears with its
own picture and details screen. Chapter 17 has the details.
Display
This one opens the “Make it easier to read what’s on your screen” window described
on page 192. The task pane on the left side offers links to other screen-related controls,
like “Adjust resolution,” “Change display settings” (meaning resolution), and so on.
Ease of Access Center
The Ease of Access Center is a completely revamped version of the Accessibility Options
of Windows XP. It’s designed to make computing easier for people with disabilities,
although some of the options here can benefit anyone. See page 287 for details.
Folder Options
This program offers three tabs—General, View, and Search—all of which are described
in Chapter 3.
Fonts
This icon is a shortcut to a folder; it’s not an applet. It opens into a window that reveals
all the typefaces installed on your machine, as described in Chapter 17.
Getting Started
What’s this thing doing here? It’s not a control panel at all. Instead, it’s the welcome
screen that greets you every single time you log in (until you turn off the “Run at
startup” checkbox). This window conveniently displays how to get started with Win-
dows, transfer stuff from your old PC, and so on. For a more detailed look at this
window and its offerings, see Chapter 1.
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HomeGroup
The HomeGroup icon opens the “Change homegroup settings” screen, where you can
change the password or perform other administrative tasks related to your homegroup
(home file-sharing network). Homegroups are described in Chapter 26.
Indexing Options
The Start menu’s Search box is so magnificently fast because it doesn’t actually root
through all your files. Instead, it roots only through an index of your files, an invisible,
compact database file that Windows maintains in the background.
This dialog box lets you manage indexing functions and change what gets indexed,
and it lets you know how many items have been indexed. To learn more about the
particulars of indexing and how to use it, see Chapter 3.
Internet Options
A better name for this program would have been “Web Browser Options,” since all its
settings apply to Web browsing—and, specifically, to Internet Explorer. As a matter of
fact, this is the same dialog box that opens from the ToolsÆInternet Options menu
command within Internet Explorer. Its tabs break down like this:
•General, Security, Privacy, and Content. These tabs control your home page, cache
files, search-field defaults, and history list. They also let you define certain Web
pages as off-limits for your kids, and manage RSS feeds, as well as block pop-up
windows. Details on these options are in Chapter 10.
•Connections. Controls when your PC modem dials.
•Programs. Use this tab to manage browser add-ons, decide whether or not In-
ternet Explorer should warn you whenever it is not the default browser (for your
protection, of course), or choose the default programs that open, should you click
a link to email someone, open a media file, or view the HTML source of a Web
page (ViewÆSource).
•Advanced. On this tab, you find dozens of checkboxes, most of which are useful
only in rare circumstances and affect your Web experience only in minor ways. For
example, “Enable personalized favorites menu” shortens your list of bookmarks
over time, as Internet Explorer hides the names of Web sites you haven’t visited
in a while. (A click on the arrow at the bottom of the Favorites menu makes them
reappear.)
Similarly, turning off the “Show Go button in Address bar” checkbox hides the Go
button at the right of the address bar. After you’ve typed a Web address (URL),
you must press Enter to open the corresponding Web page instead of clicking a
Go button on the screen. And so on.
iSCSI Initiator
This applet is not for the faint of heart. In fact, it requires tech support or your net-
work administrator to set up properly and is completely useless for computers not on
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322 windows 7: the missing manual
a network. Just opening it could wind up opening holes in your Windows Firewall.
You’ve been warned.
Keyboard
You’re probably too young to remember the antique known as a typewriter. On some
electric versions of this machine, you could hold down the letter X key to type a series
of XXXXXXXs—ideal for crossing something out in a contract, for example.
On a PC, every key behaves this way. Hold down any key long enough, and it starts
spitting out repetitions, making it easy to type, “No WAAAAAY!” or “You go, grrrrrl!”
for example. (The same rule applies when you hold down the arrow keys to scroll
through a text document, hold down the = key to build a separator line between
paragraphs, hold down Backspace to eliminate a word, and so on.) The Speed tab of
this dialog box (Figure 8-6) governs the settings.
•Repeat delay. This slider determines how long you must hold down the key before
it starts repeating (to prevent triggering repetitions accidentally).
•Repeat rate. The second slider governs how fast each key spits out letters once the
spitting has begun.
After making these adjustments, click the “Click here and hold down a key” test
box to try out the new settings.
iSCSI Initiator
You’ve already been warned that iSCSI Initiator is for system
administrators, and you still want to know about it?
OK, fine.
iSCSI Initiator is a way of connecting your computer to
hard drives on almost any kind of network—even across
the Internet.
In the old days, accessing such externally stored data was
painfully slow. If you needed a file on that distant hard drive,
you didn’t dare work on it “live” from across the network;
it would be just too slow. So you’d download the files to
your computer first, work on it, and then upload it when
you were done.
And that’s why Microsoft created iSCSI. It’s not as fast as
using your computer’s internal hard drive, but it’s a big im-
provement. Ever walked on one of those moving sidewalks
between airport terminals, zooming past the people who
are walking on the ground? That’s the kind of speed boost
iSCSI gives you.
To make this work, your computer initiates the process of
finding and connecting to the target iSCSI storage device
across the network. (That’s why this applet is called iSCSI
Initiator, get it?)
Your computer must have an iSCSI service running on it, and
the ports that iSCSI uses must be open on your computer’s
firewall. (The applet offers to do this part for you.) Once the
service is started and the ports are open (or you’ve canceled
through the prompts), you can get to the iSCSI Initiator dialog
box and configure its settings. It’s at that point that you really
need a highly paid network professional to configure the
settings, because it’s filled with such fun settings as CHAP
or IPsec authentication, the IP address of the RADIUS server,
the IP address of the target device, and more.
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•Cursor blink rate. The “Cursor blink rate” slider actually has nothing to do with the
cursor, the little arrow that you move around with the mouse. Instead, it governs
the blinking rate of the insertion point, the blinking marker that indicates where
typing will begin when you’re word processing, for example. A blink rate that’s too
slow makes it more difficult to find your insertion point in a window filled with
data. A blink rate that’s too rapid can be distracting.
Location and Other Sensors
These days, small computers like netbooks come equipped with sensors, like tilt
sensors and GPS location sensors. Well, OK, they don’t really come with sensors, but
Microsoft wishes they would.
Just in case these ever do become standard PC components, Microsoft has built this
panel, which lets you turn these sensors on and off individually. The real point here
is the location sensor, which bothers people with a strong sense of privacy.
Mouse
All the icons, buttons, and menus in Windows make the mouse a very important tool.
And the Mouse dialog box is its configuration headquarters (Figure 8-7).
Figure 8-6:
How fast do you want your keys to repeat?
This dialog box also offers a Hardware tab,
but you won’t go there very often. You’ll use
it exclusively when you’re trying to trouble-
shoot your keyboard or its driver.
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324 windows 7: the missing manual
Buttons tab
This tab offers three useful controls: “Button configuration,” “Double-click speed,”
and “ClickLock.”
•Button configuration. This checkbox is for people who are left-handed and keep
their mouse on the left side of the keyboard. Turning on this checkbox lets you
switch the functions of the right and left mouse buttons so that your index finger
naturally rests on the primary button (the one that selects and drags).
•Double-click speed. Double-clicking isn’t a very natural maneuver. If you double-
click too slowly, the icon you’re trying to open remains stubbornly closed. Or worse,
if you accidentally double-click an icon’s name instead of its picture, Windows sees
your double-click as two single clicks, which tells it that you’re trying to rename
the icon.
The difference in time between a double-click and two single clicks is usually well
under a second. That’s an extremely narrow window, so let Windows know what
you consider to be a double-click by adjusting this slider. The left end of the slider
bar represents 0.9 seconds, and the right end represents 0.1 seconds. If you need
more time between clicks, move the slider to the left; by contrast, if your reflexes
are highly tuned (or you drink a lot of coffee), try sliding the slider to the right.
Figure 8-7:
If you’re a southpaw, you’ve probably
realized that the advantages of being left-
handed when you play tennis or baseball
were lost on the folks who designed the
computer mouse. It’s no surprise, then, that
most mice are shaped poorly for lefties—but
at least you can correct the way the buttons
work.
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Each time you adjust the slider, remember to test your adjustment by double-
clicking the little folder to the right of the Speed slider. If the folder opens, you’ve
successfully double-clicked. If not, adjust the slider again.
•ClickLock. ClickLock is for people blessed with large monitors or laptop trackpads
who, when dragging icons onscreen, get tired of keeping the mouse button pressed
continually. Instead, you can make Windows “hold down” the button automatically,
avoiding years of unpleasant finger cramps and messy litigation.
When ClickLock is turned on, you can drag objects on the screen like this: First,
point to the item you want to drag, such as an icon. Press the left mouse or trackpad
button for the ClickLock interval. (You can specify this interval by clicking the
Settings button in this dialog box.)
When you release the mouse button, it acts as though it’s still pressed. Now you can
drag the icon across the screen by moving the mouse (or stroking the trackpad)
without holding any button down.
To release the button, hold it down again for your specified time interval.
Pointers tab
See page 188 for details on changing the shape of your cursor.
Pointers Options tab
See page 189 for a rundown of these cursor-related functions.
Wheel tab
The scroll wheel on the top of your mouse may be the greatest mouse enhancement
since they got rid of the dust-collecting ball on the bottom. It lets you zoom through
Web pages, email lists, and documents with a twitch of your index finger.
Use these controls to specify just how much each wheel notch scrolls. (You may not
see this tab at all if your mouse doesn’t have a wheel.)
Hardware tab
The Mouse program provides this tab exclusively for its Properties buttons, which
takes you to the Device Manager’s device properties dialog box. Useful if you have to
troubleshoot a bad driver.
Network and Sharing Center
This network command center offers, among other things, a handy map that shows
exactly how your PC is connected to the Internet. It also contains a tidy list of all
networking-related features (file sharing, printer sharing, and so on), complete with
on/off switches. See Chapter 26 for details.
Notification Area Icons
Double-click to open up a screen where you can hide or show specific icons in your
system tray (at the right end of your taskbar), as described in Chapter 2.
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326 windows 7: the missing manual
Parental Controls
This applet lets you, the wise parent, control what your inexperienced or out-of-control
loved one (usually a child, but sometimes a spouse) can and cannot do on (or with)
the computer. For more information, see Chapter 10.
Pen and Input Devices
This applet opens up a dialog box where you can configure how your stylus (pen)
interacts with the desktop and windows. (You need this control panel primarily if
you have a tablet PC or a graphics tablet.) For details, see Chapter 19.
Performance Information and Tools
Windows 7 needs a fast computer. Just how fast is yours? This control panel breaks it
down for you, even going so far as giving your PC a grade for speed.
In addition, this window has convenient links to tabs of several other applets (like
Power Options, Indexing Service, and System Performance), as well as access to the
old Disk Cleanup utility. For power users, there’s even a kickin’ Advanced Tools win-
dow stocked with speed-related goodies, logs, and reports. For details, see Chapters
20 and 21.
Personalization
Have you ever admired the family photo or space shuttle picture plastered across a
coworker’s PC desktop? Wished the cursor were bigger? Been annoyed that you have
to log in again every time your screen saver kicks in?
All these are aspects of the Personalization applet. It’s such a big topic, it gets its own
chapter: Chapter 4.
Phone and Modem
You’ll probably need to access these settings only once: the first time you set up your
PC or laptop to dial out. Details in Chapter 9.
Power Options
The Power Options program manages the power consumption of your computer.
That’s a big deal when you’re running off a laptop’s battery, of course, but it’s also
important if you’d like to save money (and the environment) by cutting down on the
juice consumed by your desktop PC.
The options you see depend on your PC’s particular features. Figure 8-8 displays the
Power Options for a typical computer.
In Windows 7, Microsoft has tried to simplify the business of managing the electricity/
speed tradeoff in two ways. First, it has abandoned the old name power scheme and
adopted a new one: power plan. You can feel the clouds breaking up already.
(A power plan dictates things like how soon the computer goes to sleep, how bright
the screen is, what speed the processor cranks at, and so on.)
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The Story of God Mode
It started on a blog called jkontherun.com: the crazy rumor
that Microsoft had created a secret Control Panel view called
God Mode, and that only power users could access it.
Crazy thing is, it’s true. “God Mode” is a simple folder that
brings all aspects of Windows 7 control—Control Panel
functions, interface customization, accessibility options—to
a single location.
To create this all-powerful Control Panel folder, start by
creating an empty folder anywhere. Give it this name:
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
One typo, and you’re toast. But if
you type it correctly, the folder trans-
forms into a strange little icon called
GodMode. Open it, and you get
the super-cool Control Panel view
shown here, with major headings
and minor ones in a tidy alphabetical
list—and even a “Search GodMode”
box at the top. Fantastic! Convenient!
Slick! Secret!
Or not.
As it turned out, the bloggers had
gotten just about everything about
God Mode wrong. It isn’t unique to
Windows 7, it isn’t unique to the
Control Panel, and it isn’t actually
called God Mode.
Turns out it was in Vista, too. And “God Mode” is a name
the bloggers came up with; in fact, you can type any folder
name you want before the first period. Call it Master Control
Panel, or All Tasks, or whatever.
And it turns out, finally, that this Control Panel thing isn’t
secret; it’s a documented shortcut for programmers. Actu-
ally, “God Mode” is only one of a dozen summary folders
you can create. You can also create folders that offer lists of
what’s in the Action Center, desktop gadgets, the Devices
and Printers window, and so on.
Here are a few of the folders you can create. In each case,
you can type anything you want before the period, as long
as the hexadecimal code that follows is correct.
AutoPlay. {9C60DE1E-E5FC-40f4-A487-460851A8D915}
DateandTime. {E2E7934B-DCE5-43C4-9576-7FE4F75E7480}
FolderOptions. {6DFD7C5C-2451-11d3-A299-00C04F8E-
F6AF}
Fonts. {93412589-74D4-4E4E-AD0E-E0CB621440FD}
Homegroup. {67CA7650-96E6-4FDD-BB43-A8E774F73A57}
InternetOptions. {A3DD4F92-658A-
410F-84FD-6FBBBEF2FFFE}
NetworkandSharingCenter.
{8E908FC9-BECC-40f6-915B-
F4CA0E70D03D}
PowerOptions. {025A5937-A6BE-
4686-A844-36FE4BEC8B6D}
Sound. {F2DDFC82-8F12-4CDD-
B7DC-D4FE1425AA4D}
SpeechRecognition. {58E3C745-
D971-4081-9034-86E34B30836A}
Troubleshooting.{C58C4893-3BE0-
4B45-ABB5-A63E4B8C8651}
Mobility Center. {5ea4f148-308c-
46d7-98a9-49041b1dd468}
There are many more, as a quick Google search will tell
you. Not all of them work in Windows 7 (sometimes, the
folder you’re renaming with the magic name simply doesn’t
change its icon and adopt its new personality). And of course,
there’s not a whole lot of point in going to this trouble; if
you really want direct access to a certain Control Panel ap-
plet, you can simply drag it to your desktop right from the
Control Panel window!
But even if it’s not that secret, not that special, and not that
new, it’s still cool.
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328 windows 7: the missing manual
Second, it presents you right up front with three premade power plans:
•Balanced, which is meant to strike a balance between energy savings and perfor-
mance. When you’re working hard, you get all the speed your PC can deliver; when
you’re thinking or resting, the processor slows down to save juice.
•Power saver slows down your computer, but saves power—a handy one for laptop
luggers who aren’t doing anything more strenuous than word processing.
Figure 8-8:
Top: The factory
setting power plan,
reasonably enough,
is the Balanced
plan. To take a
look at the settings,
click “Change plan
settings.”
Middle: At first
glance, it looks like
you can change
only a couple of
settings, like when
the computer sleeps
and when the
display turns off.
Bottom: But if you
click the “Change
advanced power
settings” link, you
can see that the
dialog box has
more settings. Now
you’ve got the full
range of control
over your screen,
hard drive, wireless
antenna, processor,
installed PCI cards,
and other power-
related elements.
Click the + to
expand a topic, and
then twiddle with
the settings.
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•High performance (click “Show additional plans” to see it) sucks power like a black
hole but grants you the computer’s highest speed possible.
Tip: You don’t have to open the Control Panel to change among these canned plans. On a laptop, for
example, you can just click the battery icon on your notification area and choose from the pop-up menu.
Creating your own plan
But adding to Microsoft’s three starter plans can be useful, not only because you
gain more control, but also because you get to see exactly what a plan is made of. In
Windows 7, you create a new plan by modifying one of Microsoft’s three starter plans.
Start by clicking “Create a power plan” (left side of the window). On the next screen,
click the plan you want to modify, type a name for your plan (say, PowerPoint Mode),
and then click Next.
The “Change settings” dialog box now appears. Yeah, yeah, you can use the pop-up
menus to specify how soon your PC sleeps and turns off its monitor; if you’re using
a laptop, you can even specify different timings depending on whether you’re running
on battery power or plugged into the wall. Boring!
The real fun begins when you click “Change advanced power settings” (Figure 8-8,
bottom). Lots of these subsettings are technical and tweaky, but a few are amazingly
useful (click the + button next to each one to see your options):
•Require a password on wakeup. Nice security feature if you’re worried about
other people in your home or office seeing what you were working on before your
machine went to sleep to save power.
•Hard disk. Making it stop spinning after a few minutes of inactivity saves a lot of
juice. The downside: The PC takes longer to report in for work when you return
to it and wake it up.
•Wireless Adapter Settings. If you’re not using your computer, you can tell it to
throttle back on its WiFi wireless networking signals to save juice.
•Sleep. How soon should the machine enter low-power sleep state after you’ve left
it idle? And should it sleep or hibernate (page 39)?
•Power buttons and lid. What should happen when you close the lid of your laptop
or press its Power or Sleep button (if it has one)?
•PCI Express. If you’ve got any adapter cards installed, and they’re modern and
Windows 7-aware, then they, too, can save you power by sleeping when not in use.
•Processor power management. When you’re running on battery, just how much
are you willing to let your processor slow down to save juice?
•Display. These controls govern how fast your monitor turns off to save power.
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330 windows 7: the missing manual
•Multimedia settings. These controls have little to do with electricity, and every-
thing to do with not ruining your big PowerPoint pitch. They let you specify that
the computer should not sleep if you’re in the middle of playing a song, movie,
or PowerPoint deck.
•Battery. “Critical battery action” dictates what the laptop should do when the bat-
tery’s all out: hibernate, sleep, or shut down. The other settings here let you govern
when Windows’s two low-battery warnings appear (that is, at what percentage-
remaining levels).
Some of these options also appear in the task pane at the left side of the Power Options
control panel, for your convenience. They affect whatever plan is currently selected.
In any case, click OK to close the “Advanced settings” box. Click “Save changes” to
immortalize your newly created power plan. From now on, you can choose its name
from the Battery icon on the system tray (if you have a laptop), or switch to it right
in the control panel (if you have a desktop).
Tip: To delete a plan you’ve created, open the Power Options control panel; click “Change plan settings,”
and then click “Delete this plan.”
Programs and Features
Programs and Features is about managing the software you have installed, manag-
ing updates, and buying software online. It replaces the old Add/Remove Programs
program. (“Add” was dropped from the name because it was unnecessary; all pro-
grams these days come with their own installer. When was the last time you installed
a program through Add/Remove Programs?)
This window is useful for fixing (which might simply mean reinstalling), changing,
or uninstalling existing programs, and it’s the only place you can go to turn on (or
off) Windows features like Fax and Scan, Games, Meeting Space, and more.
Recovery
The new Recovery icon is nothing more than a quick-access button for triggering a
System Restore, as described on page 695. It saves you a few steps when you want to
rewind your PC back to an earlier, better-behaved state.
Region and Language
Windows can accommodate any conceivable arrangement of date, currency, and
number formats; comes with fonts for dozens of Asian languages; lets you remap
your keyboard to type non-English symbols of every ilk; and so on.
The revamped Regional and Language Options allow you to install multiple input
language kits on your computer and switch between them when the mood strikes.
The key term here is default input language; the language for the operating system
doesn’t change. If you installed Windows 7 in English, you still see the menus and
dialog boxes in English.
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But when you switch the input language, your keyboard can type the characters
necessary for the selected language.
Formats tab
If you think that 7/4 means July 4 and that 1.000 is the number of heads you have,
skip this section.
But in some countries, 7/4 means April 7, and 1.000 means one thousand. If your PC
isn’t showing numbers, times, currency symbols, or dates in a familiar way, choose
your country from the “Current format” pop-up menu. (Or, if you’re a little weird,
use the “Customize this format” button to rearrange the sequence of date elements;
see Figure 8-9.)
Figure 8-9:
Top: Regional stan-
dard format templates
are available from the
drop-down list in the
Formats tab.
Bottom: Once you
choose a standard
format (like US), then
you can customize
exactly how numbers,
currency, time, and
dates are handled.
Simply click “Custom-
ize this format.”
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Tip: The Customize Regional Options box (Figure 8-9) is where you can specify whether you prefer a 12-hour
clock (“3:05 PM”) or a military or European-style, 24-hour clock (“1505”).
Location tab
This tab identifies your computer’s location. The point is so when you go online to
check local news and weather, you get the right news and weather—a handy feature
if you’re traveling with a laptop.
Keyboards and Languages tab
The symbols you use when you’re typing in Swedish aren’t the same as when you’re
typing in English. Microsoft solved this problem by creating different keyboard layouts,
one for each language (or more, like Qwerty or Dvorak for English). Each keyboard
layout rearranges the letters that appear when you press the keys. For example, in the
Swedish layout, pressing the semicolon key produces an ö.
There are two buttons on the Keyboards and Languages tab: “Change keyboards” and
“Install/uninstall languages.”
The “Install/uninstall languages” button lets you install additional language packs to
your computer (you can download them from Microsoft’s Web site). The “Change
keyboards” button takes you to another dialog box with three tabs:
•General tab. In order to even use Windows 7, you must have an input language.
The default is US English. If yours is different, then choose it from the drop-down
list. This is the language Windows will use to communicate with you, and the
standard language for your keyboard.
To change your keyboard language and/or the keyboard layout, click Add, and then
scroll to the language of your choice. (Expand the + buttons to see the available
keyboard layouts. For English, the traditional Qwerty layout is the factory setting,
but you can choose from several Dvorak offerings.) See Figure 8-10.
Once you’ve selected your keyboard layouts, you need to access them. There are
two ways to manage and switch between keyboard layouts: through the Language
bar, and by creating keyboard combinations.
•Language bar. The Language bar is a floating toolbar that lets you switch input
languages on the fly; it appears automatically as soon as you add more than one
language or keyboard layout (or when you use handwriting or speech recogni-
tion). The options on this tab can make the Language bar transparent, display text
labels, and even add additional Language bar icons in the taskbar. See page 332
for more on the Language bar.
•Advanced Key Settings. On this tab, you can set up a keyboard combination to
use to switch between layouts. The factory setting is the left Alt key+Shift, which
scrolls through your layouts sequentially with each press, but you can also assign
a combination to each specific layout.
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Administrative
The “Change system locale” button on this tab lets you specify which language handles
error messages and the occasional dialog box. (Just changing your input language
may not do the trick.)
The “Copy to reserved account” button lets the newly configured language settings
apply to new user accounts, so anyone who gets a new account on this computer will
have your language, format, and keyboard settings conveniently available to them.
Figure 8-10:
Top: Although all languages that you
choose are technically input languag-
es, there can be only one base, default
input language. From there you can
add new languages (and see what you
already have) by clicking Add.
Bottom: Talk about a polyglot!
Windows knows more languages than
you’ve even heard of. To see what
keyboard input options are available
for a language, click the + button
next to it.
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RemoteApp and Desktop Connections
With Windows 7, Microsoft continues its service to the world’s corporate IT nerds.
As in the past, these corporate system administrators can “publish” certain programs,
or even entire computers, at the company headquarters—and you, using your laptop
or home computer, can use them as though you were there.
But in Windows 7, these “published” resources behave even more like programs right
on your PC. They’re listed right in your Start menu, for heaven’s sake (in a folder in
All Programs called, of course, “RemoteApp and Desktop Connections”), and you
can search for them as you’d search for any apps.
The whole cycle begins when your company’s network nerd provides you with the
URL (Internet address) of the published program. Once you’ve got that, open the
RemoteApp and Desktop Connections control panel, and then click “Set up a new
connection with RemoteApp and Desktop Connections.”
A wizard now appears; its screens guide you through pasting in that URL and typing
in your corporate network name and password.
When it’s all over, you see a confirmation screen; your new “connection” is listed in
the control panel; and the folder full of “published” remote programs appears in your
Start menu, ready to use.
Figure 8-11:
Top: The Playback and Recording tabs
display the devices your computer
has for playing or recording sounds. If
you select the device, you can see its
properties or configure it.
Bottom: Here are some of the configu-
rations you can set from the Playback
tab, from simple stereo to 7.1 surround
sound. Your setup may vary.
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Sound
Since Windows XP, the Sound dialog box has been simplified. It now contains only
four tabs that control every aspect of your microphone and speakers: Playback, Re-
cording, Sounds, and Communications. See Figure 8-11.
Playback and Recording tabs
These tabs simply contain the icons for each attached sound device. To change a
device’s settings, select it, and then click Configure.
If you’re configuring an output (“playback”) device like a speaker or headset, then you
get a quick wizard that lets you set the speaker configuration (stereo or quadraphonic,
for example). If you’re configuring a microphone (“recording”), then you’re taken to
the Speech Recognition page, where you can set up your microphone.
Sounds tab
Windows comes with a tidy suite of little sound effects—beeps, musical ripples, and
chords—that play when you turn on the PC, trigger an error message, empty the
Recycle Bin, and so on. This tab lets you specify which sound effect plays for which
situation; see page 184 for details.
Communications tab
This tab, new in Windows 7, is designed for people who make phone calls using the
PC, using a program like Skype, Google Talk, or Windows Live Messenger. Here, you
can tell your PC to mute or soften other sounds—meaning music you’ve got play-
ing—whenever you’re on a PC call.
Nice touch.
Speech Recognition
This little program sets up all the speech-related features of Windows. See Chapter
6 for complete details.
Sync Center
The Sync Center used to be where you managed connected devices (like smartphones
or palmtops) and synchronized them with your calendar and address book. In Win-
dows 7, it’s strictly for syncing your files with folders elsewhere on your corporate
network, so you’ll always be up to date. For details, see page 635.
System
This advanced control panel window is the same one that appears when you right-
click your Computer icon and choose Properties from the shortcut menu (or press
w+Break key). It contains the various settings that identify every shred of circuitry
and equipment inside, or attached to, your PC.
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336 windows 7: the missing manual
When you open the System icon in Control Panel, you’re taken to the System window
(Figure 8-12). Here you can find out:
• What edition of Windows is installed on your computer. As you know, Windows
7 comes in several editions. Not all editions are made equal; if you’re flailing to
find some feature that you could have sworn is supposed to be in Windows 7, it’s
good to check here. You might find out that the feature you want is available only
on higher-priced versions.
• Your PC’s performance rating. See page 25.
• The model name and speed of your PC’s processor (such as Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.8
GHz).
• How much memory your PC has. That’s a very helpful number to know, particularly
if you need to improve your computer’s speed.
• Your computer’s name, domain, or workgroup, which can be modified with the
“Change settings” button. Remember, your computer name and description are
primarily useful on a network, since that’s how other people will identify your
computer. Unless you tell it otherwise, Windows names your computer after your
login name, something like Casey Robbins-PC.
• Whether or not your operating system is activated. For more on Activation, check
Appendix A.
• What the Product ID key is for your system. Every legal copy of Windows has a
Product ID key—a long serial number that’s required to activate Microsoft software.
For more information about Product ID keys, see Appendix A.
Tip: In the Windows Activation section, you can do something unprecedented (and this is a really good
thing): You can change your product key without having to reinstall your operating system. Now you can
change your product ID simply by clicking “Change product key” in the System window. That’s progress.
At the left side of the window, you find a few links:
•Device Manager. This very powerful console lists every component of your PC:
CD-ROM, Modem, Mouse, and so on. Double-clicking a component’s name (or
clicking the + symbol) discloses the brand and model of that component. For
more on the Device Manager, see Chapter 18.
•Remote settings. To read about Remote Assistance—the feature that lets a technical
help person connect to your PC (via the Internet) to help you troubleshoot—turn
to page 202.
•System Protection. This link takes you to the System Protection tab in the System
dialog box. Here, you can keep track of the automatic system restores (snapshot
backups of a system), or even create a new restore point. And if your computer has
begun to act like it’s possessed, you can go here to restore it to a previous restore
point’s state. Check out Chapter 22 for more details.
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•Advanced system settings. Clicking this link opens the Advanced tab of the System
Properties dialog box. This tab is nothing more than a nesting place for four but-
tons that open other dialog boxes—some of which aren’t “advanced” in the least.
The first Settings button opens the Performance Options dialog box, described
on page 174. The second Settings button opens the User Profiles box, which is
covered in Chapter 23. The third Settings button opens a Startup and Recovery
window. It contains advanced options related to dual-booting (Appendix A) and
what happens when the system crashes.
Finally, the Environment Variables button opens a dialog box that will get only
technically minded people excited. It identifies, for example, the path to your
Windows folder and the number of processors your PC has. If you’re not in the
computer-administration business, avoid making changes here.
Figure 8-12:
The System
window is a
one-stop shop
for all things
computer-
related. From
your hardware
(and what
Windows thinks
of it) to your
product ID key,
System’s got
you covered.
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338 windows 7: the missing manual
Taskbar and Start Menu
This program controls every conceivable behavior of the taskbar and Start menu. You
can read all about these options—the same ones that appear when you right-click
the taskbar or the Start button and choose Properties from the shortcut menu—in
Chapters 1 and 2.
Troubleshooting
Here’s a list of Windows 7’s troubleshooters—step-by-step interview screens that walk
you through fixing various problems. [Insert your own joke here about Windows’s
need for an entire program dedicated to troubleshooting.]
Anyway, you can find links here for running older programs under Windows 7, get-
ting online, figuring out why your speakers aren’t working, sleuthing out why your
PC is getting so slow, and so on.
User Accounts
This control panel is the master switch and control center for the user-accounts
feature described in Chapter 23. If you’re the only one who uses your PC, you can
(and should) ignore it.
Windows CardSpace
Ever have to fill out a form on the Internet—name, address, email address—only to
go to a different site that requests exactly the same information?
Of course you have. Everyone has, and it’s annoying as heck.
CardSpace is Microsoft’s attempt to solve that duplication-of-effort problem. You’re
supposed to create a profile containing this kind of information, like a digital ID card.
You show your card at a site, and the site gets your information off the card, saving
you all that retyping.
Before you get too excited, though, there is a catch. CardSpace works only with Web
sites that are, ahem, CardSpace-compatible—and there aren’t many of them.
To get started, click “Add a card.” Specify whether you want to create a Personal card
or a Managed one.
Personal cards store your name, email, address, phone, birthday, and so on. You can
even add a photo. Managed cards are cards given to you by a business or institution,
like a bank or credit card company. They contain some information about you, but
mostly they point at the company that is managing the card. When you use a Managed
card in a transaction with a Web site, the site retrieves private information (such as a
credit card number) from the company that issued the CardSpace card. It confirms
that you are who you say you are, have the right to use the card, and the right to use
the private information the managing company has for you.
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Tip: Clearly, CardSpace cards can be a serious security worry. Fortunately, Windows lets you back up, restore,
and lock your card.
Locking a card means assigning it a password so nobody can open or send it without authentication. Open
a card and click “Lock card” on the right side.
Backing up the card means saving an encrypted copy of it in a file somewhere of your choosing. To back up
a card, click “Back up cards” on the main screen, and follow the instructions. (If the worst should come to
pass, you can use the “Restore cards” link to find and bring them back from the dead.)
Windows Defender
Windows Defender is Microsoft’s free anti-spyware product, built into Windows 7.
For an extensive look at what it can do for you, see Chapter 10.
Windows Firewall
In this age of digital technology, when most people’s computers are connected at all
times to the Internet (and therefore always vulnerable to the Internet), it’s a good and
reasonable idea to have a firewall protecting your computer from possible attacks and
exploitation. To learn more about Windows Firewall, see Chapter 10.
Windows Mobility Center
The Windows Mobility Center icon appears only if you have a laptop. It (the Mobility
Center, not the laptop) is described on page 111.
Windows Update
Because Windows is a constant work in progress, Microsoft frequently releases updates,
fixes, patches, and drivers, in hopes of constantly (or at least one Tuesday a month)
improving your computer’s speed and security. Windows Update is the tool used to
acquire, install, and track those useful fixes. For a more in-depth look at Windows
Update, see Chapter 20.
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chapter 9: hooking up to the internet 343
Hooking Up to the
Internet
Plenty of people buy a PC to crunch numbers, scan photos, or cultivate their
kids’ hand-eye coordination. But for millions of people, Reason One for us-
ing a PC is to get on the Internet. Few computer features have the potential to
change your life as profoundly as the Web and email.
There are all kinds of ways to get your PC onto the Internet these days:
•WiFi. Wireless hot spots, known as WiFi, are glorious conveniences, especially
if you have a laptop. Without stirring from your hotel bed, you’re online at high
speed. Sometimes for free.
•Cable modems, DSL. Over half of the U.S. Internet population connects over
higher-speed wires, using broadband connections that are always on: cable mo-
dems, DSL, or corporate networks. (These, of course, are often what’s at the other
end of an Internet hot spot.)
•Cellular modems. A few well-heeled individuals enjoy the go-anywhere bliss of
USB cellular modems, which get them online just about anywhere they can make
a phone call. These modems are offered by Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and so on, and
usually cost $60 a month.
•Tethering. Tethering is letting your cellphone act as a glorified Internet antenna
for your PC, whether connected by a cable or a Bluetooth wireless link. In general,
the phone company charges you a hefty fee for this convenience.
•Dial-up modems. It’s true: Plenty of people still connect to the Internet using a
modem that dials out over ordinary phone lines. They get cheap service but slow
connections, and their numbers are shrinking.
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344 windows 7: the missing manual
Your New Network
Neighborhood
This chapter explains how to set up each one of these. (For the basics of setting up
your own network, see Chapter 24.)
Tip: If you upgraded to Windows 7 from an earlier version of Windows, then you can already get online,
as the installer is thoughtful enough to preserve your old Internet settings. (So is Windows Easy Transfer,
described in Appendix A.) That’s the best news you’ll hear all day.
Your New Network Neighborhood
The old Network Neighborhood is long gone. Now you set up and control your net-
work and Internet connections using two essential tools: the Network icon and the
Network and Sharing Center.
Network Icon
The Network icon on your taskbar (n or N) is a handy status meter, no matter how
you’re getting online. See Figure 9-1.
Tip: If you point without clicking, you see your current network’s name and (if it’s wireless) the signal strength.
And if you right-click the icon, you get links to a troubleshooting app and the Network and Sharing Center.
Network and Sharing Center
Over and over again in this chapter, you’re directed to open the all-powerful Network
and Sharing Center. That’s the master control center for creating, managing, and con-
necting to networks of all kinds (Figure 9-2). Knowing how to get there might be useful.
Figure 9-1:
Top: Hey, look! My n icon is glowing orange—there’s WiFi here!
Middle: Hey, look! I’m plugged into an Ethernet cable, and I’m
on the network!
Bottom: Hey, look! I’ve chosen a WiFi network, and now I’m
online, and the bars show my signal strength!
(If the taskbar icon bears a red X, it means your PC isn’t con-
nected to any network at all.)
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chapter 9: hooking up to the internet 345
Your New Network
Neighborhood
There are all kinds of ways, but the quickest is to click the n or N icon on your taskbar
system tray. When the list of networks appears, click the “Open Network and Sharing
Center” link at the bottom.
Wired Connections
All Versions
The beauty of Ethernet connections is that they’re superfast and supersecure. No bad
guys sitting across the coffee shop, armed with shareware “sniffing” software, can inter-
cept your email and chat messages, as they theoretically can when you’re on wireless.
And 99 percent of the time, connecting to an Ethernet network is as simple as con-
necting the cable to the computer. That’s it. You’re online, fast and securely, and you
never have to worry about connecting or disconnecting.
Automatic Configuration
Most broadband wired connections require no setup whatsoever. Take a new PC
out of the box, plug in the Ethernet cable to your cable modem, and you can begin
surfing the Web instantly.
That’s because most cable modems, DSL boxes, and wireless base stations use DHCP.
It stands for dynamic host configuration protocol, but what it means is: “We’ll fill in
Figure 9-2:
Once it’s open,
the Network and
Sharing Center
offers links that
let you connect to
a network, create
a new network,
troubleshoot your
connection, fiddle
with your network
or network
adapter card
settings, and so
on. It also shows
you a handy map
of how, exactly,
your computer is
connected to the
Internet.
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346 windows 7: the missing manual
your Network Control Panel automatically.” (Including techie specs like IP address
and DNS Server addresses.)
Manual Configuration
If, for some reason, you’re not able to surf the Web or check email the first time you
try, it’s remotely possible that your broadband modem or your office network doesn’t
offer DHCP. In that case, you may have to fiddle with the network settings manually.
See “Connection Management” on page 354 for details.
WiFi Hot Spots
All Versions
If your PC has WiFi—the 802.11 (WiFi) wireless networking technology—it can
communicate with a wireless base station up to 300 feet away, much like a cordless
phone. Doing so lets you surf the Web from your laptop in a hotel room, for example,
or share files with someone across the building from you.
Chapter 24 has much more information about setting up a WiFi network. The real
fun begins, however, when it comes time to join one.
Sometimes you just want to join a friend’s WiFi network. Sometimes you’ve got time
to kill in an airport, and it’s worth a $7 splurge for half an hour. And sometimes, at
some street corners in big cities, WiFi signals bleeding out of apartment buildings
might give you a choice of several free hot spots to join.
If you’re in a new place, and Windows discovers, on its own, that you’re in a WiFi hot
spot, then the n icon (on the system tray) glows orange.
Here’s how to proceed:
1. Click the Network icon (n).
PPPoE and DSL
If you have DSL service, you may be directed to create a
PPPoE service.
It stands for PPP over Ethernet, meaning that although your
DSL “modem” is connected to your Ethernet port, you still
have to make and break your Internet connections manually,
as though you had a dial-up modem.
To set this up, open the Network and Sharing Center (page
755). Click “Set up a new connection or network.” In the
next box, click “Connect to the Internet.”
In the next box—which is known as the “Connect to the Inter-
net” wizard—click “Broadband (PPPoE).” Fill in the PPPoE box
as directed by your ISP (usually just your account name and
password). From here on in, you start and end your Internet
connections exactly as though you had a dial-up modem—for
example, by clicking the n icon on your taskbar tray, and
then clicking the network name.
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chapter 9: hooking up to the internet 347
The delightful display shown in Figure 9-3 appears. This is the Connect To menu,
a convenient pop-up list of all the networks that Windows sees, both wired and
wireless.
Note: The tiny caution icon (⁄) identifies networks that are not password-protected.
Point to a network’s name to see a pop-up box that identifies its name, signal
strength, network type, and so on.
2. Click the name of the network (hot spot) you want to join.
The Connect button appears. You can click it now—but if you first turn on “Con-
nect automatically,” you’ll spare yourself all this clicking the next time your PC is
in range. It’ll just hop on that network by itself.
3. Click Connect.
Some hot spots (most these days, actually) are protected by a password. It serves
two purposes: First, it keeps everyday schlumps from hopping onto that network,
and it also encrypts the connection so that hackers armed with sniffing software
can’t intercept the data you’re sending and receiving.
4. In the “Type the network security key” box, if it appears, type in the network’s
password. Click OK.
If someone’s peeking over your shoulder, you can also turn on “Hide characters.”
That way, you fill the box with only dots as you type.
Figure 9-3:
Left: Your PC has a
multitude of ways
to get online! You
even get to see the
signal strength of a
hot spot right in the
menu. Point to a net-
work’s name to find
out the details.
Right: Click a
network’s name to
see the “Connect”
button—and the
“Connect automati-
cally” checkbox that
will save you all this
effort next time. A
⁄ icon indicates an
open network, not
password-protected.
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348 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: Some modern WiFi routers offer a feature called WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup). If you press it at this
point, it will transmit the password automatically to your PC, saving you the trouble of filling in the password
yourself. (This technology is great because it transmits a huge, complicated password that nobody would
ever be able to guess. But it’s not so great because if any other WiFi gadget—one that doesn’t have the WPS
feature—tries to get online, you’ll have to type in that endless password manually.)
5. Click Public, Work, or Home.
This gets a little technical, so hold on to your hat.
The first time you connect to a new network—the first time you use a wireless
hot spot, the first time you connect to a dial-up ISP, the first time you plug into
an office network—you see the dialog box shown in Figure 9-4.
The choice you make here has absolutely nothing to do with the physical location,
no matter what the dialog box says. Instead, it tells Windows how much security
to apply to the network you’ve just joined.
If you choose Public, for example, Windows makes your computer invisible to other
computers nearby. (Technically, it turns off the feature called network discovery.)
Figure 9-4:
Windows is
asking you to
categorize the
network you’ve
just joined. Is
this a Public
network, like a
coffee-shop hot
spot? Is it a Work
network—a cor-
porate network
that’s likely to
be staffed by se-
curity-conscious
network geeks?
Or is it your own
Home network,
where you don’t
have to worry
so much about
hackers?
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chapter 9: hooking up to the internet 349
That’s not ideal for file sharing, printer sharing, and so on—but it means hackers
have a harder time “sniffing” the airwaves to detect your presence.
If you say a network is Public, you may be visited quite a bit by the “Unblock?”
messages from the Windows firewall. That’s just Windows being insecure, asking
for permission every time any program (like a chat program) tries to get through
the firewall.
Note: The only difference between Home and Work is that you can use the new HomeGroups feature
(Chapter 8) on a Home network.
When You Can’t Get On
That should be all that’s necessary to get you onto a WiFi hot spot. You should now
be able to surf the Web or check your email.
Before you get too excited, though, some lowering of expectations is in order. There
are a bunch of reasons why your n icon might indicate that you’re in a hot spot, but
you can’t actually get online:
•It’s locked. If there’s no little s icon next to the hot spot’s signal strength in the
pop-up list of networks, then the hot spot has been password-protected. That’s
partly to prevent hackers from “sniffing” the transmissions and intercepting mes-
sages, and partly to keep random passersby like you off the network.
•The signal’s not strong enough. Sometimes the WiFi signal is strong enough to
make the hot spot’s name show up in your Connect To menu, but not strong
enough for an actual connection.
•You’re not on the list. Sometimes, for security, hot spots are rigged to permit only
specific computers to join, and yours isn’t one of them.
•You haven’t logged in yet. Commercial hot spots (the ones you have to pay for)
don’t connect you to the Internet until you’ve supplied your payment details on
a special Web page that appears automatically when you open your browser, as
described below.
Wrong Network Type—Oops
Oh dear. When I connected to my home WiFi network, I
clicked Public by accident. Now I can’t see any of my shared
files, music, printers, and so on. What to do?
You should change the location to the Home or Work set-
tings, which are less paranoid. In these settings, network dis-
covery is turned on, so you and your PCs can see each other
on the network and share files, music, printers, and so on.
To change a connection from one “location” (that is, security
scenario) to another, connect to the network in question.
Now open the Network and Sharing Center (page 755).
There, you see the name of the miscategorized network—and
you see “Public network” (or “Home network” or “Work
network”) under its name. Click that phrase to reopen the
box shown in Figure 9-4, where you can choose another
location type.
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350 windows 7: the missing manual
•The router’s on, but the Internet’s not connected. Sometimes wireless routers are
broadcasting, but their Internet connection is down. It’d be like a cordless phone
that has a good connection back to the base station in the kitchen—but the phone
cord isn’t plugged into the base station.
Tip: If you point to the n icon window clicking, you’ll know. It will say either “Internet access” (good) or
“No Internet access” (bad).
Commercial Hot Spots
Choosing the name of the hot spot you want to join is generally all you have to do—if
it’s a home WiFi network.
Unfortunately, joining a commercial hot spot—one that requires a credit card number
(in a hotel room or an airport, for example)—requires more than just connecting to
it. You also have to sign into it before you can send so much as a single email message.
To do that, open your browser. You see the “Enter payment information” screen either
immediately or as soon as you try to open a Web page of your choice. (Even at free
hot spots, you might have to click OK on a welcome page to initiate the connection.)
Supply your credit card information or (if you have a membership to this WiFi chain,
like Boingo or T-Mobile) your name and password. Click Submit or Proceed, try not to
contemplate how this $8 per hour is pure profit for somebody, and enjoy your surfing.
Secret Hot Spots
It’s entirely possible for you to be standing right in the middle
of a juicy, strong WiFi hot spot —and not even know it. Its
name doesn’t show up in the Connect To list.
It turns out that the owner can choose whether or not the hot
spot should broadcast its name. Sometimes, he might want
to keep the hot spot secret—to restrict its use to employees
at a coffee shop, for example, so that the common customer
riffraff can’t slow it down. In these cases, you’d have to know
(a) that the hot spot exists, and (b) what its name is.
If you do know the name of one of these secret hot spots,
open the Connect To list from your system tray. You see the
invisible hot spot identified here, sure enough, but only as
“Other Network.” Click it, and then click Connect. Now you
have to type in the network’s exact name (and password, of
course, if there is one) before you can proceed.
This method is great for quick encounters with hidden hot
spots. If you want the option to have your laptop hop onto
the secret hot spot automatically whenever it’s nearby, the
process is slightly more complex.
Click your Network icon (n); click “Open Network and Shar-
ing Center.” Click “Set up a new connection or network”;
in the next box, click “Manually connect to a wireless net-
work.” Now you’re asked to type the hot spot’s name and
password—and you have the option to turn on “Start this
connection automatically.” Also turn on “Connect even if the
network is not broadcasting,” despite the warning (which is
saying that a dedicated hacker nearby could learn the hot
spot’s name by using special “sniffing” software). Click Next,
Next, and Close.
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chapter 9: hooking up to the internet 351
Memorized Hot Spots
If you turned on “Connect automatically,” then whenever your laptop enters this hot
spot, it will connect to the network automatically. You don’t have to do any clicking
at all.
Behind the scenes, Windows is capable of piling up quite a list of these hot spots,
representing a bread-crumb trail of the hot spots you’ve used at every hotel, airport,
coffee shop, and buddy’s house.
If you ever want to clean out this list, or just look at it, open the Network and Sharing
Center (page 755). In the panel at left, click “Manage wireless networks.”
You now see the list of hot spots you’ve told Windows to memorize. See Figure 9-5
for details.
Cellular Modems
All Versions
WiFi hot spots are fast and usually cheap—but they’re hot spots. Beyond 150 feet
away, you’re offline.
No wonder laptop luggers across America are getting into cellular Internet services.
All the big cellphone companies offer ExpressCards or USB sticks that let your laptop
get online at high speed anywhere in major cities. Plenty of laptops and netbooks even
have this circuitry built right inside, so you have nothing to insert or eject.
Figure 9-5:
If you click a
memorized net-
work’s name, the
toolbar offers you
options like “Re-
move,” “Adapter
properties,” and
“Move down.”
That last option is
important. It lets
you answer the
question, “What if
I’m in the presence
of more than
one memorized
hot spot? Which
should I connect
to first?” Answer:
Whichever hot
spot appears at
the top of this list.
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352 windows 7: the missing manual
Imagine: No hunting for coffee shops. With cellular Internet service, you can check
your email while zooming down the road in a taxi. (Outside the metropolitan areas,
you can still get online wirelessly, though much more slowly.)
Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T all offer cellular Internet networks with speeds
approaching a cable modem. So why isn’t the world beating a path to this delicious
technology’s door? Because it’s expensive—usually $60 a month on top of your
phone bill.
To get online, insert the card or USB stick, if you have one; it may take about 15
seconds for the thing to latch on to the cellular signal.
Note: This assumes, of course, that you’ve installed the modem’s software. Sometimes it comes on a CD.
Sometimes it’s right on the modem itself, which doubles as a flash drive.
Now, to make the connection, click the n icon on your system tray; from the Connect
To pop-up list, just click the modem’s name and then click Connect.
Dial-Up Connections
All Versions
High-speed Internet is where it’s at, baby! But there are plenty of reasons why you
may be among the 10 percent of the Internet population that connects via dial-up
modem, slow though it is. Dial-up is a heck of a lot less expensive than broadband.
And its availability is incredible—you can find a phone jack in almost any room in
the civilized world, in places where the closest Ethernet or WiFi network is miles away.
To get online by dial-up, you need a PC with a modem—not a sure thing anymore—
and a dial-up account. You sign up with a company called an Internet service provider
(or ISP, as insiders and magazines inevitably call them).
National ISPs like EarthLink and AT&T have local telephone numbers in every U.S.
state and many other countries. If you don’t travel much, you may not need such
broad coverage. Instead, you may be able to save money by signing up for a local or
regional ISP. In fact, you can find ISPs that are absolutely free (if you’re willing to
look at ads), or that cost as little as $4 per month (if you promise not to call for tech
support). Google can be your friend here.
Even if you have a cable modem or DSL, you can generally add dial-up access to the
same account for another few bucks a month. You’ll be happy to have that feature if
you travel a lot (unless your cable modem comes with a really long cord).
In any case, dialing the Internet is a local call for most people.
Microsoft no longer tries to steer you to its own MSN service, as it once did. Instead,
Windows expects that you’ve contacted an ISP on your own. It assumes that you’re
equipped with either (a) a setup CD from that company or (b) a user name, pass-
word, and dial-up phone number from that ISP, which is pretty much all you really
need to get online.
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Your only remaining task is to plug that information into Windows. (And, of course,
to plug your computer into the phone jack on the wall.)
Here’s how you do it.
1. Open the Network and Sharing Center.
See the beginning of this chapter for instructions.
2. In the main window, click “Set up a new connection or network.”
The “Choose a connection option” dialog box opens.
3. Double-click “Set up a dial-up connection.”
Now the creatively named “Create a Dial-up Connection” box appears.
4. Fill in the phone number, user name, and password your ISP provided.
You can call your ISP for this information, or consult the literature it mailed you
when you signed up.
If you were given a setup CD instead, click “I don’t have an ISP,” and then click
“Use the CD I received from an ISP.” Insert the disc when you’re asked.
Otherwise, complete the final step.
5. Click Connect.
Assuming a phone line is plugged in, your PC dials and makes its connection with
the mother ship.
6. Make a decision: Is this network Public or Private?
When the “Choose a location” dialog box appears (Figure 9-4), click Home, Work,
or Public after you’ve read what the heck that means (see page 348). (Hint: “Public”
is the most secure option for dial-up.)
IP Addresses and You
Every computer connected to the Internet, even temporar-
ily, has its own exclusive IP address (IP stands for Internet
Protocol). When you set up your own Internet account, as
described on these pages, you’re asked to type in this string
of numbers. As you’ll see, an IP address always consists of
four numbers separated by periods.
Some PCs with high-speed Internet connections (cable
modem, DSL) have a permanent, unchanging address
called a static or fixed IP address. Other computers get as-
signed a new address each time they connect (a dynamic
IP address). That’s always the case, for example, when you
connect via a dial-up modem. (If you can’t figure out whether
your machine has a static or fixed address, ask your Internet
service provider.)
If nothing else, dynamic addresses are more convenient in
some ways, since you don’t have to type numbers into the
Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties dialog box shown in
Figure 9-6.
up to speed
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354 windows 7: the missing manual
From now on, whenever you want to go online, you can choose your dial-up connec-
tion’s name from the Connect To list shown in Figure 9-3.
Tip: Or you can make your PC dial automatically whenever one of your programs needs an Internet connec-
tion. To set that up, and to read about the other tweaks you can make to your dial-up connection, download
the free PDF appendix to this chapter called “Details on Dial-Up.” You’ll find it on this book’s “Missing CD”
page at www.missingmanuals.com.
Connection Management
All Versions
No matter what crazy combination of Internet connections you’ve accumulated on
your computer, Windows represents each one as a connection icon. You can view them,
rename them, change their settings, or just admire them by opening the window
shown at top in Figure 9-6.
To get there, open the Network Connections window. Here’s the quickest way to go
about it: Open the Start menu. Type view network until you see “View network con-
nections” in the results; click it or press Enter.
These icons are handy because their Properties dialog boxes are crammed with useful
information. A dial-up connection icon stores your name, password, phone number,
and so on; a broadband or wireless icon stores various technical Internet connection
details.
In these and other situations, you need a way to make manual changes to your con-
nections. Here, for example, is how you might change the Internet settings for a cable
modem, DSL, or wireless connection:
1. Double-click a connection icon.
You get the dialog box shown in Figure 9-6, lower left.
Laptop’s Lament: Away from the Cable Modem
When I’m home, I connect my laptop to my cable modem.
But when I’m on the road, of course, I have to use my dial-up
ISP. Is there any way to automate the switching between
these two connection methods?
If there weren’t, do you think your question would have even
appeared in this chapter?
The feature you’re looking for is in the Internet Options
control panel. (Quickest way to open it: Open the Start menu;
start typing Internet options until you see Internet Options
in the results list; press Enter to open it.
Click the Connections tab, and then turn on “Dial whenever
a network connection is not present.”
From now on, your laptop will use its dial-up modem only
when it realizes that it isn’t connected to your cable modem.
frequently asked question
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2. Click Properties.
Authenticate yourself, if necessary (page 726).
3. Double-click the listing that says Internet Protocol Version 4.
An even more intimidating dialog box now appears (Figure 9-6, lower right).
4. Edit the connection details.
Most of the time, your cable or phone company has instructed you to turn on
“Obtain an IP address automatically” and “Obtain DNS server address automati-
Figure 9-6:
Top: Here’s a sum-
mary of the ways
your computer can
get online. (The ones
that are Xed out aren’t
connected at the mo-
ment.)
Lower left: In this dia-
log box, double-click
the Internet Protocol
(TCP/IP) item that
corresponds to your
Ethernet card.
Lower right: Your ca-
ble or phone company
generally configures
these settings for you.
But if a freak solar
eclipse wipes out all
your settings, you can
re-enter them here.
When you click OK,
you should be back
online.
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356 windows 7: the missing manual
cally.” You don’t know how lucky you are—you’ve been saved from typing in all
the other numbers in this dialog box. Otherwise, turn on “Use the following IP
address” and type in the appropriate numbers. Do the same with “Use the follow-
ing DNS server addresses.”
5. Click OK.
As a courtesy, Windows doesn’t make you restart the computer in order for your
new network settings to take effect.
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10
chapter 10: internet security 357
Internet Security
If it weren’t for that darned Internet, personal computing would be a lot of fun.
After all, it’s the Internet that lets all those socially stunted hackers enter our
machines, unleashing their viruses, setting up remote hacking tools, feeding us
spyware, trying to trick us out of our credit-card numbers, and otherwise making
our lives an endless troubleshooting session. It sure would be nice if they’d cultivate
some other hobbies.
In the meantime, these lowlifes are doing astronomical damage to businesses and
individuals around the world—along the lines of $100 billion a year (the cost to fight
viruses, spyware, and spam).
A big part of the problem was the design of Windows itself. In the quaint old-fashioned
days of 2000, when Windows XP was designed, these sorts of Internet attacks were
far less common. Microsoft left open a number of back doors that were intended for
convenience (for example, to let system administrators communicate with your PC
from across the network) but wound up being exploited by hackers.
Microsoft wrote Windows Vista, and later Windows 7, for a lot of reasons: to give
Windows a cosmetic makeover, to give it up-to-date music and video features, to
overhaul its networking plumbing—and, of course, to make money. But Job Number
One was making Windows more secure. Evil strangers will still make every attempt
to make your life miserable, but one thing is for sure: They’ll have a much, much
harder time of it.
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358 windows 7: the missing manual
Internet Security Note: This chapter focuses on Windows’s self-protection features—all of them. It’s only called “Internet
Security” because, in fact, virtually all the infectious unpleasantness that can befall a PC these days comes
from the Internet. A PC that never goes online probably won’t get infected.
So why is Internet Explorer (IE) the most popular hacking target? First, it’s by far the most popular browser
on the planet. Second, Internet Explorer includes hooks directly into Windows itself, so a hacker can wreak
havoc on Windows by using Internet Explorer as a back door.
Lots of Win7’s security improvements are invisible to you. They’re deep in the plumb-
ing, with no buttons or controls to show you. If you’re scoring at home, they include
the following features:
•Application isolation. A program can’t take over important tasks performed by
Windows itself.
•Service hardening. Windows services are programs that run in the background:
the print spooler that comes with Windows, virus checkers from other companies,
and so on. Service hardening prevents rogue services (or services that have been
surreptitiously modified by nasties from the Internet) from making changes to
parts of the system they’re not supposed to touch; for example, they can’t change
important system files or the Registry (Appendix B).
•Protected Mode. Protected Mode shields the operating system from actions taken
by Internet Explorer or its add-ons. So even if a nasty piece of software breaks
through all of Internet Explorer’s security features, it can’t do harm to your PC,
because Protected Mode locks IE inside a safe box. What happens in Internet
Explorer stays in Internet Explorer.
•Address Space Layout Randomization. When a program is running, it keeps a lot of
information in system memory. Because many viruses and worms depend on their
author’s knowledge of how vulnerable programs keep that information organized,
ASLR scrambles that information—though not so much that the programs can’t
run—to make it harder for them to break into your system.
•Network Access Protection. On a corporate domain network, this feature prevents
you from connecting to an insufficiently protected PC on the network—one lack-
ing virus protection, for example.
•PatchGuard. This prevents non-Microsoft software from touching the beating
heart of Windows.
•Code Integrity. Software is checked before it runs to make sure it hasn’t been
modified somehow.
The rest of this chapter describes features that aren’t invisible and automatic—the
ones you can control.
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chapter 10: internet security 359
Microsoft Security
Essentials
Note: And does it work? Do all these tools and patches actually reduce the number of virus and spyware
outbreaks?
Apparently yes. The years of annual front-page headlines about national virus outbreaks—called things like
Melissa (1999), Blaster (2003), and Sasser (2004)—seem to be over. There will always be clever new at-
tacks—but they’ll be much less frequent and much harder to write.
Note, however, that built-in security tools can’t do the whole job of keeping your PC
safe; you play a role, too. So keep in mind these basic tips before you or your family
go online:
•Don’t trust a pretty face. It doesn’t take much expertise to build a snazzy-looking
Web site. Just because a Web site looks trustworthy doesn’t mean you can trust it.
If you’re visiting a little-known Web site, be careful what you do there.
•Don’t download from sites you don’t know. The Web is full of free software of-
fers. But that free software may, in fact, be spyware or other malware. (Malware is
a general term for viruses, spyware, and other Bad Software.) So be very careful
when downloading anything online.
•Don’t click pop-up ads. Pop-up ads are more than mere annoyances; some of them,
when clicked, download spyware to your PC. As you’ll see later in this chapter,
Internet Explorer includes a pop-up blocker, but it doesn’t block all pop-ups. So
to be safe, don’t click.
With all that said, you’re ready to find out how to keep yourself safe when you go online.
Microsoft Security Essentials
All Versions
It’s historic. It’s amazing. It’s free. After all these decades, Microsoft has finally decided
to offer free antivirus software. At long last, you have no excuse not to protect your PC.
If you don’t already have an antivirus program, go this minute to www.microsoft.
com/security_essentials and download and install this software. At last: The X on the
system-tray nag flag (a), complaining that your PC is unprotected, will go away.
Like any good antivirus program, this one (Figure 10-1) has two functions:
• It watches over your PC constantly, as a barrier against new infections of viruses
and spyware. Each day, the program auto-downloads new definitions files—behind-
the-scenes updates to its virus database, which keep it up to date with the latest
new viruses that Microsoft has spotted in the wild.
Note: If you haven’t been online in awhile, a system-tray balloon lets you know. Click the balloon to go
online to download the latest definitions.
• Second, it has a scanning function that’s designed to clean out infections you
already have (a feature that, thank heaven, you’ll rarely need).
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360 windows 7: the missing manual
Ordinarily, the program scans your PC automatically every Sunday at 2 a.m. (If
the computer isn’t turned on at that point, then it will scan the next time it’s on
but you’re not using it.) But you can also scan a particular file or folder that seems
to be acting flaky.
That’s all there is to it—it’s mostly automatic and in the background. But if you like
to poke around, open Microsoft Security Essentials from your Start menu. You find
four tabs:
•Home. A summary of your protection status, definitions status, and so on. There’s
also a Scan Now button for times of panic.
•Update. Shows you what definitions database you’ve got and offers a big fat Update
button to download the latest one right now.
•History. A list of viruses and spyware programs Essentials has found. You can see
All, Quarantined (infected files the program has just disabled instead of deleting),
and Allowed (“infected” files you’ve told Windows you want to keep alive anyway).
Figure 10-1:
If Security Es-
sentials ever
does discover
an infection,
a system-tray
balloon pops
up to let you
know. You’ll
be able to
click “Clean
computer”
to wipe out
the virus,
or “Show
details” to
read about
the infection.
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chapter 10: internet security 361
•Settings. Here’s where you can specify when your PC scans the computer, in case
Sunday at 2 a.m. isn’t ideal. Here, too, is where you can exclude certain files, folders,
and disks from being scanned (handy if, for example, if you’re writing PC viruses
and don’t want them removed). You can also turn off the real-time protection
feature if you think it’s slowing down your PC.
Now, Microsoft Security Essentials is certainly not the only antivirus program on the
planet; it’s not even the best one.
Several rival antivirus programs are free for personal use, like Avast (www.avast.com).
These do have their downsides—some nag you to buy the Pro versions, for example,
and there’s nobody to call for tech support.
Meanwhile, almost every new PC comes with a trial version of a commercial antivirus
program like Norton or McAfee; you have to pay an annual fee to keep it up to date.
In any case, the bottom line is this: If your PC doesn’t have antivirus software working
for you right now, then getting some should be at the top of your To Do list. Important:
Get antivirus software written especially for Windows 7. Antivirus software from the
Windows XP days won’t work.
Action Center
All Versions
One of the biggest annoyances in Windows Vista was the nagginess. The thing was
constantly bugging you, popping up balloons, popping up “Attention!” boxes, de-
manding your name and password at every turn. It’s great that Microsoft tightened
up security, but come on; it was like living with a needy 5-year-old.
Windows 7 harangues you much less. In fact, 10 categories of not-that-urgent, security-
related nags don’t interrupt your work at all; instead, they quietly collect themselves
into a new, central message station called the Action Center. You can poke in there
from time to time to have a look.
The only indication you have that Windows is still on the job, in fact, is Action Center’s
front man: the tiny F icon on your taskbar tray. When there’s an X on it like this a,
Windows has something to say to you (Figure 10-2, top). If Windows considers the
problem to be urgent, then a message balloon sprouts from the flag, too.
Tip: If you point to the flag icon without clicking, a status balloon appears to let you know how many mes-
sages Windows has saved up for you.
If you click the a, you get a pop-up summary of the problem (and others that Win-
dows has noticed). Sometimes, there’s a link you can click to solve the problem right
in the summary bubble. Other times, you may want to just click Open Action Center
in the shortcut menu; the Action Center appears, as shown in Figure 10-2, bottom.
(If you ever see a message balloon appearing from the a icon, you can also open the
Action Center by clicking the balloon itself.)
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362 windows 7: the missing manual
Here’s where Windows collects all messages related to antivirus software, antispyware
software, Windows Update settings, Internet security settings, your firewall software,
and your backup settings.
If the Security heading is collapsed and you see no messages, then Windows thinks
that all is well. Expand the ‹ button next to the Security heading, if …you like, to
see the full panoply of security settings. Here, you see the state of firewall security,
automatic updating, malware protection, and other security settings. “On” or “OK”
means you’re protected.
Figure 10-2:
Top: When
Windows has
a security- or
maintenance-
related message
for you, the little
system-tray flag
(F) sprouts an X.
Click the a icon to
open a summary
panel shown here
at right; click one
of the messages
there to open
the Action Center
itself.
Bottom: If there’s
nothing for
Windows to report
in the Security cat-
egory, that section
of the dialog box
appears collapsed
at first; click the ‹
to expand it.
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chapter 10: internet security 363
Tip: Each message comes with a “Turn off” link. Click it if you no longer want to be bothered by messages on
this subject. Or click “Change Action Center settings”; you’re shown a complete list of the kinds of situations
Action Center monitors—and you can turn off a bunch of them at once.
A color-coded bar indicates the urgency of the messages here: red for dire (for example,
you don’t have an antivirus program), yellow for not-so-urgent messages (for example,
you don’t have Windows Update set to auto-download patches). Each message comes
with a button that proposes an action Windows thinks you should take: turning on
your antivirus program, setting up an automatic backup system, and so on.
Conveniently enough, both Microsoft and non-Microsoft security programs can
patch into Action Center; if you use Norton Antivirus, for example, you see its mes-
sages here, too.
Windows Firewall
All Versions
If you have a broadband, always-on connection, you’re connected to the Internet
24 hours a day. It’s theoretically possible for some cretin to use automated hacking
software to flood you with files or take control of your machine. Fortunately, the
Windows Firewall feature puts up a barrier to such mischief.
The firewall acts as a gatekeeper between you and the Internet. It examines all Internet
traffic and lets through only communications that it knows are safe; all other traffic
is turned away at the door.
How It Works
Every kind of electronic message sent to or from your PC—instant messaging, music
sharing, file sharing, and so on—conducts its business on a specific communications
channel, or port. Ports are numbered tunnels for certain kinds of Internet traffic.
Inbound vs. Outbound
These days, the Windows Firewall can protect both inbound
and outbound traffic. (The Windows XP firewall handled
only inbound traffic.) But the factory setting is not to block
outgoing signals.
Now, inbound signals are a much bigger threat than outgoing
ones. Still, some spyware, Trojans, and malicious software
“phone home”—that is, once secretly installed, it sends out
an invisible note telling the world that it’s ready to be used
to attack your PC. Some may try to attack other computers
near it. And some turn your PC into a zombie: basically a
spam relay station. Your PC could be pumping out millions
of junk-mail messages a day, and you wouldn’t even know it.
Windows Vista didn’t have an outbound-blocking firewall at
all. So why did Microsoft add outbound-blocking to Windows
7, and then ship it turned off?
The theory is that if your PC is locked down tight enough with
antivirus software, antispyware software, and an inbound
firewall, you won’t get any infection that could send out-
bound signals in the first place. Meanwhile, you’re saved the
incessant pinging of the “Are you sure?” messages you’d get
every time a normal program tried to connect to the Internet.
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364 windows 7: the missing manual
The problem with Windows before Vista came along was that Microsoft left all your
ports open for your convenience—and, as it turns out, for the bad guys’. Starting with
Vista, all the ports arrive on your PC closed.
The firewall blocks or permits signals based on a predefined set of rules. They dictate,
for example, which programs are permitted to use your network connection, or which
ports can be used for communications.
You don’t need to do anything to turn on the Windows Firewall. When you turn on
Windows, it’s already at work. But the Windows Firewall can be turned off.
To do that, or to fiddle with any of its settings, there are plenty of ways to find it:
• Open the Start menu. Start typing firewall until you see “Windows Firewall” in
the results list; click it.
• Choose StartÆControl Panel. In Icon view, double-click Windows Firewall. Or, in
Category view, click “System and Security” and then Windows Firewall.
As you can see in Figure 10-3, the Firewall screen is pretty simple.
Tip: It’s perfectly OK to use the Windows Firewall and another company’s firewall software—a first for Windows.
Each can be assigned to handle different technical firewall functions—if you’re a supergeek.
Figure 10-3:
The firewall
is basically a
dashboard that
tells you if your
firewall is turned
on, the name of
your network,
and what the
settings are for
each kind of
network loca-
tion—Domain
(Work), Private,
or Public. See
page 715 for
details on these
network types.
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chapter 10: internet security 365
Firewall Settings
To see the ways you can adjust the Windows Firewall, click “Turn Windows Firewall
on or off” in the left-side task panel. (Authenticate yourself if necessary.)
The resulting screen lets you tweak the settings for each location (Public, Private,
Domain) independently. You have these options:
• Block all incoming connections, including those in the list of allowed programs.
When you’re feeling especially creeped out by the threat of hackerishness—like
when you’re at the coffee shop of your local computer-science grad school—turn
on this box. Now your computer is pretty much completely shut off from the
Internet except for Web browsing, email, and instant messaging.
• Notify me when Windows Firewall blocks a new program. Windows will pop up a
message that lets you know when a new program has attempted to get online, on
the off chance that it’s some evil app. Most of the time, of course, it’s some perfectly
innocent program that you happen to be using for the first time; just click Allow
in the box and go on with your life.
Note: If you really are on a domain (Chapter 25), then you may not be allowed to make any changes to the
firewall settings, because that’s something the network nerds like to be in charge of.
• Turn off Windows Firewall. Yes, you can turn the firewall off entirely. There’s very
little reason to do that, though, even if you decide to install another company’s
firewall; its installer turns off the Windows Firewall if necessary.
You also might be tempted to turn off the firewall because you have a router that
distributes your Internet signal through the house—and most routers have hard-
ware firewalls built right in, protecting your entire network.
Still, there’s no harm in having both a hardware and software firewall in place. In
fact, having the Windows Firewall turned on protects you from viruses you catch
from other people on your own network (even though you’re both “behind” the
router’s firewall). And if you have a laptop, this way you won’t have to remember
to turn the firewall on when you leave your home network.
Punching Through the Firewall
The firewall isn’t always your friend. It can occasionally block a perfectly harmless
program from communicating with the outside world—a chat program or game that
you can play across the Internet, for example.
Fortunately, whenever that happens, Windows lets you know with a message like
the one shown in Figure 10-4. Most of the time, you know exactly what program
it’s talking about, because it’s a program you just opened yourself—a program you
installed that might legitimately need Internet access. In other words, it’s not some
rogue spyware on your machine trying to talk to the mother ship. Click “Allow access”
and get on with your life.
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366 windows 7: the missing manual
Alternatively, you can set up permissions for your apps in advance. At the left side of
the firewall screen shown in Figure 10-3, click “Allow a program or feature through
Windows Firewall.” Proceed as shown in Figure 10-5.
Advanced Firewall
The Windows Firewall screen gives you a good deal of control over how the Windows
Firewall works. But it doesn’t offer nearly the amount of tweakiness that high-end
geeks demand, like control over individual ports, IP addresses, programs, and so on.
It also offers no way to create a log (a text-file record) of all attempts to contact your
PC from the network or the Internet, which can be handy when you suspect that some
nasty hacker has been visiting you in the middle of the night.
There is, however, an even more powerful firewall control panel. In an effort to avoid
terrifying novices, Microsoft has hidden it, but it’s easy enough to open. It’s called the
Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.
Get there by typing firewall into the Start menu Search box; when you see “Windows
Firewall with Advanced Security” in the list, hit Enter. Or, if you’ve already opened
Windows Firewall, click “Advanced settings” in the left-side taskbar. Either way, au-
thenticate if necessary.
Figure 10-4:
From time to time, your life
with Windows will be inter-
rupted by this message. It’s
your firewall speaking. It’s
telling you that a program
is trying to get online, as
though you didn’t know.
Most of the time, you can
just hit “Unblock” and get
on with your life.
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chapter 10: internet security 367
Figure 10-5 shows you the very basics. But if you’re really that much of an Advanced
Security sort of person, you can find Microsoft’s how-to guide for this console at
http://bit.ly/hxR0i.
Windows Defender
All Versions
Spyware is software you don’t know you have. You usually get it in one of two ways.
First, a Web site may try to trick you into downloading it. You see what looks like an
innocent button in what’s actually a phony Windows dialog box, or maybe you get
an empty dialog box—and clicking the Close button actually triggers the installation.
Second, you may get spyware by downloading a program you do want—“cracked”
software (commercial programs whose copy protection has been removed) is a classic
example—without realizing that a secret program is piggybacking on the download.
Once installed, the spyware may make changes to important system files, install ads
on your desktop (even when you’re not online) or send information about your surf-
ing habits to a Web site that blitzes your PC with pop-up ads related in some way to
your online behavior.
Figure 10-5:
Here you can
specify when
each program is
allowed to connect
to the Internet—
independently
for each kind of
network you might
be on (using the
Private or Public
checkboxes at
far right); turning
off the checkbox
at far left blocks
the program
completely. Click
“Allow another
program” to add
a new program to
this list so it won’t
bug you the first
time you run it.
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368 windows 7: the missing manual
Spyware can do much damage beyond simply tracking what you do on the Internet.
It can, for example, hijack your home page or search page so that every time you open
your browser, you wind up at a Web page that incapacitates your PC with a blizzard
of pop-ups. Keylogger spyware can record all your keystrokes, passwords and all, and
send them to a snooper.
Fortunately, Windows 7 comes with a free anti-spyware program. It’s called Windows
Defender (Control PanelÆSystem and SecurityÆWindows Defender).
You don’t need to do anything to turn Windows Defender on. It runs every time
you start Windows. It protects you against spyware in two ways: by protecting you
continuously, in real time, and by removing spyware after you’re infected.
Figure 10-6:
Suppose some
game needs a
particular port
to be opened
in the firewall.
Click Inbound
Rules to see all
the individual
“rules” you’ve
established. In
the right-side
pane, click
New Rule. A
wizard opens;
it walks you
through
specifying the
program and
the port you
want to open
for it.
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Note: Defender used to be called Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware. Microsoft changed the name because
Defender not only scans your PC looking for spyware, just like several free programs, but also monitors
important corners of the operating system that are common spyware targets. The watched areas include
startup programs, system preference settings, Internet Explorer settings and downloads, and so on.
Real-Time Protection
Defender is a kind of silent sentinel that sits in the background, watching your system
and even the files you download from the Web or get via email.
• If it recognizes a piece of spyware on your PC, Defender zaps it automatically. (How
does it recognize spyware? Because every week, Windows downloads the latest
spyware definitions database that tells Defender how to recognize the latest threats.)
• If it sees something that acts like spyware, an alert message pops up and asks if
you want to allow the questionable software to keep working, or instead remove it.
If the alert level is Severe, High, or Medium, let Windows Defender remove the
spyware immediately. If the alert level is Low, read the message for details. If you
don’t like what you read, or if you don’t recognize the publisher of the software,
tell Windows Defender to block or remove the software. Not yet classified gen-
erally denotes a harmless program. If you recognize the software’s name, let it
run normally. If not, search the program’s name with Google to help you decide
whether to let it run or not.
In each case, you can click in the Action column to choose Quarantine (move the
software to a special “sandboxed” folder where it can’t run, whereupon you can
delete it or restore it); Remove; or Allow (adds the program to the “allowed” list
for Defender, so that Defender will quit bugging you about it).
Scanning
Defender also scans your hard drive for infections every night at 2 a.m. and removes
what it finds.
Is It Spyware or Adware?
Spyware has a less-malignant cousin called adware, and the
line between the two types is exceedingly thin.
Adware is free software that displays ads (the free version
of Eudora, for example). In order to target those ads to
your interest, it may transmit reports on your surfing habits
to its authors. (Windows Defender doesn’t protect against
adware.)
So what’s the difference between adware and spyware? If it
performs malicious actions, like incapacitating your PC with
pop-ups, it’s spyware for sure.
Proponents of adware say, “Hey—we’ve gotta put bread on
our tables, too! Those ads are how you pay for your free
software. Our software doesn’t identify you personally when
it reports on your surfing habits, so it’s not really spyware.”
But other people insist that any software that reports on your
activities is spyware, no matter what.
up to speed
Windows Defender
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370 windows 7: the missing manual
If you’re feeling a little antsy, you can also trigger a scan manually. To do that, open
Defender. (Quickest way: Open the Start menu. Start typing defender until you see
“Windows Defender” in the results list; press Enter to open it. If a message tells you
that Defender is turned off, click the link to turn it on.) See Figure 10-7.
Across the top of the screen, you see four links: Home, Scan, History, and Tools. You
know all about Home already; it’s where you are when you first run the program, as
shown in Figure 10-7. Here’s what you need to know about the rest:
Scan
This link scans your PC for spyware. Click it to start a scan, or click the ≥ button to
change the kind of scan. Your choices:
• Quick Scan is what Windows Defender does every night. It scans those parts of
your PC most likely to be infected by spyware, plus any programs you’re currently
running. (Why would you run a Quick Scan if it just ran last night? Maybe because
you’ve just installed a piece of software, or you’ve visited a dubious Web site.)
• The Full Scan is more thoroughgoing; it looks at every single file on all your hard
disks, as well as any programs currently running. If you suspect you’ve been in-
Figure 10-7:
This screen tells when
you last scanned for
spyware, whether
Defender found
any spyware, and
your daily scan-
ning schedule. Pay
particular attention
to the “Definition ver-
sion.” This tells you
how up-to-date your
spyware definitions
are. If they’re more
than a week old, use
Windows Update
(page 662) to get the
latest definitions.
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chapter 10: internet security 371
fected by spyware, run the Full Scan to whack it. It takes considerably longer than
a Quick Scan.
• The Custom option lets you specify which folders you want to scan, just in case
you think spyware might be lurking in a nonobvious spot.
History
This tab offers a log of all the actions Windows Defender has taken. Most of what you
see in its history are decisions to permit software to continue to function, because the
programs don’t appear to be malicious.
For each program it’s taken action on, it lists the name, the alert level, the action it
took, the date, and whether the action was successful. Click a listing to find out more
details about it, like its location, file name, and description of why Defender consid-
ered the program suspicious.
Techies will be glad to see more rarefied information here, such as the Registry key
each program uses.
Tools
Here’s where Microsoft has assembled Windows Defender’s advanced tools:
•Options. Schedule how and when Windows Defender should run, and what actions
it should take when it comes across suspicious software, among other options.
The factory setting is to scan your system every night at 2 a.m. Of course, there’s
a good chance your PC won’t be turned on at that hour—so use these options to
specify a time when your PC is turned on.
You can also select a Quick Scan or Full Scan. It’s set to Quick Scan, but if you set
it to run at a time when you’re not using the PC, it can’t hurt to set it to do a Full
Scan. This section also lets you specify what Defender should do when it comes
across High, Medium, and Low alert items. “Default action,” which tells Defender
to use its own judgment, is the best setting.
Tip: Here’s also where you can exclude a certain program, or program type, from being scanned. That’s a
handy trick when Defender keeps insisting that some perfectly innocuous program is spyware.
•Microsoft SpyNet. One of Defender’s most potent tricks is learning about emerging
spyware types from the Microsoft SpyNet network, which harnesses the collective
wisdom of Windows fans all over the Internet.
Suppose, for example, that Windows Defender can’t determine whether or not
some new program is spyware. It can send out an online feeler to see how people
in the network have handled the same program—for example, if other Windows
fans removed it (having determined that it’s spyware)—and then use what it finds
out to handle your own copy of that program.
Microsoft says all this information is anonymous. If you’re OK with that, you can
opt into the SpyNet community here.
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372 windows 7: the missing manual
• Quarantined items. When Defender finds spyware, it puts the offending software
into a quarantined area where it can’t do any more harm. This tab lets you see the
quarantined software, delete it, or restore it (take it out of quarantine). In general,
restoring spyware is a foolhardy move.
• Allowed items. If Defender announces that it’s found a potential piece of malware,
but you allow it to run anyway, it’s considered an Allowed Item. From now on,
Defender ignores it, meaning that you trust that program completely. Allowed
programs’ names appear on this list.
If you highlight a program’s name and then click Remove From List, it’s gone from
the Allowed list, and therefore Defender monitors it once again.
• Windows Defender website. This link takes you to the Windows Defender site,
which contains a few moderately useful help resources about spyware.
Data Execution Prevention
Data Execution Prevention (DEP), one of Windows 7’s ad-
vanced security features, isn’t well-known, but it protects you
against a variety of threats. It monitors important Windows
services (background programs) and programs to make sure
that no virus has hijacked them to your PC from within its
own system memory. If DEP
finds out an attack is under
way, it automatically closes the
offending service or program.
DEP comes set to protect
only Windows itself—not other
programs. You can, though,
ask DEP to monitor every
program on your system, or
just programs that you specify.
The upside is better protection;
the downside is that DEP could
conflict with those programs,
causing them to run erratically
or not at all. In such cases,
though, you can always turn off
DEP protection for the affected
programs.
(Note: If DEP suddenly starts interfering with important
Windows files and features, a recently installed program
could be at fault. Try uninstalling it, or inquire if the publisher
has a DEP-friendly version; that may solve the problem.)
To turn on DEP for some or all programs: Open the Start
menu. Start typing advanced system until you see “View
advanced system settings” in
the results list; click it. In the
Performance section, click
Settings, and then click the
Data Execution Prevention
tab, shown here. Select “Turn
on DEP for all programs and
services except those I select,”
and then click OK.
Should you find that DEP inter-
feres with a program, click Add,
and then follow the directions
for selecting it.
Incidentally, at the bottom of
the Data Execution Prevention
screen, you can see whether
or not your PC offers DEP
circuitry, which reduces its
speed impact. If not, Windows runs a software-based ver-
sion of DEP.
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chapter 10: internet security 373
•Microsoft Malware Protection Center. It’s a Web site maintained by Microsoft’s
virus/spyware experts, full of articles and details.
SmartScreen Filter
All Versions
The criminal mind knows no bounds. How else do you explain the clever nefarious-
ness of phishing attacks?
In a phishing attack, you’re sent what appears to be legitimate email from a bank,
eBay, PayPal, or some other financial Web site. The message tells you the site needs
to confirm account information, or warns that your account has been hacked, and
needs you to help keep it safe.
If you, responsible citizen that you are, click the provided link to clear up the supposed
problem, you wind up on what looks like the bank/eBay/PayPal Web site. But it’s a
fake, carefully designed to look like the real thing; it’s run by a scammer. If you type
in your password and login information, as requested, then the next thing you know,
you’re getting credit-card bills for $10,000 charges at high-rolling Las Vegas hotels.
The fake sites look so much like the real ones that it can be extremely difficult to tell
them apart. (That’s can be; on some of the phishing sites, spelling mistakes a fourth-
grader wouldn’t make are a clear giveaway.) To make the site seem more realistic, the
scam artist often includes legitimate links alongside phony ones. But if you click the
login link, you’re in trouble.
Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen filter protects you from these scams. You don’t need
to do anything to turn it on; it’s always running. It’s always comparing the sites you
visit with a master list of sites run by the bad guys.
Sherlock Explorer
How does Internet Explorer know what’s a phishing site
and what’s not?
IE uses three bits of information to figure out whether a site
is legitimate or a phishing site.
Its first line of defense is a Microsoft-compiled, frequently
updated database of known phishing sites that, believe it or
not, sits right on your own hard drive. Whenever you head
to a Web site, Internet Explorer consults that database. If
the Web site appears in the list, you get the warning. (The
database is compiled from several phish-tracking companies,
including Cyota, Internet Identity, and MarkMonitor, as well
as from direct user feedback.)
Second, Internet Explorer uses heuristics, a sort of low-level
artificial intelligence. It compares characteristics of the site
you’re visiting against common phishing-site characteristics.
The heuristics tool helps IE recognize phishing sites that
haven’t yet made it into the database of known sites.
Finally, Internet Explorer quietly sends addresses of some
of the sites you visit to Microsoft, which checks it against a
frequently updated list of reported phishing sites (not the
database on your PC).
frequently asked question
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374 windows 7: the missing manual
Note: In Internet Explorer 7, this feature was called the phishing filter, and it protected you only from phishing
sites. Nowadays, it watches for both phishing sites and sites that are known to contain malware (viruses and
spyware); it alerts you about both of them. (The addition of the spyware sites explains the name change.)
One day, when you least expect it, you’ll be on your way to visit some Web site—and
Internet Explorer will stop you in your tracks with a pop-up warning that you’re about
to open to a “reported phishing website” or “reported malware site” (Figure 10-8).
The address bar turns red to emphasize the danger.
Note: You may sometimes see a weaker version of this message—a screen that says, “Are you trying to visit
this site?” (Um, yes? Duh.) This message means the site isn’t actually on the list of known phishing/malware
sites, but it sure smells like one to Microsoft.
In that situation, close the page, or click “Go to my home page instead,” or go to another
site. (If you’re just researching phishing sites, and you know full well what trouble
you’re getting yourself into, and you really want to proceed, click “More information”
and then “Disregard and continue”; you’ll go through to the phony site.)
If Internet Explorer isn’t quite sure about a certain site’s phishiness, but it has a funny
feeling in its bones, a yellow button appears next to the address bar that says, “Suspi-
cious Website.” Unless you absolutely know the site is legitimate, it’s a good idea to
head somewhere else.
Figure 10-8:
Danger!
You’re sitting
on a known
phishing site.
(This site was
a particularly
malicious
one; if you
clicked a link
on it, the
site would
attempt
to silently
install a virus
on your PC
without your
knowledge.)
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chapter 10: internet security 375
Phine-Tuning the Philter
There’s not much to controlling the phishing-filter feature; you can turn it on and
off and check a certain Web site to see if it’s legitimate. In Internet Explorer, choose
SafetyÆSmartScreen Filter to view the following options:
•Check this Website. This command sends the address of the Web site you’re visiting
to Microsoft’s computers, where it’s checked against the massive real-time database
of phishing and malware sites.
Note: The first time you try this command, you get a pop-up message that explains, for the sake of your
privacy paranoia, that you’re about to transmit anonymous information to Microsoft. Click OK to proceed; if
you want the warning to never appear again, check the box next to “Don’t show this again.”
After a moment, a message appears to let you know whether the site is legitimate,
suspicious, or a phishing site. If it’s legitimate, a box pops up telling you so; if it’s
suspicious or a phishing site, the warning appears in the address bar.
•Turn Off/On SmartScreen Filter. This option brings up the on/off dialog box for
the filter feature. (The first time you run Internet Explorer, you’re encouraged to
turn the filter on. This is your opportunity to change your mind.)
Note: Why would you ever want to turn this feature off? Because maybe you’re a privacy nut. SmartScreen
works by sending the Web address of each page you visit back to Microsoft, where it’s compared against
the list of evil sites. Actually, Internet Explorer also sends your computer’s IP address, browser type, and
filter version number. It’s all transmitted in encrypted form, and none of it, according to Microsoft, is stored
anywhere. And no information associated with the site is sent, like search terms you’ve used, information
you’ve entered into forms, or cookies.
Still. If that transmitting business creeps you out, you can turn the whole thing off.
•Report Unsafe Website. If you stumble onto a Web site you think is a phishing
site, click here. A new browser window opens; turn on “I think this is a phishing
Website.” Specify what you think is wrong with the site (“I think this is a phishing
site” or “I think this website contains malicious software”), fill in the rest of the
form, and then click Submit.
Also use this option in the opposite situation: when you’re visiting what you know
is a legitimate site, but Internet Explorer identifies it as a phishing site. Just above
the Submit button are two choices: one for reporting that you don’t think the Web
site is a phishing site, and the other to report that you know it’s not a phishing
hole because you own it.
Privacy and Cookies
All Versions
Cookies are something like Web-page preference files. Certain Web sites—particu-
larly commercial ones like Amazon.com—deposit them on your hard drive like little
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376 windows 7: the missing manual
bookmarks so that they’ll remember you the next time you visit. On Amazon, in
fact, a greeting says “Hello, Casey” (or whatever your name is), thanks to the cookie
it uses to recognize you.
Most cookies are perfectly innocuous—and, in fact, are extremely helpful. They can
let your PC log into a site automatically, or let you customize what the site looks like
and how you use it.
But fear is on the march, and the media fan the flames with tales of sinister cookies
that track your movement on the Web. Some Web sites rely on cookies to record which
pages you visit on a site, how long you spend on a site, what kind of information you
like to find out, and so on.
If you’re worried about invasions of privacy—and you’re willing to trade away some
of the conveniences of cookies—Internet Explorer is ready to protect you.
The Terminology of Cookies
Before you begin your cookie-fortification strategy, you’ll have to bone up on a little
terminology. Here are a few explanations to get you started:
• A first-party cookie is created by the site you’re currently visiting. These kinds
of cookies generally aren’t privacy invaders; they’re the Amazon type described
above, designed to log you in or remember how you’ve customized, for example,
the Google home page.
•Third-party cookies are deposited on your hard drive by a site other than the one
you’re currently visiting—often by an advertiser. Needless to say, this kind of cookie
is more objectionable. It can track your browsing habits and create profiles about
your interests and behaviors.
• A compact privacy statement is a Web site’s publicly posted privacy policy that
describes how its cookies are used. Here you’ll find out why cookies are used, for
Examine Individual Cookies
Want to see the actual cookies themselves as they sit on
your hard drive—the individual cookie files?
They’re sitting on your hard drive in your Personal
folderÆAppDataÆRoamingÆMicrosoftÆWindowsÆ
Cookies folder. (You won’t be able to see it until you visit
Folder Options—page 97. Click “Show hidden files, folders,
and drives,” and turn off “Hide protected operating system
files.” Remember to switch these back to the factory settings
when you’re finished with this little experiment.)
Each cookie is named something like casey@abcnews.
com[1].txt. The name of the Web site or ad network usually
appears after the @, but not always—sometimes you just
see a number.
To inspect a cookie, open the file as you would any other
text file (in Notepad or WordPad, for example). Usually,
there’s nothing but a list of numbers and letters inside, but
you might occasionally find useful information like your user
name and password for the Web site.
If you don’t want the cookie on your hard disk, simply delete
it as you would any other text file.
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chapter 10: internet security 377
example, and how long they stay on your PC. (Some cookies are automatically
deleted when you leave a Web site, and others stay valid until a specified date.)
•Explicit consent means you’ve granted permission for a Web site to gather infor-
mation about your online activity; that is, you’ve “opted in.”
•Implicit consent means you haven’t OK’d that info gathering, but the site assumes
that it’s OK with you because you’re there on the site. If a Web site uses the implicit-
consent policy, it’s saying, “Hey, you’re fair game, because you haven’t opted out.”
Cookie Options
In Internet Explorer, choose ToolsÆInternet OptionsÆPrivacy to get to the Privacy
tab shown in Figure 10-9.
Tip: You can also accept or reject cookies on a site-by-site basis. To do that, click the Sites button on the
Privacy tab (Figure 10-9). The Per Site Privacy Actions dialog box appears. Type the name of the site in ques-
tion, and then click either Block or Allow.
Figure 10-9:
This screen helps you keep your private
information private—it lets you control
how your PC works with cookies, which
are bits of data put on your hard disk by
Web sites. Medium High is a good setting
that balances your privacy with Web sites’
needs to use cookies for purposes like
automated logins.
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378 windows 7: the missing manual
The slider on the left side lets you pick your compromise on the convenience/privacy
scale, ranging from Accept All Cookies to Block All Cookies. Here are a few examples
(and good luck with the terminology):
•Block All Cookies. No cookies, no exceptions. Web sites can’t read existing cook-
ies, either.
•High. No cookies from any Web site that doesn’t have a compact privacy policy.
No cookies from sites that use personally identifiable information without your
explicit consent.
•Medium High. Blocks third-party cookies from sites that don’t have a compact
privacy policy or use personally identifiable information without your explicit
consent. Blocks first-party cookies that use personally identifiable information
without your implicit consent.
•Medium (Default). Blocks third-party cookies from sites that don’t have a com-
pact privacy policy or that use personally identifiable information without your
implicit consent. Accepts first-party cookies from sites that use personally identifi-
able information without your implicit consent, but deletes them when you close
Internet Explorer.
•Low. Blocks third-party cookies from sites that don’t have a compact privacy policy.
Accepts third-party cookies that use personally identifiable information without
your implicit consent, but deletes them when you close Internet Explorer.
•Accept All Cookies. All cookies OK. Web sites can read existing cookies.
Choose the setting you want, and then click OK, and you’re ready to start browsing.
Note: Some sites don’t function well (or at all) if you choose to reject all cookies. So if you choose High
Privacy, and you run into trouble browsing your favorite sites, return here and change the setting to Medium
High. (The factory setting is Medium.)
Backing Up Your Cookies
This is probably deeper cookie information than you really
wanted to know, but here it is: You may want to consider
backing up your cookies. You could do that, for example,
and transfer your cookies to another PC, for your auto-login
convenience. Or you could back up the cookies just in case
yours get somehow deleted.
To export or back up your cookies, open Internet Explorer.
Press the Alt key to make the menus appear. Then choose
FileÆImport and Export. The Import/Export Wizard appears.
Choose Export Cookies and follow the directions. A single text
file containing all your cookies is created in your Documents
folder (or a folder you specify).
To import cookies to another computer (or the same one
after a disaster), launch the Import/Export Wizard, choose
Import Cookies, and then browse to the folder where you
stashed the backup file.
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chapter 10: internet security 379
If you’re ever curious whether a Web site you’ve visited in your current browser session
has placed any cookies on your hard disk, press the Alt key to make Internet Explorer’s
menu bar appear. Choose ViewÆWebpage Privacy Policy. You’ll see a list of the sites
you’ve visited, and whether any have placed cookies on your PC.
History: Erasing Your Tracks
All Versions
You’d be shocked to see the kinds of information Internet Explorer stores about you.
Behind the scenes, it logs every Web site you ever visit. It stashes your cookies, of
course, plus passwords and information you type into Web forms (your name and
address, for example). Your hard drive also keeps cache files—graphics and text files
that make up the Web pages themselves, stored on your hard drive to speed up their
reappearance if you visit those sites again.
Now, some people find it unnerving that Internet Explorer maintains a complete list
of every Web site they’ve seen recently, right there in plain view of any family member
or coworker who wanders by.
Fortunately, you can delete any or all of these tracks easily enough.
• To delete just one particularly incriminating History listing, right-click it in the
History list (page 412). From the shortcut menu, choose Delete. You’ve just re-
written History.
Add-On Manager
Internet Explorer is more than just a browser. In fact, it’s
practically a kind of mini-operating system that lets lots of
little add-on programs run inside of it. The most common
category of these plug-ins is called ActiveX controls. They
grant all kinds of superpowers to Internet Explorer; for
example, the Flash add-on makes possible animations and
movies on YouTube and many other sites.
But ActiveX controls and other add-ons can cause prob-
lems. Install too many, and your browser can get sluggish.
Sometimes add-ons conflict with one another, resulting in
an Internet Explorer crash. And some—this is the really nasty
part—may actually be malicious code, designed to gum up
your browser or your PC.
You’ll know when some page needs an ActiveX control to
proceed. You’ll see a yellow warning bar just under the
address bar, letting you know you have to click to proceed.
(If you’re pretty sure this is a reliable Web site that really
needs to install this add-on feature, click the information bar;
from the shortcut menu, choose Allow Blocked Content.)
Gone are the days when evildoers could invade your PC by
downloading these things without your knowledge.
To help you get a handle on your plug-in situation, choose
ToolsÆManage Add-ons. You get a list of all your add-ons
and ActiveX controls. They’re listed in several different
categories, like those that are currently loaded into Internet
Explorer and ActiveX controls you’ve downloaded.
Highlight one to read details about it, and to summon the
Disable, Enable, and (in some categories) Remove buttons.
(Hint: Before clicking any of these buttons, do a Google
search on the name or the file name. You’ll find out soon
enough if the plug-in is trustworthy. Be especially wary of
add-ons in the Browser Helper Objects [BHOs] category.
These can be useful, but also very dangerous.)
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380 windows 7: the missing manual
• You can also delete any other organizer icon in the History list: one of the little
Web-site folders, or even one of the calendar folders like “Three Weeks Ago.”
• To erase the entire History menu, choose SafetyÆDelete Browsing History, and
then click “Delete history.”
• The same dialog box (Figure 10-10) offers individual buttons for deleting the
other kinds of tracks—the passwords, cache files, and so on. Or, if you really want
a clean slate, you can click Delete All to purge all of it at once.
This is good information to know; after all, you might be nominated to the Supreme
Court some day.
The Pop-Up Blocker
All Versions
The ad banners at the top of every Web page are annoying enough—but nowadays,
they’re just the beginning. The world’s smarmiest advertisers have begun inundating
us with pop-up and pop-under ads: nasty little windows that appear in front of the
browser window or, worse, behind it, waiting to jump out the moment you close your
Figure 10-10:
The Delete Browsing History dialog box lets
you delete traces of your Internet activities,
including your browsing history, cookies, tem-
porary files, passwords, and forms data. Keep
in mind that when you delete some of this,
it may make Web browsing less convenient.
Delete your cookies, for example, and you’ll
have to enter your name and password again
every time you go to a site like Amazon.
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browser. They’re often deceptive, masquerading as error messages or dialog boxes…
and they’ll do absolutely anything to get you to click inside them (Figure 10-11).
Pop-ups are more than just annoying; they’re also potentially dangerous. They’re a
favorite trick that hackers use to deposit spyware on your PC. Clicking a pop-up can
begin the silent downloading process. That’s true even if the pop-up seems to serve a
legitimate purpose—asking you to participate in a survey, for example.
Internet Explorer, fortunately, has a pop-up blocker. It comes automatically turned
on; you don’t have to do anything. You’ll be browsing along, and then one day you’ll
see the “Pop-up blocked” message in the yellow information bar (Figure 10-11, top).
Tip: At the outset, IE does more than just show the info bar message. It also opens a little dialog box—yes, a
pop-up—to brag that it’s blocked a pop-up. For best results, click “Don’t show this message again,” and then
click OK. (The “pop-up blocked” message still shows on the information bar, so you’ll always know when a
pop-up is sent into the ether.)
Figure 10-11:
Top: If you click the
“pop-up blocked”
message shown
here, you get a pop-
up menu. It offers
choices like Tempo-
rarily Allow Pop-ups,
which lets you see
what IE is blocking.
Or if pop-ups are im-
portant on a certain
page, choose Always
Allow Pop-ups from
This Site.
Bottom: You can
manage the list of
“pop-ups permitted”
sites by choosing
ToolsÆPop-up
BlockerÆPop-up
Blocker Settings.
You can turn off the
“blocked pop-up”
sound, eliminate
the information bar,
or adjust the level
of the pop-up filter
(High, Medium, or
Low).
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382 windows 7: the missing manual
Note that IE blocks only pop-ups that are spawned automatically, not those that
appear when you click something (like a seating diagram on a concert-tickets site).
And it doesn’t block pop-ups from your local network, or from Web sites you’ve
designated as Trusted (choose ToolsÆInternet OptionsÆSecurity, click “Trusted
sites,” and then click Sites).
Tip: As you can read in Figure 10-11, there is a High setting that blocks all pop-ups, even the ones that
appear when you click a link. Even then, you still have a way to see the occasional important pop-up: Hold
down the Ctrl key as your Web page is loading.
Overriding the Pop-up Block
Sometimes, though, you want to see the pop-up. Some sites, for example, use pop-up
windows as a way to deliver information—a seating chart when you’re buying plane
or concert tickets, for example.
Tip: When a useful pop-up makes it through the pop-up blocker, it usually appears in its own small, separate
window. But you can exploit Internet Explorer’s tabbed-browsing feature (page 405) by making the pop-up
open in a new tab.
Choose ToolsÆInternet Options, click the General tab, and then, under the Tabs section, click Settings.
In the Tabbed Browsing Settings dialog box, click “Always open pop-ups in a new tab,” and then click OK.
In those situations, click the information bar. A dialog box appears that lets you man-
age pop-ups from this particular Web site (Figure 10-11, top).
Your options:
•Temporarily Allow Pop-ups lets this Web site’s pop-ups through just for this
browsing session. Next time, pop-ups will be blocked again.
•Always Allow Pop-ups from This Site does what it says.
The Wisdom of Internet Explorer
How does the pop-up blocker know a good pop-up from
a bad one, anyway?
Internet Explorer generally tries to distinguish between
pop-ups it considers necessary for a site to run and those it
considers annoying or dangerous.
Although it doesn’t always succeed, there is some logic
behind its thinking.
At the factory setting, some pop-ups get through. For ex-
ample, it allows pop-ups that contain “active content”—for
example, important features, brought to you by ActiveX
controls and browser add-ons, that are integral to the
proper functioning of a Web site: seating charts, flight-details
screens, and so on.
The blocker doesn’t block pop-ups from sites in your Local
Intranet or Trusted Sites zones, either (page 387).
Finally, if you already have a spyware infection, pop-ups
may appear constantly; the pop-up blocker isn’t designed
to block spyware pop-ups.
frequently asked question
The Pop-Up Blocker
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•Settings lets you configure the pop-up blocker. From the menu that appears, select
Turn Off Pop-up Blocker to turn the blocker off. Turn off Show Information Bar
for Pop-ups if you don’t even want the yellow information bar to appear when a
pop-up is blocked. Select More Settings, and a screen appears that lets you always
allow or block pop-ups from specific sites.
This dialog box also lets you control how you’re notified in the event of a pop-
up: with a sound, with a note in the information bar, or neither. You can also use
the Filter Level pop-up menu to tone down Internet Explorer’s aggressiveness in
blocking pop-ups. The High level, for example, blocks all pop-ups, even the ones
Internet Explorer determines to be necessary for the site to run properly.
Tip: If you’ve installed some other company’s pop-up blocker, you can turn off IE’s version by choosing
ToolsÆPop-up BlockerÆTurn Off Pop-up Blocker.
InPrivate Browsing
If, ahem, not everything you do on the Web is something you want your spouse/
parents/boss/teacher to know about, then Microsoft has heard you.
Of course, you can erase individual History entries, as described earlier. But those
aren’t the only tracks you leave as you browse the Web. Your hard drive collects cook-
ies and temporary files; Internet Explorer collects passwords and other stuff you type
into boxes; the address bar memorizes addresses you type, so you’ll have AutoFill
working for you later; and so on.
But in Internet Explorer 8, a feature called InPrivate browsing lets you surf wherever
you like within a single browser window. Then, when you close that window, all that
stuff is wiped out. No History items, no cookies, no saved password list, no AutoFill
entries, and so on. In other words, what happens in InPrivate browsing stays in In-
Private browsing.
• To start InPrivate browsing, choose SafetyÆInPrivate Browsing, or press
Shift+Ctrl+P. A new window opens (Figure 10-12). Nothing you do in this win-
dow—or in the tabs within it—will leave tracks.
• To stop InPrivate browsing, just close the window. Open a new Internet Explorer
window to continue browsing “publicly.”
Note: Casual snoopers will never know you’ve been looking over the racy photos on the Midwestern Shirt-
less Accountants Web site. But you’re not completely untraceable. Nobody using your PC can see where
you’ve been, but your network administrator, or a nearby hacker, could watch you from across the network.
InPrivate Filtering
Just in case your head hasn’t exploded yet, here’s yet another new Internet Explorer
privacy feature. The short version: This feature can stop Web sites from tracking you.
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384 windows 7: the missing manual
The long version:
Suppose you visit a site called ChihuahuaGifts.com. On that site, you see a lot of great
info about gifts for Chihuahuas, sure—but there’s also an ad there. You might not
realize it, but this ad isn’t actually sitting on the ChihuahuaGifts.com computers. It’s
“patched through” from some other company—let’s say DoggieAdServers.net—and
automatically inserted onto the ChihuahuaGifts.com home page.
This kind of thing goes on all the time: You’re seeing some map, or ad, or Web analysis
tool on Site A, but it actually originates from Site B.
Trouble is, when you visit ChihuahuaGifts.com, some information about you (your
computer’s IP address, for example) is sent back to DoggieAdServers.net, to help it
study how effective its ads are.
The problem is, DoggieAdServers.net might have ads on lots of sites. If you wind up
visiting more of them, DoggieAdServers.net might be able to put together a picture
of where you go on the Web. (Well, not you—they don’t know who you are—but
they can follow your computer’s IP address.)
Figure 10-12:
When you’re
browsing InPri-
vate, a special
logo appears at
the left end of the
address bar to
remind you.
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Note: Sometimes, you can’t even see the object that originates from Site B. It might be a Web beacon—a
1-pixel graphic that exists on Site A exclusively to gather information about visitors’ browsing habits and
send it to Site B.
InPrivate Filtering is the answer. It lets you block the ads (or other triggers) that might
transmit your information to a third-party Web site.
Yo u h a v e t o r e m e m b e r t o t u r n i t o n e v e r y t i m e y o u s t a r t b r o w s i n g . C h o o s e S a f e t y ÆIn-
Private Filtering, or press Shift+Ctrl+F.
The dialog box shown in Figure 10-13 (top) appears. These are your options:
• Block for me. Internet Explorer won’t send information about you to any of those
shadow sites.
• Let me choose which providers receive my information. Now you get the box
shown in Figure 10-13 (bottom). Here, you can see the list of shadow sites that
are receiving information about your Web travels—and block them individually.
Figure 10-13:
Top: InPrivate
Filtering is here
to stop your
information from
being secretly
passed along
to other Web
companies.
Bottom: You can
specify which
sites are allowed
to collect your
info. Any third-
party site whose
stuff you’ve
encountered at
least 10 times is
listed here auto-
matically. (You
can adjust that
using the box at
lower left.) Click
a site name, and
then click Allow
or Block.
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Internet Security Zones
All Versions
In the real world, you usually have a pretty good sense of where the bad parts of town
are, and how to avoid them after dark. On the Web, it’s not so easy. The most elegant-
looking Web page may be a setup, a trick by sleazy hackers to install viruses on your PC.
Security zones is an older Internet Explorer feature designed to limit the number
of paths the bad guys have into your PC. It’s fairly confusing, which is why almost
nobody uses it.
Under this scheme, if you have tons of time, you can place individual Web sites into
different classifications (zones) according to how much you trust them. Internet
Explorer refuses to download potential bad stuff (like those ActiveX plug-ins) from
sites in the seedier zones. Your PC, sanitized for your protection.
For example, internal company Web sites, right there on the corporate network, are
pretty unlikely to be booby-trapped with spyware and viruses (unless you have a really
Figure 10-14:
The Internet Options Security tab lets you
control Internet Explorer’s security settings
for browsing the Web. You can customize
the settings for each zone by moving the
slider up for more security, or down for less
security.
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twisted network administrator). Such internal sites are automatically part of the low-
security Local Intranet zone. If you maintain a Web site at home, it’s in that zone, too.
The rest of the Internet starts out in the very big Internet zone (medium security).
As you browse, though, you can manually place them into zones called Trusted Sites
(medium security) or Restricted Sites (high security).
To see your options, choose ToolsÆInternet OptionsÆSecurity from within Internet
Explorer (Figure 10-14).
Security Levels
And what, exactly, is meant by “Medium security” or “High security”? These settings
control what can and can’t be done when you’re visiting such a site. For example, they
govern whether or not you’re allowed to download files, and whether or not Internet
Explorer runs embedded Web-page programs like Java applets or ActiveX controls.
(Java applets are little programs that offer interactivity on Web sites, like games and
interactive weather maps.)
Here’s the cheat sheet:
•High security blocks all kinds of features that could conceivably be avenues for bad
guys to infect your browser: ActiveX controls, Java and Java applets, and downloads.
•Medium security means that whenever a Web site triggers an ActiveX control to
run, you’re asked for permission. Unsigned ActiveX controls—those whose ori-
gins aren’t clear to Internet Explorer—don’t get run at all. Downloads and Java
applets are OK.
•Medium-Low. Same as Medium, but some ActiveX programs run without first
checking with you.
•Low. Runs all ActiveX controls and other little Web programs. Rarely asks you for
permission for things.
Classifying Sites by Hand
To place a certain Web site into the Trusted or Restricted zone, choose ToolsÆInternet
OptionsÆSecurity. Click either Trusted Sites or Restricted Sites, and then click the
Sites button.
In the resulting dialog box, the current Web site’s address appears automatically. Click
Add, and then Close.
Hot Spot Security
All Versions
One of the greatest computing conveniences of the new millennium is the almighty
public wireless hot spot, where and your WiFi-enabled laptop can connect to the
Internet at high speed, often for free. There are thousands of them at cafés, hotels,
airports, and other public locations (see www.jiwire.com for a national directory).
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But unless you’re careful, you’ll get more than a skinny latte from your local café if
you connect to their hot spot—you may get eavesdropped on as well. It’s possible for
someone sitting nearby, using free shareware programs, to “sniff” the transmissions
from your laptop. He can intercept email messages you send, names and passwords,
and even the images from the Web pages you’re visiting.
Now, you don’t have to sell your laptop and move to the Amish country over this.
There are a few simple steps that will go a long way toward keeping yourself safe:
•Tell Windows it’s a public network. When you first connect to a wireless net-
work, Windows asks whether it’s a public or private one. Choosing Public gives
you extra protection. Technically speaking, Windows turns off network discovery,
the feature that makes your PC announce its presence to others on the network.
(Unfortunately, lurking hackers using special scanning software can still find you
if they’re determined.)
•Turn off file sharing. You certainly don’t want any of your over-caffeinated neigh-
bors to get access to your files. Open the Start menu. Start typing sharing until you
see “Manage advanced sharing settings” in the results list; click it. In the resulting
window, turn of all the Sharing options.
•Watch for the padlock. You generally don’t have to worry about online stores and
banks. Whenever you see the little padlock icon in your Web browser (or whenever
the URL in the address bar begins with https instead of http), you’re visiting a secure
Web site. Your transmissions are encrypted in both directions and can’t be snooped.
•Look over your shoulder. Hacking isn’t always high-tech stuff; it can be as simple as
“shoulder surfing,” in which someone looks over your shoulder to see the password
you’re typing. Make sure no one can look at what you’re typing.
•Don’t leave your laptop alone. Coffee has a way of moving through your system
fast, but if you have to leave for the rest room, don’t leave your laptop unattended.
Pack it up into its case and take it with you, or bring along a lock that you can use
to lock it to a table.
•Use a virtual private network (VPN). If somebody intercepts your “Hi, Mom”
email, it may not be the end of the world. If you’re doing serious corporate work,
though, and you want maximum safety, you can pay for wireless virtual private
network (VPN) software that encrypts all the data that you’re sending and receiving.
Nobody will be able to grab it out of the air using snooping software at a hot spot.
For example, HotSpotVPN (www.hotspotvpn.com) costs $3.88 per day or $8.88 per
month. You get a password, user name, and the Internet address of a VPN server.
Open the Network and Sharing Center (quickest link to it: Click the Network icon
on your system tray). Click “Set up a new connection or network.” Select “Connect
to workplace” and follow the prompts for creating a new VPN connection with
the information provided to you by HotSpotVPN.
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Protect Your Home Wireless Network
All Versions
Public wireless hot spots aren’t the only ones that present a theoretical security risk;
your wireless network at home harbors hacker potential, too. It’s theoretically possible
(barely) for so-called war drivers (people who drive around with laptops, looking for
unprotected home WiFi networks) to piggyback onto home networks to download
child pornography or send out spam.
This one’s easy to nip in the bud:
•Turn on wireless encryption. When you first set up your WiFi router (your base
station or access point), you’re offered the chance to create a password for your
network. Take the chance. (Modern wireless routers offer two different types of
password-protected encryption, called WEP and WPA. If it’s available, choose the
more modern, more secure one, which is WPA.)
You then have to enter the password when you first connect to that hot spot from
each wireless PC on your network.
Note: You won’t have to type this password every time you want to get onto your own network! Windows
offers to memorize it for you.
•Ban unwanted PCs. Many routers include a feature that lets you limit network
access to specific computers. Any PC that’s not on the list won’t be allowed in.
The feature is called MAC address filtering, although it has nothing to do with
Macintosh computers. (A Media Access Control address is a serial number that
uniquely identifies a piece of networking hardware.)
Not all routers can do this, and how you do it varies from router to router, so check
the documentation. In a typical Linksys router, for example, you log into the router’s
administrator’s screen using your Web browser, and then select WirelessÆWireless
Network Access. On the screen full of empty boxes, type the MAC address of the
PC that you want to be allowed to get onto the network.
Tip: To find out the MAC address of a PC, press w+R to open the Run dialog box, type ipconfig /all, and
press Enter. In the resulting info screen, look for the Physical Address entry. That’s the MAC address.
Type all the MAC addresses into the boxes on the Linksys router, click Save Set-
tings, and you’re all done.
•Place your router properly. Placing your WiFi router centrally in the house mini-
mizes the “leaking” of the signal into the surrounding neighborhood.
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Parental Controls
All Versions
Many parents reasonably worry about the volatile mixture of kids+computers. They
worry about kids spending too much time in front of the PC, rotting their brains
instead of going outside to play stickball in the street like we did when we were their
age, getting fresh air and sunshine. They worry that kids are rotting their brains by
playing disgusting, violent video games. They worry that kids are using programs they
really shouldn’t be using, corrupting themselves with apps like Skype or Quicken.
(That’s a joke.)
Above all, parents worry that their kids might encounter upsetting material on the
Internet: violence, pornography, hate speech, illegal drug sites, and so on.
A special Windows feature gives you a fighting chance at keeping this stuff off your
PC: Parental Controls. They’re easy to use and fairly complete.
Note: Weirdly, Microsoft took out the feature of Parental Controls that blocks dirty Web sites, even though
it was in Windows Vista. Fortunately, you can restore it easily enough. That software is now called Family
Safety, and it’s an easy download as part of the free Windows Live Essentials suite.
To get it, open the Start menu. Start typing essentials until you see “Go online to get Windows Live Essentials”
in the results list; press Enter. Your Web browser opens to the download page. Click Download and follow
the instructions.
Time Limits, Game Limits, Software Restrictions
Before you can set up parental controls, some housekeeping is required. You, the
parent, are presumably in charge of the computer, and therefore you should have an
Administrator account (page 716). (And it should be password-protected; if it’s not,
then the kid whose innocence you’re trying to preserve can just log in as you and
turn Parental Controls off.)
Your children, on the other hand, should have Standard accounts. You can create one
account that all your kids share, or you can set up a different account for each kid;
that way, you can set up different safety restrictions for each person.
Now sign in using your administrative account. You turn on Parental Controls like this:
• Open the Start menu. Start typing parental until you see “Parental Controls” in
the results list; press Enter to open it.
• Choose StartÆControl Panel. In the “User Accounts and Family Safety” category,
click “Set up parental controls for any user.” Authenticate yourself if necessary
(page 726).
The dialog box shown in Figure 10-15 appears, listing all the user accounts on the
PC (Chapter 23).
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Note: If you’ve downloaded the Windows Live Essentials suite (page 265), you’re prompted, at this point,
to enter your Windows Live email address and password. That’s because Windows thinks now is a good
time to turn on Family Safety, a feature that’s part of those Essentials. Details begin on page 393; for now,
just close the window and continue with the instructions here.
One of the key advantages of the accounts system is that you can set up separate
“worlds” for each person in your family—and now comes the payoff. Click your kid’s
account to open up its parental controls screen.
Figure 10-15:
Parental
Controls lets
you control how
your children
use the PC and
the Internet.
Top: When you
first arrive here,
choose which kid
(which Standard
account) you
want to rein in.
Bottom: Most
parents will be
most interested
in the Web filter,
which lets you
filter out objec-
tionable Web
sites, and lets
you stop children
from download-
ing software. But
that’s a function
of the add-on
software called
Windows Live
Family Software,
described later.
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392 windows 7: the missing manual
Under the Parental Controls setting, click “On, enforce current settings”—the master
switch (Figure 10-15, bottom). You can now set up these limits for your offspring’s
PC use:
•Time Limits lets you set the times and days of the week that your little tyke can
use the Internet. You might, for example, decide to keep your kids off the PC on
school nights. When you click “Time limits,” a calendar opens where you can block
times by selecting them (Figure 10-16).
•Games prevents your youngsters from playing games altogether, or lets you specify
which kinds of games they can play.
For example, if you click “Set game ratings,” you see that you can permit only
games in a certain age bracket: Early Childhood, say, or Adults Only. If you scroll
down, you see that you can even customize any level, by blocking specific upset-
ting depictions within the games—everything from “Animated Blood” to “Use of
Drugs” and everything in between.
(Caution: Not all game programs on your PC identify themselves as games. Some
appear just as regular old programs. Of course, you can always block them using
the “specific programs” options described next.)
Figure 10-16:
If you set up time
limits for your little
rug rats, they won’t
be able to log in out-
side of the permitted
hours. And if they’re
signed in when the
time block ends,
they get dumped
off, and a taskbar
message lets them
know they’re out of
time. (Their programs
and windows remain
open in the back-
ground, in suspended
animation until the
next approved time
slot.)
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Note: To make this feature work, Windows consults a tiny GDF (game definition file) that software com-
panies can put into their game. Game companies usually use ratings bestowed by a ratings board like the
Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).
If a publisher uses information from a different ratings board, or doesn’t have a rating file (GDF) at all, Windows
consults Microsoft’s own 2,000-game database. And if even that source draws a blank, Windows considers
the game unrated. You may have noticed that the Games screen in Parental Controls offers a “Block games
with no rating” option, which is designed just for such situations.
•Allow and block specific programs lets you declare individual programs on your
PC to be off-limits. On the configuration screen, turn on “Casey [or whoever]
can only use the programs I allow.” Windows presents you with a staggering list
of every single program on your PC; turn on the checkboxes of the programs you
consider appropriate for your kid. Click OK.
If your lovable young ruffian does attempt to run an off-limits program, a box
appears that says, “Parental Controls has blocked this program.” If he clicks “Ask
an administrator for permission,” the UAC box appears (page 726) so he can call
you or some other older, wiser account holder over to the PC. You can type in a
name and administrator password to “unlock” the program—just for this time.
The final step is explaining the new limits to the young account holder. (Windows
has no new features to help you with that one.)
Family Safety
Windows no longer comes with built-in software that protects your kids from objec-
tionable Web sites. Instead, Microsoft invites you to supply your own. Microsoft makes
a free Web filter called Family Safety (it’s part of the free Windows Live Essentials, as
described on page 265), or you can buy a similar program from another company.
Once it’s installed, the Web filter’s name appears in the “Select a provider” pop-up
menu on the Parental Controls screen.
Note: The rest of this section describes using Family Safety, since it’s free and easy to use.
Here’s how to use Family Safety. Before you begin, make sure the name of your filtering
software appears in the “Select a provider” pop-up menu (Family Safety, in this case).
1. Open Parental Controls. Click the account holder’s name to set up the filtering.
Quick way to get to Parental Controls: Open the Start menu. Start typing parental
until you see “Parental Controls” in the results list; press Enter to open it.
The first time you click someone’s name after installing Family Safety, you’re asked
to sign in with your Windows Live ID and password (page 468). Proceed carefully.
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394 windows 7: the missing manual
You’re designating yourself as the only parent who can change settings and get
the activity reports.
Now you’re shown a list of Standard account holders on your PC—presumably,
your kids.
Tip: For this feature, each kid should really have a separate Windows account. That way, you’ll be able to
see what each child is doing online. And by the way: Turn off the Guest account (page 725), so your wily kid
can’t get around the controls just by using that.
2. Turn on the checkboxes of the account holders you want to protect and track
online. Click Next.
Now you may see a screen that says, “Match each Windows account with a Family
Safety member” (Figure 10-17).
3. From the pop-up menu next to each account holder, choose the matching account
holder’s name. Click Save.
Now you’ve successfully turned on Family Safety.
Note: The restrictions won’t kick in until the next time each person logs in.
Figure 10-17:
Forgive Microsoft
for its red tape.
Turns out Family
Safety has ac-
counts for each of
your family mem-
bers—but that’s
not the same as
the accounts on
your PC. Here’s
where you’re sup-
posed to match
up the former
with the latter. (If
the pop-up menu
doesn’t already
show the person’s
name, use the
Add command at
the bottom.)
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So far, you’ve managed to turn on basic Web filtering for each Standard account holder
you specified in step 2. If those young whippersnappers try to call up a porn Web site
(or stumble onto one), they’ll see only a “This page is blocked” message. They can ask
you for permission to unblock it, though; see Figure 10-18.
Customizing Family Safety
Out of the box, Family Safety does a reasonable job of keeping your kids from seeing
raunchy Web sites. (It does nothing about sites that pertain to violence, hate, religion,
and so on, however.)
On the Family Safety Web site (familysafety.live.com), you can have all kinds of fine-
tuning fun. Specifically, you can do the following:
•Adjust the filtering intensity. To do that, click “Edit settings” under your kid’s
name (Figure 10-19). On the next screen, click “Web filtering.”
Now you see the on/off switch for Web filtering, as well as a choice of filtering
styles. Strict blocks all Web sites except a list of 8,000 sites especially for children,
as inspected by Microsoft’s experts (and any sites you’ve added to that list. Basic
blocks pornographic sites (and “anonymizer” sites that let you surf the Web with-
out leaving tracks).
Figure 10-18:
Busted! Your
naughty child has
tried to look at dirty
pictures. If he feels
that Windows’s site
blocker is being
too zealous, he can
email you for per-
mission to proceed.
(The email you get
will contain a link
to the Family Safety
Web site, where
you can unblock
the site from now
on.) Or, if you’re
nearby, he can click
“Ask in person”;
that will let you
enter your admin-
istrator’s name
and password to
OK an override of
the block, now and
henceforth.
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396 windows 7: the missing manual
If you click Custom, you get a new panel (Figure 10-19, bottom) that lists other
categories of stuff you might not want your kid involved with: social-networking
sites like MySpace and Facebook; Webmail sites like Gmail and Hotmail; and sites
Microsoft hasn’t evaluated.
Alternatively, you can type in the addresses of individual Web sites that you want
to declare off-limits (or on-limits), as shown at bottom in Figure 10-19.
Figure 10-19:
Top: The advantage of
the Family Safety Web
site is that you can get
to it wherever you are,
even at work or on a
trip, to monitor your
kids’ activity and see
“unblock” requests.
Bottom: At the bottom
of this screen, you can
manually add Web ad-
dresses to the Allowed
or Blocked lists. Type in
the Web address, and
then click Allow or Block.
(The pop-up menu on
the right lets you specify
whether you’re blocking
or permitting this site
only for this account
holder, for all your kids
with Standard accounts,
or for everyone includ-
ing yourself.)
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Finally, don’t miss the “Allow [kid’s name] to download files online” checkbox. If
you really want a safe PC, turn this one off. Your kid won’t be able to download
anything from the Web at all: no songs, games, videos—and no viruses, spyware,
or worms.
Click Save to preserve your changes.
•Activity reporting. The Parental Report brings Big Brother home to you. It shows
every Web site your kid has visited (or tried to visit), every program or game your
kid has run, the files they’ve downloaded, and so on—on all your PCs. You also
see how often your kid logged onto the PC, and the amount of time spent during
each session.
•Contact management. Family Safety can even limit who your kid emails and chats
with—if the kid doesn’t use any email or chat services other than Microsoft’s
(Messenger, Hotmail, and Spaces). Which means it’s pretty useless unless you’ve
locked your kid into those services. (Your kid also needs a Windows Live ID, as
described on page 468.)
If you’re interested, click “Contact management,” click “Sign in,” and then enter
your kid’s Windows Live name and password.
Turn on the services you want to let your kid use: Messenger, Hotmail, Spaces.
At the outset, your kid is allowed to communicate only with you. If you want to
expand her social circle a bit, type in that person’s name and email address, and
then click Add.
Note: Ordinarily, you are the only one who can add people to the list of Approved Communications Partners.
When your child wants to contact someone else, they’ll see a link that lets them email you for permission,
exactly as with the blocked Web sites. Once again, you’ll get a message that offers a link to the Requests tab,
described below, so you can approve or decline the permission request.
If you want your kid to be able to add people without your involvement, on the other hand, then turn on the
grammatically excruciating checkbox called “Allow child to manage their own contact list.”
When it’s all over, click Save.
•Requests. Here’s where you can see the blocked Web sites your child wants you
to override. (“But, Dad! I need to see Playboy.com for my social-studies report on
Social Norms in the 20th Century!”)
Check out the requested site by clicking the link in the “Web address” column. If it
seems harmless enough, use the pop-up menu in the Response column to choose
“Approve for this account only” (just this kid) or “Approve for all accounts” (all
kids). If not, then click Deny.
There’s a separate tab here for Contact requests—people your kid wants to email or
chat with who aren’t on the approved list. You can approve or deny these people, too.
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11
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Internet Explorer 8
Internet Explorer is the most famous Web browser on earth, thanks in part to
several years of Justice Department scrutiny and newspaper headlines. It also has
more syllables than any other Web browser, which is probably why most people
just call it IE.
The revamped version 8 offers plenty of new features. A bunch of them are dedicated,
as always, to privacy and security—features like SmartScreen filter (blocks phish-
ing and virus/spyware sites), InPrivate Browsing (blocks certain ads and other Web
graphics that can track your Web movements), and InPrivate Filtering (lets you surf
without leaving any tracks like cookies or History-list items). There are so many secu-
rity features in IE, in fact, that they’d weigh this chapter down with all their negative
energy. They’ve been offloaded to Chapter 10.
There are lots of great new productivity features, too, though: a better Search box;
accelerators for instant mapping, translation, or searching; a command that lets you
reopen a tab you’ve closed by accident; and so on.
All these goodies and more are described in this chapter.
Note: Internet Explorer 8 is better than previous Internet Explorer versions—it’s more secure, it has more
modern features, and it’s much more compatible with today’s Web standards.
Nonetheless, you should be aware that there are other free browsers out there, like Firefox (www.getfirefox.
com), Safari (apple.com/safari), and Chrome (google.com/chrome), which are all much faster than IE. The
Web intelligentsia greatly prefer these non-Microsoft alternatives.
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IE8: The Grand Tour IE8: The Grand Tour
All Versions
You can open Internet Explorer in a number of ways:
• Choose its name from the StartÆAll Programs menu.
• Open the Start menu; start typing Internet until “Internet Explorer” is highlighted
in the results list; press Enter.
• Click its icon on the taskbar.
• Type a Web address—a URL (Uniform Resource Locator)—into a window’s ad-
dress bar. A Web page URL usually begins with the prefix http://, but you can leave
that part off when typing into the address bar.
• Click a blue, underlined link on a Windows Help screen, in an email message,
and so on.
As you can see in Figure 11-1, the Internet Explorer window is filled with tools de-
signed to facilitate a smooth trip around the World Wide Web.
Figure 11-1:
The Internet Explorer
window offers tools
and features that
let you navigate the
Web almost effort-
lessly; these various
toolbars and status
indicators are de-
scribed in this chap-
ter. Chief among
them: the address
bar, which displays
the address (URL) of
the Web page you’re
currently seeing,
and the standard
buttons, which let
you control the
Web-page loading
process.
Address bar Search barBack, Forward Refresh Stop
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IE8: The Grand Tour
The first time you open Internet Explorer, you’re asked to make a couple of quick
decisions:
•Turn on Suggested Sites. You can read about the new Suggested Sites feature later
in this chapter; for now, it’s enough to know that this feature suggests Web sites
you might like based on Web sites you’ve already visited. This sort of artificial-
intelligence suggestions feature seems to work on Amazon and iTunes, but if you
think Microsoft is tracking you in far too many ways already, you can turn Sug-
gested Sites off here. Either way, click Next.
•Choose your settings. There are lots of choices to make in Internet Explorer. Whose
search (Google’s or Microsoft Bing’s) do you want to power the Search box? Do you
want to turn on the new SmartScreen filter? Is it OK for IE to download updates
to itself automatically? Here’s where you can accept Microsoft’s factory settings
for all of this, or click “Choose custom settings” to change them one by one. (Of
course, you can change any of these settings at any time later.)
Click Finish to exit the interview—and start using the darned program.
The Raw Basics
A link (or hyperlink) is a bit of text, or a little graphic, that’s been programmed to
serve as a button. When you click a link, you’re transported from one Web page to
another. One may be the home page of General Motors; another might have baby
pictures posted by a parent in Omaha. About a billion pages await your visit.
Tip: Text links aren’t always blue and underlined. In fact, modern Web designers sometimes make it very
difficult to tell which text is clickable and which is just text. When in doubt, move your cursor over some text.
If the arrow changes to a pointing-finger cursor, you’ve found yourself a link.
Actually, you can choose to hide all underlines, a trick that makes Web pages look cleaner and more attractive.
Underlines appear only when you point to a link (and wait a moment). If that arrangement appeals to you,
open Internet Explorer. Choose ToolsÆInternet Options, click the Advanced tab, scroll down to “Underline
links,” select the Hover option, and then click OK.
Menus and Gizmos
Internet Explorer doesn’t have a traditional menu bar (although you can make the
old one come back if you press Alt or F10). Instead, it offers five tiny menu icons at
the upper-right corner. Each little ≥ is, in fact, a menu.
Here’s a look at the other basic controls—the doodads that surround your browser
window.
The Address Bar
When you type a new Web page address (URL) into this strip and press Enter, the
corresponding Web site appears. (If only an error message results, then you may
have mistyped the address, or the Web page may have been moved or dismantled—a
relatively frequent occurrence.)
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Because typing out Internet addresses is so central to the Internet experience and such
a typo-prone hassle, the address bar is rich with features that minimize keystrokes.
For example:
• You don’t have to click in the address bar before typing; just press Alt+D.
• You don’t have to type out the whole Internet address. You can omit the http://
www and .com portions if you press Ctrl+Enter after typing the name; Internet
Explorer fills in those standard address bits for you.
To visit Amazon.com, for example, you can press Alt+D to highlight the address
bar, type amazon, and then press Ctrl+Enter.
• Even without the Ctrl+Enter trick, you can still omit the http:// from any Web ad-
dress. (Most of the time, you can omit the www., too.) To jump to today’s Dilbert
cartoon, type dilbert.com and then press Enter.
• When you begin to type into the address bar, the AutoComplete feature compares
what you’re typing against a list of Web sites you’ve recently visited. IE displays a
drop-down list of Web addresses that seem to match what you’re typing. To save
typing, just click the correct complete address with your mouse, or use the . key
to reach the desired listing and then press Enter. The complete address you selected
then pops into the address bar.
(To make AutoComplete forget the Web sites you’ve visited recently—so that
nobody will see what you’ve been up to—delete your History list, as described
on page 379.)
• Press F4 (or click the ≥ inside the right end of the address bar) to view a list of URLs
you’ve visited recently—your History list, in other words—as well as sites you’ve
Let AutoFill Do the Typing
Internet Explorer can remember the user names and pass-
words you type into those
“Please sign in” Web sites.
You can’t miss this feature;
each time you type a password
into a Web page, this dialog
box appears.
It’s a great time- and brain-
saver, even though it doesn’t
work on all Web sites. (Of
course, use it with caution if you share an account on your
PC with other people.)
When you want IE to “forget” your passwords—for security
reasons, for example—choose
ToolsÆInternet Options. In
the AutoComplete section,click
Settings, and then click “Delete
AutoComplete history.”
You get the box shown on
page 380, where you can
delete all kinds of stuff Internet
Explorer memorizes: cookies,
forms (your name, address, and so on), your History list, user
names and passwords, and so on. Turn on the checkboxes
you want (or, rather, don’t want), and then click Delete.
gem in the rough
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bookmarked (which Microsoft calls Favorites). Once again, you can click the one
you want—or press the . or , keys to highlight one, and the Enter key to select it.
Tip: When you first press F4 (or click the ≥ button), you see only the most recent five items in your History
or Favorites list. Click the down-arrow button to see a more complete list.
Topside Doodads
Around the address bar, you’ll find several important buttons. Some of them lack text
labels, but all offer tooltip labels:
•Back button, Forward button. Click the Back button to revisit the page you were
just on. (Keyboard shortcut: Backspace and Shift+Backspace, or Alt+< and Alt+>.)
Tip: Pressing Shift as you turn your mouse’s scroll wheel up or down also navigates forward and back. Cool.
Once you’ve clicked Back, you can then click the Forward button (or press Alt+>)
to return to the page you were on before you clicked the Back button. Click the white
≥ button for a list of all the Web pages you’ve visited during this online session
(that is, within this browser window, as opposed to your long-term History list).
•Refresh button. Click this double-arrow button (r) just to the right of the address
bar if a page doesn’t look or work quite right, or if you want to see the updated
version of a Web page that changes constantly (such as a stock ticker). This but-
ton forces Internet Explorer to redownload the Web page and reinterpret its text
and graphics.
•Stop (X) button. Click this button, at the far right end of the address bar, to
interrupt the downloading of a Web page you’ve just requested (by mistake, for
example). (Keyboard shortcut: Esc.)
•Search bar. There’s no tidy card catalog of every Web page. Because Web pages
appear and disappear hourly by the hundreds of thousands, such an exercise
would be futile.
The best you can do is to use a search engine, a Web site that searches other Web
sites. You might have heard of the little engine called Google, for example, or
Microsoft’s rival service called Bing.
But why waste your time plugging in www.google.com? Here’s one of Internet
Explorer’s most profoundly useful features—a Search box that accesses Google
automatically—or any other search page you like. Type something you’re looking
for into this box—electric drapes, say—and then press Enter. You go straight to
the Google results page.
In IE8, it’s much easier to switch from Google to Bing, or Bing to Google: As you
type in your search term, tiny icons for both appear just below the box. Click the
icon for the search engine you want to use for this search.
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Or make Internet Explorer use a different engine for all searches by choosing its
name from the ≥ button next to the magnifying glass icon; Google and Bing ap-
pear here already.
If you prefer some oddball off-brand search service, you can add its icon and
name to the Search box so it appears right alongside Bing and Google. See Figure
11-2 for the steps.
Figure 11-2:
Top: To add
search services
to this pop-up
menu, start by
choosing Find
More Provid-
ers.
Middle: This
page lists lots
of popular
search ser-
vices, including
Google, Yahoo,
Ask.com, and
more special-
ized pages:
Amazon for
books, ESPN
for sports, and
so on. You can
even add new
ones using the
Create Your
Own section.
Bottom:
When you
click a search
service’s name,
you’re asked to
confirm—and
you’re given
the chance
to make it
your default
search—the
one IE always
uses. Click
Add.
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Tip: Truth is, it’s often faster to type your search phrase into the address bar itself, if for no other reason
than you have a keyboard shortcut to get your cursor in there (Alt+D). When you press Enter, IE does a Web
search for that term, using the same search service you’ve set up for the Search box.
Window Controls
These last items wrap up your grand tour of Internet Explorer’s window gizmos:
•Scroll bars. Use the scroll bar, or the scroll wheel on your mouse, to move up and
down the page—or to save mousing, press the space bar each time you want to
see more. Press Shift+space bar to scroll up. (The space bar has its traditional,
space-making function only when the insertion point is blinking in a text box or
the address bar.)
You can also press your , and . keys to scroll. Page Up and Page Down scroll in
full-screen increments, while Home and End whisk you to the top or bottom of
the current Web page.
•O button. Click to bring up the Web page you’ve designated as your home page—
your starter page.
And which page is that? Whichever one you designate. Open a good startup page
(Google, NYTimes.com, Dilbert.com, whatever), and then choose Add or Change
Home Page from this icon’s pop-up menu.
•Status bar. The status bar at the bottom of the window tells you what Internet
Explorer is doing (such as “Opening page…” or “Done”). When you point to a link
without clicking, the status bar also tells you which URL will open if you click it.
And when you’re opening a new page, a graph appears here, showing that your PC
is still downloading (receiving) the information and graphics on the Web page. In
other words, you’re not seeing everything yet.
If you consult all this information only rarely, you can hide this bar to conserve
screen space. To do so, choose ViewÆToolbarsÆStatus Bar from the classic menu
bar (press Alt).
Tabbed Browsing
All Versions
Beloved by hard-core surfers the world over, tabbed browsing is a way to keep a bunch
of Web pages open simultaneously—in a single, neat window, without cluttering up
your taskbar with a million buttons.
Figure 11-3 illustrates.
Tip: Here’s a New!! feature in IE8: When you open new tabs by clicking links on a Web page, the tabs are
color-coded to match the color of the originating page, so you can tell where they came from. The newly
sprouted tab appears right next to its source tab, too, instead of appearing at the end of the row of tabs.
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406 windows 7: the missing manual
Shortcut-O-Rama
Turning on tabbed browsing unlocks a whole raft of Internet Explorer shortcuts and
tricks, which are just the sort of thing power surfers gulp down like Gatorade:
•To open a new, empty tab in front of all others, press Ctrl+T (for tab), or click the
New Tab stub identified in Figure 11-3, or double-click anywhere in the empty
area of the tab row. From the empty tab that appears, you can navigate to any site
you want.
•To open a link into a new tab, Ctrl+click it. Or click it with your mouse wheel.
Or, if you’re especially slow, right-click it and, from the shortcut menu, choose
Open in New Tab.
Note: Ctrl+clicking a link opens that page in a tab behind the one you’re reading. That’s a fantastic trick
when you’re reading a Web page and see a reference you want to set aside for reading next, but you don’t
want to interrupt whatever you’re reading now.
But if you want the new tab to appear in front, add the Shift key.
•To close a tab, click the X on it, press Ctrl+W, or click the tab with your mouse
wheel or middle mouse button, if you have one. (If you press Alt+F4, you close
all tabs. If you press Ctrl+Alt+F4, you close all tabs except the one that’s in front.)
Tip: New in IE8: If you close a tab, or a group of tabs, by accident, you can now call them back from the
dead. Click the New Tab button (see Figure 11-3). The resulting New Tab page displays the addresses of tabs
you’ve recently closed; click the one you want.
If you’ve exited Internet Explorer in the meantime, you lose your chance to recover those closed tabs. But
speaking of which: If that happens, you can always choose ToolsÆReopen Last Browsing Session, another
new command that brings back all the pages you had open when you quit the program.
•Switch from one tab to the next by pressing Ctrl+Tab. Add the Shift key to move
backward through them.
•Jump to a specific tab by pressing its number along with the Ctrl key. For example,
Ctrl+3 brings the third tab forward.
•Save a tab configuration. If there’s a certain set of Web sites you like to visit daily,
open them all into tabs. Click the Favorites button, and then, from the Add to
Favorites pop-up menu, choose Add Current Tabs to Favorites. Type a name for
the group, and then click Add.
Later, you can recreate your current setup—with all of them in a tabbed window—
by selecting the resulting listing in the Favorites menu and then clicking the blue ]
button beside its name. The beauty of this arrangement is that you can start reading
the first Web page while all the others load into their own tabs in the background.
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One more note to tab fans: When you close Internet Explorer, a dialog box appears
asking if you really want to close all the tabs. If you click Show Options at this point,
you’re offered an opportunity to “Open these the next time I use Internet Explorer.”
Turn that on and click Close Tabs; the next time you go a-browsing, you’ll pick up
right from the tabs where you left off.
Quick Tabs (Thumbnails)
Once you’ve got a bunch of tabs open, you may face a horizontal screen-space crunch.
How much, exactly, of the text “Welcome to Bass World—The Internet’s Global Re-
source for Bass Fisherfolk” can you see on a half-inch tab?
Not much. But how, then, are you supposed to tell your tabs apart?
By using another feature called Quick Tabs. Figure 11-4 shows all.
Tip: You can close a tab directly from the Quick Tabs screen, too—just click the X button in the upper-right
corner of the thumbnail.
Tab Settings
People get really obsessive over tabs for some reason. They want tabs to behave just
the way they expect, or it’s back to Firefox they go.
No worries—IE lets you customize tabs’ behavior to within an inch of their lives. Start
by choosing ToolsÆInternet OptionsÆGeneral; in the Tabs section of the dialog box,
click Settings. Here’s the most useful of what you’ll find:
•Enable Tabbed Browsing. This is the on/off switch for the whole tab feature.
Figure 11-3:
When you
Ctrl+Shift+click a
link, or type an
address and press
Alt+Enter or c-
Enter, you open a
new tab, not a new
window as you or-
dinarily would. You
can now pop from
one open page to
another by clicking
the tabs above the
window, or close
one by clicking its
X button (or press-
ing Ctrl+W).
A tab group
(color coded) Click for a
new, empty tab
Another
tab group
Tabbed Browsing
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408 windows 7: the missing manual
•Warn me when closing multiple tabs. If tabs are open when you close Internet
Explorer, a confirmation box appears: “Do you want to close all tabs?” It’s semi-
annoying but semi-useful, because you may not realize that you’re about to close
all your tabs.
•Always switch to new tabs when they are created. Makes every new tab appear in
front of the others, even if you Ctrl+click a link rather than Ctrl+Shift+click it.
(Even if you leave this option off, though, Ctrl+Shift+clicking a link still opens
the tab in front.)
•Show previews for individual tabs in the taskbar. Ordinarily, pointing to the
Internet Explorer icon on the taskbar produces the handy pop-up thumbnails
for each tab you have open. Turn this option off if you want only a thumbnail for
each window.
•Enable Quick Tabs. This is the on/off switch for the feature shown in Figure 11-4.
•Enable Tab Groups. When you’re on one tab, and you open a new tab from it (for
example, by right-clicking a link and choosing Open Link in New tab), IE color-
codes the two tabs, so you can tell that they sprouted from the same source. It also
puts them together on the row of tabs. This feature, new in Internet Explorer 8, is
called tab grouping, and you can turn it off here.
Figure 11-4:
Quick Tabs shows you
thumbnails of all the
Web pages you’ve
opened into tabs,
making it simple to
tell them apart. One
click on a thumbnail
returns it to full size,
with that tab in front
of the others. All you
have to learn is the
Quick Tabs keystroke,
which is Ctrl+Q—or the
location of the Quick
Tabs button, shown
here. (Repeat the trig-
ger to exit the Quick
Tabs view without
changing anything.)
Quick Tabs tab
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•Open only the first home page when Internet Explorer starts. Got a tab group set
as your home page (page 406)? Turn on this box if you want only the first tab to
open when IE starts, rather than the whole tab group.
•When a new tab is opened, open:. When you click the New Tab tab (Figure 11-3),
a special, mostly blank New Tab page opens, graced by links like “Reopen closed
tabs” and “Browse with InPrivate.” This pop-up menu lets you choose to have your
home page appear instead, or even a completely blank page.
•When a pop-up is encountered. When a “good” pop-up window opens, should it
open in a new window or a new tab? Or should Internet Explorer try to figure out
which would be most helpful? (If the Web programmer has specified a specific size
for the pop-up, it appears in a window; otherwise, in a new tab.)
•Open links from other programs in:. If you click a link in an email message, should
the resulting Web page open in a new window or a new tab? Or should it replace
whatever’s currently in the frontmost window or tab? Only you can decide.
Actually, there’s one more useful tabbed-browsing setting that’s not here—for some
reason, Microsoft stuck it on the ToolsÆInternet OptionsÆAdvanced tab. It’s “Use
most recent order when switching tabs with Ctrl+Tab.”
Ordinarily, pressing Ctrl+Tab moves you through your tabs from left to right; adding
Shift moves you backward.
But if you turn this option on, then Ctrl+Tab jumps through the tabs you’ve visited
in reverse chronological order. It’s just the way Alt+Tab works when you’re switching
between Windows programs. This arrangement makes it very easy to compare two
Web pages, because pressing Ctrl+Tab bounces you back and forth between them.
Note: This option also affects what happens when you hit Ctrl+W repeatedly to close tabs. They close in
reverse chronological order.
Favorites (Bookmarks)
All Versions
When you find a Web page you might like to visit again, press Ctrl+D. That’s the
keyboard shortcut for the Add to Favorites command. (The long way is to click the
f Favorites button to make the Favorites pane appear, and then click the Add to
Favorites button, identified in Figure 11-5—but who’s got the time?) Type a shorter
or more memorable name, if you like, and click Add.
Tip: Actually, there’s a new Windows 7 trick that may save you even more time. You can drag a Web site’s
icon (the tiny one just to the left of its address in the address bar) directly onto Internet Explorer’s taskbar
icon. (This works with any browser, actually—Firefox or whatever.) When you release the mouse, that site’s
name appears at the top of the icon’s jump list, in the pinned area. Next time you want to visit that site, just
click the Internet Explorer icon (even if it’s not running) and click the site’s name in the jump list.
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The page’s name appears instantly in the Favorites Center, which is the panel in-
dicated by the yellow star (Figure 11-5). The next time you want to visit that page,
open this menu—or press Alt+C—and click the Web site’s name in the list. (Your
Favorites also appear in a tidy list that appears when you click the ≥ at the right end
of the address bar.)
Tip: You can send your list of Favorites to or from other browsers or other PCs, which can save you a lot of time.
To do that, open the Add to Favorites menu (Figure 11-5); choose Import and Export. The Import/Export
wizard appears to guide you through the process. Consider saving them onto, for example, a flash drive, for
ease in transporting to another location or computer.
You can rearrange the commands in your Favorites menu easily enough. Open the
Favorites Center (Figure 11-6), and then drag the bookmarks up and down in the list.
Or, for more elaborate organizing tasks—creating and deleting folders, renaming
sites, and so on—click the Add to Favorites button (Figure 11-5) and, from the
shortcut menu, choose Organize Favorites. You get a little dialog box that makes all
those tasks easy.
Figure 11-5:
Top: When you
want to flag a
Web page for vis-
iting later, using
this button is one
way to do it.
Bottom: Internet
Explorer offers
to add this Web
page’s name
(or a shorter
name you specify
for it) either to
the Favorites
menu itself, or
to a “folder”
(category) within
that menu. The
next time you
want to visit that
page, just select
its name from the
star-shaped menu
at the top left of
the window.
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The Favorites Toolbar
The Favorites pane is one way to maintain a list of Web sites you visit frequently. But
opening a Web page in that pane requires two mouse clicks—an exorbitant expendi-
ture of energy. The Favorites toolbar, on the other hand, lets you summon a few, very
select, very favorite Web pages with only one click.
You make the toolbar appear by choosing ToolsÆToolbarsÆFavorites Bar. Figure
11-7 illustrates how to add buttons to, and remove them from, this toolbar. Once
they’re there, you can rearrange these buttons simply by dragging them horizontally.
(Whatever you stash here also turns up on the Links toolbar at the desktop, weirdly
enough.)
Figure 11-6:
When the Favorites
menu opens, you can
drag names up or
down to rearrange
the list, as shown. Or
right-click one to access
the commands that
rename, delete, or file
a favorite into a folder.
(Unfortunately, the Fa-
vorites menu covers up
part of the Web page
you’re reading. It hides
itself soon enough, but
you might also want
to freeze the Favorites
Center open so that it
doesn’t cover the page.
To do that, click the Pin
the Favorites Center
button shown here.)
Figure 11-7:
Drag the tiny page
icon to the Links bar.
Right-click a link to
choose Rename (to
pick a shorter name
that fits better).
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Tip: As shown in Figure 11-7, you can drag a link from a Web page onto your Favorites toolbar. But you can
also drag it directly to the desktop, where it turns into a special Internet shortcut icon. To launch your browser
and visit the associated Web page, just double-click this icon whenever you like.
Better yet, stash a few of these icons in your Start menu for even easier access. (Moreover, if you open your
ComputerÆ(C:) driveÆUsersÆ[Your Name]ÆFavorites folder, you see these shortcut icons for all your
favorite links. Feel free to drag them to the desktop, Links toolbar, or wherever you like.)
History List
All Versions
This history is a list of the Web sites you’ve visited. It’s the heart of three IE features:
AutoComplete, described at the beginning of this chapter; the drop-down list at the
right side of the address bar; and the History list itself.
That’s the pane that appears when you click the Favorites (f) button and then
click History—or just press Ctrl+H. Figure 11-8 presents the world’s shortest
History class.
Figure 11-8:
The pop-up menu here lets you sort the list by Web
site, date, frequency of visits—or you can see only the
sites you’ve visited today, in order. The same little
pop-up menu offers a command called Search History,
so that you can search for text in the History list—not
the actual text on those pages, but text within the page
addresses and descriptions.
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The History pane lists the Web sites you’ve visited in the past week or so, neatly or-
ganized into subfolders like “Today” and “Last Week.” These are great features if you
can’t recall the URL for a Web site you remember having visited recently.
Click one of the time-period icons to see the Web sites you visited during that era.
Click the name of a Web site to view a list of each visited page within that site—and
click an actual URL to reopen that Web page in the main window.
You can configure the number of days for which you want your Web visits tracked.
To do so, choose ToolsÆInternet OptionsÆGeneral; where it says “Browsing his-
tory,” click Settings. At the bottom of the dialog box, you see the “Days to keep pages
in history” control.
For details on erasing your History list for security purposes, see page 379.
Tip: The more days IE tracks, the easier it is for you to refer to those addresses quickly. On the other hand,
the more days it tracks, the longer the list becomes, which may make it harder to use the list efficiently.
Oh, and if you set “Days to keep pages in history” to 0, Internet Explorer won’t track your movements at all.
(You know who you are.)
Compatibility View
For years, Internet Explorer didn’t respect the programming
conventions of the Web. Web-page designers would care-
fully follow the rules to create, say, a picture with a 3-point
blue box around it—but in Internet Explorer, it would look
wrong. Microsoft just said: “We’re the 800-pound gorilla.
We do things our own way.”
So Web designers had to use all sorts of programming hacks
and kludges, writing the HTML code for their sites so that
they’d look right in Internet Explorer. (Many went to the effort
of designing a different site just for the “all other browsers”
category. Which version you’d see when you visited that
page depended on what browser you had.)
But with millions of people choosing other free Web brows-
ers, Microsoft realized that it couldn’t remain cocky forever.
So in Internet Explorer 8, it cleaned up its act; this version,
for the first time, strictly sticks to modern Web standards.
The irony, of course, is that now all those millions of pages
written for the old IE now look funny in the new IE!
Now Microsoft gets to know what it feels like to be one of the
other browsers, the ones that have always worked properly.
In any case, if you find a Web page that looks odd, or the
text spills out of its box, or the buttons don’t line up, or
whatever, you can use Compatibility View. You can turn it
on in either of two ways:
• Click the Compatibility View button (c). It appears
on the address bar automatically whenever you’re
on a page that hasn’t been updated for IE8.
• Choose ToolsÆCompatibility View.
In this mode, IE8 impersonates IE6, believe it or not, display-
ing the page the way the creator intended. IE will remember
to use this view for this Web site until (a) you turn Compat-
ibility View off, or (b) the site is rewritten for IE8.
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RSS: The Missing Manual
All Versions
In the beginning, the Internet was an informational Garden of Eden. There were
no banner ads, pop-ups, flashy animations, or spam messages. People thought the
Internet was just the greatest.
Those days, unfortunately, are long gone. Web browsing now entails a constant battle
against intrusive advertising and annoying animations. And with the proliferation
of Web sites and blogs, just reading your favorite sites can become a full-time job.
Enter RSS, a technology that lets you subscribe to feeds—summary blurbs provided
by thousands of sources around the world, from Reuters to Microsoft to your nerdy
next-door neighbor. News and blog sites usually publish RSS feeds, but RSS can also
bring you podcasts (recorded audio broadcasts), photos, and even videos.
You used to need a special RSS reader program to tune into them—but no longer.
Internet Explorer can “subscribe” to updates from such feeds so you can read any new
articles or postings at your leisure.
The result? You spare yourself the tedium of checking for updates manually, plus you
get to read short summaries of new articles without ads and blinking animations.
And if you want to read a full article, you can click its link in the RSS feed to jump
straight to the main Web site.
Note: RSS stands for either Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Each abbreviation explains one
aspect of RSS—either its summarizing talent or its simplicity. (Web feeds and XML feeds are the same thing.)
Viewing an RSS Feed
So how do you sign up for these free, automatic RSS “broadcasts”? Watch your tab
bar as you’re surfing the Web. When the Feeds button (®) turns orange, IE is telling
you, “This site has an RSS feed available.”
(Sometimes, in fact, the site has multiple feeds available—for example, in different
formats—in which case you can choose among them using the ≥ menu next to the
® icon.)
Tip: To find more RSS feeds, visit a site like www.syndic8.com.
By the way, Internet Explorer isn’t the only RSS reader. If you catch the RSS bug, you might want to try out
a more powerful RSS reader. Visit www.downloads.com, for example, and search for RSS readers, or try a
Web-based one like www.reader.google.com.
To see what the fuss is all about, click that button. Internet Explorer switches into
RSS-viewing mode, as shown in Figure 11-9.
At this point, you have three choices:
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•Subscribe. Click “Subscribe to this feed.” Name and save the feed into a folder, if
you like. From now on, you’ll be able to see whether the RSS feed has had any new
articles posted—without actually having to visit the site. Figure 11-9 has the details.
Figure 11-9:
Top: When the
Feeds button
changes color,
you’ve got yourself
a live one: a Web
site that publishes
a feed. Click the
Feeds button.
Middle: Now you
get a sneak peek
at what the feed
looks like. If you
like, subscribe, as
shown here.
Bottom: To read
your feed, click the
Favorites button
(f) and, at the
top of the pane,
click Feeds. Click
the one you want
to read.
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Note: Once you’ve subscribed to a feed, Internet Explorer checks the originating Web site once a day for
updates.
You can make it check a bit more obsessively, if you like (as often as every 15 minutes), or cool its jets (once
a week). To adjust the schedule, choose ToolsÆInternet OptionsÆContent; click Settings at the bottom of
the dialog box. Use the “Every:” pop-up menu to specify the frequency.
While you’re here, turn on “Play a sound” if you want a little sonic heads-up, too, when IE finds that a Web
page you’ve just opened has an available RSS feed.
•Massage the feed. Once you’re looking at the feed, you can sort the headline items
by date, title, and author, or use the Search box to find text among all the articles.
•Close the RSS feed altogether. To do so, just click the Feeds button again. You’re
left back where you started, at whatever Web page you were visiting.
Figure 11-10:
Top: When you land
on a Web page that
offers Web slices,
the RSS ® icon turns
green and becomes
the Web Slices icon
(S) to tip you off.
Click it to see a list of
RSS feeds and Web
slices available on
that page.
Bottom: Subscribing
to a Web slice creates
a new button on your
Favorites bar. Click it
to see a little panel
of current informa-
tion—weather, stocks,
headlines, and so on.
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Tip: Once you’ve subscribed to some feeds, you don’t actually have to fire up Internet Explorer just to see
what’s new in your world. Remember the Gadgets described in Chapter 6?
One of them, you may recall, is called Feed Headlines. Yes, right there on your desktop, you see headlines from
your subscribed Web sites, updating themselves as the news breaks. Click a headline to open a minipreview
window; double-click to open Internet Explorer and view the actual Web page.
Web Slices
A Web slice, a new feature in Internet Explorer 8, has a lot in common with an RSS
feed: It’s information from other Web sites, automatically updated and placed in front
of you for easy reviewing.
But a Web slice is a pop-up panel that sprouts from a button on your Favorites toolbar.
That is, you don’t lose your place on the Web; you stay on whatever page you were on
and just pop up a Web slice panel for a quick look at the weather, the latest headlines,
current stock prices, your Hotmail inbox, or whatever (Figure 11-10).
You’ll know when a Web site offers a Web slice because the Slices icon (S) appears
and lights up green. Click it, or press Alt+J, to see a list of the RSS feeds and Web slices
that are available on that page. Click the one you want to subscribe to.
From now on, you can click that button on the toolbar to see the latest information.
If the slice’s name appears in bold, that means it’s been updated since the last time
you looked.
Not every Web page offers a Web slice—in fact, hardly any do. A Web page’s program-
mer would have to create a Web slice. And since they’re a brand-new concept, and
Internet Explorer 8 is the only Web browser that can exploit them, Web slices are
very slow to catch on.
Tip: To remove a Web slice, right-click its button on the Favorites toolbar; from the shortcut menu, choose
Delete.
Tips for Better Surfing
All Versions
Internet Explorer is filled with shortcuts and tricks for better speed and more pleas-
ant surfing. For example:
Full-Screen Browsing
The Web is supposed to be a visual experience; losing a bunch of your monitor’s real
estate to toolbars and other window dressing isn’t necessarily a good thing.
But if you press F11 (or choose ViewÆFull Screen from the Classic menus), all is
forgiven. The browser window explodes to the very borders of your monitor, hiding
the Explorer bar, toolbars, and all. The Web page you’re viewing fills your screen, edge
to edge—a glorious, liberating experience.
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You can return to the usual crowded, toolbar-mad arrangement by pressing F11
again—but you’ll be tempted never to do so.
Picking a Home Page
The first Web site you encounter when IE connects to the Internet is a Microsoft Web
site—or one of Dell’s, or EarthLink’s; the point is, you didn’t choose it. This site is
your factory-set home page.
Unless you actually work for Microsoft, Dell, or EarthLink, you’ll probably find Web
browsing more fun if you specify your own favorite Web page as your startup page.
The easiest way to go about it is to follow the instructions shown in Figure 11-11.
Google makes a nice home page; so does a news site. But here are a couple of pos-
sibilities that might not have occurred to you:
•A blank page. If you can’t decide on a home page, or if your mood changes from
day to day, set up a blank—empty—home page. This setup makes IE load very
quickly when you first launch it. Once this window opens, then you can tell the
browser where you want to go today.
To set this up, open the Home menu (Figure 11-11) and choose RemoveÆRemove
All; in the confirmation box, click Yes.
Figure 11-11:
Top: Start by visiting
the page you want to
designate as your home
page. Then, from the
Home menu identified
here, choose Add or
Change Home Page.
Bottom: In this dialog
box, choose “Use this
webpage as your only
home page,” and click
Yes.
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•Multiple home page tabs. This is a cool one. You can designate a bunch of tabs to
open all at once each time you fire up Internet Explorer. It’s a great way to avoid
wasting time by calling up one site after another, because they’ll all be loading in
the background as you read the first one.
Note: Choose “Tab settings” on page 407; a few settings there pertain exclusively to home page tab groups.
The quickest way to set up a Home tab set: Open all the Web sites into their own
tabs, just the way you’ll want IE to do automatically in the future. Then, from the
Home menu, choose Add or Change Home Page. Next, in the dialog box (Figure
11-11, bottom), select “Use the current tab set as your home page,” and click Yes.
Thereafter, you can always add additional tabs to this starter set by choosing “Add
this webpage to your home page tabs,” the bottom option shown in Figure 11-11.
Note: Although it’s a little more effort, you can also edit your home page (or home page tab sets) manually
in a dialog box, rather than opening them up first.
Choose ToolsÆInternet OptionsÆGeneral. In the “Home page” text box, type each address, complete with
http:// and so on. If you want to create a home page tab set, type each address on its own line. (Leave the
box empty for a blank home page.) Click OK, OK?
Bigger Text, Smaller Text
When your eyes are tired, you might like to make the text bigger. When you visit a
site designed for Macintosh computers (whose text tends to look too large on PC
screens), you might want a smaller size. You can adjust the point size of a Web page’s
text using the PageÆText Size command.
Zooming In and Out
So much for magnifying the text; what about the whole Web page?
There are plenty of ways to zoom in or out of the whole affair:
• If you have a scroll-wheel mouse, press the Ctrl key as you turn the mouse’s wheel.
(This works in Microsoft Office programs, too.)
• Press Ctrl+plus or Ctrl+minus on your keyboard.
• Use the pop-up menu in the lower-right corner of the window (where it probably
says “100%” at the moment). Just clicking the digits repeatedly cycles the page
among 100, 125, and 150 percent of actual size. Alternatively, you can use its ≥
menu to choose a degree of zoom from 50 to 400 percent—or choose Custom to
type anything in between.
Online Photos
Internet Explorer is loaded with features for handling graphics online. Right-clicking
an image on a Web page, for example, produces a shortcut menu that offers com-
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mands like Save Picture As, E-mail Picture, Print Picture, and Set as Background
(that is, wallpaper).
Tip: To turn off IE’s picture-shrinking feature, choose ToolsÆInternet Options. Click the Advanced tab, scroll
down to the Multimedia heading, and then turn off “Enable automatic image resizing.” Click OK.
By the way, when you see a picture you’d like to keep, right-click it and choose Save
Picture As from the shortcut menu. After you name the picture and then click the
Save button, the result is a new graphics file on your hard drive containing the picture
you saved. (You can also choose Set as Background, which makes the picture part of
your desktop image itself.)
Saving Pages
You can make Internet Explorer store a certain Web page on your hard drive so that
you can peruse it later—on your laptop during your commute, for example.
The short way is to choose PageÆSave As. For greatest simplicity, choose “Web Ar-
chive, single file (*.mht)” from the “Save as type” drop-down list. (The other options
here save the Web page as multiple files on your hard drive—a handy feature if you
intend to edit them, but less convenient if you just want to read them later.) Name
the file and click the Save button. You’ve just preserved the Web page as a file on your
hard drive, which you can open later by double-clicking it.
Sending Pages
Internet Explorer provides two different ways of telling a friend about the page you’re
looking at. You might find that useful when you come across a particularly interesting
news story, op-ed piece, or burrito recipe.
Hiding in the Page menu are commands that let you e-mail the page to someone,
email only the link to it, or send it to your Windows Live blog or Hotmail account
(E-mail with Windows Live).
Tip: If the email options are dimmed and unavailable, it means that Internet Explorer thinks you haven’t
officially chosen your email program yet. Use the “Set program access and computer defaults” to specify
your email program as described on page 249.
Accelerators
Accelerators, new in Internet Explorer 8, are time-saving commands that process
selected Web text in useful ways. Highlight an address: An accelerator can show you
where it is on a map. Highlight a sentence or paragraph in another language: An ac-
celerator can translate it into your language. Highlight a term you want to look up
online: An accelerator feeds it directly to Google or Bing. And so on.
Better yet, accelerators are a kind of plug-in; you can add new ones as other people
write them.
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Note: The first time you open Internet Explorer, you’re asked if you want a starter set of accelerators installed.
If you decline them at that time, you can always install them (or a different set) later, as described below.
How to use an accelerator
When you see some text that you want to map, define, translate, or otherwise process
with one of your accelerators, highlight it. When you point to the highlighted text,
the little Accelerator icon (A) appears at the corner of the selection. Click it to see
the menu of accelerators (Figure 11-12).
As you can see in the figure, some accelerators reveal their goodies when you just
point to their names. That’s handy, since you don’t lose your place on the Web. Other
times, you have to click the accelerator’s name, which takes you to a different Web
page containing the desired info.
Here’s what the starter accelerators do:
•Blog with Windows Live. This option appears if you’ve installed the Windows Live
Essentials described at the beginning of Chapter 7. When you click this accelera-
tor’s name, you flip to your Windows Live blog site, where the highlighted text is
auto-pasted into a new post, quotation style, so you can comment on it.
•Email with Windows Live. Again, this option appears if you’ve installed the Essen-
tials. The accelerator sends the highlighted text into a new, outgoing email message.
Great for little “I told you so” notes! (“According to this article, I was right about
the Steelers’ starting lineup in 1973!”)
Figure 11-12:
Click the Accel-
erator icon to
see this menu.
You can point
to one without
clicking to view
a preview of
the results
(like this map);
sometimes, as
with a diction-
ary definition,
that’s all you
need to do.
Other times,
click the accel-
erator’s name
to trigger its
magic.
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•Search with Bing/Search with Google. Copies the selected text into the Bing or
Google Search box—and actually performs the search for you.
•Map with Bing. If you’ve highlighted a street address, this opens up the Bing maps
site and shows you the address on a map.
•Translate with Bing. Sends the highlighted text to the Bing translation Web site.
Use the pop-up menus there to specify what languages you want the text translated
from and to. (Keep in mind that it’s a computer, not a person; there may be some
goofy words and phrases in the automated translation.)
Turning off accelerators
If you find your shortcut menu of accelerators cluttered by commands you never use,
you can turn them off. Highlight some text, click the Accelerator button (A), and
then choose All AcceleratorsÆManage Accelerators. Click the one you’re tired of, and
then click either Disable or Remove.
Adding more accelerators
The starter accelerators are only the beginning; you can install a world of additional
ones.
Choose ToolsÆ“Manage Add-ons,” click Accelerators (in the “Add-on Types” column),
and then click Find More Accelerators (bottom of the screen).
On the site that appears, you find additional accelerators that send the selected text to
Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, LinkedIn, Hotmail, Bing Shopping, Digg, eBay, Facebook
search, a dictionary, and on and on. Click Add to Internet Explorer for each one you
want to try out.
Tip: A lot of these features duplicate one another. There’s Yahoo Maps, Bing Maps, Google Maps, and so
on. That’s why, when you add a new accelerator in an existing category, the confirmation box offers a “Make
this my default provider for the Accelerator Category” option. Turn it on to make that your main Maps op-
tion, for example.
If you have several accelerators in a single category, you can always get to the nondefault ones by choosing
All Accelerators from the Accelerator (A) shortcut menu.
Later, you can always change the default option for each category in the Manage Accelerators box described
previously.
Happy accelerating!
Printing Pages
The decade of chopped-off printouts is over. In IE8, when you press Ctrl+P or choose
Print (the little printer icon), all the page’s text is auto-shrunk to fit within the page.
Tip: You can print only part of a page, too. Drag through the portion you want, press Ctrl+P, click Selection,
and then click Print.
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Better yet, if you choose Print Preview from the little printer icon, you get a handsome
preview of the end result. The icons in the Print Preview window include buttons
like these:
• Portrait, Landscape (Alt+O, Alt+L) controls the page orientation: upright or
sideways.
• Turn headers and footers on or off (Alt+E) hides or shows the header (the text at
the top of the printout, which usually identifies the name of the Web site you’re
printing and the number of pages) and the footer (the URL of the Web page and
the date).
• View Full Width (Alt+W) blows up the preview to fill your screen, even if it means
you have to scroll down to see the whole page. (This option has no effect on the
printout itself.)
• View Full Page (Alt+1) restores the original view, where the entire print preview
is shrunk down to fit your screen.
• The 1 Page View pop-up menu governs how many pages fit in the preview window
at a time.
• The Change Print Size pop-up menu affects the size of the image on the printed
pages. Shrink to Fit adjusts the printout so that it won’t be chopped off, but you
can manually magnify or reduce the printed image by choosing the other percent-
age options in this menu.
Tip: Lots of Web sites have their own “Print this Page” buttons. When they’re available, use them instead
of Internet Explorer’s own Print command. The Web site’s Print feature not only makes sure the printout
won’t be chopped off, but it also eliminates ads, includes the entire article (even if it’s split across multiple
Web pages), and so on.
Faster Browsing Without Graphics
Sure, sure, graphics are part of what makes the Web so
compelling. But they’re also responsible for making Web
pages take so long to arrive on the screen. Without them,
Web pages appear almost instantaneously. You still get fully
laid-out Web pages; you still see all the text and headlines.
But wherever a picture would normally be, you see an
empty rectangle containing a generic “graphic goes here”
logo, usually with a caption explaining what that graphic
would have been.
To turn off graphics, choose ToolsÆInternet Options, which
opens the Internet Options dialog box. Click the Advanced
tab, scroll halfway down into the list of checkboxes, and
turn off “Show pictures” (in the Multimedia category of
checkboxes).
Now try visiting a few Web pages. You should feel a
substantial speed boost, especially if you’re connected by
dial-up modem.
And if you wind up on a Web page that’s nothing without
its pictures, you can still summon them individually. Just
right-click a picture’s box and choose Show Picture from
the shortcut menu.
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Turn Off Animations
If blinking ads make it tough to concentrate as you read a Web-based article, choose
ToolsÆInternet OptionsÆAdvanced tab, and then scroll down to the Multimedia
heading. Turn off “Play animations in web pages” to stifle most animated ads. Alas,
it doesn’t stop all animations; the jerks of the ad-design world have grown too clever
for this option.
Take a moment, too, to look over the other annoying Web page elements that you
can turn off, including sounds.
Internet Options
Internet Explorer’s Options dialog box offers roughly 68,000 tabs, buttons, and nested
dialog boxes. Most of the useful options have been described, in this chapter, with their
appropriate topics (like Tabbed Browsing). Still, by spending a few minutes adjust-
ing Internet Explorer’s settings, you can make it more fun (or less annoying) to use.
To open this cornucopia of options, choose ToolsÆInternet Options (Figure 11-13).
Figure 11-13:
Choosing ToolsÆInternet Options opens
this dialog box, the identical twin of the
Internet Options program in the Control
Panel. Two of its tabs are shown here.
Double-click one of the headings (like
“Accessibility”) to collapse all of its check-
boxes. Your sanity is the winner here.
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The Keyboard Shortcut Master List
All Versions
Before you set off into the Internet Explorer sunset, it’s worth admitting that surf-
ing the Web is one of the things most people do most with their PCs. And as long as
you’re going to spend so much time in this single program, it’s worth mastering its
keyboard shortcuts. Once you’ve learned a few, you save yourself time and fumbling.
Here it is, then: the complete master list of every Internet Explorer keyboard shortcut
known to Microsoft. Clip and save.
Viewing
Full Screen mode (on/off) F11
Cycle through links on a page Tab
Search the text on a page Ctrl+F
Open the current page in a new window Ctrl+N
Print this page Ctrl+P
Select all items on the page Ctrl+A
Zoom in/out by 10 percent Ctrl+plus, Ctrl+minus
Zoom to 100% Ctrl+0
Override pop-up blocker Ctrl+Alt
Shut up this page’s background sounds Esc
Bars and menus
Highlight the address bar Alt+D
Open URL in the address bar in a new tab Alt+Enter
View previously typed addresses F4
Highlight the information bar Alt+N
Open Home menu Alt+M
Open Feeds menu Alt+J
Open Print menu Alt+R
Open Page menu Alt+P
Open Tools menu Alt+O
Open Help menu Alt+L
Open Favorites menu Alt+C, Ctrl+I
Open Favorites in pinned mode (won’t auto-close) Ctrl+Shift+I
Organize Favorites dialog box Ctrl+B
Open Feeds list Ctrl+J
Open Feeds in pinned mode Ctrl+Shift+J
Open History Ctrl+H
Open History in pinned mode Ctrl+Shift+H Add http://www.
Add http://www. and .com to the text in address bar Ctrl+Enter
Add http://www. and .net or .org to the text in address bar Ctrl+Shift+Enter
Tip: To set up this last trick, open ToolsÆInternet OptionsÆGeneral tabÆLangauges. In the Suffix box, enter
whatever suffix you want IE to insert when you press Ctrl+Shift+Enter: .org, .net, .edu, .jp, or whatever you like.
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426 windows 7: the missing manual
Navigation
Scroll down a screenful Space bar (or Page Down)
Scroll up a screenful Shift+space bar
(or Page Up)
Go to home page Alt+Home
Go back a page Alt+<
Go forward a page Alt+>
Refresh page F5
Super refresh (ignore any cached elements) Ctrl+F5
Stop downloading this page Esc
Open link in a new window Shift+click
Add current page to Favorites Ctrl+D
“Right-click” any highlighted item Shift+F10
Search bar
Highlight the Search bar Ctrl+E
Open list of search services Ctrl+.
Open search results in new tab Alt+Enter
Tabbed browsing
Open link in new background tab Ctrl-click*
Open link in new foreground tab Ctrl+Shift+click (left or
middle button)
Close tab (closes window if only one tab is open) Ctrl+W, Ctrl+F4*
Quick Tab view Ctrl+Q
Open new empty tab Ctrl+T
View list of open tabs Ctrl+Shift+Q
Switch to next tab Ctrl+Tab
Switch to previous tab Ctrl+Shift+Tab
Switch to tab #1, #2, etc. Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, etc.
Switch to last tab Ctrl+9
* or scroll wheel–click, or middle button–click
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Windows Live Mail
Email is a fast, cheap, convenient communication medium; these days, it’s
almost embarrassing to admit you don’t have an email address. To spare you
that humiliation, Microsoft offer you Windows Live Mail. It’s a renamed,
revamped version of the program that, through the years, has been called Windows
Mail and Windows Live Desktop Mail. It lets you receive and send email and read
The “Windows Live” in Windows Live Mail
If you downloaded Windows Live Essentials, then you prob-
ably have a free Windows Live account (a Windows Live ID,
in other words). But in Mail’s case, “Windows Live” isn’t just
a name; the program really does hook into Microsoft’s vast
Windows Live suite of services.
For example, if you’re signed into Windows Live when you’re
using Mail, you can pull off some nifty stunts:
You can send huge photo files as attachments—files that
would ordinarily be too big for email. But although your
friends will receive only thumbnail-sized images, the email
they get contains “Play slideshow” and “Download picture”
links that take them to the full-size versions on the Windows
Live Web site. (The thumbnail link remains live for 30 days.)
When you click Contacts (lower-left corner of Mail), you
see your email address book—but if any of your Windows
Messenger chat partners are online, special icons let you
know. Sometimes a quick live chat is better than an email
exchange. (If you’re not signed into Windows Live, you just
see the address book that’s stored on your PC.)
You can place voice calls or send text messages to cellphones,
right from within Mail.
Mail can show you your Windows Live online calendars.
So how do you sign into Windows Live? By clicking “Sign in”
(upper-right corner of the screen), of course!
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Setting Up
Windows Mail
newsgroups (Internet bulletin boards), and it’s also the only calendar program you
get in Windows 7.
If you do have an email address, or several, Mail can help you manage your email
accounts, messages, and contacts better than ever.
Now, Mail doesn’t exactly come with Windows 7; the lawyers saw to that. But it is part
of the free, easy-to-download Windows Live Essentials suite (page 265), so you have
very little excuse for not having an email program.
Note: In trying to make Mail look less threatening, Microsoft has chosen to hide the usual menu bar (File,
Edit, View, and so on). The menus reappear temporarily when you tap the Alt key. But you’ll use them so
often, it’s probably better to make the menus appear all the time. To do that, press Alt+M twice. (Or choose
“Show menu bar” from the Menus button, which is right next to the Help icon on the toolbar.)
This chapter assumes that you have, in fact, made the menus visible—for good.
Setting Up Windows Mail
All Versions
To start up Mail for the first time, you can use either of the two standard Windows
methods:
•The long, mousy way. Choose StartÆAll ProgramsÆMicrosoft Live EssentialsÆ
Windows Live Mail.
Figure 12-1:
To set up an email account in
Windows Mail, start by filling in
the Display Name. This is the
name people will see when you
send them email, in the “From:”
field. It does not have to be the
same as your email address;
it can be your full name, a
nickname, or anything you like.
When you’re done, click Next to
continue.
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Setting Up
Windows Mail
•The quick, keyboard way. Open the Start menu (press the w key), type mail, and
press Enter when you see Windows Live Mail highlighted.
Either way, you’ll find that setting up your account is a lot easier than it once was. If
you had Outlook Express or Windows Mail on your PC, Windows Live Mail imports
everything automatically: mail, address book, calendar, account settings. You’re ready
to start doing email.
If not, it’s fairly easy to enter your email settings information for the first time. Mi-
crosoft has rounded up the acronym-laden server settings for all the common email
services—Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Comcast, and so on—and built them right in.
All you have to do is type your email name and password into the box (Figure 12-
1). If Mail recognizes the suffix (for example, @gmail.com), then it does the heavy
lifting for you.
Now, if you use a service provider that Mail doesn’t recognize when you type in your
name and password—you weirdo!—then you have to set up your mail account the long
way. Mail prompts you along, and you confront a dialog box where you’re supposed
to type in various settings to specify your email account. Some of the information
may require a call to your Internet service provider (ISP).
Note: If you used the Easy Transfer Wizard (page 830) to bring over your files and settings from an older
PC, then Windows Mail is probably already set up quite nicely. If that’s the case, skip to the next section.
POP, IMAP, and Web-based Mail
When it comes to email, there are three flavors of accounts:
POP (also known as POP3), IMAP (also known as IMAP4),
and Web-based. Each has its own distinct feeling, with dif-
ferent strengths and weaknesses.
POP accounts are the most common. A POP server transfers
your incoming mail to your hard drive before you read it,
and then deletes the original copies on the Internet. From
now on, those messages live on your computer, and it’s up
to you to save them, back them up, or delete them. (You
can configure Mail not to delete the messages from the
server, but most ISPs don’t give you much disk space. If
your mailbox gets too full, the server may begin rejecting
your incoming messages.)
IMAP servers are newer than, and have more features than,
POP servers, but as a result, they’re not quite as common.
IMAP servers are Internet computers that store all your mail
for you, rather than making you download it each time you
connect. The benefit? You can access the same mail regard-
less of which computer you use. IMAP servers remember
which messages you’ve read and sent, too.
One downside to this approach, of course, is that you can’t
work with your email except when you’re online, because
all your mail is on an Internet server, not on your hard drive.
And if you don’t conscientiously delete mail manually after
you’ve read it, your online mailbox eventually overflows.
Sooner or later, the system starts bouncing fresh messages
back to their senders, annoying your friends and depriving
you of the chance to read what they have to say.
Free Web-based servers like Hotmail also store your mail on
the Internet. You can use a Web browser on any computer
to read and send messages; then again, most POP accounts
these days offer that feature, too. Web email is slower and
more cumbersome to use than “regular” email accounts.
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430 windows 7: the missing manual
Click Next to step through the wizard’s interview process, during which you’ll provide
the following information:
•Incoming mail server details. Enter the information your ISP provided about its
mail servers: the type of server (POP3, IMAP, or HTTP), the name of the incom-
ing mail server, and the name of the outgoing mail server. Most of the time, the
incoming server’s name is connected to the name of your ISP. It might be pop.
gmail.com, for example, or mail.comcast.net.
The outgoing mail server (the SMTP server) usually looks something like smtp.
gmail.com or smtp.comcast.net.
•Security settings. All that stuff about “This server requires a secure connection”
and “requires authentication”? You’ll never guess it. Contact your ISP (or its Web
pages, which almost always include these details).
When you click Next, if all is well, you get a congratulations message, and then you
return to the main Mail screen, where your latest messages come flooding in auto-
matically (Figure 12-2).
After a moment, you see that Mail has created a folder representing your email account
in the list at the left side, complete with subfolders like Inbox, Drafts, and Sent Items.
Figure 12-2:
Windows Live Mail
has pretty much
the same design as
every other email
program: mail
folders on the left,
toolbar up top, list
of messages on the
upper right, the cur-
rently highlighted
message contents
below. (You can
also opt for a
center message list,
and a right-side
pane showing the
message itself;
choose ViewÆLay-
out.)
To sort the message
list, click a column
heading: From,
Subject, and so on.
Yoou can rearrange
or adjust the widths
of the columns, too.
Setting Up
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To add another email account, click “Add e-mail account” at the bottom of the folder
list at the left side of the window. The wizard you worked through previously reap-
pears. You’ve just met a great feature of Mail: It can manage a bunch of different email
accounts all in one place.
Tip: If you want to import a stash of mail from an older email program, like Outlook Express, choose
FileÆImportÆMessages.
Sending Email
Whenever you want to receive and send new mail, you use the Sync command (which,
in most email programs, would be called Send & Receive).
Note: In all the instructions having to do with email, this chapter assumes that you’ve clicked Mail in the list of
modules at the lower-left corner of the Mail window. Not Calendar, not Contacts; Mail. (Pressing Shift+Ctrl+J
also selects the Mail module.)
You can trigger the Sync command in three ways:
• Click the Sync button on the toolbar (Figure 12-3).
• Press Ctrl+M.
• Or press F5.
Tip: You can set up Mail to check your email accounts automatically according to a schedule. Choose
ToolsÆOptions. On the General tab, you see the “Check for new messages every __ minutes” checkbox,
which you can change to your liking.
Now Mail retrieves new messages and sends any outgoing messages.
In the second column on your screen, the names of new messages show up in bold
type; in the “Quick views” list at the left side of the window, parentheses show how
many unread messages are waiting in each folder.
Figure 12-3:
The Sync button is on the toolbar. The arrow beside it lets
you choose which mail you’d like to get, if you don’t want
to check all your accounts.
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432 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: Mail can, at your command, group your inbox into conversations or threads, meaning that related back-
and-forths on a certain subject, with a certain person, appear as a single item marked by a flippy triangle (˘).
Click that triangle to expand the listing, showing all the individual messages within that flurry of communication.
To make this happen, choose ViewÆ“View by conversation,” so that a checkmark appears.
Mail Folders in Windows Mail
At the left side of the screen, Mail organizes your email into folders. To see what’s in
a folder, click it once:
•Inbox holds mail you’ve received.
•Outbox holds mail you’ve written but haven’t sent yet.
•Sent Items holds copies of messages you’ve sent.
•Deleted Items holds mail you’ve deleted. (There’s a separate Deleted folder for
each account.) It works a lot like the Recycle Bin, in that messages placed there
don’t actually disappear. Instead, they remain in the Deleted Items folder, await-
ing rescue if you opt to retrieve them. To empty this folder, right-click it and then
choose “Empty ‘Deleted Items’ Folder” from the shortcut menu.
Tip: To make the folder empty itself every time you exit Mail, choose ToolsÆOptions, click the Advanced
tab, and then click the Maintenance button. From the Maintenance dialog box, turn on “Empty messages
from the ‘Deleted Items’ folder on exit.”
•Drafts holds messages you’ve started but haven’t finished—and don’t want to
send just yet.
•Junk E-Mail holds messages deemed as junk (spam) by Mail’s Junk E-Mail Protec-
tion. (More about that later.)
Checking a Specific Email Account
You don’t have to check all your email accounts whenever
you want to get mail. To check just one particular account,
click the ≥ beside the Sync button and choose that account’s
name from the pop-up menu.
But what if you never want all accounts checked? What
if you want to leave out one particular account from the
automated periodic checking, so that you get its mail only
when you ask for it?
Excluding an account (or several accounts) from the “Send
and receive all” routine is easy enough. Open the Accounts
window (ToolsÆAccounts), select the account to turn off,
and then click Properties. Turn off “Include this account when
receiving mail or synchronizing,” click OK, and, finally, close
the Accounts window.
Now you’ll see that account’s mail only when you manually
request it from the Sync pop-up menu.
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You can also add to this list, creating folders for your own organizational pleasure—
Family Mail, Work Mail, or whatever. See page 442.
Composing and Sending Messages
To send a message, click New on the toolbar (or press Ctrl+N). The New Message
form opens (Figure 12-4).
Tip: You can also start writing a message by clicking Contacts (lower left). In the Contacts window (page
437), click the person’s name, and then click E-Mail on the toolbar. A blank, outgoing piece of mail appears,
already addressed to the person whose name you clicked.
Come to think of it, it’s faster to hit Ctrl+N.
The Mighty Morphing Interface
You don’t have to be content with the factory-installed design
of the Mail screen; you can control which panes are visible,
how big they are, and which columns show up in List views.
To change the size of a pane, drag its border to make it larger
or smaller, as shown here.
There’s also a vast array of layout options hiding in the
ViewÆLayout command.
For example, you can control
where the Preview pane ap-
pears: under the message
list, as usual, or to its right—a
great arrangement if you
have a very wide screen.
You can show one-line or
two-line previews. You can
make “Storage folders” appear in the folder list (that is, fold-
ers that hold messages on your PC, as opposed to the Web-
based folders from a Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail account).
Mail lets you decide what columns are displayed in the List
pane. For example, if you don’t particularly care about see-
ing the Flag column, you can hide it, leaving more space for
the Subject and Received columns. To switch columns on or
off, choose from the list in the ViewÆColumns dialog box.
You can also rearrange the columns, which can be handy
if you’d rather see the Subject column first instead of the
sender, for example. Just drag the column’s name header
horizontally; release when the vertical dotted line is where
you want the column to wind up. To make a column wider or
narrower, drag the short black divider line between column
names horizontally, much the way you’d resize a folder
window List view column.
Finally, about that toolbar—
the one with plain-English
words like New, Reply, For-
ward, and so on—you can
customize it. You can get
rid of the commands you
never use (or the commands
you’ve learned the keyboard
shortcuts for), and add ones that you do use but that don’t
appear at first (like Print).
To do it, use the Menu menu (to the left of the Help icon
on the toolbar); choose “Customize toolbar.” In the result-
ing dialog box, you can use the ¯ and ˘ buttons to move
the missing but available buttons (left list) onto the toolbar
(right list). You can even specify their relative left-to-right
positions on the toolbar by clicking, nonobviously enough,
the ≥ and ≤ buttons.
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Composing the message requires several steps:
1. Type the email address of the recipient into the “To:” field.
If you want to send a message to more than one person, separate their email ad-
dresses using commas or semicolons, like this: bob@earthlink.net; billg@microsoft.
com; steve@apple.com.
As you begin typing the person’s plain-English name, the program attempts to
guess who you mean (if it’s somebody in your Contacts list)—and fills in the email
address automatically to save you typing.
If it guesses the correct name, great; press Tab to move on to the next text box. If it
guesses wrong, just keep typing. The program quickly retracts its suggestion and
watches what you type next.
Tip: You can also click the tiny book icon next to the “To:” box to open your Contacts list; double-click a
name to address your message.
As usual in Windows dialog boxes, you can jump from blank to blank in this window
(from the “To:” field to the “Subject:” field, for example) by pressing the Tab key.
Note: If you have more than one email account, use the “From:” pop-up menu to specify which you want
to use for sending this message.
2. To send a copy of the message to other recipients, enter the additional email
address(es) in the “Cc:” field.
Figure 12-4:
In the New Message
window, type the name
of your message’s
recipients, separated by
commas or semicolons,
in the “To:” field. If
Windows Mail doesn’t
automatically complete
the name for you (by
consulting your ad-
dress book and recent
recipients list)—or even
present multiple-choice
matches—click Check
Names.
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Cc stands for carbon copy. There’s very little difference between putting all your
addressees on the “To:” line (separated by commas or semicolons) and putting
them on the “Cc:” line. The only difference is that using the “Cc:” line implies, “I
sent you a copy because I thought you’d want to know about this correspondence,
but I’m not expecting you to reply.”
To make the Cc (and Bcc; see box below) lines appear, click “Show Cc & Bcc,” a
link that appears to the right of the Subject line.
Press Tab when you’re finished.
3. Type the topic of the message in the “Subject:” field.
It’s courteous to put some thought into the Subject line. (For example, use “Change
in plans for next week” instead of “Hi.”)
Press the Tab key to move your cursor into the message area.
4. Format the message, if you like.
When it comes to formatting a message’s body text, you have two choices: plain
text or HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).
Plain text means you can’t format your text with bold type, color, specified font
sizes, and so on. HTML, on the other hand, is the language used to create Web
pages, and it lets you use formatting commands (such as font sizes, colors, and
bold or italic text).
But there’s a catch: HTML mail is much larger, and therefore slower to down-
load, than plain-text messages. Certain Internetters remain fairly hostile toward
heavily formatted email. Plain text tends to feel more professional, never irritates
anybody—and you’re guaranteed that the recipient will see exactly what was sent.
Blind Carbon Copies
A Bcc: or blind carbon copy is a secret copy. This feature
lets you send a copy of a message to somebody secretly,
without any of the other recipients knowing. The names in
the “To:” and “Cc:” fields appear at the top of the message
for all recipients to see, but nobody can see the names you
typed into the “Bcc:” box. To view this box, choose ViewÆAll
Headers in the New Message window.
You can use the “Bcc:” field to quietly signal a third party
that a message has been sent. For example, if you send
your coworker a message that says, “Chris, it bothers me
that you’ve been cheating the customers,” you could Bcc
your boss or supervisor to clue her in without getting into
trouble with Chris.
The Bcc box is useful in other ways, too. Many people send
email messages (containing jokes, for example) to a long list
of recipients. You, the recipient, must scroll through a very
long list of names the sender placed in the “To:” or “Cc:” field.
But if the sender uses the “Bcc:” field to hold all the recipi-
ents’ email addresses, then you, the recipient, won’t see any
names but your own at the top of the email. (Unfortunately,
spammers—the miserable cretins who send you junk mail—
have also learned this trick.)
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To specify which format Windows Mail proposes for all new messages (plain text
or HTML), choose ToolsÆOptionsÆSend tab. Next, in the section labeled Mail
Sending Format, choose either the HTML or Plain Text button, and then click OK.
No matter which setting you specify there, however, you can always switch a par-
ticular message you’re writing to the opposite format. Just choose FormatÆRich
Text (HTML), or FormatÆPlain Text.
Whenever you’re creating a formatted HTML message, the HTML toolbar’s vari-
ous buttons control the formatting, font, size, color, paragraph indentation, line
spacing, and other word processor–like formatting controls (Figure 12-5).
Just remember: Less is more. If you go hog wild formatting your email, the message
may be difficult to read, especially if you also apply stationery (a background).
5. Enter the message in the message box (the bottom half of the message window).
You can use all standard editing techniques, including Cut, Copy, and Paste, to
rearrange the text as you write it.
Tip: If Microsoft Word is installed on your PC, you can also spell check your outgoing mail. Just choose
ToolsÆSpelling (or press F7) in the New Message window.
6. Add a signature, if you wish.
Signatures are bits of text that get stamped at the bottom of outgoing email mes-
sages. They typically contain a name, a mailing address, or a Star Trek quote.
Figure 12-5:
When you’re compos-
ing an email using the
HTML format, the New
Message window gives
you options for choosing
fonts, formatting options
like bold, italic, and
underline, and colors
(from a handy color
palette).
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To create a signature, choose ToolsÆOptionsÆSignatures tab; click the New but-
ton. The easiest way to compose your signature is to type it into the Edit Signatures
text box at the bottom of the window. (If you poke around long enough in this
box, you’ll realize that you can actually create multiple signatures—and even assign
each one to a different outgoing email account.)
Once you’ve created a signature (or several), you can tack it onto your outgoing
mail for all messages (by turning on “Add signatures to all outgoing messages”
at the top of this box) or on a message-by-message basis (press Shift+Ctrl+S, or
choose InsertÆSignature).
7. Click the Send button.
Alternatively, press Alt+S, or Ctrl+Enter. Your PC connects to the Internet and
sends the message.
Tip: If you seem to be able to receive mail but can’t send it, your Internet service provider might require
Mail to log into its server before sending email. To try that approach, first click ToolsÆAccounts. From
there, click your account’s name, and then open the PropertiesÆServers tab. Turn on “My server requires
authentication.” Click OK and then Close.
If you’re working offline, you might prefer Mail to place each message you write in
the Outbox folder, saving them up until you click the Sync button on the toolbar; see
“Send Tab,” on page 451.
The Contacts List
Accumulating names in a Contacts list eliminates the need to enter complete email
addresses whenever you want to send a message. Click the Contacts button (lower
left of the window), or press Ctrl+Shift+B; then, to begin adding names and email
addresses, click New Contact.
Tip: Windows Mail offers a convenient timesaving feature: the ToolsÆ”Add contact”ÆSender (or “Add
contact”Æ”Everyone on the To line”) command. Whenever you choose it, Mail automatically stores the email
address of the person whose message is open on the screen. (Alternatively, you can right-click an email
address in a list of messages and choose “Add sender to contacts” from the shortcut menu.)
Attaching Files to Messages
Sending little text messages is fine, but it’s not much help when you want to send
somebody a photograph, a sound recording, a Word or Excel document, and so on.
Fortunately, attaching such files to email messages is one of the world’s most popular
email features.
To attach a file to a message, use either of two methods:
•The long way. Click the Attach button on the New Message toolbar. Alternatively,
you could select InsertÆ“File as attachment.” When the Open dialog box appears,
locate the file and select it. (In the resulting navigation window, you can Ctrl+click
multiple files to attach them all at once.)
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Now the name of the attached file appears in the message, in the Attach text box.
When you send the message, the file tags along.
•The short way. If you can see the icon of the file you want to attach—in its folder
window behind the Mail window, on the Desktop, or wherever—then attach it
by dragging its icon directly into the message window. That’s a handy technique
when you’re attaching many different files.
Tip: To remove a file from an outgoing message before you’ve sent it, just click it and then press the Delete key.
Reading Email
All Versions
Just seeing a list of the names of new messages in Mail is like getting wrapped pres-
ents—the best part’s yet to come. There are two ways to read a message: using the
Preview pane, and opening the message into its own window.
To preview a message, click its name in the List pane; the body of the message appears
in the Preview pane below or to the right. Don’t forget that you can adjust the relative
sizes of the List and Preview panes by dragging the border between them up or down.
To open a message into a window of its own, double-click its name in the List pane.
An open message has its own toolbar, along with Previous and Next buttons.
Once you’ve read a message, you can view the next one in the list either by pressing
Ctrl+> (next message), by pressing Ctrl+U (next unread message), or by clicking its
name in the List pane. (If you’re using Preview mode and haven’t opened a message
into its own window, you can also press the , or . key to move from one message
to the next.)
Tip: To mark a message you’ve read as an unread message, so that its name remains bolded, right-click its
name in the List pane and then choose “Mark as unread” from the shortcut menu.
Here’s another timesaver: To hide all the messages you’ve already read, just choose
ViewÆ“Show or hide”Æ“Hide read messages.” Now only unread messages are vis-
ible in the selected folder. To bring the hidden messages back, choose ViewƓShow
or hide”Æ“Show all messages.”
When Pictures are Part of the Message
Sending pictures in email is a globally popular activity—but Mail doesn’t want you
to see them.
Mail comes set up to block images, because these images sometimes serve as “bugs”
that silently report back to the sender whether you received and opened the message.
At that point, the spammers know that they’ve found a live, working email address—
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and, better yet, a sucker who opens email from strangers. And presto, you’re on their
“safe senders” list, and the spam flood really begins.
You’ll know if pictures were meant to appear in the body of a message; see the strip
that appears at the top in Figure 12-6.
Figure 12-6:
To view blocked im-
ages in a message,
press F9, choose
ViewƔBlocked im-
ages,” or click “Show
images” in the yellow
strip above the mes-
sage. Or, to make Mail
quit blocking pictures
altogether, choose
ToolsÆOptionsÆ
Security; next, turn
off “Block images and
other external content
in HTML messages.”
Selecting Messages
In order to process a group of messages simultaneously—to
delete, move, or forward them, for example—you must first
master the art of multiple message selection.
To select two or more messages that appear consecutively in
your message list, click the first message, and then Shift+click
the last. Known as a contiguous selection, this trick selects
every message between the two that you clicked.
To select two or more messages that aren’t adjacent in
the list (that is, skipping a few messages between selected
ones), Ctrl+click the messages you want. Only the messages
you click get selected—no filling in of messages in between
this time.
After using either technique, you can also deselect messages
you’ve managed to highlight—just Ctrl+click them again.
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How to Process a Message
Once you’ve read a message and savored the feeling of awe brought on by the miracle
of instantaneous electronic communication, you can handle the message in any of
several ways.
Deleting messages
Sometimes it’s junk mail, sometimes you’re just done with it; either way, it’s a snap
to delete a message. Click the Delete button on the toolbar, press the Delete key, hit
Ctrl+D, or choose EditÆDelete. (You can also delete a batch of selected messages
simultaneously.)
The messages don’t actually disappear. Instead, they move to the Deleted Items folder
for that email account. If you like, click this folder to view a list of the messages you’ve
deleted. You can even rescue some simply by dragging them into another folder (even
right back into the Inbox).
Mail doesn’t truly vaporize messages in the Deleted Items folder until you “empty the
trash.” You can empty it in any of several ways:
• Right-click the Deleted Items folder. Choose “Empty ‘Deleted Items’ Folder” from
the shortcut menu.
• Click the X button to the right of the Deleted Items folder’s name.
• Click a message, or a folder, within the Deleted Items folder list and then click the
Delete button on the toolbar (or press the Delete key). You’re asked to confirm its
permanent deletion.
• Set up Mail to delete messages automatically when you quit the program. To do
so, choose ToolsÆOptionsÆAdvanced. Click the Maintenance button, and then
turn on “Empty messages from the ‘Deleted Items’ folder on exit.” Click OK.
Replying to Messages
To reply to a message, click the Reply button in the toolbar, or press Ctrl+R. Mail
creates a new, outgoing email message, preaddressed to the sender’s return address.
(If the message was sent to you and a few other people, and you’d like to reply to all
of them at once, click “Reply all” in the toolbar.)
To save additional time, Mail pastes the entire original message at the bottom of your
reply (either indented, if it’s HTML mail, or marked with the > brackets that serve
as Internet quoting marks); that’s to help your correspondent figure out what you’re
talking about.
Note: To turn off this feature, choose ToolsÆOptions, click the Send tab, and then turn off “Include mes-
sage in reply.”
Mail even tacks “Re:” (meaning “regarding”) onto the front of the subject line.
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Your insertion point appears at the top of the message box. Now, just begin typing
your reply. You can also add recipients, remove recipients, edit the subject line or the
message, and so on.
Tip: Use the Enter key to create blank lines within the bracketed original message in order to place your
own text within it. Using this method, you can splice your own comments into the paragraphs of the original
message, replying point by point. The brackets preceding each line of the original message help your corre-
spondent keep straight what’s yours and what’s hers. Also, if you’re using HTML formatting for the message,
you can format what you’ve written in bold, italic, underline, or even in another color for easier reading.
Forwarding Messages
Instead of replying to the person who sent you a message, you may sometimes want
to forward the message—pass it on—to a third person.
To do so, click Forward in the toolbar, choose MessageÆForward, or press Ctrl+F.
A new message opens, looking a lot like the one that appears when you reply. Once
again, before forwarding the message, you have the option of editing the subject or
the message. (For example, you may wish to precede the original message with a
comment of your own, along the lines of, “Frank: I thought you’d be interested in
this joke about Congress.”)
All that remains is for you to specify who receives the forwarded message. Just address
it as you would any outgoing piece of mail.
Printing Messages
Sometimes there’s no substitute for a printout of an email message—an area where
Mail shines. Choose FileÆPrint, or press Ctrl+P. The standard Windows Print dialog
box pops up so you can specify how many copies you want, what range of pages, and
so on. Make your selections, and then click Print.
About Mailing Lists
During your email experiments, you’re likely to come
across something called a mailing list—a discussion group
conducted via email. By searching Yahoo.com or other Web
directories, you can find mailing lists covering just about
every conceivable topic.
You can send a message to all members of such a group by
sending a message to a single address—the list’s address. The
list is actually maintained on a special mail server. Everything
sent to the list gets sent to the server, which forwards the
message to all the individual list members.
That’s why you have to be careful if you’re actually trying to
reply to one person in the discussion group; if you reply to
the list and not to a specific person, you’ll send your reply
to every address on the list—sometimes with disastrous
consequences.
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Filing Messages
Mail lets you create new folders in the Folders list; by dragging messages from your
Inbox onto one of these folder icons, you can file away your messages into appropri-
ate cubbies. You might create one folder for important messages, another for order
confirmations from shopping on the Web, still another for friends and family, and
so on. In fact, you can even create folders inside these folders, a feature beloved by
the hopelessly organized.
To create a new folder, see Figure 12-7.
Tip: To rename an existing folder, right-click it and choose Rename from the shortcut menu.
To move a message into a folder, proceed like this:
•Drag it out of the List pane and onto the folder icon. You can use any part of a
message’s “row” in the list as a handle. You can also drag messages en masse into
a folder after selecting them.
•Right-click a message (or one of several you’ve highlighted). From the shortcut
menu, choose “Move to folder.” In a dialog box, the folder list appears; select the
one you want, and then press Enter or click OK.
Figure 12-7:
To create a new folder, click FileÆFolderÆ
“Create new folder,” or press Shift+Ctrl+D,
or click the ≥ next to the New toolbar button
and choose Folder from the pop-up menu. No
matter which way you choose, this window
appears. Name the folder and then, by click-
ing, indicate which folder you want this one to
appear in. Usually, you want to click Storage
Folders (that is, not inside any other folder).
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Tip: When you click a ˘ triangle in the Folder list, you see all folders contained within that folder, exactly like
in Windows Explorer. You can drag folders inside other folders, nesting them to create a nice hierarchical folder
structure. (To drag a nested folder back into the list of “main” folders, just drag it to the Storage Folders icon.)
You can also drag messages between folders; just drag one from the message list onto the desired folder
at the left side of the screen.
This can be a useful trick when you apply it to a message in your Outbox. If you decide to postpone sending
it, drag it into any other folder. Windows Mail won’t send it until you drag it back into the Outbox.
Flagging Messages
Sometimes, you’ll receive an email message that prompts you to some sort of action,
but you may not have the time or the fortitude to face the task at the moment. (“Hi
there…it’s me, your accountant. Would you mind rounding up your expenses for
1996 through 2004 and sending me a list by email?”)
That’s why Mail lets you flag a message, positioning a small, red flag in the correspond-
ing column next to a message’s name. These little flags are visual indicators that mean
whatever you want them to mean. You can bring all flagged messages to the top of
the list by choosing ViewÆ“Sort by”ÆFlag, or by clicking the tiny flag icon in the
list of message columns.
To flag a message in this way, see Figure 12-8.
Opening Attachments
Just as you can attach files to a message, people can send files to you. You know when
a message has an attachment because a paper-clip icon appears next to its name in
the Inbox.
To free an attached file from its message, releasing it to the wilds of your hard drive,
use one of the following methods:
•Right-click the attachment’s name (in the message), select “Save as” from the
shortcut menu, and then specify a folder for the saved file (Figure 12-9).
Figure 12-8:
To flag a message, click in the Flag column. (That’s the short
way. The advantage of the long way—choosing ActionÆ“Flag
message”—is that you can flag a whole batch of selected mes-
sages that way.)
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• Double-click the attachment’s name. After you click Open to confirm the risk
(it’s always risky to open an email attachment), it opens right up in Word, Excel,
or whatever.
• If you’ve double-clicked the message so it appears in its own window, then drag
the attachment icon out of the message window and onto any visible portion of
your desktop.
Message Rules
Once you know how to create folders, the next step in managing your email is to set
up message rules. These are filters that can file, answer, or delete an incoming message
automatically based on its subject, address, or size.
Message rules require you to think like the distant relative of a programmer, but the
mental effort can reward you many times over. In fact, message rules can turn Mail
into a surprisingly smart and efficient secretary.
Setting up message rules
Now that you’re thoroughly intrigued about the magic of message rules, here’s how
to set one up:
1. Choose ToolsÆ“Message rules”ÆMail.
If you’ve never created a message rule, you see what’s shown in Figure 12-10. If you
have created message rules before, you see the Message Rules window first. Click
New to open the New Mail Rule window shown in Figure 12-10.
2. Use the top options to specify how Mail should select messages to process.
For example, if you’d like Mail to watch out for messages from a particular person,
you would choose, “Where the From line contains people.”
Figure 12-9:
One way to rescue an attachment from
an email message is to right-click its
name and choose “Save as.” You can
also drag an attachment’s icon onto your
desktop. Either way, you take the file out
of the Mail world and into your standard
Windows world, where you can file it,
trash it, open it, or manipulate it as you
would any file.
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To flag messages containing “loan,” “$$$$,” “XXX,” “!!!!,” and so on (favorites of
spammers), choose, “Where the Subject line contains specific words.”
If you turn on more than one checkbox, you can set up another condition for your
message rule. For example, you can set up the first criterion to find messages from
your uncle, and a second that watches for subject lines that contain “joke.” If you
click the Options button, you get to specify whether the message has to contain
all the words you’ve specified, or any of them.
3. Using the second set of checkboxes, specify what you want to happen to messages
that match the criteria.
If, in step 2, you told your rule to watch for messages from your uncle containing
the word “joke” somewhere in the message body, here’s where you can tell Mail to
delete or move the message into, say, a Spam folder.
With a little imagination, you’ll see how these checkboxes can perform absolutely
amazing functions with your incoming email. Windows Mail can delete, move,
or print messages; forward or redirect them to somebody; automatically reply to
certain messages; and even avoid downloading files bigger than a certain number
of kilobytes (ideal for laptop lovers on slow hotel room connections).
Figure 12-10:
Building a message rule entails
specifying which messages you
want Mail to look for—and what
to do with them. By adding the
underlined words, as shown here,
you specify what criteria you’re
looking for. Here, any email with
the words “Rolex,” “Refinance,”
or “Viagra” in the Subject line is
automatically deleted.
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4. Specify which words or people you want the message rule to watch out for.
In the bottom of the dialog box, you can click any of the underlined phrases to
specify which people, which specific words, which file sizes you want Mail to watch
out for—a person’s name, or “Viagra,” in the previous examples.
If you click “contains people,” for example, a dialog box appears that lets you open
your Contacts list to select certain individuals whose messages you want handled
by this rule. If you click “contains specific words,” you can type in the words you
want a certain rule to watch out for. And so on.
5. In the very bottom text box, name your mail rule. Click OK.
Now the Message Rules dialog box appears (Figure 12-11).
Tip: Windows Mail applies rules as they appear—from top to bottom—in the Message Rules window. If a rule
doesn’t seem to be working properly, it may be that an earlier rule is intercepting and processing the mes-
sage before the “broken” rule even sees it. To fix this, try moving the rule up or down in the list by selecting
it and then clicking the Move Up or Move Down buttons.
Two sneaky message-rules tricks
You can use message rules for many different purposes. But here are two of the best:
Figure 12-11:
Once a rule is created, it
lands in the Message Rules
window under the Mail tab.
Here, you can manage the
rules you’ve created, choose
a sequence for them (those
at the top get applied first),
and apply them to existing
messages (by clicking Apply
Now).
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•File mail from specific people. For instance, if you have a few friends who con-
stantly forward their idea of funny messages, create a rule that sends any email
from them to a specific folder automatically. At the end of the day, look through
the folder just to make sure you haven’t missed anything, and if you have time,
read the “most excellent funny emails in the whole wide world.”
•The email answering machine. If you’re going on vacation, turn on “For all mes-
sages” in step 2, and then “Reply with message” in step 3. In other words, you can
turn Windows Mail into an email answering machine that automatically sends a
canned “I’m away until the 15th” message to everyone who writes you.
Tip: Unsubscribe from, or turn off, any email mailing lists before you turn on “For all messages.” Otherwise,
you’ll incur the wrath of the other list members by littering their email discussion groups with copies of your
autoreply message.
Junk Email
All Versions
Mail’s Junk filter automatically channels what it believes to be spam into the “Junk
E-mail” folder in the folder list.
Canning Spam
Help! I’m awash in junk email! How do I get out of this mess?
Spam is a much-hated form of advertising that involves
sending unsolicited emails to thousands of people. While
there’s no instant cure for spam, you can take certain steps
to protect yourself from it.
1. Above all, never post your main e-mail address
online, ever. Use a different, dedicated email ac-
count for online shopping, Web site and software
registration, and newsgroup posting.
Spammers have automated software robots that
scour every Web page, automatically recording
email addresses they find. These are the primary
sources of spam, so at least you’re now restricting
the junk mail to one secondary mail account.
2. Even then, when filling out forms or registering
products online, look for checkboxes requesting
permission for the company to send you email
or share your email address with its “partners.”
Just say no.
3. When posting messages in a newsgroup, insert
the letters NOSPAM, SPAMISBAD, or something
similar somewhere into your email address.
Anyone replying to you via email must manually
remove it from your email address, which, though
a hassle, keeps your email address away from the
spammer’s robots. (They’re getting smarter every
day, though; a trickier insert may be required,
along the lines of REMOVETOEMAIL or SPAM-
MERSARESCUM.)
4. Create message rules to filter out messages con-
taining typical advertising words such as casino,
Rolex, herbal, and so forth. (Instructions are on
page 444.)
5. Buy an antispam program like SpamAssassin.
frequently asked question
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Tip: You may not have a “Junk E-mail” folder for Web-based email accounts like Gmail and Yahoo. Those
online mail services usually have their own spam filters.
The Junk filter’s factory setting is Low, meaning that only the most obvious spam gets
sent to the “Junk E-mail” folder. You’ll probably still get a ton of spam, but at least
almost no legitimate mail will get mistakenly classified as spam.
You can configure the level of security you want in the Junk E-Mail Options window,
shown in Figure 12-12.
Junk E-Mail Safety Options
Junk E-Mail Safety Options offers six tabs. The Options tab is shown in Figure 12-12.
These are the other tabs:
•Safe Senders. Messages from any contacts, email addresses, or domain names
that you add to this list are never treated as junk email. (A domain name is what
comes after the @ sign in an email address, as in bob@herbalviagra.com.) Click
Add to begin.
Tip: The two checkboxes below the list are also useful in preventing “false positives.” The first, “Also trust
e-mail from my Contacts,” means that anyone in your own address book is not a spammer. The second,
“Automatically add people I e-mail to the Safe Senders list,” means that if you send mail to somebody, it’s
someone you don’t consider a spammer.
Figure 12-12:
To visit this dialog box, choose
ToolsÆSafety Options. Choose No
Automatic Filtering, Low, High, or
Safe List Only. You can also opt
to permanently delete suspected
spam instead of moving it to the
Junk E-Mail folder. No matter what
setting you choose, though, always
go through the Junk E-Mail folder
every few days to make sure you
haven’t missed any important mes-
sages that were flagged as spam
incorrectly.
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•Blocked Senders. This one’s the flip side of Safe Senders: It’s a list of contacts, email
addresses, and domain names that you always want flagged as spam.
•International. You can also block email in foreign languages or messages that
originate overseas. (A huge percentage of spam originates overseas, since U.S.
antispam laws have no jurisdiction there.) See Figure 12-13.
•Phishing. For a complete description of phishing scams, see page 373. In brief,
phishing email is designed to look like it came from your bank, eBay, or PayPal—
but it’s a trick to get you to surrender your account information so the bad guys
can steal your identity.
Mail keeps phishing email out of your inbox unless you turn off this feature on
this tab.
•Security. This tab contains options for sending secure mail, using digital IDs, and
encryption. If you’re using Mail in a business that requires secure email, the system
administrator will provide instructions. Otherwise, you’ll find that most of these
settings have no effect.
The exceptions are the antivirus and antispam features, like “Do not allow attach-
ments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus” and “Block images,”
described earlier in this chapter. For best results, leave these settings as they are.
Figure 12-13:
If you find you’re getting email
from specific countries or domains,
you can select the top-level
domains (.ca for Canadian mail,
.uk for British mail, and so on) for
those countries. All email from
those domains now gets treated as
junk email.
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Tip: One of these options is very useful in the modern age: “Warn me when other applications try to send
mail as me.” That’s a thinly veiled reference to viruses that, behind the scenes, send out hundreds of infected
emails to everybody in your Contacts list, with you identified as the sender. This option ensures that if some
software—not you—tries to send messages, you’ll know about it.
When the Junk Filter Goes Wrong
Windows Live Mail doesn’t always get it right. It labels some good messages as junk,
and some spam messages as OK.
Over time, though, it’s supposed to get better—if you patiently help it along. Every
time you see a good piece of email in the “Junk E-mail” folder, click it, and then click
“Not junk” on the toolbar.
Better yet, use the ActionsÆ“Junk e-mail” submenu to choose one of these two op-
tions:
•Add sender to safe senders list. No future mail from this person will be misfiled.
•Add sender’s domain to safe senders list. No future mail from this person’s entire
company or ISP will be marked as spam.
On the other hand, you can reverse all this logic if you find a piece of spam in your
inbox. That is, click it and then click the Junk button on the toolbar.
You can also use the ActionsÆ“Junk e-mail”Æ“Add sender to blocked senders list”
(or “Add sender’s domain”); unfortunately, spammers rarely use the same address or
domain twice, so it’s probably faster just to hit the Delete key.
The World of Mail Settings
All Versions
Mail has enough features and configuration options to fill a very thick book. You can
see them for yourself by choosing ToolsÆOptions. Here’s a brief overview of some
of the most useful options (Figure 12-14).
General Tab
Most of the controls here govern what Mail does when you first open the program.
Take note of the options to connect automatically; you can opt to have Mail check for
messages every few minutes and then use the drop-down list to say how, and whether,
to connect at that time if you’re not already online.
Read Tab
Use these options to establish how the program handles messages in the Inbox. One
of these options marks a message as having been read—changing its typeface from
bold to nonbold—if you leave it highlighted in the list for 1 second or more, even
without opening it. That’s one option you may want to consider turning off. (This
tab is also where you choose the font you want to use for the messages you’re reading,
which is an important consideration.)
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Receipts Tab
You can add a return receipt to messages you send. When the recipient reads your
message, a notification message (receipt) is emailed back to you under two condi-
tions: if the recipient agrees to send a return receipt to you, and if the recipient’s email
program offers a similar feature. (Mail, Outlook, and Eudora all do.)
Send Tab
The options here govern outgoing messages. One option to consider turning off here
is the factory-set option “Send messages immediately.” That’s because as soon as you
click the Send button, Mail sends messages immediately, even if you haven’t had time
to fully consider the consequences of the rant inside it—aimed at an ex, a boss, or a
coworker—which could land you in hot water.
Tip: It’s also a good choice if you’re on a dial-up connection. All this dialing—and waiting for the dialing—drives
some people crazy, especially in households with only one phone line.
If you turn this option off, then clicking the Send button simply places a newly
written message into the Outbox. As you reply to messages and compose new ones,
Figure 12-14:
The Options dialog box has 10
tabs, each loaded with options.
Most tabs have buttons that open
additional dialog boxes. Coming in
2012: Windows Mail Options: The
Missing Manual.
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the Outbox collects them. They’re not sent until you click the Sync button, or press
Ctrl+M. Only at that point does Mail send your email.
Tip: To see the messages waiting in your outbox, click the Outbox icon at the left side of the screen. At this
point, you can click a message’s name (in the upper-right pane of the screen) to view the message itself in
the lower-right pane, exactly as with messages in your inbox.
Don’t bother to try editing an outgoing message in this way, however; Mail won’t let you do so. Only by
double-clicking a message’s name (in the upper-right pane), thus opening it into a separate window, can
you make changes to a piece of outgoing mail.
The Send tab also includes features for configuring replies. For example, you can
disable the function that includes the original message in the reply.
Finally, the “Automatically put people I reply to in my address book after the third
reply” option can be a real timesaver. It means that if somebody seems to have become
a regular in your life, his email address is automatically saved in your Contacts list. The
next time you want to write him a note, you won’t need to look up the address—just
type the first few letters of it in the “To:” box.
Tip: The option here called “Upload larger images to the Web when sending a photo e-mail” works if you
have signed into Windows Live, as described at the beginning of this chapter. It means you don’t have to
worry about photo file sizes; your big mama files will be “hosted” on the Windows Live site (for 30 days).
Your recipient gets a smaller version of the photos, which she can click to see or download the bigger ones.
Compose Tab
Here’s where you specify the font you want to use when writing messages and news-
group messages.
This is also the control center for stationery (custom-designed templates, complete
with fonts, colors, backgrounds, borders, and other formatting elements that you can
use for all outgoing email).
To choose a stationery style for all outgoing messages, turn on the Mail checkbox,
and then click the Select button. You’re offered a folder full of Microsoft stationery
templates; click one to see its preview. You can also click the Create New button,
which launches a wizard that walks you through the process of creating your own
background design.
Tip: You don’t have to use one particular stationery style for all outgoing messages. When composing a
message, use the Stationery pop-up menu to view the list of stationery templates. In other words, you can
choose one on a message-by-message basis.
Signatures Tab
Use this tab to design a signature for your messages (page 436). By clicking the New
button and entering more signature material in the text box, you can create several
different signatures: one for business messages, one for your buddies, and so on.
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To insert a signature into an outgoing message, choose InsertÆSignature, and then
choose from the list that appears.
Spelling Tab
The Spelling tab offers configuration options for the Mail spell-checking feature. You
can even force the spell checker to correct errors in the original message when you
send a reply, although your correspondent may not appreciate it.
Tip: Mail’s spelling checker is so smart, it’s supposed to be able to recognize the language of the message
and to use the appropriate spelling dictionary automatically.
Connection Tab
Here, you can tell Mail to hang up automatically after sending and receiving mes-
sages (and reconnect the next time you want to perform the same tasks). As noted
in the dialog box, though, Mail otherwise uses the same Internet settings described
in Chapter 9.
Advanced Tab
This tab is your housekeeping and settings center for Mail. You can configure what
you want Mail to do with your contacts’ vCards (virtual business cards), whether
you want to compose your replies at the bottom of emails instead of at the top, and
whether you want to mark message threads in newsgroups as “watched.”
Don’t miss the Maintenance button. It lets you clear out old deleted messages, clean
up downloads, purge newsgroup messages, and so on.
Calendar
All Versions
Windows 7 doesn’t come with a calendar program, not even the basic one that came
with Windows Vista. But there is a simple calendar built into Windows Live Mail.
Sometimes, its integration with Mail makes sense (like when potential appointments
come to you via email), and sometimes not so much (like when you have to fire up
Mail just to see what you’re doing on Thursday night).
It’s pretty basic—there’s no to-do list, no alarms, no subscribing to Web calendars.
On the other hand, all those features are available if you have a free Windows Live
account—and the online Windows Live calendar brings those features to the simple
one in Mail. Details to follow.
To open the calendar, click the Calendar button in the lower-left corner of the screen,
or choose GoÆCalendar, or press Shift+Ctrl+X.
Note: If you’ve upgraded to Windows 7 from Windows Vista, all your old Windows Calendar appointments
are automatically imported into Mail’s calendar. (It’s a one-time import, though; if you add more appoint-
ments to the old Windows Calendar app, they don’t make it into Mail’s calendar.)
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In many ways, this calendar is not so different from those “Hunks of the Midwestern
Police Stations” paper calendars people leave hanging on the walls for months past
their natural life spans. But this calendar offers several advantages over paper calen-
dars. For example:
• It can automate the process of entering repeating events, such as weekly staff
meetings or gym workout dates.
• The calendar can give you a gentle nudge (with a dialog box and a sound, if you
like) when an important appointment is approaching.
• Your Mail calendar is synced with your Windows Live online calendar. Make a
change on the Web calendar, you’ll find it changed on your PC, and vice versa.
Tip: Truth be told, the online calendar has even more features than this one. For example, the Windows
Live one has a to-do list, which the Mail calendar lacks.
• You can “subscribe” to calendars on the Internet, like the ones published by your
family members/classmates/baseball team members/downtrodden employees. For
example, you can subscribe to your spouse’s Google calendar, thereby finding out
if you’ve been committed to after-dinner drinks on the night the big game’s on TV.
Working with Views
When you open Calendar, you see something like Figure 12-15. By clicking the but-
tons on the toolbar (or pressing Ctrl+Alt+1, 2, or 3), you can switch among any of
these views:
•Day shows the appointments for a single day in the main calendar area, broken
down by time slot.
Tip: Calendar provides a quick way to get to the current day’s date: click “Go to today,” a link just below
the mini-month calendar at left.
•Week fills the main display area with seven columns, reflecting the current week.
•Month shows the entire current month. Double-click a date square or date number
to create a new appointment.
Tip: Your mouse’s scroll wheel can be a great advantage in this calendar. For example, when entering a
date, turning the wheel lets you jump forward or backward in time. It also lets you change the time zone
as you’re setting it.
Making an Appointment
The basic calendar is easy to figure out. After all, with the exception of one unfortunate
Gregorian incident, we’ve been using calendars successfully for centuries.
Even so, there are two ways to record a new appointment: a simple way and a more
flexible, elaborate way.
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The easy way
You can quickly record an appointment using any of several techniques:
• In any view, double-click a time slot on the calendar.
• In any view, right-click a date or a time slot, and then choose either “New event”
or “New all day event” from the shortcut menu.
• Click New on the toolbar.
• Press Ctrl+Shift+E (for event).
Figure 12-15:
Top: Week view. The
miniature navigation
calendar provides
an overview of
adjacent months.
You can jump to a
different week or
day by clicking the
triangle buttons and
then clicking within
the numbers. If the
event is recurring, it
bears an icon that
looks like two curly
arrows chasing each
other.
Bottom: Month view.
Pretty lame—you
don’t see what
time any appoint-
ment is for—but it’s
something. You can
make more room by
hiding the Naviga-
tion and/or Details
panes.
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Tip: In Day or Week view, drag vertically through the time slots for the appointment you’re trying to create
(10 a.m. down to 12:30 p.m., for example) before taking one of the steps above. That way, you’ve already
specified the start and end times, saving yourself a lot of tedious typing.
In each case, the New Event dialog box appears, where you type the details for your new
appointment. (In Month view, you can drag the entire appointment to a new date.)
The long way
The Details pane shown in Figure 12-16 contains all the information about a certain
appointment. Here, you can create far more specific appointments, decked out with
far more bells and whistles.
For each appointment, you can tab your way to the following information areas:
•Subject. That’s name of your appointment. For example, you might type, Fly to
Phoenix.
•Location. This field makes a lot of sense; if you think about it, almost everyone
needs to record where a meeting is to take place. You might type a reminder for
yourself like My place, a specific address like 212 East 23rd, or some other helpful
information like a contact phone number or flight number.
•Start, End. Most appointments have the same Start and End dates, thank heaven
(although we’ve all been in meetings that don’t seem that way). But you can click
the little calendar buttons to change the dates.
Figure 12-16:
You can open
this info pane
by double-
clicking any
appointment
on your
calendar.
It’s also the
window that
appears when
you create an
appointment.
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Tip: If you specify a different ending date, you get a banner across the relevant dates in the Month view.
Then set the start and end time for this appointment, either by using the pop-up
menu or by editing the text (like “9:30 a.m.”) with your mouse and keyboard.
•All day. An “all-day” event, of course, is something with no specific time of day
associated with it: a holiday, a birthday, a book deadline. When you turn on this
box, the name of the appointment jumps to the top of the daily- or weekly-view
screen, in the area reserved for this kind of thing.
•My Calendar. A calendar, in Microsoft’s confusing terminology, is a subset—a
category—into which you can place various appointments. You can create one for
yourself, another for whole-family events, another for book-club appointments,
and so on. Later, you’ll be able to hide and show these categories at will, adding or
removing them from the calendar with a single click. For details, read on.
Tip: Use this same pop-up menu to change an appointment’s category. If you filed something in Company
Memos that should have been in Sweet Nothings for Honey-Poo, open the event’s dialog box and reassign
it. Quick.
•No recurrence. The pop-up menu here contains common options for repeating
events: “Daily,” “Weekly,” and so on. It starts out saying “No recurrence.”
The somewhat goofy part is that if you choose any of those convenient commands
in the pop-up menu, the calendar assumes that you want to repeat this event every
day/week/month/year forever. You don’t get any way to specify an end date. You’ll
be stuck seeing this event repeating on your calendar until the end of time. That
may be a good choice for recording your anniversary, especially if your spouse
might be consulting the same calendar. But it’s not a feature for people who are
afraid of long-term commitments.
If you want the freedom to stop your weekly gym workouts or monthly car pay-
ments, choose Custom from the pop-up menu instead.
The dialog box that appears offers far more control over how this event repeats
itself. You can make the repeating stop after a certain number of times, which is a
useful option for car and mortgage payments. And if you choose “After,” you can
specify the date (or the number of times) after which the repetitions come to an
end; use this option to indicate the last day of school, for example.
Tip: This dialog box also lets you specify days of the week. For example, you can schedule your morning
runs for Monday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings.
•Busy. This pop-up menu lets you block off time during which you’re unavailable
(or tentatively available). The point here is for coworkers who might be looking
over your calendar online to know when you’re not available for meetings.
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458 windows 7: the missing manual
•Reminder. This pop-up menu tells the calendar that you want to be notified when
a certain appointment is about to begin. Unfortunately, this feature isn’t built
into the Mail calendar—it’s actually a function of the Windows Live Web service.
If you’re cool with that, then the news is good: Windows Live can remind you of
an event by email, as a notice in the Windows Live Messenger chat program, or
even with a text message to your cellphone.
Note: To set these reminders up, choose ToolsÆ”Deliver my reminders to.” Your Web browser opens up
to the Windows Live page where you change your mail, chat, and cellphone options for getting reminders.
Use the pop-up menu to specify how much advance notice you want. If it’s a TV
show you like to watch, you might set up a reminder only five minutes before
airtime. If it’s a birthday, you might set up a two-day warning to give yourself
enough time to buy a present, and so on.
•Notes. Here’s your chance to customize your calendar event. In the big, empty part
of the window, you can type, paste, or drag any text you like in the notes area—
driving directions, contact phone numbers, a call history, or whatever.
When you’re finished entering all the details, click “Save & close” (or press Ctrl+S).
Your newly scheduled event now shows up on the calendar, complete with the color
coding that corresponds to the calendar category you’ve assigned.
What to Do with an Appointment
Once you’ve entrusted your agenda to Calendar, you can start putting it to work. Here
are a few of the possibilities:
Editing events
To edit a calendar event’s name or details, double-click it. You don’t have to bother
with this if all you want to do is reschedule an event, however, as described next.
Rescheduling events
If an event in your life gets rescheduled, you can move an appointment just by drag-
ging the rectangle that represents it. In Day or Week view, drag the event vertically
in its column to change its time on the same day; in Week or Month view, you can
drag it to another date.
Note: You can’t reschedule the first occurrence of a recurring event by dragging it—you have to edit the date
in the Details pane. You can drag subsequent occurrences, though.
If something is postponed for, say, a month or two, it’s more of a hassle; you can’t
drag an appointment beyond its month window. You have no choice but to open the
Details pane and edit the starting and ending dates or times—or just cut and paste
the event to a different date.
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chapter 12: windows live mail 459
Lengthening or shortening events
If a scheduled meeting becomes shorter or your lunch hour becomes a lunch hour-and-
a-half (in your dreams), changing the length of a selected calendar event is as easy as
dragging the top or bottom border of its block in Day or Week view (see Figure 12-17).
Tip: In Week view, if you’ve grabbed the top or bottom edge of an appointment’s block so that the cur-
sor changes, you can drag horizontally to make an appointment cross the midnight line and extend into a
second day.
Printing events
To commit your calendar to paper, choose FileÆPrint, or press Ctrl+P. The resulting
Print dialog box lets you specify a range of dates and which view you want (Week,
Month, or whatever).
Deleting events
To delete an appointment, just click its box and then press the Delete key. If you delete
a recurring event (like a weekly meeting), the calendar asks whether you want to delete
only that particular instance of the event or the entire series.
The “Calendar” Category Concept
Everyone in your house (or office) can have a different set of appointments on the
same calendar, color-coded so you all can tell your schedules apart. The red appoint-
ments might be yours; the blue ones, your spouse’s; the green ones might be your
kid’s. You can overlay all of them simultaneously to look for conflicts (or mutually
available meeting times), if you like.
Each such set of appointments is called, confusingly enough, a calendar (Figure 12-18).
Figure 12-17:
You can resize any calendar event just by dragging
its border. As your cursor touches the bottom edge
of a calendar event, it turns into a double-headed
arrow. You can now drag the event’s edge to make it
take up more or less time on your calendar.
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460 windows 7: the missing manual
To create a calendar, click “Add calendar” (in the left-side panel), or press Shift+Ctrl+D.
Type a name that defines the category in your mind, and choose the color you want
for its appointments.
Tip: Whenever you’re about to create an appointment, click a calendar name first. That way, the appointment
will already belong to the correct calendar.
To change the name or color-coding of an existing category, click its name; from the
shortcut menu, choose Properties to reopen the dialog box.
You assign an appointment to one of these categories using the pop-up menu on its
Details pane. After that, you can hide or show an entire category of appointments
at once just by turning on or off the appropriate checkbox in the list of calendars.
Syncing Calendars with Windows Live
If you’ve signed into your Windows Live account (use the Sign In button in the
upper-right corner of Mail, for example), a great feature awaits: Your Mail calendar
and your Windows Live calendar on the Web are automatically brought up to date
with each other. In other words, you can check your schedule from any PC in the
world over the Internet.
You don’t have to do anything to make this happen; it’s automatic.
Publishing Calendars
One of Windows Live Calendar’s best features is its ability to post your calendar on
the Web so that other people—or you, using a different computer—can subscribe to
it, which adds your appointments to their calendars. For example, you might use this
feature to post the meeting schedule for a club you manage, or to share the agenda for
a series of upcoming financial meetings that all your coworkers will need to consult.
Figure 12-18:
You might create calendars (color-coded categories) called
Home, Work, and TV Reminders. A small business could have
categories called Deductible Travel, R&D, and R&R. Hide or show
a category using the checkboxes here.
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chapter 12: windows live mail 461
Note: This isn’t the same thing as the Windows Live syncing described above. Publishing a calendar lets
you control which appointments people see, which people see them, and what permission they have to
make changes to it.
And you’re not the only one who can publish a calendar. The Web is full of such
schedules published by other people, ready for adding to your own calendar: team
schedules, company meetings, national holidays, and so on.
Unfortunately, the calendar in Mail can’t do any of this publishing; only the Web-based
copy of it at the Windows Live Web site can. Fortunately, your Mail calendar is a mir-
ror of what’s online, so the difference may not be so huge. For details, see page 453.
RSS Feeds
RSS feeds are like free headline services, reporting what’s new on different Web sites
(news, sports, tech, whatever). There’s a great description of them on page 239.
Microsoft must think a lot of RSS feeds, because Windows 7 is crawling with different
ways to read them. There’s a gadget that can show them; Internet Explorer can show
them; and Windows Live Mail can show them.
Tip: In fact, if you subscribe to feeds in Internet Explorer, they show up in Mail, and vice versa.
Start by clicking the ® Feeds button (lower left of the Mail window), or pressing
Shift+Ctrl+K. The main window is empty, but the Navigation pane displays a bunch
of harmless starter feeds from Microsoft and the government. Keep expanding the
flippy triangles until you see the list of individual headlines in the center column,
where email messages would normally appear. Click one to read, in the Preview pane,
the summary that it represents.
You can work with feeds exactly the way you work with email: forward them, file them
in folders, print them, and so on.
If you’re an RSS fan, then you’re an executive-summary kind of person—and so here’s
the executive summary:
•To add a new feed, click “Add feed”; in the resulting box, paste or type in the URL
(the Web address) of that feed. Click OK.
•To change the frequency of a feed (and how many headlines to keep), click
“Manage feeds” on the toolbar. In the Manage Your Feeds dialog box, expand the
flippy triangles until you can see the feed in question. Click its name, and then
click Edit Feed.
•To remove a feed, click its name and then click Delete on the toolbar (and confirm
the deletion).
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462 windows 7: the missing manual
Newsgroups
All Versions
Newsgroups have nothing to do with news; in fact, they’re Internet bulletin boards.
There are hundreds of thousands of them, on every conceivable topic: pop culture,
computers, politics, and every other special (and very special) interest; in fact, there
are thousands just about Windows. You can use Mail to read and reply to these mes-
sages almost exactly as though they were email messages.
Subscribing to a Microsoft Newsgroup
Subscribing to your first newsgroup can be quite an experience, simply because there
are just so many newsgroups to choose from.
To get started with newsgroups, click the Newsgroups button (lower left of the Mail
window), or press Shift+Ctrl+L. At the outset, the top of the window says, “Would
you like to view a list of available newsgroups now?”
Yes, you would. Click View Newsgroups. Mail downloads a list of the available news-
groups, which may take awhile.
Scroll through the list, or use the Search box, to pluck out something that looks good.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Mail program, for example, you could
click Microsoft.public.windows.live.mail.desktop.
Tip: You can select more than one newsgroup by Ctrl+clicking their names.
Then click Subscribe. The newsgroup(s) you subscribed to are now available in Mail,
under Microsoft Communities. Each discussion sits in its own folder, with its own
flippy triangle.
Other Newsgroups
Hard though it may be to believe, there are other subjects worth newsgrouping about
than just Microsoft’s. Fortunately, Mail lets you see them, too.
Newsgroups Explained
Newsgroups (often called Usenet) started out as a way
for people to conduct discussions via a bulletin board–like
system, in which a message is posted for all to see and reply
to. These public discussions are divided into categories called
newsgroups, which cover the gamut from photographic
techniques to naval aviation.
These days, Usenet has a certain seedy reputation as a
place to exchange pornography, pirated software, and MP3
files with doubtful copyright pedigrees. Even so, there are
tens of thousands of interesting, informative discussions
going on, and newsgroups are great places to get help with
troubleshooting, to exchange recipes, or just to see what’s
on the minds of your fellow Usenet fans.
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chapter 12: windows live mail 463
To have at it, click “Add newsgroup account” in the left-side panel. A wizard walks
you through adding your name (as you’ll be represented in these discussions); your
email address (do not use your main one unless you want an ocean of spam!); and
your news server address.
Right: Your what?
A news server is a central computer that lists and manages the thousands of news-
groups. Your Internet service provider has one—call to find out what its address
is—or you can type in a free one like www.eternal-september.org. (You have to go to
that Web site and sign up for a free account first.)
When you finally click Finish, Mail asks if you’d like to view a list of the available news-
groups, and if so, whether or not they work with Microsoft’s Communities features
(which include message ratings and rankings). May as well let Mail try. Then click OK.
When you’re finished with the wizard, Mail downloads a list of newsgroups available
on your server. Wait patiently; the list can be quite long—tens of thousands of entries.
Fortunately, it’s a one-time deal.
Now you’re ready to find yourself some good online discussions; see Figure 12-19.
Figure 12-19:
In the box at the top, type
the term you’re hoping to
find in a newsgroup’s title
(such as kittensandcats—in
cyberspace, nobody can
hear you use the space
bar). If you turn up a
good-sounding topic in
the gigantic list beneath,
click its name and click
Subscribe to subscribe to
it. Now, each time you
connect, Mail will down-
load the latest messages
on that topic.
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464 windows 7: the missing manual
Reading Messages
Once you’ve subscribed to a newsgroup, Mail downloads all the message summaries
in the discussions to which you’ve subscribed. (There may be just a few messages, or
several hundred; they may go back only a few days or a couple of weeks, depending on
the amount of “traffic” in each discussion and the storage space on the news server.)
To read the messages in a newsgroup, either click an entry in the list of messages to
display it in the Preview window (Figure 12-20), or double-click an entry to open the
list of messages in a new window.
Tip: You can set up message rules for newsgroups to screen out messages from certain people, messages
with certain phrases in their Subject lines, and so on. It works exactly like the message rules for email, as
described earlier in this chapter. Just go to ToolsÆMessage RulesÆNews.
Replying, Composing, and Forwarding Messages
Working with newsgroup messages is very similar to working with email messages,
except that you must be conscious of whether you’re replying to the individual sender
of a message or to the entire group. Otherwise, you can reply to messages, forward
Figure 12-20:
If you’ve been
using Mail for
email, the news-
group interface
should look
familiar. The
Folders pane
lists news servers
to which you’ve
subscribed, the
top-right pane
lists the names
of messages
in a selected
newsgroup, and
the bottom-right
pane displays
the actual text
of the message
you’ve high-
lighted in the
message list.
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chapter 12: windows live mail 465
them, or compose them exactly as described earlier in this chapter. You can include
file attachments, too, by using the Attach toolbar button, for example.
Tip: Aside from posting ads and HTML-formatted messages, the best way to irritate everyone on a newsgroup
is to ask a question that has already been answered recently on the newsgroup. Before asking a question,
spend 5 minutes reading the recent newsgroup messages to see whether someone has already answered
your question. Also consider visiting the Groups tab at www.google.com, a Web site that lets you search all
newsgroups for particular topics.
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chapter 13: windows live services 467
Windows Live Services
This much we know about Windows Live: It’s free. It’s on the Web. And not
one average person out of a thousand can tell you exactly what it is. (Maybe
that’s because Microsoft keeps changing what it is, year by year. And slapping
the “Live” name on other features, like XBox Live and Office Live, that have nothing
to do with Windows Live.)
For the moment, Windows Live is a suite of Internet features that connect to your
PC’s copy of Windows in various useful ways. For example:
•Windows Live Calendar. A Web-based calendar and to-do list that syncs with the
calendar in Mail on your PC.
•Windows Live Events. An online invitation service; adds events to your Windows
Live Calendar automatically.
•Windows Live Groups. Discussion pages. Great for organizing team, club, or
family events.
•Windows Live Hotmail. A free email account.
•Windows Live People. An online master address book, incorporating both your
Mail and Messenger chat addresses. Can even import Facebook contacts.
•Windows Live Photos. A Web site of your very own to show off your pictures.
Syncs with Windows Live Photo Gallery on your PC (Chapter 14).
•Windows Live SkyDrive. A free, 25-gigabyte virtual hard drive on the Internet,
accessible from any computer.
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468 windows 7: the missing manual
Home •Windows Live Spaces. Blogging and “make your own Web page” site. You can use
Windows Live Writer (Chapter 7) to post to it.
Note: Many of these services have special cellphone versions, too.
Two things make the Windows Live concept very confusing. First, the whole thing
is in a constant state of flux; Microsoft routinely adds new services and kills off old
ones. What you read in this chapter may be different by the end of the year, or even
by the end of this paragraph.
Second, Microsoft also applies the term “Windows Live” to all kinds of things, some
of which aren’t on the Web at all. For example, “Windows Live” also refers to a bunch
of free programs that you’re supposed to download and install (Windows Live Writer,
Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Family Safety, and
so on; see Chapters 7, 10, 12, and 14).
Nonetheless, there are some gems among the masses of online software; here’s a guide
to some of the best.
Note: Before you can use any of this stuff, you have to sign up for a free Windows Live ID (account). If you
already have a Hotmail, Xbox, or Messenger ID, then you’re in good shape—that is your Windows Live ID.
Otherwise, go to http://home.live.com and register.
You can either supply your existing email address when asked, or you can sign up for one that ends with
@live.com, meaning that you gain a free Hotmail email account in the process.
Home
This screen, at home.live.com, is a sort of dashboard for the whole Live archipelago.
It shows your most recent incoming email messages, updates from your contacts, the
current weather, news headlines, and a lot of ads for Windows Live features. It also
has links to all the other Live services, including the calendar.
Profile
The Profile page (on the Home screen, click Profile) is Microsoft’s small attempt to
be Facebook. Here, you list information about yourself that you want other people
to see: profession, favorite music, interests, and so on. Other people can leave public
messages here, too, just the way people can write messages on your Facebook “wall.”
Tip: If you click “Add” under “Web activities,” you can direct Live to fill your Profile page with your Twitter,
Facebook, MySpace, or Flickr updates. That way, you don’t have to update your status, or post your daily
thoughts, in more than one place.
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chapter 13: windows live services 469
Spaces
Spaces
Spaces is a build-your-own blog-page feature. You can use it as a blog, a photo gallery,
a news page, whatever you want (Figure 13-1).
Of course, it’s not quite the same as having a real Web page; Microsoft puts ads on it,
for example. And some of it feels a little crude and unfinished.
Still, it’s free and easy. Click “Create your space” to get started. At the top of the page,
there are icons representing your Web-building tools:
•Web address. You don’t really want your Web page to reside at http://cid-4bf-
489cb9cf10cee.home.spaces.live.com, do you? Fortunately, if you click this button,
you get to choose a much simpler Web address, in the form of http://yourname.
spaces.live.com.
Figure 13-1:
As you create your
blog, each new entry
pushes the older ones
down the page.
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470 windows 7: the missing manual
•Share photos. You’re walked through the process of adding photos from your hard
drive and building an album (and controlling who sees it—everyone, or just a few
people from your address book).
•Add blog entry. Sometimes, a thousand pictures are worth a word or two. Click
here to write up your thoughts.
Tip: It’s a lot easier to do this using the free Windows Live Writer program, described on page 301. If you do
your writing on the Web page instead, you’re expected to know HTML formatting codes like </b> for bold,
instead of just clicking the Bold button.
•Invite your friends. Your blog isn’t very useful if nobody knows it exists. Click
“Invite your friends” to connect to your Facebook, AOL, LinkedIn, or MySpace
address books so you can choose people to notify. Or just email people who are
already in your address book.
•Add a list. Just a weird way for you to make a blog entry consisting of nothing but
a list of things: music, books, random stuff.
Tip: You can also email blog posts to the Live Web site; it will post them automatically for you. To set this up,
choose OptionsÆMore OptionsÆEmail Publishing. Here, you can specify which email addresses Live will
accept entries from; a password; an album for emailed photos to go into; and if you want emailed entries to
be posted immediately (rather than saved as Drafts for you to review when you get home).
Mail
Hotmail, Microsoft’s free email service, has come a long way since its days as a
junkyard of blinking ads and spam overruns. It’s great to have as a second (or third)
email account—as a backup, for example, one that’s on the Web so you can get to it
even when you’re not using your own computer. Microsoft doesn’t even limit you to
5 gigabytes of storage anymore; you can pretty much save as much email as you get.
It works pretty much like any other email program, including Windows Live Mail
(Chapter 12); it’s just not quite as fast, slick, or pretty. For example, clicking a message
opens it to fill the screen, so you no longer see the list of messages.
Hotmail can consolidate multiple other email accounts—Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, and so
on—which can be mighty handy. At the same time, you can check your Hotmail ac-
count using regular desktop email programs like Windows Live Mail and Microsoft
Outlook.
The one downside, of course, is the huge advertisement on the right side of the screen.
Then again, that’s what’s paying for your free account.
Photos
Photos (Figure 13-2) is an online photo gallery—Microsoft’s version of Flickr. Getting
your pictures online is as easy as 1-2:
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chapter 13: windows live services 471
1. Click “Create album.”
You’re asked to type a name for it and then to specify who can see this album:
everyone on the Internet, only people in your address book (“My network”), or
only you. Make your choice from the pop-up menu and then click Next.
2. Add photos.
On the next screen, you get five Choose File buttons. Each one lets you browse
your hard drive for a photo to upload. Once you’ve manually selected them, click
Upload. It’s a slow, manual, tedious way to get photos online. So if you value
your sanity, use the Windows Live Photo Gallery program to upload your photos
instead (Chapter 14).
Or, if you don’t use Photo Gallery, take advantage of the yellow message bar right
before you that says, “Install the upload tool now!” Figure 13-2 shows you why.
Figure 13-2:
Top: You can
upload photos
one at a time to
this site, but that’s
excruciating. Click
“Install the upload
tool now,” follow
the installation
steps, and marvel
as you return to the
Photos page (bot-
tom)—and discover
that you can drag
photos right off
your desktop, or
right out of Photo
Gallery, into this
window to post
them online!
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472 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: You can also email photos; they’ll get posted automatically, if you like. To set this up, choose OptionsÆ
More OptionsÆEmail Publishing.
Once you’ve got some albums on your Photos page, people can view and interact
with them like this:
•Open an album, then a photo. When you’re viewing a photo, you see its size, camera
details, and other information on the right side.
•Tag people in a photo. Once you’ve opened a picture, the “Tag someone” link at the
top lets you type in the names of anyone you recognize in the picture (or “That’s
me!” if it’s you). That way, visitors know who’s in the picture.
Tip: If you don’t trust the vast unwashed masses to tag your photos responsibly, you can block tagging.
Click the Options button (upper right) and then choose “People tagging.” You can specify that only you can
tag photos on your site—and also, intriguingly, you can stop other people from tagging you in their photos
(which would make those photos show up on your profile page).
•Download. Yep, your loved ones can download your pictures to have and to hold
when they’re offline.
•Comment. Your admirers can type into the Comments box to remark on your
pictures.
•View a slideshow. Click an album to open it, and then click the “Slide show” but-
ton. You get a full-screen, black-background presentation of the photos, complete
with playback controls and thumbnails at the right side so you can jump around.
SkyDrive
The SkyDrive is an Internet-based hard drive that makes a perfect intermediate park-
ing place for files you want to shuttle from one computer to another. You can also
use it for offsite backup of your most important files, or as a handy intermediary for
sharing big folders with other people far away.
The key point is that you can pull the SkyDrive onto any computer’s screen—Mac,
Windows, whatever—at your office, at your home, at your friend’s house, so you don’t
need to carry around a physical disk to transport files.
Put Files Onto the SkyDrive
Start by logging into http://skydrive.live.com, or choose MoreÆSkyDrive when you’re
on any other part of the Live Web site (Figure 13-3).
The folders here aren’t just convenient holding tanks for your files; they’re also how
you determine who can see what’s in them. Microsoft starts you off with folders like
Public (everyone in the world can see the contents); Documents; Favorites (only you
can see them); and “Shared favorites” (only people in your address book can see them).
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chapter 13: windows live services 473
Tip: You can change these “who can see them” settings easily enough. Open the folder, and then click
MoreÆ”Edit permissions.” (You can’t change the settings for Public or Documents, however.)
You can create your own folders, too: Click “Create folder.” (You can even create
folders within folders.) You’re asked to name the new folder, but also to specify who
has access to it. Your choices:
•Everyone (public). The whole Internet can see the files you post here.
•My network. Only people in your Live address book can see the files.
•Just me. For personal use only.
•Select people. You’re offered a chance to specify individual names (from your ad-
dress book) or email addresses. This is a great way to share files only with specific
coworkers—especially files that are too big to send by email.
Tip: If you do a lot of this, you might want to visit your Profile page to create some categories of people
(that is, predefined groups), like Office, Family, Kids, or Bert & Steve. That way, if you tend to share stuff with
the same cluster of people, you’ll save a lot of time.
Figure 13-3:
SkyDrive in all its
glory. Microsoft
starts you off with
several folders;
you’ll notice
right away, for
example, that any
photo albums
you’ve created
appear as folders
here. Yes, the
SkyDrive is where
your uploaded
photos sit, behind
the scenes.
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474 windows 7: the missing manual
When you click Next, you’re shown the “Add files” screen, where five Choose File but-
tons await—or a “Drop files here” notation, if you’ve added the Upload tool (Figure
13-2). (You can also get here by clicking “Add files” on the main SkyDrive page.)
Each time you click a Choose File button, you can browse your hard drive to find a
file to transfer to that SkyDrive folder. (Max file size: 50 megabytes.) Click Upload
once you’ve loaded them up.
Tip: Frankly, this is a slow, limited, horrible way to interact with your SkyDrive. What you really want is to
have your SkyDrive show up on your Windows desktop, just like a real hard drive, so you can simply drag
files in and out of its folders.
Fortunately, that’s exactly what the free SDExplorer program does. If you intend to use the SkyDrive, you really,
really need this app. You can download it from this book’s “Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.
(There, you’ll also find a free Microsoft app called Windows Live Upload Tool. It lets you drag and drop files,
too, but only from within Internet Explorer.)
SkyDrive
Windows Live Sync—and Mesh
If you think the SkyDrive is cool, wait till you see Live Sync.
SkyDrive is great for transferring stuff between computers,
but what if you didn’t have to do that manually? What if
your computers kept your important folders synced between
your work and home machines (or upstairs and downstairs
machines) automatically? Even if one of them’s a Mac?
That’s the magic of Windows Live Sync.
Suppose, for example, that you have a
PC at work and a Mac at home. Go to
https://sync.live.com/clientdownload.
aspx on each machine. Download and
install the little Live Sync app. It puts a
tiny Sync icon on your menu bar (Mac)
or system tray (PC).
To set things up, sit at the PC and go to http://live.sync.
com. Sign in. Click “Create a personal folder.” Navigate to
the PC folder that you want to sync; select it by opening it,
right there on the Sync Web page, and then clicking “Sync
folder here.” (You can also create a new folder at this point.)
You’re shown a list of the computers on which you’ve in-
stalled the Sync program (and that are turned on and online).
Click the one you want this folder to sync with, and then,
on the “Select a folder” screen, specify which folder on the
Mac you want synced with the PC folder you chose. Finally,
choose either Automatic or On-demand synchronization,
and click Finish.
And that is all. When you add, change, or delete anything in
a synced folder on one machine, it’s automatically updated
on the other, over the Internet. It’s totally
great for keeping the latest versions of
everything accessible at all times.
The fine print: You can synchronize up
to 20 folders, each containing up to
20,000 files, max. Files can’t be larger
than 4 gigabytes. Files can be synced with
Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows
7, and Macs.
Windows Llive Mesh is the same idea but even more power-
ful and complicated. It creates a Web-based “desktop” with
5 gigabytes of storage—and your Macs, PCs, smartphones,
and even authorized friends can sync up to it. Details are
at www.mesh.com.
Happy syncing!
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Retrieving the Files
Once you’ve got some files and folders on your SkyDrive, the fun begins.
You can retrieve the files yourself, from any Internet-connected computer. Just log into
Windows Live, click SkyDrive, open the folder, click the file, and then click Download.
The 50-Megabyte Email Attachment
People use the SkyDrive for all kinds of things: as backup, as a bucket to carry files
between computers far away, and so on. But here’s one of the coolest features of all:
You use your SkyDrive to “send” huge files to anyone.
Ordinarily, you can’t attach anything bigger than 5 or 10 megabytes to an email
message. But SkyDrive files can be much bigger—50 megs each. They’re not really
attached to the email at all; you’re simply sending your colleague a link to download
something from a SkyDrive folder.
To use this feature, open the SkyDrive folder that contains what you want to give your
pals—it has to be a folder you’ve actually made public, or at least available to your
lucky recipient—and then proceed as shown in Figure 13-4.
Figure 13-4:
Top: Click “Send a
link” once you’ve
opened the folder
you want to
share.
Bottom: Then
click the To
button to choose
recipients, or
categories of
them, from your
address book.
Add a message, if
you like. Be sure
to turn on “Don’t
require recipients
to sign in with
Windows Live
ID,” unless you
want to fill their
lives with red
tape. Click Send.
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476 windows 7: the missing manual
Once your colleagues receive your email, they have but to click the link in the message
to visit your folder and download the huge file immediately.
Calendar
Odd as it may seem, the online Windows Live Calendar is actually a superset of the
calendar built into the Mail program described in Chapter 12. That is, it has more
features, including a to-do list, an Agenda (list) view, and the ability to publish and
subscribe to calendar categories.
Fortunately, since it syncs with the calendar on your own PC, it doesn’t much matter.
To learn the basics of the Windows Live Calendar, including how to operate the views
and how to add appointments to it, see Chapter 12. (You’ll notice only a few differences:
For example, to see the entire list of options for a new appointment you’re creating,
like auto-repeating and alarms, click “Add more details.”)
Here, though, is a tour of two of the most powerful additional features: publishing
and subscribing to Internet calendars.
Figure 13-5:
Top: First, decide
how much ac-
cess people have
to the calendar
you’re publish-
ing.
Bottom: If you
click “Friends
and family,” the
box expands—
you’ve selected
the most compli-
cated option. It
lets other people
make changes
to the calendar
you’re publish-
ing (not just
see it), but you
have to specify
exactly who gets
those privileges
by clicking “Add
people.”
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chapter 13: windows live services 477
Publishing a Calendar
Once you’ve painstakingly entered a bunch of appointments onto your calendar,
it can make life a lot easier if you can share it with other people over the Internet.
Enter a sports team or company agenda, travel arrangements for your whole family,
birthdays for your entire family tree, whatever—and let the interested parties import
them onto their own calendars.
Begin by choosing ShareÆCompany Schedule (or whatever the name of the calendar
category is). On the next screen, click “Share this calendar” (Figure 13-5).
Now you have to decide how you want this calendar shared:
•With friends and family. Since this is a small, trusted group (right?), they’ll be
allowed to see and edit your calendar. Click “Add people.” In the resulting dialog
box, you can choose names from your address book or even type in email addresses
of people who aren’t in it.
Note: These people must be Windows Live members, and they’ll have to sign in to see your calendar.
At the bottom of the dialog box is a powerful but confusing pop-up menu. It lets
you specify how much control these people have over your published calendar. “Co-
owner” means they have as much power as you do—they can add appointments,
and they can also change the permissions settings that you’re making right now.
(They can’t delete a calendar category or change your permissions.)
The remaining options represent decreasing amounts of freedom.
“View, edit, and delete items” gives people the ability to edit the appointments
already on the calendar; “View details” means they can only see what’s on the
calendar. The two remaining “View” options let people see fewer and fewer details
about each appointment.
Tip: You’ll be able to change these settings for each person individually after you click Add and return to
the sharing screen.
Finally, click Add to return to the main Sharing screen. When you click Save, and
then OK, your PC fires off emails to the people in question, notifying them that
your calendar is now available and providing a link for them to see it.
•Send friends a view-only link to your calendar. This time, the recipients don’t have
to be Windows Live members. On the other hand, they won’t be able to make any
changes—they can only see your calendar.
Note: When you click this “Send friend” option, or the next one (“Make your calendar public”), you have
to click “Get your calendar links” (and confirm that you want to publish the calendar) before you can make
any further decisions.
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478 windows 7: the missing manual
Whether they get to see only when you’re busy, or the full details of every ap-
pointment, depends on which of the two link types you click. For each one, you
can send your friends (a) a link to a Web-based version of the calendar (HTML),
(b) a link that lets another calendar program on Mac or Windows import these
appointments (ICS), or (c) a link that puts your appointments into an RSS feed,
for viewing in a program like Internet Explorer or Mail (RSS).
Incidentally, this option doesn’t actually send your friends anything. When you click
one of these links, you just get a dialog box displaying an endless Web address. It’s
up to you to copy it and paste it into an email that you send around.
•Make your calendar public. Here’s how you make your calendar visible to everyone
on the Web, no muss, no fuss. Use the Permission pop-up menu to specify how
much detail people see, and then click the appropriate link.
This option, too, just displays a long URL that you’re supposed to copy and dis-
tribute or post online.
Subscribing
You’re not the only one who can publish your calendar. The Web is full of such
schedules published by other people, ready for adding to your own calendar: team
schedules, company meetings, national holidays, sports teams, movies, and so on.
Tip: Lots of these public calendars await at www.icalshare.com and www.calendardata.com.
All you have to do is figure out the Web addresses of these feeds. They usually end
with .ics.
To add one to your own Live Calendar, click “Subscribe.” Now you have two options:
•Subscribe to a public calendar. Paste the address into the Calendar URL box. Type
the name you want for this calendar, and a color for its appointments; it will show
up as its own, noneditable category on your calendar. Click “Subscribe to calendar.”
•Import from an ICS file. Sometimes people send you a calendar feed’s address as
a file—by email, for example. If you have one of these ICS files, click this option,
and then click Choose File to browse your hard drive and open the thing. Specify
if you want these appointments added to an existing category or if you want to
create a new one (and what name and color you want, in that case). Finally, click
“Import calendar.”
When it’s all over, you see a new “calendar” category in your left-side list, representing
the published appointments. Whenever the publisher of the calendar makes changes
to it, you’ll see the appointments magically change on your own calendar.
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chapter 14: windows live photo gallery 481
Windows Live
Photo Gallery
Your digital camera is brimming with photos. You’ve snapped the perfect gradu-
ation portrait, captured that jaw-dropping sunset over the Pacific, or compiled
an unforgettable photo essay of your 2-year-old attempting to eat a bowl of
spaghetti. It’s time to use your PC to gather, organize, and tweak all these photos so
you can share them with the rest of the world.
Until recently, all Windows offered for digital photos was Paint. That’s right, Paint—a
feeble holdover from 1985 that sat in your ProgramsÆAccessories folder and opened
one picture at a time. Barely.
Microsoft has addressed photo organizing/editing with a vengeance. Pathetic little
Paint is still there, for the benefit of change-phobic Windows veterans. But now there’s
also Windows Live Photo Gallery, a beautiful, full-blown digital camera companion
that has nothing to be ashamed of. The current version has been smartly enhanced—
among other things, it can now display video clips from your camera as well as stills.
It’s not built into Windows 7 the day you get it. You have to download it as part of
the Windows Live Essentials software suite described on page 265. But once you have
it, you’ll realize that it’s an important part of Windows. And beyond—it syncs with
your free Windows Live account, so you can post your photos to free online slideshow
galleries with a single click.
Tip: Then again, you may prefer Google’s Picasa—a free photo-editing program that you could argue is faster,
easier, and more powerful. It, too, connects to a beautiful online photo gallery. Just sayin’.
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482 windows 7: the missing manual
Photo Gallery:
The Application Photo Gallery: The Application
All Versions
Photo Gallery approaches digital photo management as a four-step process: import-
ing the photos to your Pictures folder; organizing, tagging, and rating them; editing
them; and sharing them (via prints, onscreen slideshows, design DVD slideshows,
email, your screen saver, and so on).
To open Windows Live Photo Gallery, choose its name from the StartÆPrograms
menu, or double-click a photo in your Pictures folder.
The first time you open it, you’re subjected to a battery of interview questions:
•Sign in with your Windows Live name and password. (Why? So Photo Gallery
will be able to post your photos online when you’re ready for that.)
•Do you want Photo Gallery to open when you double-click common photo types
(like JPEG, PNG, and TIFF)? Probably. Otherwise, they’ll continue to open in
Windows Photo Viewer, which does nothing but show photos—it doesn’t let you
organize or edit them.
•Some photos can’t be displayed. If you have any video clips that are in a format
Photo Gallery doesn’t understand—specifically, Apple’s QuickTime format—this
dialog box appears to let you know. Click Download to go get the necessary adapter
software that lets Photo Gallery recognize those file types.
Figure 14-1:
Here’s what
Photo Gallery
looks like once
you’ve added
a few photos.
The viewing
area is where
thumbnails of
your photos
appear. The
buttons at top
represent all
the stuff you
can do with
them. To adjust
their size, drag
the lower-right
slider. All the
thumbnails
expand or
contract simul-
taneously.
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chapter 14: windows live photo gallery 483
Photo Gallery:
The Application
Once you do that, you finally arrive at the program’s main window, the basic elements
of which are shown in Figure 14-1.
Getting Pictures into Photo Gallery
All Versions
The very first time you open it, Photo Gallery displays all the digital photos it can find
in your Pictures and Videos folders (StartÆPictures and StartÆVideos).
This is important: You’re looking at the actual files on your hard drive. If you delete a
picture or a movie from Photo Gallery, you’ve just deleted it from your PC. (Well, OK,
you’ve actually moved it to your Recycle Bin. But still, that’s a step closer to oblivion.)
If you store your photos in other folders, you can make Photo Gallery aware of those,
too. You can go about this task in either of two ways:
•The menu way. Choose FileÆ“Include a folder in the gallery”; navigate to and
select the additional folder, and then click OK.
•The draggy way. Find the folder on your desktop or in any Explorer folder. Drag
the folder directly onto the heading “All photos and videos” in the left-side list, or
directly into Photo Gallery’s window (see Figure 14-2). Windows not only makes
the contents appear in Photo Gallery, but also copies them to your Pictures folder
for safekeeping.
Note: If you don’t have a photo-management program like Photo Gallery or Picasa, Windows 7 can still
import pictures. When you connect a camera, the AutoPlay box pops up; click “Import pictures and videos
using Windows.” You’re offered the chance to tag the incoming photos and to erase the memory card after
the import. When it’s all over, the pictures are in a new folder in your Pictures library. Double-click one to
view it in the bare-bones Windows Photo Viewer program.
Figure 14-2:
You can add a “watched
folder” to Photo Gallery by
dragging it off the desktop (or
any folder window) right onto
a Pictures heading or into the
main window, as shown here.
The cursor changes to let
you know that Photo Gallery
understands your intention.
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484 windows 7: the missing manual
Photos from a Digital Camera
In Windows Live Photo Gallery, Microsoft has done a lot of work to make the camera-
importing process smoother and smarter. Here’s how it goes:
1. Connect your camera to the PC. Turn the camera on.
Now, if this is the first time you’ve ever connected a camera, you may be shown
the standard AutoPlay dialog box—otherwise known as the “What am I supposed
to do with this thing?” box.
You don’t want it. Turn on “Always do this for pictures,” and then scroll down and
click “No action.”
2. Open Windows Live Photo Gallery.
For example, open the Start menu. Type gallery until you see the program’s name;
click it.
3. In Photo Gallery, choose FileÆ“Import from a camera or scanner.”
A dialog box appears, displaying the camera’s memory card as though it’s a disk.
Make sure the disk is highlighted (Figure 14-3, top).
4. Click Import.
Now the Import Photos and Videos dialog box appears (Figure 14-3, middle). Here,
the steps branch. If you’d like to review the photos and import only certain batches
(by date), go on to step 5a. If you’d rather just import them all now, without all
the examining and grouping, skip to step 5b.
5a. Click “Review, organize and group items to import,” and then click Next.
Now you see the impressive new dialog box shown in Figure 14-3 (bottom).
In the old days, Photo Gallery just imported everything on your camera in one
gigantic clump—even if it included photos from several different events, shot weeks
apart. Now it automatically analyzes the time stamps in the incoming photos and
puts them into individually named groups according to when you took them.
Your job here, then, is to click “Enter a name” and type a name for each event
whose photos you’re about to import. It could be Disney Trip, Casey’s Birthday,
or Baby Meets Lasagna, for example—anything that helps you organize and find
your pictures later.
5a. Click “Import all new items now.” Enter a description, like “Fall Fun.”
Photo Gallery also invites you to type in tags to each of the incoming photos,
separated by semicolons. More on tags later in this chapter; for now, it’s enough
to know that you can use them to specify who was on the trip, the circumstances
of the shoot, and so on.
Click Import when you’re ready. Photo Gallery brings the photos onto your PC.
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Tip: So what constitutes an “event?” Out of the box, Photo Gallery starts a new group after every 30 minutes
of no picture-taking. But you can drag the “Adjust groups” slider to make that interval greater—a couple of
hours, a whole day, even a whole month—which results in fewer separate groups. You can even drag the
slider all the way to the right for “All items in one group,” if you like.
Click “View 20 items” (or whatever the number is) to see thumbnail previews of the photos in each batch,
so you know what you’re talking about.
Figure 14-3:
The importing pro-
cess is impressively
smart in Windows 7
(and it takes consid-
erably more steps).
Top: You’re asked
to click the memory
card that contains
your photos. Usually,
it’s like, “Duh—the
one in my camera?
Hello?”
Middle: Do you want
to examine the vari-
ous clumps of photos
before importing
them? Or do you
want to just slurp
them all in at once,
and organize them
later?
Bottom: In this box,
you can break up the
camera’s contents
into batches by date.
You can also apply
tags (keywords) to
each batch, as de-
scribed above. Above
all, you can also
turn each group’s
checkbox on or off,
thereby importing
only certain ones.
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486 windows 7: the missing manual
6. Click Import.
Windows sets about sucking in the photos from the camera and placing them into
your Pictures folder.
Not all loose and squirming—that’d be a mess. Instead, it neatly creates a Photo
Gallery folder bearing the name or description you provided in step 5. (If you
were to choose StartÆPictures, you’d discover that there’s a new folder there, too,
bearing the same name. Photo Gallery is just a mirror of what’s in your Pictures
folder.) See Figure 14-4.
Tip: You can fiddle with Windows’s folder- and photo-naming conventions by choosing FileÆOptionsÆIm-
port in Photo Gallery. For example, you can opt to have the subfolder named after the date the pictures were
taken instead of the date they were imported.
Photos from a USB Card Reader
A USB memory card reader offers another convenient way to transfer photos into
Photo Gallery. Most of these card readers, which look like tiny disk drives, are under
$15; some can read more than one kind of memory card.
If you have a reader, then instead of connecting the camera to the PC, you can slip the
camera’s memory card directly into the reader. Windows, or Photo Gallery, recognizes
the reader as though it’s a camera and offers to import the photos, just as described
on the previous pages.
This method eliminates the considerable battery drain involved in pumping the photos
straight off the camera. Furthermore, it’s less hassle to pull a memory card out of
Figure 14-4:
When it’s all over, Photo Gal-
lery makes it very clear where
your new photos have gone.
Click to see them. After the
import, turn off the camera,
and then unplug it from the
USB cable.
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chapter 14: windows live photo gallery 487
your camera and slip it into your card reader (which you can leave always plugged
in) than it is to constantly plug and unplug camera cables.
The File Format Factor
Photo Gallery is a bit finicky about digital pictures’ file formats. It’s not a universal
graphics manager by any means; in fact, it really prefers JPEG and TIFF files. Here
are the details.
Common graphics formats
Photo Gallery recognizes the most common photo file formats—but not all of them.
Here’s the rundown:
•JPEG. Just about every digital camera on earth saves photos as JPEG files—and
Photo Gallery handles this format beautifully. JPEG is the world’s most popular
file format for photos, because even though a JPEG photo is compressed to occupy
a lot less disk space than it would otherwise, the visual quality is still very high.
JPEG is also the most common format for photos on the Web.
Note: While most digital photos you work with are probably JPEG files, they’re not always called JPEG files.
You may also see JPEG referred to as JPG or JFIF (JPEG File Interchange Format). Bottom line: The terms
JPEG, JFIF, JPEG JFIF, and JPEG 2000 all mean the same thing.
Auto Card Erase
Ordinarily, each time your cam-
era’s card is full, you’ll want to
dump all the selected pictures
onto your PC. And ordinar-
ily, each time you’ve finished
dumping them, you’ll want to
erase the memory card so that
it’s empty and ready to reuse.
Windows does that for you
automatically. There’s zero
risk that you’ll lose pictures if
lightning strikes in mid-import;
Photo Gallery doesn’t delete
your pictures until after it has
successfully copied them all to
the Pictures folder.
Still, if you want Windows to
stop erasing the card after im-
porting the pix, you can change
the setting.
In Photo Gallery, choose
FileÆOptions. Click the Import
tab. There you see the “Delete
files from this device after im-
porting” checkbox.
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488 windows 7: the missing manual
•TIFF. Some cameras offer you the chance to leave your photos uncompressed on
the camera, in what’s called TIFF format. These files are huge. Fortunately, they
retain 100 percent of the picture’s original quality.
Along with JPEG, TIFF is Photo Gallery’s other favorite photo format.
•GIF is the most common format used for non-photographic images on Web pages
(borders, backgrounds, and logos). Unfortunately, Photo Gallery doesn’t much
care for GIF files. In fact, it can’t display them at all.
•PNG files are also used in Web design, though not nearly as often as JPEG and
GIF. They often display more complex graphic elements. Photo Gallery works
with PNG files just fine.
•BMP was once a popular graphics file format in Windows. Its files are big and
bloated by today’s standards, though; even so, they work in Photo Gallery.
•WPD is a new Microsoft graphics protocol intended for cellphones and palmtops.
(Actually, only the technology is called WPD; the images are still labeled .jpg.)
Photo Gallery handles them fine.
•Photoshop refers to Adobe Photoshop, the world’s most popular image-editing
and photo-retouching program. Photo Gallery can’t recognize, open, or fix Photo-
shop files.
Movies
In addition to still photos, most consumer digital cameras these days can also cap-
ture cute little digital movies. Some are jittery, silent affairs the size of a Wheat Thin;
others are full-blown, 30-frames-per-second, fill-your-screen movies (which eat up a
memory card plenty fast). Either way, Photo Gallery can import and organize them,
if you’ve installed Windows Live Movie Maker (page 269) and if the movies are in a
format that Movie Maker can understand, like .mov, .wmv, .asf, .mpeg, or .avi format.
Scanning Photos
Microsoft has outsourced the task of scanning to two different
programs. When you want to scan documents, you’re sup-
posed to use Windows Fax and Scan. When you want to scan
photos, though, stay right where you are—in Photo Gallery.
When a scanner is turned on and connected to the PC,
choose FileÆ“Import from a camera or scanner,” clicking
the scanner’s name in the next dialog box and then clicking
Import. The New Scan dialog box appears. From the Profile
list, choose Photo. You can also specify a color format, file
format, resolution, and so on.
Click Preview to see what lies ahead. If it all looks good,
click Scan.
As usual, Photo Gallery offers to tag the picture; click Import.
After a moment, the freshly scanned photo pops up in the
Photo Gallery viewer, ready for you to fix and organize it.
Behind the scenes, Photo Gallery dumps the scanned file
into the Pictures folder. (You can override this setting by
choosing FileÆOptionsÆImport tab within Photo Gallery.
Click “Settings for,” choose Cameras, click Browse, and then
find the folder you prefer.)
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You don’t have to do anything special to import movies; they get slurped in auto-
matically. To play one of these movies once they’re in Photo Gallery, see Figure 14-5.
RAW format
Most digital cameras work like this: When you squeeze the shutter button, the camera
studies the data picked up by its sensors. The circuitry then makes decisions about
sharpening level, contrast, saturation, white balance, and so on—and then saves the
processed image as a compressed JPEG file on your memory card.
For millions of people, the result is just fine, even terrific. But all that in-camera
processing drives professionals nuts. They’d much rather preserve every last shred
of original picture information, no matter how huge the resulting file—and then
process the file by hand once it’s been safely transferred to the PC, using a program
like Photoshop.
That’s the idea behind the RAW file format, an option in many pricier digital cameras.
(RAW stands for nothing in particular.) A RAW image isn’t processed at all; it’s a
complete record of all the data passed along by the camera’s sensors. As a result, each
RAW photo takes up much more space on your memory card.
But once RAW files open up on the PC, image-manipulation nerds can perform
astounding acts of editing to them. They can actually change the lighting of the
scene—retroactively! And they don’t lose a speck of image quality along the way.
Most people use a program like Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to do this kind of
editing. But humble little Photo Gallery can at least open and organize them—usually.
Its success at this depends on which kind of RAW files you’ve added to your Pictures
folder. Each camera company (Canon, Nikon, and so on) has created a different flavor
of RAW files—their filename suffixes are things like .cr2, .crw, .dng, .nef, .orf, .rw2,
.pef, .arw, .sr2, and .srf—and it’s up to Microsoft to keep Photo Gallery updated. If
Figure 14-5:
The first frame of each video clip shows up as though it’s a photo
in your library. Your only clues that it’s a movie and not a photo
are the film sprocket holes along the sides and the tooltip that
identifies the movie’s running time. If you double-click one, it
opens up and begins to play immediately.
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490 windows 7: the missing manual
there are RAW files in your Pictures folder but they’re not showing up in Photo Gal-
lery, well, now you know the reason.
Note: You can open a RAW file for editing in Photo Gallery, but you’re never making changes to the original
file. Photo Gallery automatically creates a copy of the photo—in JPEG format—and lets you edit that.
The Post-Dump Slideshow
All Versions
If you’re like most people, the first thing you want to do after dumping the photos
from your camera into your PC is to see them at full size, filling your screen. That’s
the beauty of Photo Gallery’s slideshow feature.
To begin the slideshow, specify which pictures you want to see. For example:
• To see the pictures you most recently imported, click the folder Photo Gallery
just created.
• Click a folder, tag, rating row, or another heading in the Navigation pane at the
left side of the screen.
• If “All photos and videos” (your whole library) is selected, then click one of the
photo-batch headings in the main window—for example, “C:\Users\Public\Pic-
tures\Ski Trip.”
Now click the Slideshow button at the bottom of the window (Í), or just hit Alt+S.
Photo Gallery fades out of view, and a big, brilliant, full-screen slideshow of the new
photos—and even self-playing videos—begins (Figure 14-6).
What’s really useful is the slideshow control bar shown in Figure 14-6. You make it
appear by wiggling your mouse as the show begins.
Click Exit, or press any key, to end the slideshow.
Figure 14-6:
As the slideshow
progresses, you can
pause the show, go
backward, rotate a
photo, or change
the transition ef-
fects, all courtesy of
this control bar.
Animation styles
Previous slide/Next slide End the show
Change speed, shuffle mode, or looping
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Note: Photo Gallery can’t play music with your slides. (Bummer.) Microsoft cheerfully suggests that if you
want music, you can first pop into another program (like Windows Media Player) to start playback, then
return to Photo Gallery to start the slides.
Or, if you’re really serious and you’re willing to put in some effort, choose MakeÆ“Make a movie.” Photo
Gallery hands off the project to Movie Maker, where you can add music there (and even upload the result
to YouTube).
Slideshow Themes
If you wiggle the mouse during a slideshow to make the control bar appear, you see
an odd little button called Themes at the left side.
A Theme is a canned special-effect set for a slideshow. On a powerful PC, you can
call up slideshows with multiple photos parading into and out of view, with special
backdrops filling in the gaps.
If your PC doesn’t have the horsepower for such elaborate effects, your Themes menu
is much shorter. You can give the show an olde-tyme, mottled brown or monochrome
look by choosing “Sepia” or “Black and white” from the Themes menu.
Choosing “Pan and Zoom” makes the pictures smoothly crossfade, panning and
zooming as they go, as in a Ken Burns documentary on PBS. Your other choices
include “Fade,” meaning a crossfade, and “Classic,” meaning Windows XP style: no
transition effect at all.
The Digital Shoebox
All Versions
If you’ve imported your photos into Photo Gallery using any of the methods described
above, you should now see a neatly arranged grid of thumbnails in Photo Gallery’s
main photo-viewing area. This is, presumably, your entire photo collection, including
every last picture you’ve ever imported—the digital equivalent of that old shoebox
you’ve had stuffed in the closet for the past 10 years.
Your journey out of chaos has begun. From here, you can sort your photos, give them
titles, group them into smaller subcollections (called albums), and tag them with
keywords so you can find them quickly.
The Bigger Picture
If you point to a photo thumbnail without clicking, Photo Gallery is kind enough to
display, at your cursor tip, a larger version of it. Think of it as a digital version of the
magnifying loupe that art experts use to inspect gemstones and paintings.
Tip: If this feature gets on your nerves, choose FileÆOptions, and then turn off “Show photo and video
previews in tooltips.”
You can also make all the thumbnails in Photo Gallery grow or shrink using the Size
slider—the horizontal slider at the lower-right corner of the window. Drag the slider
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all the way left, and you get micro-thumbnails so small that you can fit 200 or more
of them in the window. If you drag it all the way to the right, you end up with such
large thumbnails that only a few fit the screen at a time.
For the biggest view of all, though, double-click a thumbnail. It opens all the way,
filling the window. At this point, you can edit the picture, too, as described below.
The Navigation Tree
Even before you start naming your photos, assigning them keywords, or organizing
them into albums, Photo Gallery imposes an order of its own on your digital shoebox.
The key to understanding it is the Navigation tree at the left side of the Photo Gallery
window. This list grows as you import more pictures and organize them—but right
off the bat, you find icons like these:
•All photos and videos. The first icon in the Navigation tree is a very reassuring
little icon, because no matter how confused you may get in working with subsets of
photos later in your Photo Gallery life, clicking this icon returns you to your entire
picture collection. It makes all your photos and videos appear in the viewing area.
Click the My Pictures or My Videos subhead to filter out the thumbnails so that
only photos or only videos are visible.
•Date Taken. Photo Gallery’s navigation tree also offers miniature calendar icons
named for the years (2010, 2009, and so on). You can click, say, the 2007 icon to
see just the ones you took during that year.
By clicking the flippy triangle next to a year’s name, furthermore, you expand the
list to reveal the individual months in that year; click a month’s flippy triangle to
see the individual dates within that month. Photo Gallery shows only the months
and dates in which you actually took pictures; that’s why 2008, for example, may
show only April, July, and October (Figure 14-7).
•People Tags, Descriptive Tags. As you work with your photos, you’ll soon discover
the convenience of adding tags (keywords) to them, like Family, Trips, or Baby
Pix. Then, with one click on one of the tag labels in this list, you can see only the
photos in your collection that match that keyword.
Tip: You can Ctrl+click several items in the Tags list at once. For example, if you want to see both Family
photos and Vacation photos, click Family, and then Ctrl+click Vacation.
This trick also works to select multiple months, years, folders, or any mix thereof.
Working with Your Photos
All right: Enough touring Photo Gallery’s main window. Now it’s time to start using it.
Browsing, selecting, and opening photos is straightforward. Here’s everything you
need to know:
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• Use the vertical scroll bar, or your mouse’s scroll wheel, to navigate through your
thumbnails.
• To create the most expansive photo-viewing area possible, you can temporarily
hide the details pane at the right side of the window. To do so, click the tiny x
button at its top. (The red X button above the Help button closes Photo Gallery.)
Bring the Info pane back by clicking Info in the toolbar.
Figure 14-7:
The year
and month
icons are very
helpful when
you’re creating
a slideshow
or trying to
pinpoint one
certain photo.
After all, you
usually can re-
member what
year you took
a vacation or
when some-
one’s birthday
was. These
icons help you
narrow down
your search
so you don’t
have to scroll
through your
entire library.
Syncing Photo Collections Between Two PCs
How’s this for an unsung feature? Photo Gallery can now
keep your photo collection synchronized between two
computers. If you return from a trip, your laptop bristling
with new shots, they’ll be automatically copied into your
big desktop PC.
To set this up, sign into Windows Live on both PCs (click “Sign
in” in the upper-right corner of Photo Gallery, if necessary).
On the laptop, sign out again (click “Sign out,” top right),
then sign right back in again. You’re asked if you want your
gallery synced with the other PC. Click Sync.
The rest is automatic. (Note: This feature is brought to you
by Windows Live Sync, which is described on page 474.)
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Category Groupings
Each time you import a new set of photos into Photo Gallery—whether from your
hard drive, a camera, or a memory card—it appears with its own heading in Photo
Gallery. Each batch is like one film roll you’ve had developed. Photo Gallery starts out
sorting your photo library chronologically, meaning that the most recently imported
photos appear at the top of the window.
Tip: If you’d prefer that the most recent items appear at the bottom of the Photo Gallery window instead
of the top, click the Ascending/Descending button on the toolbar.
You can exploit these mini-categories within Photo Gallery in several ways:
• For speed in scrolling through a big photo collection, you can collapse these group-
ings so only their names are visible. To do that, just click the tiny ˘ button at the
left end of each horizontal line.
Figure 14-8:
This pop-up menu is the master sorting
control for the display of photos. You can
use it to sort your collection by name,
date, tag or person (alphabetically),
rating, or type (meaning all videos and
all photos clumped together).
Your Own Personal Sorting Order
I want to put my photos in my own order. I’m making a slide-
show, and I want to dictate the sequence. How do I do that?
You can’t.
At least not without a lot of effort—namely, by manually
renaming the photos so that their names are 000 Beach,
001 Sunset, and so on.
To rename a photo, click it once. See the Info pane at the
right side of the window? (If not, click Info in the toolbar.)
Click the photo’s name to open its photo-editing box.
If you want to drag photos into a new order—say, for the
purposes of a slideshow movie—you have to do it in Movie
Maker.
frequently asked question
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• The “categories” don’t have to be chronological. You can also ask Photo Gallery
to cluster your photos into other logical groups: by rating (all the five-starrers
together), by date taken, and so on; see Figure 14-8.
Selecting Photos
To highlight a single picture in preparation for printing, opening, duplicating, or
deleting, click its thumbnail once with the mouse.
That much may seem obvious. But first-time PC users may not know how to ma-
nipulate more than one icon at a time—an essential survival skill.
To highlight multiple photos, use one of these techniques:
•To select all the photos. Select all the pictures in the set you’re viewing by pressing
Ctrl+A (the equivalent of the EditÆSelect All command).
•To select several photos by dragging. You can drag diagonally to highlight a group
of nearby photos, as shown in Figure 14-9. You don’t even have to enclose the
thumbnails completely; your cursor can touch any part of any icon to highlight
it. In fact, if you keep dragging past the edge of the window, the window scrolls
automatically.
Figure 14-9:
You can highlight
several photos
simultaneously
by dragging a
box around them.
To do so, start
from somewhere
outside the target
photos and drag
diagonally across
them, creating a
whitish enclosure
rectangle as you
go. Any photos
touched by this
rectangle are
selected when you
release the mouse.
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•To select consecutive photos. Click the first thumbnail you want to highlight, and
then Shift+click the last one. All the files in between are automatically selected,
along with the two photos you clicked (Figure 14-10, top). This trick mirrors the
way Shift+clicking works in a word processor, the Finder, and many other kinds
of programs.
•To select nonconsecutive photos. If you want to highlight only, for example, the
first, third, and seventh photos in a window, start by clicking the photo icon of
the first one. Then Ctrl+click each of the others. Each thumbnail sprouts colored
shading to indicate that you’ve selected it (Figure 14-10, bottom).
Figure 14-10:
Top: To select a block of pho-
tos (as indicated by the faint
colored border on each one),
click the first one, and then
Shift+click the last one. Photo
Gallery selects all the files in
between your clicks.
Bottom: To select nonadja-
cent photos, Ctrl+click each
of them. (To remove one of
the photos from your selec-
tion, Ctrl+click it again.)
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If you’re highlighting a long string of photos and then click one by mistake, you
don’t have to start over. Instead, just Ctrl+click it again, and the highlighting dis-
appears. (If you do want to start over from the beginning, however, just deselect
all selected photos by clicking any empty part of the window.)
The Ctrl-key trick is especially handy if you want to select almost all the photos
in a window. Press Ctrl+A to select everything in the folder, then Ctrl+click any
unwanted photos to deselect them. You’ll save a lot of time and clicking.
Tip: You can also combine the Ctrl+clicking business with the Shift+clicking trick. For instance, you could
click the first photo, then Shift+click the 10th, to highlight the first 10. Next, you could Ctrl+click photos 2, 5,
and 9 to remove them from the selection.
Once you’ve highlighted multiple photos, you can manipulate them all at once. For
example, you can drag them en masse out of the window and onto your desktop—a
quick way to export them.
In addition, when multiple photos are selected, the commands in the shortcut menu
(which you can access by right-clicking any one of the icons)—like Rotate, Copy,
Delete, Rename, or Properties—apply to all the photos simultaneously.
Deleting Photos
As every photographer knows—make that every good photographer—not every
photo is a keeper. You can relegate items to the Recycle Bin by selecting one or more
thumbnails and then performing one of the following:
• Right-click a photo, and then choose Delete from the shortcut menu.
• Click the red, slashy x button at the bottom of the window.
• Press the Delete key on your keyboard.
Note: That’s the forward-delete key, not the regular delete (Backspace) key. In Photo Gallery, the Backspace
key means “go back to the previous view,” just as in a Web browser.
If you suddenly decide you don’t really want to get rid of any of these trashed photos,
it’s easy to resurrect them. Switch to the desktop, open the Recycle Bin, and then drag
the thumbnails out of the window and back into your Pictures folder.
(Of course, if you haven’t deleted the imported pictures from your camera, you can
still recover the original files and reimport them even after you empty the Recycle Bin.)
Duplicating a Photo
It’s often useful to have two copies of a picture. For example, a photo whose dimen-
sions are appropriate for a slideshow or a desktop picture (that is, a 4:3 proportion)
isn’t proportioned correctly for ordering prints (4 × 6, 8 × 10, or whatever). To use
the same photo for both purposes, you really need to crop two copies independently.
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To make a copy of a photo, you can copy and paste it right back where it is. Or double-
click its thumbnail to open it, and then choose FileÆ“Make a copy.” You’re asked to
name the duplicate and choose a folder location for it. Do so, and then click Save.
The Info Panel
Behind the scenes, Photo Gallery stores a wealth of information about each individual
photo in your collection. To take a peek, highlight a thumbnail; if you don’t already
see the Info pane at the right side of the window (Figure 14-11), then click the Info
button on the toolbar.
How does Photo Gallery know so much about how your photos were taken? Most
digital cameras embed a wealth of image, camera, lens, and exposure information
in the photo files they create, using a standard data format called XMP or EXIF (Ex-
changeable Image Format). With that in mind, Photo Gallery automatically scans
photos for XMP or EXIF data as it imports them (see Figure 14-12).
Note: Some cameras do a better job than others at embedding EXIF data in photo files. Photo Gallery can
extract this information only if it’s been properly stored by the camera when the digital photo was created.
Of course, most of this information is missing if your photos didn’t come from a digital camera (if they were
scanned in, for example).
Figure 14-11:
The Info pane reveals a picture’s
name, rating, creation time and date,
dimensions (in pixels), file size, camera
settings, and any comments you’ve
typed into the Captions area. It isn’t just
a place to look at the details of your
pictures, though. You can also edit a lot
of it. You can even change the date a
photo was taken—a good tip to remem-
ber if you’re a defense attorney.
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Titles
You can rename a photo easily enough. Just click its existing name in the Info panel,
and then retype it.
Tip: Most people find this feature especially valuable when it comes to individual photographs. When
you import them from your digital camera, the pictures bear useless gibberish names like CRS000321.JPG,
CRS000322.JPG, and so on. If you highlight a bunch of photos and then change the title, you’re renaming
all of them at once. Photo Gallery even numbers them (Snowstorm 1.jpg, Snowstorm 2.jpg, and so on).
While you can make a photo’s title as long as you want, it’s smart to keep it short
(about 10 characters or so). This way, you can see all or most of the title in the Title
field (or under the thumbnails).
Tip: Once you’ve gone to the trouble of naming your photos, remember that you can make these names
appear right beneath the thumbnails for convenient reference. Use the “Arrange by”ÆName command
(upper left) to make it so.
Figure 14-12:
The Properties dialog box reports details about
your photos by reading the XMP or EXIF tags that
your camera secretly embeds in your files. This is
even more information than you see in the Info
pane (Figure 14-11).
To open this box, right-click any photo in
Photo Gallery. From the shortcut menu, choose
Properties.
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Dates
Weirdly enough, you can even edit the dates the pictures were taken—a handy fix if,
for example, the camera’s clock wasn’t set right. Just click the date or time, and then
either retype the date digits or click the ≥ button to open a clickable calendar.
Captions
Sometimes you need more than a one- or two-word title to describe a picture. If you
want to add a lengthier description, you can type it in the Captions area of the Info
pane (click where it says “Add caption”).
Even if you don’t write full-blown captions for your pictures, you can use the Cap-
tions box to store little details such as the names, places, dates, and events associated
with your photos.
The best thing about adding comments is that they’re searchable. After you’ve entered
all this free-form data, you can use it to quickly locate a photo using Photo Gallery’s
search command.
Tags and Ratings
All Versions
Tags are descriptive keywords—like Family, Vacation, or Kids—that you can use to
label and categorize your photos and videos. Ratings are, of course, star ratings from
0 to 5, meaning that you can categorize your pictures by how great they are.
The beauty of tags and ratings is that they’re searchable. Want to comb through all the
photos in your library to find every closeup taken of your children during summer
vacation? Instead of browsing through dozens of folders, just click the tags Kids, Vaca-
tion, Closeup, and Summer in the Navigation tree. You’ll have the results in seconds.
Or want to gather only the cream of the crop into a slideshow or DVD? Let Photo
Gallery produce a display of only your five-star photos.
Editing Tags
You can create as many tag labels as you want to create a meaningful, customized list.
To build your list, you can operate in either of two ways:
•In the Navigation tree. To add a tag, click “Add a new tag” in the Navigation tree,
either under the “People tags” heading or the “Descriptive tags” heading. Type the
tag label and click OK.
Note: People tags are new in Photo Gallery, and they simply identify who’s in the picture. Microsoft starts
you out with some generic people-tag groups (Coworkers, Family, and others), and also creates one called
Favorites, starring the same people identified as your Favorites in Windows Live Messenger and your other
Windows address books.
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•In the Info pane. Click Info in the toolbar. In the Info pane, click either “Add people
tags” or “Add descriptive tags.”
To edit or delete a tag, right-click it, and then, from the shortcut menu, choose Delete
or Rename.
Note: Be careful about renaming tags after you’ve started using them; the results can be messy. If you’ve
already applied the keyword Fishing to a batch of photos but later decide to replace it with Romantic in your
keyword list, then all the fishing photos automatically inherit the keyword Romantic. Depending on you and
your interests, this may not be what you intended.
It may take some time to develop a really good master set of keywords. The idea is
to assign labels that are general enough to apply across your entire photo collection,
but specific enough to be meaningful when conducting searches.
Applying Tags and Ratings
Photo Gallery offers two methods of applying tags and ratings to your pictures:
•Method 1: Drag the picture. One way to apply tags to photos is, paradoxically, to
apply the photos to the tags.
That is, drag relevant photos directly onto the tags in the Navigation tree, as shown
in Figure 14-13.
To give a photo a new star rating, drag its thumbnail onto the appropriate row in
the Navigation tree.
Tip: You can apply as many tags to an individual photo as you like. A picture of your cousin Rachel at a hot
dog–eating contest in London might bear all of these keywords: Rachel, Relatives, Travel, Food, Humor, and
Medical Crises. Later, you’ll be able to find that photo no matter which of these categories you’re hunting for.
Figure 14-13:
You can drag thumbnails onto tags one at a
time, or you can select the whole batch first,
using any of the selection techniques described
on page 495.
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This method is best when you want to apply a whole bunch of pictures to one or
two keywords. It’s pretty tedious, however, when you want to apply a lot of dif-
ferent keywords to a single photo. That’s why Microsoft has given you a second
method, described next.
•Method 2: Info Pane. Highlight a thumbnail. On the Info panel, you find a simple
list of all the tags you’ve applied to this photo. Add a tag by clicking Add Tag and
then typing a tag name (or as much as necessary for Photo Gallery to AutoCom-
plete it). To change the photo’s rating, click the number of stars you want in the
lower half of the Info panel.
The beauty of this system is that you can keep the little Info pane open on the screen
as you move through your photo collection. Each time you click a photo—or,
in fact, select a group of them—the tags list updates itself to reflect the tags of
whatever is now selected.
(To remove tag assignments from a certain picture, right-click the name of the tag.
From the shortcut menu, choose Remove Tag.)
Tip: You can drag thumbnails onto other Navigation-tree elements, too—not just tags and ratings. For
example, you can drag them onto a different month or year to change their internal records of when they
were taken. You can also drag them onto folders in the Folder list to sort them into different locations. (Yes,
you can actually move them around the hard drive this way.)
Face Recognition?
If you’re fooling around in Photo Gallery, and you double-
click a photo with people in it,
you might be astounded to see,
on the full-size view, small white
rectangles around their faces.
(Try pointing to the third word
of the phrase “Person found –
Identify” if you don’t see the
white rectangles.)
Why, it looks just like the face-
recognition feature of a modern
digital camera! If you click Iden-
tify, you get a pop-up palette of people’s names, so you can
tag the right face with the right name.
Could it be? Does Photo Gallery recognize faces, like iPhoto
and Picasa do? If you flag someone as your mom, will
Photo Gallery autotag all the other photos of your mom,
since you’ve told it what she
looks like?
Well, no.
Photo Gallery recognizes that
something is a face, but it
makes no attempt to figure out
whose face it is, even if you’ve
manually flagged that person’s
face in dozens of photos.
So why even bother? No rea-
son, except that when you post these photos online, your
friends will be able to search for photos containing the
people whose faces you’ve identified.
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Using Tags and Ratings
The big payoff for your diligence arrives when you need to get your hands on a spe-
cific set of photos, because Photo Gallery lets you isolate them with one quick click.
To round up all the photos with, say, the Kids tag, just click Kids in the Navigation
tree at the left side of the window. Photo Gallery immediately rounds up all photos
labeled with that tag, displays them in the photo-viewing area, and hides all others.
Or, to find all your five-star photos, click the row of five stars (“Filter by”) at the top
of the screen. (Use the pop-up menu beside it to choose “and higher,” “and lower,” or
“only.” That is, “three stars and higher,” “three stars and lower,” or “only three stars.”)
Note: Windows can’t embed metadata (and therefore tags or star ratings) to BMP, PNG, GIF, or MPEG files.
Actually, you can apply such identifying information to those file types in Photo Gallery, but it won’t show up
in Explorer windows or anywhere else in Windows (like the Photo Viewer program).
You also won’t be able to apply Windows-wide metadata to files that are locked, in use by another program,
or corrupted.
More tips:
• To find photos that match multiple keywords, Ctrl+click additional tag labels. For
example, if you click Travel, and then Ctrl+click Holidays, Photo Gallery reveals
all the pictures that have either of those keywords. (There’s no way to perform
an “and” keyword roundup—that is, to find pictures that have both Travel and
Holidays tags.)
• You can also Ctrl+click unrelated branches of the Navigation tree. For example,
you can click the Casey tag, and then Ctrl+click the five-star rating row, to find
only the very best pictures of Casey. You could then even Ctrl+click “2009” in the
Navigation tree to further restrict the photos you’re seeing.
But why stop there? Ctrl+click Videos at the top of the Navigation tree, and now
you’re seeing only the five-star videos of Casey in 2009.
• You can drag tags up or down in the Navigation tree (to rearrange them). And if
you drag a tag on top of another one, it becomes a subtag (nested tag). That is, you
could have a tag called Trips, and then subtags called Vermont, Florida, and Ohio.
As the tag list grows, remember that you can collapse any branch of the tree by
clicking its flippy triangle.
Searching for Photos by Text
The tag mechanism described above is an adequate way to add textual descriptions to
your pictures, but there are other ways. The name you give a picture might be signifi-
cant, and so might the picture’s caption or its folder location (that is, its folder path).
The Search box at the top of Photo Gallery searches all these text tidbits. It works
essentially like the Start menu’s Search box:
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• Just start typing. As you type, you filter the thumbnails down to just the pictures
that match what you’ve typed so far. You don’t have to finish a word, press Enter,
or use wildcard characters (*). See Figure 14-4.
• You can type two words (or parts of words) to find pictures that match both. To
find all photos of Zelda in Brazil, typing zel br will probably do the trick.
• Only beginnings of words count. Typing llweg won’t find pictures of Renee Zell-
weger, but zell will.
Editing Your Shots
All Versions
Straight from the camera, digital snapshots often need a little bit of help. A photo
may be too dark or too light. The colors may be too bluish or too yellowish. The focus
may be a little blurry, the camera may have been tilted slightly, or the composition
may be somewhat off.
Fortunately, Photo Gallery lets you fine-tune digital images in ways that, in the world
of traditional photography, would have required a fully equipped darkroom, several
bottles of smelly chemicals, and an X-Acto knife.
In Photo Gallery, you can’t paint in additional elements, mask out unwanted back-
grounds, or apply 50 different special-effects filters, as you can with editing programs
Figure 14-14:
As you type into
the Search box,
Photo Gallery
hides all pictures
except the ones
that have your
typed phrase
somewhere in
their names,
captions, file-
names, or folder
paths. (To cancel
your search and
reveal all the
pictures again,
click the tiny X at
the right end of
the Search box.)
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like Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Nonetheless, Photo Gallery handles basic
photo fix-up tasks, many of which work with a single click.
All Photo Gallery editing is performed in a special editing mode, in which the photo
appears at nearly full-screen size, and tool icons appear at the top (Figure 14-15). You
enter Edit mode by clicking a photo’s thumbnail and then clicking the Fix button
on the toolbar. (If you’ve double-clicked the photo to open it into the larger viewing
window, you can click Fix there, too.)
You exit Edit mode by clicking “Back To Gallery” (top left of the window) or tapping
the Esc key.
Ways to Zoom
Before you get deeply immersed in the editing process, it’s well worth knowing how
to zoom and scroll around, since chances are you’ll be doing quite a bit of it.
•Maximize. One way to zoom is to change the size of the window itself. Maximize
Photo Gallery to enlarge the image.
•The Size pop-up menu. Use the Size slider (lower-right) to zoom in or out.
•The mouse wheel. If your mouse has a scroll wheel on the top, you can zoom in
or out by turning that wheel, which is surely the most efficient way of all.
Figure 14-15:
Photo Gallery’s
editing tools
appear in a
special toolbar.
There’s no Save
command.
Any changes
you make to a
photo are auto-
matically saved.
But don’t worry;
Photo Gallery
always keeps
the untouched,
unedited origi-
nal behind the
scenes.
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Note: The icon beside the size slider means, “Fit the photo in the window once again, no matter how much
zooming I did.” Pressing Ctrl+0 does the same thing.
When you’re zoomed in, the cursor changes to a friendly little white glove—your
clue that you can now scroll the photo in any direction just by dragging. That’s more
direct than fussing with two independent scroll bars.
Ten Levels of Undo
As long as you remain in Edit mode, you can back out of your latest 10 changes. To
change your mind about the last change you made, just click the Undo button at the
bottom of the Fix pane.
To retrace even more of your steps, click the ≥ button next to the Undo button. The
resulting pop-up menu lists your latest 10 editing steps. Choose how far you want
to “rewind,” or click Undo All to back out of everything you’ve done since opening
the photo.
But once you leave Edit mode—by returning to the gallery—you lose the ability to
undo your individual edits. At this point, the only way to restore your photo to its
original state is to use the Revert command, which removes all the edits you’ve made
to the photo since importing it (page 512).
Auto Adjust
The “Auto adjust” button at the top of the Fix panel provides a simple way to improve
the appearance of less-than-perfect digital photos. One click makes colors brighter,
Figure 14-16:
The “Auto adjust”
command works
particularly well
on photos that are
slightly dark and
that lack good
contrast, like the
original photo on
the top. Using Photo
Gallery’s Brightness
and Contrast sliders
alone might have
helped a little, but
the “Auto adjust”
button produces a
faster and overall
better result, as
shown at the bot-
tom.
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skin tones warmer, and details sharper, as shown in Figure 14-16. (This button is a
lot like the Auto Levels command in Photoshop.)
It works by analyzing the relative brightness of all the pixels in your photo and at-
tempting to balance the image by dialing the brightness or contrast up or down and
intensifying dull or grayish-looking color. Usually, this approach at least makes pictures
look somewhat richer and more vivid.
You may find that Auto Adjust has no real effect on some photos and only minimally
improves others. Remember, too, that you can’t enhance just one part of a photo. If
you want to selectively adjust specific portions of a picture, you need a true photo-
editing program like Photoshop Elements.
Cropping
You’d be surprised at how many photographs can benefit from selective cropping.
You can eliminate parts of a photo you just don’t want, improve a photo’s compo-
sition (filling the frame with your subject often has greater impact), or fit a photo
to specific proportions (an important step if you’re going to turn your photos into
standard-size prints).
Here are the steps for cropping a photo:
1. Open the photo for editing.
For example, double-click it, and then click Fix on the toolbar.
Editing Your Shots
Figure 14-17:
When you crop a
picture, you draw
a rectangle in any
direction using the
crosshairs pointer
to define the part
of the photo you
want to keep.
(To deselect this
area—when you
want to start over,
for example—click
anywhere in the
dimmed area.)
Once you’ve
drawn the rect-
angle and clicked
Crop, the excess
falls to the digital
cutting room floor,
thus enlarging
your subject.
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508 windows 7: the missing manual
2. In the Fix pane, click “Crop photo.”
The Crop controls appear.
3. Make a selection from the Proportion pop-up menu, if you like (Figure 14-17).
The Proportion pop-up menu controls the behavior of the cropping tool. When
the menu is set to Original, you can draw a cropping rectangle of any size and
proportion, in essence going freehand.
When you choose one of the other options in the pop-up menu, however, Photo
Gallery constrains the rectangle you draw to preset proportions. It prevents you
from coloring outside the lines, so to speak.
Most digital cameras produce photos whose proportions are 4:3 (width to height).
This size is ideal for onscreen slideshows and DVDs, because most PC screens and
TVs use 4:3 dimensions, too—but it doesn’t divide evenly into standard print
photograph sizes.
That’s why the Proportion pop-up menu offers canned choices like 4 × 6, 5 × 7,
and so on. Limiting your cropping to one of these preset sizes guarantees that
your cropped photos will fit perfectly into Kodak (or Shutterfly) prints. (If you
don’t constrain your cropping this way, Kodak—not you—will decide how to
crop them to fit.)
As soon as you make a selection from this pop-up menu, Photo Gallery draws a
preliminary cropping rectangle—of the proper dimensions—on the screen, turn-
ing everything outside it slightly dim.
In general, this rectangle always appears in landscape (horizontal) orientation.
To make it vertical, click “Rotate frame” just below the Proportion pop-up menu.
Often, you’ll want to give the cropping job the benefit of your years of training
and artistic sensibility by redrawing the cropping area. Here’s how:
4. Drag the tiny white control handles to reshape the cropping rectangle.
Drag inside the rectangle to move it relative to the photo itself.
5. When the cropping rectangle is just the way you want, click Apply.
Photo Gallery throws away all the pixels outside the rectangle. Of course, the Undo
and Revert commands are always there if you change your mind.
Note: Remember that cropping always shrinks your photos. Remove too many pixels, and your photo may
end up too small (that is, with a resolution too low to print or display properly).
Red Eye
You snap a near-perfect family portrait: The focus is sharp, the composition is bal-
anced, everyone’s smiling. And then you notice it: Uncle Mitch, standing dead center
in the picture, looks like a vampire. His eyes are glowing red, as though illuminated
by the evil within.
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Red eye is light reflected back from your subject’s eyes. The bright light of your flash
passes through the pupil of each eye, illuminating and bouncing off of the blood-red
retinal tissue at the back of the eye. Red-eye problems worsen when you shoot pictures
in a dim room, because your subject’s pupils are dilated wider, allowing even more
light from the flash to shine on the retina.
The best course of action is to avoid red eye to begin with—by using an external (not
built-in) flash, for example. But if it’s too late for that, and people’s eyes are already
glowing demonically, there’s always Photo Gallery’s Red Eye tool. It lets you alleviate
red-eye problems by digitally removing the offending red pixels. Figure 14-18 shows
how.
Truth be told, the Red Eye tool doesn’t know an eyeball from a pinkie toe. It just turns
any red pixels black, regardless of what body part they’re associated with. Friends and
family members look more attractive—and less like Star Trek characters—after you
touch up their phosphorescent red eyes with Photo Gallery.
Rotate
If your digital camera has a built-in orientation sensor, Photo Gallery attempts to
figure out which orientation the photos are supposed to be (horizontal or vertical)
at the time you import them.
Figure 14-18:
Top: To fix red eye,
zoom in and scroll so
that you have a closeup
view of the eye with
the red-eye problem.
Click “Fix red eye,” and
then drag a box around
each affected eye.
Photo Gallery neutral-
izes the red pixels,
painting them solid
black. Of course, this
means that everybody
winds up looking
like they have black
eyes instead of red
ones—but at least they
look a little less like the
walking undead.
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510 windows 7: the missing manual
If it missed a few, however, you can use either of these methods to turn them right-
side up:
• Click one of the blue Rotate buttons at the bottom of the main Photo Gallery
window.
• Right-click a thumbnail; from the shortcut menu, choose one of the Rotate com-
mands.
Tip: After importing a batch of photos, you can save a lot of time and mousing if you first select all the
thumbnails that need rotating (by Ctrl+clicking each, for example). Then use one of the rotation commands
above to fix all the selected photos in one fell swoop.
Exposure and Color Adjustments
Plenty of photos need no help at all. They look fantastic right out of the camera. And
plenty of others are ready for prime time after only a single click on the “Auto adjust”
button, as described earlier.
If you click “Adjust exposure” “Adjust color” on the Fix pane, though, you can make
gradations of the changes that the “Auto adjust” button makes. For example, if a photo
looks too dark and murky, you can bring details out of the shadows without blowing
out the highlights. If the snow in a skiing shot looks too bluish, you can de-blue it.
If the colors don’t pop quite enough in the prize-winning-soccer-goal shot, you can
boost their saturation levels.
Editing Your Shots
The Histogram
The histogram, the little graph in the Exposure panel, is a
self-updating visual representation of the dark and light tones
that make up your photograph, and it’s a tool that’s beloved
by photographers.
If the mountains of your graph seem to
cover all the territory from left to right, you
already have a roughly even distribution
of dark and light tones in your picture, so
you’re probably in good shape. But if the
mountains seem clumped up at either
the left side or the right side of the graph,
your photo is probably either muddy/too
dark or overexposed/too bright. (Your eye could probably
have told you that, too.) Anyway, you might want to make
an adjustment.
To fix this situation, drag the right or left pointer on the slider
inward, toward the base of the “mountain.” If you move the
right indicator inward, the whites become brighter, but the
dark areas stay pretty much the same; if
you drag the left indicator inward, the
dark tones change, but the highlights
remain steady.
In general, avoid moving these endpoint
handles inward beyond the outer edges
of the mountains. Doing so adds contrast,
but it also throws away whatever data
is outside the handles, which generally
makes for a lower-quality printout.
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In short, there are fixes the Adjust panels can make that no one-click magic button
can touch.
Exposure
When you move the Brightness slider, you’re making the entire image lighter or darker.
In other words, if the picture’s contrast is already exactly as you want it, but the whole
picture could use darkening or lightening, Brightness should be your tool of choice.
The Contrast slider, on the other hand, affects the difference between the darkest and
lightest tones in your picture. If you increase the contrast, you create darker blacks and
brighter whites. If you decrease the contrast (too much), you create flat or muddy tones.
The new Shadows slider attempts to recover lost detail in the darkest parts of the
photo, and the Highlights slider attempts to recover detail from white, blown-out
parts. Both of them work surprisingly well—in moderation. (Too much makes the
photo look weird.)
Color balance
One of the most common failings of digital cameras (and scanners) is that they don’t
capture color very accurately. Digital photos sometimes have a slightly bluish or green-
ish tinge. Or maybe you just want to take color adjustment into your own hands, not
only to get the colors right, but to also create a specific mood for an image—icy blue
for a freezing day, for example.
Editing Your Shots
Figure 14-19:
You can drag the
handle of a slider,
of course, but that
doesn’t give you
much accuracy.
Sometimes you
may prefer to
click directly on
the slider, which
makes the handle
jump to the spot.
The checkmark
means, “You’ve
fooled with this
parameter.”
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512 windows 7: the missing manual
The Adjust Color panel offers three sliders that wield power over this sort of thing
(Figure 14-19):
•Color Temperature. This slider adjusts the photo along the blue-orange spectrum.
Move the slider to the left to make the image “cooler,” or slightly bluish—a good
way to improve overly yellowish scenes shot in incandescent lighting. Move the
slider to the right to warm up the tones, or make them more orange—a particu-
larly handy technique for breathing life back into subjects that have been bleached
white with a flash.
•Tint. Nudge the slider to the right to add a greenish tint, left to add red.
Adjusting this slider is particularly helpful for correcting skin tones and compensat-
ing for difficult lighting situations, like pictures you took under fluorescent lighting.
•Saturation. When you increase the saturation of a photo’s colors, you make them
more vivid; you make them “pop” more. You can also improve photos that have
harsh, garish colors by dialing down the saturation, so that the colors end up look-
ing a little less intense than they appeared in the original snapshot. That’s a useful
trick in photos whose composition is so strong that the colors are almost distracting.
Tint: Drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left for an instant black-and-white rendition of your shot.
Reverting to the Original
Photo Gallery includes built-in protection against overzealous editing—a feature that
can save you much grief. If you end up cropping a photo too much, or cranking up the
brightness of a picture until it seems washed out, or accidentally turning someone’s
lips black with the Red-Eye tool, then you can undo all your edits at once with the
Revert command. Revert strips away every change you’ve ever made since the picture
arrived from the camera. It leaves you with your original, unedited photo—even if
it’s been months or years since you made the changes.
Originals-Folder Auto-Cleanup
Let me get this straight: Every time I edit a photo, even
slightly, I wind up with a duplicate copy of it in some hid-
den folder on my hard drive? Seems like that’s a recipe for
wasting a lot of disk space.
True enough: The auto-backup feature means you wind up
with two copies of every photo you ever edit, the edited one
visible in Photo Gallery, and the original stashed on your
hard drive. If left unchecked, all those originals could wind
up eating up a distressingly large chunk of your hard drive.
For that reason, Photo Gallery can auto-delete the secret
originals after a certain amount of time has passed. If it’s been
a year since you touched a photo, after all, you’re probably
happy with the changes you made to it, and you may not
need the space-eating safety net any more.
To turn on this feature, choose FileÆOptions within Photo
Gallery. In the Options dialog box, under the Original Images
heading, you can specify how long Windows should keep
those unedited originals on hand.
frequently asked question
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The secret of the Revert command: Whenever you use any editing tools, Photo Gal-
lery—without prompting and without informing you—instantly makes a duplicate
of your original file. With an original version safely tucked away, Photo Gallery lets
you go wild on the copy. Consequently, you can remain secure in the knowledge that
in a pinch, Photo Gallery can always restore an image to the state it was in when you
first imported it.
Note: Windows keeps your unedited original photos in your PersonalÆAppDataÆLocalÆMicrosoftÆWin-
dowsÆOriginal Images folder. (It’s OK to open this folder to inspect its contents and even open photos
inside, but don’t delete, move, or rename any of them; you’ll wind up completely confusing Photo Gallery.)
To restore a selected photo to its original, choose FileÆ“Revert to original,” or press
Ctrl+R, or click the Revert button at the bottom of the Fix panel. Photo Gallery asks
you to confirm the change; if you click OK, it swaps in the original version of the
photo. You’re back where you started.
Tip: Clearly, Photo Gallery has all the basics covered. But if you want more editing control—for example, if
you want to edit only part of an image, or you want to add text or something—you’ll have to rely on another
program.
Fortunately, Photo Gallery plays well with others. Once you’ve opened a photo, you can use the ExtrasÆ”Open
with” submenu to send it off to any other graphics program—say, Photoshop Elements—for additional tweaking.
But even if you make changes in that other program, you’re still protected by the warmth and security of
the Revert command.
Finding Your Audience
All Versions
The last stop on your digital photos’ cycle of greatness is, of course, a showing for
other people. Photo Gallery offers several ways to make that happen.
Tip: A subset of these options, including Slide Show, Print, E-mail, and Burn, are available right in the toolbar
of your Pictures window. That is, you don’t have to open Photo Gallery first (although in most cases, all you’re
doing is handing off the task to Photo Gallery).
Make Prints
If you highlight some photo thumbnails and then click Print (in the Photo Gallery
toolbar), the pop-up menu offers you two choices:
•Print. Here, you can specify what printer, paper, and quality options you want
in order to print your own pictures at home—on an inkjet printer, for example.
•Order Prints. Even if you don’t have a high-quality color printer, traditional prints
of your digital photos are only a few clicks away—if you’re willing to spend a little
money, that is. Figure 14-20 has the details.
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The best part is that you get to print only the prints you actually want, rather
than developing a roll of 36 prints only to find that just two of them are any good.
Tip: If you plan to order prints, first crop your photos to the proper proportions (4 × 6, for example), using
the Crop tool described earlier in this chapter. Most digital cameras produce photos whose shape doesn’t
quite match standard photo-paper dimensions. If you send photos to Shutterfly uncropped, you’re leaving
it up to Shutterfly to decide which parts of your pictures to lop off to make them fit. (More than one PC fan
has opened the envelope to find loved ones missing the tops of their skulls.) You can always restore the
photos to their original uncropped versions using the Revert command.
Slideshows
See “The Post-Dump Slideshow” on page 490.
Email
The most important thing to know about emailing photos is this: Full-size photos are
usually too big to email. They’re big files, and the original camera shots won’t even fit
on a modern PC monitor—they’re much bigger, in terms of pixels—without shrinking.
In Photo Gallery, the problem has been neatly solved in an automated, amazingly
slick way—if Windows Live Mail (Chapter 12) is your email program:
Figure 14-20:
Thanks to deals that
Microsoft has cut
with online photo
print shops, you can
order prints directly
from within Photo
Gallery. After you
select the size and
quantity of the pic-
tures you want, one
click is all it takes
to transmit your
photos and bill your
credit card. The rates
range from 19 cents
for a single 4 × 6
print to about $4
for 8 × 10s. You get
photos printed on
high-quality glossy
paper in the mail.
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1. Select the thumbnails of the photo(s) you want to email.
You can use any of the picture-selecting techniques described on page 495.
2. Click Email on the toolbar.
Photo Gallery hands off the photos to your email program. It prepares an outgoing
message with the photos already attached.
3. Choose a size for your photo(s).
The size options are at the right side of the photo-formatting strip (Figure 14-21).
Medium, for example, pares your photos down to about 1 megabyte each, so beware
if you try to send more than five of them in one email message; you may overflow
your friends’ email boxes.
4. Format the photos.
The other buttons in the formatting strip let you add frames around each
photos—sweet—and even correct the colors (Autocorrect) or convert the shots
to black-and-white.
5. Address the message, add a note if you like, and click Send.
At this point, Mail processes your photos—converting them to JPEG format and,
if you requested it, resizing them. Your photos are on their merry way.
Figure 14-21:
Photo Gallery
hands off the
photos to
Windows Live
Mail, if you
have it; here,
you see an
impressive new
strip of photo-
attachment
controls. Add
borders, control
the size—even
rotate them
or correct the
color! (If you
click Layout,
you can specify
how the photos
appear—with
what layout?
With text or
without? What
size?)
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516 windows 7: the missing manual
Now then. What if you don’t have Windows Live Mail as your email program? In that
case, see Figure 14-22.
Burn to a Disc
If you highlight some photo thumbnails, the Make menu offers two ways to burn
them onto a blank CD or DVD:
•Burn a data CD. This is a great way to back up or archive your pictures and movies.
Insert a blank CD or DVD when you’re asked.
•Burn a DVD. The “Burn a data CD” option makes a data disc. It doesn’t play on
your TV—only in a computer.
This command, however, hands off the photos to Windows Live DVD Maker for
burning to a DVD, so you can share your masterpieces on your friends’ TV sets.
For details on DVD Maker, download the free PDF appendix, “Movie Maker &
DVD Maker,” from this book’s “Missing CD” at www.missingmanuals.com.
Make a Slideshow Movie
If you highlight some photo thumbnails and then choose MakeÆ“Make a movie,”
Photo Gallery automatically hands them off to Windows Movie Maker and lays them
out in the timeline as a slideshow, all ready to go.
All you have left to do is rearrange them, add music and credits, and save as a digital
movie file for publishing online or distributing to your hip friends. (Once again, check
out the free PDF appendix “Movie Maker & DVD Maker” from this book’s “Missing
CD” at www.missingmanuals.com.)
Build a Photo Screen Saver
This feature’s really nice. You can turn any arbitrary batch of photos into your PC’s
very own screen saver. After half an hour (or whatever) of inactivity, the screen dark-
ens, thunder rolls, and your friends and family begin to appear, gracefully panning
Figure 14-22:
If you don’t have Windows Live Mail, then when you click
Email on Photo Gallery’s toolbar, you’re offered an op-
portunity to shrink down your multimegabyte photo files
before attaching them.
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and zooming and crossfading, as your coworkers spill their coffee in admiration and
amazement.
The hard part is specifying which pictures you want to be part of the show; you can’t
just highlight a bunch of them and say, “Use these.” Instead, you have to isolate your
screen saver–bound shots, either by giving them a certain tag, applying a certain rat-
ing, or confining them to a certain folder.
Begin by choosing FileÆ“Screen saver settings” to open the Screen Saver Settings
control panel. Make sure the “Screen saver” pop-up menu says “Windows Live Photo
Gallery.” Then click Settings.
Now you can choose how you want your photos selected for their big moment in
the spotlight. You can specify only the photos with certain tags, only photos without
certain tags, photos with certain star ratings, or photos from a particular folder. You
can also choose a theme (animation style), a speed, and whether or not you want the
photos presented in a random order.
When you’ve finished setting up the slideshow—that is, screen saver—click Save. When
you return to the Screen Saver Settings dialog box, you can either click Preview to
manually trigger the screen saver for your inspection, or click OK and wait 20 minutes
for the screen saver to kick in by itself.
Finding Your
Audience
The Automatic Panorama
If you’re one of those clever shutterbugs who tries to capture
really wide-angle scenes by taking multiple side-by-side
photos, Photo Gallery
is here to help you.
Its new automatic
panorama-stitching
feature can combine
those side-by-side
shots into one super-
wide megavista.
To make this work,
select all the side-by-
side shots in Photo
Gallery. Choose MakeÆ”Create a panoramic photo.”
After the program crunches away for a while, it proposes a
name for the resulting shot (“Flower stitch,” for example);
fix the name, if you like, and then click Stitch.
Now the panorama opens up at full size. Usually, you see
that the edges don’t
quite align, or the
exposure was slightly
different from shot
to shot.
Click Fix on the tool-
bar, and use the crop-
ping tool to shave
away the jagged
edges. (There’s not
much you can do about the mismatched lighting—except
to remember that the next time you take panorama shots,
it’s best to turn off your camera’s automatic mode. Choose
one exposure and stick with it for all the side-by-side shots.)
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Make a Blog Post
If you’ve got yourself a Windows Live blog (page 469), you can fire photos to it directly
from Photo Gallery. Choose MakeÆ“Make a blog post,” and then specify whether you
Figure 14-23:
Top: Here, you can
specify a name for
your new album (or
add the photos to
an existing album);
choose who can
see the pictures
(everyone, just you,
or only people in
your online address
book); and specify
how big you want
the pictures to be.
When you click Pub-
lish, Photo Gallery
shoots them up to
your Windows Live
account (Chap-
ter 13).
Bottom: When it’s
all over, your photos
are online in a
handsome gallery
for all your fans to
see. They can click a
thumbnail to see the
photo at full size.
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want the photos to appear pasted into your post or separately as an album.
Now Windows Live Writer appears (page 301), with your photos already in place. (If
you chose “as album,” you see only a link to them, just as your audience will see.) Type
up a few words about your masterpieces, and then click Publish.
Publish a Web Photo Gallery
Ahh, now we’re talking. Here’s the quickest, easiest, freest way ever to let your admirers
far and wide enjoy your pictures: Post them in a Web gallery.
Just highlight the pictures you want, and then choose PublishÆ“Online album.”
Proceed as shown in Figure 14-23.
Tip: Microsoft generously permits you to upload photos directly to Flickr.com, or videos directly to
YouTube.com—it’s not all about Microsoft.
Just select the photos or videos, and then choose PublishÆMore ServicesÆ”Publish on Flickr” or “Publish
on YouTube.”
The first time you try this, you’ll be asked for your Flickr or YouTube account information. After that, though,
it’s one-stop publishing.
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chapter
15
chapter 15: windows media player 521
Windows Media Player
In the beginning, Windows Media Player was the headquarters for music and video
on your PC. It was the Grand Central Terminal for things like music CDs (you
could play ’em, copy songs off ’em, and burn ’em); MP3 files and other digital
songs (you could sort ’em, buy ’em online, and file ’em into playlists); pocket music
players of the non-iPod variety (fill ’em up, manage their playlists); Internet radio
stations; DVD movies (watch ’em); and so on.
Media Player still does all that, and more. But it’s no longer clear that this is the pro-
gram you’ll use for these activities. Gradually, the Media Player audience is splintering.
Nowadays, a certain percentage of people are using alternative programs like these:
•iTunes. If you have an iPod or an iPhone, you use Apple’s iTunes software to do
your music and video organizing.
•Zune software. If you have a Zune music player, you have to use yet another juke-
box program—the software that came with it—for loading up and organizing
your player.
•Media Center. Many of Media Player’s functions are now duplicated in Windows
Media Center, the vast playback engine described in Chapter 16.
Still, most of the Windows world continues to use Windows Media Player as their
music-file database. Version 12 has some excellent new features, including a cleaner
design, free streaming through your house—or even over the Internet—to other
computers, and playback of more kinds of audio and video files (the new types include
H.264, AAC, Xvid, and DivX). It’s worth getting to know.
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The Lay of the Land Note: In its insatiable quest to dominate the world of digital music and video, Microsoft keeps updating
Windows Media Player, usually redesigning it beyond recognition with each update. For example, this chapter
describes Media Player version 12, included with Windows 7 out of the gate. But sure as shootin’, version 13
will be coming your way within a year or so. (Windows’s automatic-update feature will let you know when
version 13 is fully baked and ready to download.)
The Lay of the Land
All Versions
The first time you open Windows Media Player, you confront the usual Microsoft
interrogation about your privacy tolerance. If it’s pretty much OK with you for Mi-
crosoft to do what it wants with (anonymous) details of your Media Center habits,
click Recommended and get on with your life.
If you click Custom instead, you can opt out of that kind of invisible data transfer,
decline the auto-connection to Microsoft’s online music store, and avoid making
Media Player the automatic playback program for all kinds of different file types.
In any case, eventually, you wind up at the main Media Player screen (Figure 15-1). It
looks quite a bit different from its predecessors. In fact, if you’ve perused the previous
chapter, you’ll realize that Media Player and Photo Gallery share a very similar design.
Down the left side of the window is a Navigation tree—a list of the music, videos,
pictures, recorded TV shows, and playlists in your collection. The flippy triangles next
to the major headings make it easy to collapse sections of the list. Under the Library
headings, you can click Artist, Album, Genre, or whatever, to see your entire music
library sorted by that criterion (Figure 15-1).
Figure 15-1:
When you click a
label at left, the
main portion of the
window changes to
show you your music
collection, using the
actual album-cover
artwork as icons. It’s
very visual, but not
especially stingy with
screen space. Fortu-
nately, you also have
a more compact List
view available—choose
Details from the View
Options pop-up menu
(d) next to the Search
box.
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The Lay of the Land
Media Player’s top edge, as you may have noticed, offers three horizontal strips:
•The menu bar. As in so many Windows 7 programs, this one has a very useful
menu bar, but Microsoft has hidden it in hopes of making Media Player seem less
complicated. Fine, but you need the menu bar. Make it appear by pressing Ctrl+M.
The rest of this chapter assumes that you’ve done so, as shown in Figure 15-1.
•Address bar. This “bread crumbs trail” of Media Player places shows what you’ve
clicked to get where you are: for example, Library˘Music˘Genre˘Classical. You
can click any of these words to backtrack.
•Toolbar. Here are the one- or two-word commands you’ll use most often.
The largest portion of the window is filled by the Details pane—basically, your list
of music, videos, or photos. The wider you make the window, the more information
you can see here.
Tip: The pop-up menu next to the Search box lets you change how the album covers, videos, and photos
are displayed: in a list, as icons only, or as icons with details.
When you’re in any kind of List view, don’t forget that you can right-click the column headings to get the
“Choose columns” command. It lets you change what kinds of detail columns appear here. You can get rid of
Length and Rating, if you like, and replace those columns with Mood and Conductor. (If you’re weird, that is.)
At the right side, you may see the Play, Burn, and Sync tabs; more on these in a moment.
Down at the bottom, there’s a standard set of playback controls.
Note: It’s true: There’s no more Now Playing view. But you won’t miss it; read on.
Custom Express
The first time you open Media Player, a welcome message
appears. It offers you two choices:
Express Settings. This option is “Recommended” because
it makes Media Player the main music and video player for
your PC, sends Microsoft anonymous details about what you
buy and listen to, and downloads track lists and other details
from the Internet when you insert a CD or DVD.
Custom Settings. If you’d rather be a little less free with
your private information, or If you’d like Media Player not to
do quite such a big land grab of your multimedia playback
rights, then choose this option. You’re walked through three
settings screens where you can tone down Media Player’s
ambitions: Turn off its transmission or recording of your
activities, opt out of the link to the Media Guide online music
store, or specify which file types Media Player considers
itself the “owner” of (that will open in Media Player when
double-clicked).
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Importing Music Files
When you first open Media Player, it automatically searches the usual folders on
your hard drive—Music, Pictures, Videos, Recorded TV—for files that it can play. It
leaves the files where they are, but in the Navigation pane, it lists everything it finds.
Actually, it’s monitoring those folders. If any new music files (or video or pictures)
arrive in those folders, they’re automatically listed in Media Player.
But what if there’s some music in a different folder? Fortunately, you can add that new
folder to Media Player’s awareness.
Choose OrganizeÆ“Manage libraries”ÆMusic. Proceed as shown in Figure 15-2.
Note: Any song, video, or photo that you ever play in Media Player gets automatically added to its Library—if
it’s on your hard drive or the Internet. If it’s on another PC on the network, or on a removable disk like a
CD, Media Player doesn’t bother adding it, because it probably won’t be there the next time you want it.
You can also drag sound or video files directly from your desktop or folder windows
into the Media Player window.
Figure 15-2:
Here’s Monitored Folder
Central. It lists the fold-
ers that Media Player
monitors for the arrival
of new music files. Click
Add to add a new folder;
click a folder and click
Remove to stop monitor-
ing it. Click OK.
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Music Playback
You can sort your collection by performer, album, year released, or whatever, just by
clicking the corresponding icons in the Navigation tree. Whenever you want to play
back some music, just click your way to the song or album you want—there’s no need
to hunt around in your shoeboxes for the original CD the songs came from.
But that’s just the beginning of Media Player’s organizational tools; see Figure 15-3.
You can pick something to listen to in a couple of different ways:
• Under Music in the Navigation pane, click Artist, Album, or Genre. Double-click
an album cover to see what songs are on that album. Double-click a song to start
playing it.
• Use the Search command to find a song, composer, album, or band.
When you’ve found something worth listening to, double-click to start playback. You
can use the space bar to start and stop playback.
Figure 15-3:
On the Library
tab, the Naviga-
tion tree (left)
lists your play-
lists. Under the
Music heading,
you see various
ways to sort your
collection. The
button that starts
out looking like
this L (next to
the Search box)
changes the lay-
out in the central
window: List
view, Icon view,
and so on. Don’t
miss the Search
box at the top,
which searches
all text related
to your songs
and videos as
you type, hiding
entries that don’t
match.
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Tip: If you point to a song without clicking, a little Preview bubble pops up. Click the 2 button to hear a
15-second snippet of it; click the 5 button to skip ahead.
How is this new Media Player 12 feature any better than just clicking the song and hitting the space bar?
Microsoft only knows.
Fun with Media Player
When your everyday work leaves you uninspired, here are a few of the experiments
you can conduct on the Media Player screen design:
•Shrink the window to Now Playing size. If the Media Player window is taking up
too much screen space, making it harder for you to work on that crucial business
plan as you listen to Eminem, no problem: You can shrink it down to a three-inch
square, a little panel called the Now Playing window (Figure 15-4). You can park
this window off to the side of your screen as you do other work. It shows the cur-
rent album cover, and when you point at it, playback controls appear.
To fire up the Now Playing screen, press Ctrl+3, or choose ViewÆNow Playing,
or click the « icon in the lower-right corner of the window.
Redesigning the Navigation Pane
The Navigation pane starts out
looking a little baffling. Under the
Music heading, it looks like you
can sort by only Artist, Album, or
Genre—why not rating or com-
poser?
And what’s the deal about the
Pictures category? You’ve already
got two photo-playback programs
(Picture Viewer and Photo Gal-
lery)—why would you use Media
Player to play photos?
And why is there a Recorded
TV folder here, even on the vast
majority of PCs that cannot, in fact,
record TV?
Fortunately, it’s easy enough to
hide the items you’ll never use and
add the ones you will.
The key is to choose
OrganizeƓCustomize navigation
pane.” For Music, you’re offered a
long list of additional music-sorting
categories, like Year, Rating, Com-
poser, Folder, and so on. Turn on
the checkboxes you want.
Meanwhile, the other Nav-pane
headings have checkboxes here,
too. Go ahead and turn off Re-
corded TV (you may have to click
the checkbox twice to make it
empty) or Pictures, if you like. If
you don’t plan to buy any music
online, then turn off Show Music
Services below the list, too.
Finally, click OK. You’ve finally
made Media Player your player.
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Press Ctrl+1 to return the Media Player window to its full-sized glory.
Tip: Of course, you can also just minimize Media Player, as you would any window. In fact, when you do
that, Media Player’s icon on the taskbar sprouts a jump list. In other words, you can right-click it to see a
pop-up menu of handy commands, like “Resume previous list” and “Play all music.” It also lists your most
frequently played tunes.
•Switch visualizations. A visualization is a sort of laser light show, a screen saver that
pulses in time to the music. It’s available only in the Now Playing mode described
above (Figure 15-4, right).
To see it, right-click the Now Playing window. From the shortcut menu, choose
Visualizations; from the submenu (and sub-submenus), choose a visualization
style. Ctrl+click the window (to see the next style) or Shift+Ctrl+click (for the
previous one).
And if you tire of the displays built into Windows, simply download more of them
from the Internet by choosing VisualizationsÆ“Download visualizations” from
the same shortcut menu.
•Expand the window. On the other hand, if your PC is briefly serving as a glorified
stereo system at a cocktail party, double-click the visualization display itself (or
press Alt+Enter). The screen-saver effect now fills the entire screen, hiding all text,
buttons, and controls. If you have an available laptop and a coffee table to put it on,
you’ve got yourself a great atmospheric effect. (When the party’s over, just double-
click again, or press Alt+Enter again, to make the standard controls reappear.)
Figure 15-4:
Left: When the Now
Playing window is on
your screen, you get to
see the album art and,
when the mouse is in the
window, a very tiny set of
playback controls.
Right: Visualizations R Us.
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•Change the skin. In hopes of riding the world’s craze for MP3 files, Microsoft has
helped itself to one of the old WinAmp program’s most interesting features: skins.
A skin is a design scheme that completely changes the look of Windows Media
Player, as shown in Figure 15-5.
To choose a new skin, choose ViewÆSkin Chooser. Then click each of the available
skins, listed down the left side, to see a preview of its appearance. When you click
the Apply Skin button (at the top-left corner of the window), your player takes on
the look of the skin you chose and shrinks down into the compact Skin mode, as
described in the previous tip.
•Fool around with the sound. Don’t miss the graphic equalizer, a little row of sliders
that lets you adjust the bass, treble, and other frequencies to suit your particular
speakers and your particular ears. In the Now Playing window, right-click an
empty spot. From the shortcut menu, choose EnhancementsÆGraphic Equalizer.
The same submenu offers a number of other audio effects, including Quiet Mode
(smooths out the highs and the lows so that sudden blasts don’t wake up the kids)
Figure 15-5:
To change the
skin, choose
ViewÆSkin
Chooser from the
menu. A directory
of available skins
appears; it’s empty
at the outset.
Click More Skins;
Windows sends
you online to
Microsoft’s grisly-
sounding Skin
Gallery.
Not all skins are,
shall we say, mas-
terpieces of intui-
tive design; it may
take you several
minutes just to find
the Stop button.
When you find a
skin you like, click
Apply Skin (above
the list).
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and something called SRS WOW, which simulates a 3-D sound experience through
nothing more than stereo speakers or headphones.
•Fool around with the speed. If you’re in a hurry to get through an album, or just
think the tempo’s too slow, right-click an empty spot in the Now Playing window.
From the shortcut menu, choose EnhancementsÆ“Play speed settings.” You’re of-
fered a new window containing a playback-speed slider for your music—a weird
and wonderful feature.
Playing Music CDs
For its next trick, Media Player can simulate a $25 CD player. To fire it up, just insert
an audio CD into your computer’s CD or DVD drive.
If you insert a CD when you’re at the desktop, and it’s the first time you’ve ever taken
this dramatic action, you see the dialog box shown in Figure 15-6. It asks how you
want Windows to handle inserted CDs. Do you want it to play them? Or rip them
(start copying their songs to your hard drive)? And if you said “play,” do you want to
use Media Player or Media Center, if you have it?
Filling in Track Names
Weird though it may seem, precious few audio CDs come
programmed to know their own names (and song titles).
(Remember, CDs were invented before the MP3/iTunes
era; nobody expected them to be played on computers.)
Every day, millions of people insert music CDs into their
computers and see the songs listed as nothing more than
“Track 1,” “Track 2,” and so on—and the album itself goes
by the catchy name “Unknown Album.”
Fix #1. If your PC is online when you insert a certain music
CD, you’ll bypass that entire situation. Windows takes a quick
glance at your CD, sends a query to www.allmusic.com (a
massive database on the Web containing information on
over 15 million songs), and downloads the track list and a
picture of the album cover for your particular disc.
Fix #2. If allmusic.com draws a blank, as it often does for
classical recordings, no big deal. Media Player makes it easy
to search the Web for this information at a later time. In the
main Media Player window (Ctrl+1), click Album in the Nav
pane. Right-click an album cover, and then, from the shortcut
menu, choose “Find album info.” (Alternatively, you can
highlight the names of the tracks with missing information;
right-click one and then choose “Find album info.”)
Fix #3. You can type in the names of your songs manually.
Begin on the Library tab. Select the tracks you want to edit.
(By Shift+clicking or Ctrl+clicking, you can add information
to multiple tracks simultaneously—for example, if they all
came from the same album.)
Now click carefully in the specific column you want to edit—
Artist, Album, or whatever. A little text box opens so that you
can type in the track information manually.
Fix #4. This is pretty cool: In the Navigation tree, click the
criterion that’s missing, like Artist or Album. Now you can
drag an incorrectly labeled track or album onto one with
the correct labeling—and marvel as Media Player copies the
correct info onto the dragged item.
(If an album is missing its cover art, you can paste in a graphic
you’ve copied from, for example, the Web. Just right-click
it and, from the shortcut menu, choose “Paste album art.”)
No matter how the track names and album art get onto your
PC, Windows saves this information in your music library.
Therefore, the next time you insert this CD, the Media Player
will recognize it and display the track names and album
information automatically.
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530 windows 7: the missing manual
For now, click “Play audio CD using Windows Media Player.”
If you’re in Media Player, on the other hand, the CD’s contents show up right away.
Either way, you can start playing the CD just as though the files were on your PC, us-
ing the playback controls at the bottom of the window. All of the usual tricks—Now
Playing, visualizations, and so on—are available for the CD playback.
Ripping CDs to Your Hard Drive
You can copy an album, or selected tracks, to your hard drive in the form of standalone
music files that play when double-clicked. The process is called ripping, much to the
consternation of sleepless record executives who think that’s short for ripping off.
Having CD songs on your hard drive is handy, though:
• You can listen to your songs without having to hunt for the CDs they came from.
• You can listen to music even if you’re using the CD-ROM drive for something else
(like a CD-based game).
• You can build your own playlists (sets of favorite songs) consisting of tracks from
different albums.
• You can compress the file in the process, so that each song takes up much less
disk space.
• You can transfer the songs to a portable player or burn them onto a homemade CD.
If you’re sold on the idea, open the “Rip settings” pop-up menu on your toolbar.
Inspect your settings. For example:
•Format. Microsoft has designed Windows Media Player to generate files in the
company’s own format, called Windows Media Audio (.wma) format. But many
people prefer, and even require, MP3 files. For example, certain CD players and
portable music players (including the iPod) can play back MP3 files—but won’t
know what to do with WMA files.
Figure 15-6:
Top: Windows may ask what you want it to do with a
music CD. If you accept the “Play Audio CD using Windows
Media Player” option by clicking OK or pressing Enter,
Media Player opens automatically and begins to play the
songs on your CD.
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If you’d prefer the more universally compatible MP3 files, choose “Rip
settings”ÆFormatÆMP3 (Figure 15-7).
•Audio quality. The “Audio quality” submenu controls the tradeoff, in the resulting
sound files, between audio quality and file size. At 128 kbps, for example, a 3-minute
MP3 file might consume about 2.8 megabytes. At 192 kbps, the same file sounds
better, but it eats up about 4.2 MB. And at a full 320 kbps, the file’s roughly 7 MB.
These are important considerations if you’re ripping for an MP3 player. For in-
stance, a 20-gigabyte music player can hold 142 hours of music you’ve ripped at
320 kbps, or 357 hours at 128 kbps.
For MP3 files, most people find the 192 kbps setting to produce great-sounding,
relatively compact files. For WMA, 128 kbps might be a good starting point.
Needless to say, let your ears (and the capacity of your portable music player) be
your guide.
•Storage location. Windows likes to copy your song files into your PersonalÆ
PublicÆMusic folder. If you’d prefer it to stash them somewhere else, choose “Rip
settings”Æ“More options.”
Tip: If you have a stack of CDs to rip, don’t miss the two commands in the “Rip settings” menu: “Rip CD
Automatically” and “Eject CD after ripping.” Together, they turn your PC into an automated ripping machine,
leaving nothing for you to do but feed it CDs and watch TV.
Here’s how you rip:
1. Insert the music CD.
The list of songs on the CD appears.
2. Turn on the checkboxes of the tracks you want to copy.
You’ve waited all your life for this: At last, you have the power to eliminate any
annoying songs and keep only the good ones.
Figure 15-7:
How much compres-
sion do you want? If
you don’t need MP3
compatibility, Win-
dows Media Audio
(Variable Bit Rate)
maximizes quality
and minimizes size
by continuously
adjusting the data
rate along the song’s
length.
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532 windows 7: the missing manual
3. On the toolbar, click Rip CD.
Windows begins to copy the songs onto your hard drive. The Rip CD button
changes to “Stop rip,” which you can click to interrupt the process.
When it’s all over, the CD’s songs are now part of your library, nestled among whatever
other files you had there.
Playlists
Microsoft recognizes that you may not want to listen to all your songs every time
you need some tunes. That’s why Media Player lets you create playlists—folders in
the Navigation list that contain only certain songs. In effect, you can devise your own
albums, mixing and matching songs from different albums for different purposes:
one called “Downer Tunes,” another called “Makeout Music,” and so on.
To create a new playlist, make sure the Play tab is selected (right side). That pane starts
out empty. (If it’s not, click “Clear list” at the top.) It says, “Drag items here to create
a playlist.” Well, hey—it’s worth a try. See Figure 15-8.
Figure 15-8:
To create a
playlist, just
start dragging
tracks or whole
albums to the
Playlist pane.
Switch views,
or use the
Search box, as
necessary to
find the tracks
you want. Drag
songs up and
down in the
Playlist pane to
reorder them.
Click where it
now says “Un-
titled Playlist” to
give your play-
list a name. Use
the upper-right
pop-up menu to
scramble or sort
the playlist.
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Tip: You can also right-click any album or song and, from the shortcut menu, choose “Add to”; the submenu
lists all your existing playlists.
Once you’ve created a playlist, click “Save list” at the top of the pane. Thrill to the
appearance of a new icon in the Playlists category of the Navigation tree.
Note: To create another playlist right away, close the first one by clicking the red ≈ beside its name.
Deleting things
Whenever you want to delete a selected song, playlist, or almost anything else, press
the Delete key. Media Player generally asks if you want it deleted only from the library,
or if you really want it gone from your computer.
Auto Playlists
Auto playlists constantly rebuild themselves according to
criteria you specify. You might tell one playlist to assemble 45
minutes’ worth of songs
you’ve rated higher than
four stars but rarely listen
to, and another to list your
most-often-played songs
from the ’80s.
To make an auto play-
list, choose “Create
playlist”Æ”Create auto
playlist” (on the toolbar).
The dialog box shown
here appears. The con-
trols are designed to set
up a search of your music
database. Click “Click here
to add criteria,” click the
first criterion (like Artist),
and then click each un-
derlined phrase (“is”/“is
not”) to build a sentence. For example, “Artist” “Is” “Beatles.”
The example shown here illustrates how you’d find Beatles
tunes released before the ’70s—that you’ve rated three stars
or higher and that you’ve listened to exactly twice, and Billy
Joel songs with at least four stars.
The last set of controls
in this dialog box let you
limit the playlist’s total
size, playback time, or
song quantity.
When you click OK, your
auto playlist is ready to
show off; it appears in
the Navigation tree like
any other playlist. The
difference, of course, is
that it updates itself as you
work with your music col-
lection. This playlist gets
updated as your collection
changes, as you change
your ratings, as your play
count changes, and so on.
(To edit an auto playlist, right-click it; from the shortcut
menu, choose Edit.)
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Burning Your Own CDs
All Versions
The beauty of a CD burner is that it frees you from the stifling restrictions put on
your musical tastes by the record companies. You can create your own “best of” CDs
that play in any CD player—and that contain only your favorite songs in your favorite
order. The procedure goes like this:
1. Click the Burn tab. Insert a blank CD.
If you’ve inserted a rewriteable disc like a CD-RW, and you’ve burned it before,
right-click its icon in the Navigation tree. Then, from the shortcut menu, choose
“Erase disc” before you proceed.
2. Specify which songs you want to burn by dragging them into the Burn List (where
it says “Drag items here”).
You can add music to your CD-to-be in just about any kind of chunk: individual
songs, whole albums, playlists, random audio files on your hard drive, and so on;
see Figure 15-9.
Figure 15-9:
Drag indi-
vidual songs or
albums directly
into the Burn
list. To add a
whole playlist
to the Burn
List, drag its
name right
across the
screen from
the Navigation
tree. To add
a file that’s
not already in
Media Player,
drag it out of
its Explorer
window
directly into
the Burn List.
Drag tracks
up or down in
the Burn list to
change their
sequence.
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As you go, keep an eye on the time tally above your list of tracks. It lets you know
how much you’ve put on your CD, measured in minutes:seconds. If you go over
the limit (about an hour), Media Player will have to burn additional CDs. (“Next
disc” markers will let you know where the breaks will come.)
Tip: Media Player adds 2 seconds of silence between each song, which might explain why you may not
be able to fit that one last song onto the disc even though it seems like it should fit. It also applies volume
leveling, which is great when you’re mixing songs from various albums that would otherwise be at different
volume levels. (You control both the gaps and the volume leveling by opening the Burn menu and choosing
“More burn options.”)
3. Click “Start burn” above the list of songs.
It takes awhile to burn a CD. To wind up with the fewest “coasters” (mis-burned
CDs that you have to throw away), allow your PC’s full attention to focus on the
task. Don’t play music, for example.
Copying Music or Video to a Portable Player
If you have a pocket gizmo that’s capable of playing music (like a SanDisk Sansa) or
even videos (like an old Portable Media Center), then the process for loading your
favorite material onto it is very similar to burning your own CD. The only difference
in the procedure is that you do your work on the Sync tab instead of the Burn tab.
If you attach a player with a capacity greater than 4 gigabytes, Media Player auto-
matically copies your entire collection onto it, if possible. If it’s smaller, or if your
whole library won’t fit, Media Player switches into manual-sync mode, in which you
handpick what gets copied.
Automatic sync
Connect the player. Media Player announces that it will perform an automatic sync.
Click Finish. Smile. Wait.
CD and DVD Format Fun
Most of the time, you’ll probably want to burn a regular audio
CD, of the type that plays in the world’s 687 quintillion CD
players. But you can also use the Burn tab to make a data
CD or DVD—a disc designed to play in computers. That’s a
good way, for example, to make a backup of your tunes.
Actually, most recent CD players can also play MP3 CDs,
which are basically data CDs filled with MP3 files. That’s a
great feature, because a single MP3 CD can hold 100 songs
or more. (A few can even play WMA CDs, meaning CDs
containing files in Microsoft’s own audio format.)
You specify what kind of disc you intend to burn by choosing
its name from the “Burn options” B menu (upper-right).
If you’re ever in doubt about how you burned a certain CD
(audio or data?), here’s a trick: Insert it into your PC, open
its window, and examine its contents. If you see files with
the suffix .cda, you’ve got yourself an audio CD; if it’s full of
other kinds of files, like .mp3, .wma, or even .jpg and .doc,
it’s a data CD.
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536 windows 7: the missing manual
From now on, just connecting the player to Media Player brings it up to date with
whatever songs you’ve added or deleted on your PC. As your library grows, shrinks,
or gets edited, you can sleep soundly, knowing that your portable gadget’s contents
will be updated automatically the next time you hook it up to your PC’s USB port.
Manual sync
Connect the player. Read the dialog box. Click Finish.
In Media Player, click the Sync tab. Drag songs, videos, playlists, or albums into the
List pane, exactly as you would when preparing to burn a CD (something like Figure
15-9). Click “Start sync.”
Tip: If you’d like to surrender to the serendipity of Shuffle mode, you can let Media Player choose the songs
you get. From the Sync options (B) menu, choose the name of your player; from the submenu, choose
“Shuffle list.” Each time you sync, you get a different random selection from your collection.
Sharing Music on the Network
When Microsoft called it “Windows Media Player,” it wasn’t kidding. This app can
play music and video up, down, and sideways—and even across the network.
In a couple of ways, actually. For example:
•Listen to other people’s music. If all the PCs in your house are part of the same
network, you can sit at your PC and see what music and videos are on everyone
else’s PCs, right from within Media Player. Oh, yeah—see them and play them.
•Send your music to another computer. Using the new “Play to” command, you
can use your PC as a glorified remote control that operates playback on a different
PC, sending your music to it from across the network.
Note: And not just a different PC. This feature can also send music to a new generation of gear bearing the
DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) logo—TV sets, video recorders, and so on. That’s the theory, anyway.
•Listen to your home music collection from across the Internet. Yes, that’s right:
From any PC in the world, you can listen to the music that’s on your PC back
home—no charge.
Here are the step-by-steps.
Note: Amazingly, the record companies seem to be OK with all this music sharing. Microsoft has designed
these features cleverly enough that it’s always you (or your family) listening to your own collection. So the
record companies, at least in principle, have nothing to worry about.
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Browse One Another’s Collections—Homegroup Method
If you’ve joined your home’s Windows 7 computers together into a homegroup (Chap-
ter 26), then you’ll have a particularly effortless job of sharing one another’s Media
Player collections. You’ll have to do—absolutely nothing.
As shown in Figure 15-10, your other computers’ Media Player collections show up
automatically at the bottom of the Navigation pane. Each shared account on each PC
shows up here. Just click the flippy triangle to expand the name of an account or a PC.
Now, it’s possible that you’re on a homegroup and didn’t turn on the “Stream my
media” at the time you set it up, as suggested in Chapter 26. No problem.
If you’re sitting at PC #1, and PC #2 isn’t showing up in your copy of Media Player, go
over to PC #2 and choose StreamÆ“Turn on home media streaming.” (If you don’t
see that command, then it’s already turned on.)
Now everything should work as described here.
Browse One Another’s Collections—Manual Method
The homegroup method is great, because there aren’t really any steps at all. But not
every PC can be part of a homegroup, because not every PC on earth (or even in your
home) is running Windows 7. And you can’t be in a homegroup without Windows 7.
Fortunately, you’re not out of luck. Even if there’s no homegroup, even if some of the
PCs aren’t running Windows 7, you can still share one another’s music.
The only difference is that each person must explicitly turn on sharing for his own PC.
To do that on your computer, in Media Player, choose StreamƓTurn on media shar-
ing”; in the dialog box, click “Turn on media sharing.” (You may be asked to authen-
ticate [page 726].) Now everybody else can see and play your Media Player collection.
Figure 15-10:
As you sit here at the Casey PC, you can see two other com-
puters on the network—“hp” and Robin—and one other ac-
count on your own PC—“Admin.” Within, you see a duplicate
of your own Media Player categories: Music, Videos, and so
on. You can organize and play them exactly as though they’re
on your own PC.
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538 windows 7: the missing manual
It’s up to you to persuade them to turn on that feature on their machines (if you’re
not seeing them already in your copy of Media Player).
“Play to”
Everyone talks about this feature; it’s one of the most interesting new Windows 7 tricks.
In this scenario, you send music or video from your PC to another PC in the house.
Note: As noted above, you can also send your Media Player playback to any TV, stereo, or other gadget that
bears the DLNA logo—and that you can figure out how to use.
Shutting Out Others From Your Music
I’m especially annoyed with my sister right now. I don’t think
she deserves the privilege of listening to my music. Can I
block just her PC from listening to my stuff over the network?
But of course.
In Media Player, choose StreamÆ“More streaming options.”
(This option appears only after you’ve turned on stream-
ing.) You see, in
a scrolling list, the
individual PCs on
your network—and
you can use the
pop-up menu to
its right to choose
Blocked.
Now she can’t get
to your music—until
she apologizes for
her behavior and
you change this
setting back to Al-
lowed.
If you want to stop
everyone from listening to your stuff—we’ve all had days
when we’ve felt like that—there’s a much easier step you
can take. Just choose StreamƓAutomatically allow devices
to play my media” so that the checkmark disappears. That’s
the master on/of switch for letting other people play with
your stuff.
Finally, it’s worth noting that you can also limit what other
people are allowed to see of your collection. For example,
you might want only the best stuff to be available (the high-
est star ratings) so your network doesn’t bog down because
your library is so huge. Or you might want to limit what’s
shared to music or movies with certain parental ratings, so
you don’t corrupt your kids’ minds with filth.
To do that, choose
StreamƔMore
streaming options.”
In the dialog box
that appears, you
can click either
“Choose default
settings” (meaning
that you’re going
to limit what ev-
eryone shares) or
“Customize” (next
to the first computer
in the list), to limit
what you’re sharing.
In the resulting dia-
log box, turn off “Use default settings,” if necessary. Now
you see the controls that let you limit what’s shared to, for
example, “3 stars or higher.” Or, in the “Choose parental
ratings” box, turn off the checkboxes of “Rated R” or what-
ever you don’t want your impressionable young minds to
see. Click OK.
frequently asked question
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Why? Because you probably keep most of your music on a single computer, and it
can’t be everywhere. Suppose you’re planning to have a dinner party, but your music
collection is on the PC in the attic office. Thanks to the “Play to” feature, you can line
up enough background music for the whole evening, up there in the attic, and send
it down to the laptop with the nice speakers in the kitchen. You won’t have to keep
running back upstairs to choose more music. You can stay downstairs and enjoy the
whole party, uninterrupted.
There’s one step of setup on the PC that will be receiving the playback (in this example,
the laptop in the kitchen). Open Media Player. Choose StreamƓAllow remote con-
trol of my Player.” In the resulting confirmation box, click—you guessed it—“Allow
remote control on this network.”
Note: This option doesn’t work on networks you’ve designated as Public; see page 348.
Leave Media Player running (you can minimize it if you like).
Now go to the attic PC. In Media Player, on the Play tab, click the “Play to” icon (\).
Its pop-up menu lists all the PCs in your house that have been prepared for remote
controlling, including the kitchen laptop. Choose its name.
If all has gone well, the Play To window appears. It’s a waiting list of music that will
play in sequence. Fill it up with albums, songs, and playlists, as shown in Figure 15-11.
When you click the big 2 button in the Play To window, the music, amazingly enough,
begins to play on the kitchen laptop. Go downstairs and have some fun.
Figure 15-11:
The “Play to” box is
like a playlist. Drag
songs and albums
into it, rearrange their
sequence by dragging,
eliminate items by
right-clicking and
choosing “Remove
from list,” and so on.
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540 windows 7: the missing manual
Play over the Internet
For its final stunt, Media Player lets you listen to your home music collection from
anywhere in the world—across the Internet.
How does it know it’s you, and not some teenage software pirate who just wants free
music? Because you have to sign in with your Windows Live ID at both ends.
To set this up, open Media Player on your home computer. Choose StreamƓAllow
Internet access to home media.” Proceed as shown in Figure 15-12.
Figure 15-12:
Before you can listen
to your music collec-
tion over the Internet
tubes, a good bit of
setup is required.
Top: First, click “Link
an online ID.” (If
you see “Add an
online ID provider”
in the next box, click
it; you go to a Web
page where you can
click either “Down-
load for 32-bit”
or “Download for
64-bit,” depending
on your Windows 7
version. Complete
the 417-step installa-
tion process.)
Bottom: Next to
“WindowsLiveID,
click “Link online
ID.” Provide your
Windows Live
email address and
password.
Top: Finally, you re-
turn to the first box;
click “Allow Internet
access to home me-
dia” (authenticate if
necessary). Click OK
in the congratula-
tions box.
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Now, on any other PC that’s online and has Media Player 12 or later, repeat the steps
shown in 15-12. And presto: In the Other Libraries category of your Navigation pane,
your home music library shows up! It’s ready to examine and play, across the Internet.
If that ain’t magic, what is?
Online Music Stores
All Versions
Right from within Media Player, you can search or browse for millions of pop songs,
classical pieces, and even comedy excerpts—and then buy them or rent them. (You
can pay about $1 per song to own it, or about $15 per month to download as many
songs as you want, with the understanding that they’ll all go poof! if you ever stop
paying the fee.)
At first, the Online Store tab features Microsoft’s own Media Guide store. But with a
little effort, you can also access MixPlay, eMusic, or FaroLatino Music (what?).
Note: Two stores you can’t get to from here are iTunes and Zune Marketplace. You have to get to those using
the software that came with your iPod or Zune, as noted at the beginning of this chapter.
To look over your options, click the ≥ in the lower-left corner of the window. (The pop-
up menu starts out saying Media Guide, but it may change if it’s been fiddled with.)
Click “Browse all online stores.” Now Media Player window ducks into a phone booth
and becomes a Web browser, filled with company logos. Anything you buy gets gulped
right into your Library, ready for burning to a CD or syncing with an audio player, if
the store’s copy-protection scheme allows it.
Internet Radio
The 21st century’s twist on listening to the radio as you work is listening without a
radio. Media Player itself can tune in to hundreds of Internet-based radio stations
all over the world, which may turn out to be the most convenient music source of all.
They’re free, they play 24 hours a day, and their music collections make yours look
like a drop in the bucket.
For radio, click that Media Guide button (lower-left corner). Media Guide is a window
into www.windowsmedia.com. It’s not just a store—it’s also a promotional/news site
that plugs new movies, songs, and videos; displays movie trailers and music videos;
and so on.
And it lists radio stations. See Figure 15-13 for details.
Note: Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to capture Internet broadcasts or save them onto your hard drive.
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542 windows 7: the missing manual
DVD Movies
All Versions
If your PC has a drive capable of playing DVDs, you’re in for a treat. Media Player
can play rented or purchased Hollywood movies on DVD as though it was born for
the job. (If you have the Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate edi-
tions of Windows 7, of course, you may prefer Windows Media Center for this task;
see Chapter 16.)
Note: Media Player can’t play Blu-ray DVDs. For that, you need the right kind of drive and accompanying
software (drivers, decoder software, and player software).
Watching movies on your screen couldn’t be simpler. Just insert the DVD. Media
Player automatically detects that it’s a video DVD—as opposed to, say, one that’s just
filled with files. (If the AutoPlay dialog box appears, just close it, or click “Play DVD
Movie using Windows Media Player.”)
Note: Actually, the first thing you see might be an insane little warning about your DVD system being set
to the wrong region. You can Google “DVD regions” for the full scoop, but basically it’s a copy-protection
scheme to prevent you from buying a DVD in China and playing it in the U.S. You pretty much have no choice
but to comply with the suggestion; change it to, for example, Region 1 (for the U.S.).
The movie begins playing. Most of the time, that means the DVD menu appears; click
the Play button to get started.
Figure 15-13:
In the Media
Guide toolbar,
click Internet
Radio. Click
through the
music genres to
find what you’re
up for. Click a
station that looks
interesting, and
then click Listen.
Wait for your PC
to connect to the
Internet site, and
then let the music
begin!
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chapter 15: windows media player 543
If you’re the interactive sort, you can also take actions like these:
•Switch between full-screen mode and window mode by pressing Alt+Enter. In
the smaller view, the movie plays in Now Playing mode; as when you’re playing
music, you can right-click the screen for a pop-up menu of useful audio and visual
controls, including control over subtitles.
Tip: For real fun, turn on English subtitles but switch the soundtrack to a foreign language. No matter how
trashy the movie, you’ll gain respect from your friends when you say you’re watching a foreign film.
•Pause, skip, or adjust the volume by wiggling your mouse. Playback controls ap-
pear for a few seconds at the bottom of the screen, permitting you to pause, adjust
the volume, or skip backward or forward, and then fade away so as not to obscure
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face.
•Right-click the movie; from the shortcut menu, choose “Show list.” That’s how you
get to the list of DVD “chapters.” (The same shortcut menu then says, “Hide list.”)
•Return to the DVD’s main menu by clicking the DVD pop-up menu at the left side
of the playback controls; from the shortcut menu, choose “Title menu.”
Figure 15-14:
Once the DVD is
playing, you control
the playback using
the standard Media
Player controls (bot-
tom edge of the win-
dow). To switch to a
different “chapter,”
click the 5 button.
To change language
or parental-control
options, right-click
the screen; from
the shortcut menu,
choose Audio and
Language Tracks.
When you’re playing
the movie full-
screen, the playback
controls reappear
when you move the
mouse a bit.
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544 windows 7: the missing manual
Ditching the remote control
When the remote control is hidden, you can always return it to the screen just by
moving your mouse. But the true DVD master would never bother with such a sissy
technique. The secret keystrokes of Media Player are all you really need to know:
Function Keystroke
Play Ctrl+P
Stop Ctrl+S
Fast Forward, Rewind Ctrl+Shift+F, Ctrl+Shift+B
Quieter, louder F9, F10
Slower, faster Ctrl+Shift+S, Ctrl+Shift+G
Normal speed Ctrl+Shift+N
Mute F8
Next/previous “chapter” Ctrl+F, Ctrl+B
Full-screen mode Alt+Enter
Eject Ctrl+E
Of course, watching a movie while sitting in front of your PC is not exactly the great
American movie-watching dream. To enhance your viewing experience, you can
always connect the video-output jacks of your DVD-equipped PC (most models) to
your TV. Details are in Chapter 16.
Pictures and Videos
Microsoft may like to think that music, photos, and videos are all equally important in
Media Player; photos, recorded TV shows, and videos all get equal billing with music.
But that’s just silly. Media Player is really all about music, and everyone knows it. If
you want to play your photos and videos, Windows Photo Gallery is infinitely better
suited to the task; for example, you can’t edit photos or apply tags within Media Player.
Nevertheless, here’s the rundown.
Start by clicking Pictures or Videos in the Navigation tree. The screen changes to
something that closely resembles Photo Gallery (Figure 15-15). Here’s what you can
do in Pictures or Videos mode:
•See a photo or video at full size by double-clicking it. The video plays, or a slideshow
begins automatically, showing that photo and the others in its group.
•Rate a photo or video by right-clicking it and, from the shortcut menu, choosing
RateÆ4 Stars (or whatever).
Tip: In Tiles view, it’s easier to rate pictures and videos, because a row of stars appears next to each thumb-
nail. You just click the third star (for example). Use the View Options pop-up menu next to the Search box
to choose Tiles view.
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•Create a playlist by dragging thumbnails into the List pane at right (on the Library
tab). In the context of photos or videos, a playlist basically means a slideshow or
a sequence of self-playing videos. Click the big 2 button at the bottom of the
screen to see it.
•Delete a photo or video by clicking its thumbnail and then pressing the Delete
key. Media Player asks if you want it removed only from the library, or from your
computer altogether.
Figure 15-15:
In Pictures mode,
you see thumb-
nails of your
photo collection.
The Navigation
tree offers one-
click grouping
mechanisms
like Keywords
(tags), Rating,
Date Taken, and
Folder. Double-
click a photo
to open it and
begin a slide-
show of it and its
neighbors.
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16
chapter 16: windows media center 547
Windows Media Center
Most of the time, you sit about three feet away from the computer screen.
But the modern PC is a digital hub for your photos, music, and videos; the
concept of the Media Center program, therefore, is to transform playback
of these goodies into a 10-foot-away experience. You can play them on your TV while
you’re sitting on the couch, or you can play them on your PC from across the room.
Media Center uses jumbo fonts, buttons, and controls, so you can see them, and lets
you operate them with a wireless mouse and keyboard, or a special Media Center
remote control.
Better still, Media Center can turn your PC into a full-blown digital video recorder,
like a TiVo. If your PC has a TV tuner card, you can watch TV, pause it, rewind and
then fast-forward it, record it, and even burn the result to a DVD.
In fact, if you exploit Media Center to its extreme potential, you could ultimately sell
every piece of entertainment hardware you own, including DVD players, televisions,
and stereos, as well as your membership to the neighborhood movie rental store. With
the right version of Windows 7, always-on Internet, and a well-endowed PC, you can
simplify and organize your life and unclutter your home at the same time—all with
a single piece of equipment.
You no longer need a special “Media Center Edition PC” to get all this multimedia
power; any PC can do this stuff, as long as it’s running the Home Premium or better
versions of Windows 7. (The Starter and Home Basic editions don’t include Media
Center.)
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548 windows 7: the missing manual
Your Gear List Your Gear List
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Media Center works on any Windows 7 PC. But it reserves its best tricks for people
whose computers have these high-end luxuries:
•A TV tuner and cable connection. You’ll need these extras if you want to watch
and record live TV on your PC. If your PC didn’t come with a TV tuner, you can
add one, either in the form of an external USB box or as an expansion card, for
under $100.
All of Media Center’s other features work fine even if you don’t have a TV tuner
(videos, photos, music, and so on)—in fact, it works beautifully in showing you
TV shows played straight from the Internet.
•A DVD burner. It’s really great to be able to burn your recorded or downloaded
TV shows to a DVD so you can watch them away from home.
•A connection to your TV. You can always curl up at your desk to watch TV and
movies, but a lot of people find that setup a bit too geeky for their tastes. In a
perfect world, you’d connect the PC to your television.
The easiest way to do that is to run an S-video cable from the PC to the TV, although
there are various other ways to do the job.
•A remote control. If you’re going to connect your PC to a TV, you don’t want to
have to scramble across the room every time you want to make an adjustment.
That’s why some computers come with remote controls, so you can run the whole
show from your couch. (A wireless keyboard and mouse are useful, too.)
The Dedicated Media Center PC
The ultimate Media Center setup, of course, is to have a
PC dedicated to being a Media Center PC—that is, it sits in
your home-entertainment system and never does anything
else. Some companies sell PCs expressly for this purpose;
for example, they’re shaped like DVD players and sit on top
of the rest of your set-top boxes, and come with a special
remote controls.
If you’d like to recreate this effect with an ordinary PC, you’ll
want Media Center to open automatically whenever the
PC is turned on. And you won’t want to risk having regular
Windows elements popping into the large-type world of
Media Center.
On the Tasks list, choose SettingsÆGeneralÆ“Startup and
window behavior.” Turn on “Start Windows Media Center
when Windows starts” and “Always keep Windows Media
Center on top.”
On the far right end of the Tasks strip, turn on “Media only.”
That hides the usual window controls in the upper-right cor-
ner, so you won’t risk dropping back into regular Windows
land if someone clicks there by accident.
Wrap it up by making sure your account opens automatically
when you turn on the PC, and doesn’t stop to make you enter
your password; page 726 has instructions.
Enjoy your new super-TiVo!
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Your Gear List
•A lot of hard drive space. Those recorded TV shows have an insatiable appetite
for hard drive space.
Setup
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Open Media Center by choosing its name from the StartÆAll Programs menu, or by
typing media cen into the Start menu Search box, or by pressing the big green button
on the TV-style remote control that may have come with your PC.
Tip: Thanks to its jump list—Windows Media Center’s submenu in the Start menu—you can now open up
Media Center directly to the module you want, like the TV guide or the list of new recordings.
The first time you run this program (and click Continue on the welcome screen), the
Getting Started screen offers two setup options: Express and Custom.
Express
If you don’t have a TV tuner and you’re not worried about Microsoft’s invasion of your
privacy, click this button. You save a lot of time; you go straight to the main menu.
Tip: You can always walk through the fine-tuning steps of the Custom option later. Open Media Center. Then,
from the main menu screen, choose TasksÆSettingsÆGeneralÆWindows Media Center SetupÆRun Setup
Again. It’s as though you’d never run Media Center before.
Media Center Extender
Q: What could possibly be better than running a cable from
your PC to a TV, bringing all your Media Center videos and
slideshows to the big screen?
A: Not running a cable.
That’s right: You can connect the PC to the TV wirelessly—if
you have a Windows Media Center Extender.
That’s a gadget, or a feature of a gadget, that receives Media
Center’s playback signal from across the house, so that you
can watch and listen on a real TV instead of your computer.
The Extender feature is built into certain DVD players or TVs—
and, most famously, it’s built into the XBox 360, Microsoft’s
game console. You can also buy dedicated Media Center
boxes from companies like HP and Linksys. They connect
to your home network either wirelessly, using WiFi, or, um,
wirefully, using Ethernet.
To add a Media Center Extender to your PC, open Media
Center, scroll down to Tasks, then scroll across to Add Ex-
tender. The Extender Setup walks you through the process
of setting up the Extender.
Along the way, you’ll be asked to enter the Media Center
Extender’s eight-digit serial number on your PC. That’s a
security measure that ties your Extender to your PC. (You
wouldn’t want your next-door neighbor enjoying your pic-
tures and TV shows without your knowledge, would you?)
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Custom
If your PC does have a TV tuner, you can click this option to set it up—along with
several thousand other options. The first screen lets you know that you’ll be walked
through two setup procedures: a Required one and an Optional one. Here’s what
they entail (Figure 16-1).
Required Setup
The setup sequence walks you through two privacy-related options:
•Help Improve Media Center. Is it OK for Media Center to send Microsoft reports
about what you do in the program, anonymously and in the background?
•Get the Most from Windows Media Center. Is it OK if Media Center downloads
information automatically in the background—TV listings, cover art, stuff like that?
Optional Setup
After you’ve completed the setup for the TV tuner, signal, and Guide, the Optional
Setup page appears. It offers additional branches to the setup labyrinth.
Figure 16-1:
The non-Express
setup for Media
Center entails
two clumps of
options: Required
Setup and Op-
tional Setup. The
Optional choices
vary depending
on what hard-
ware is installed.
The first option,
“Configure tun-
ers, TV signal,
and Guide,” is
displayed only if
your Media Cen-
ter has a working
TV tuner card
and is otherwise
ready for televi-
sion viewing. If
you don’t see
this option, then
your PC needs a
little work in the
hardware depart-
ment.
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chapter 16: windows media center 551
Tip: You don’t have to do all this now. At any time, you can return to these options by going to the main
screen and clicking TasksÆSettings.
•Configure tuners, TV signal, and Guide. You see this option only if your PC is, in
fact, connected to a TV signal: a cable box, satellite box, CableCard, or antenna,
for example. You’re asked to specify where you live (in the world, and in what Zip
code); when you click “Yes, configure TV with these results,” Media Center auto-
downloads the current TV listings for your neighborhood. Later, the Guide will
show you everything that’s going to be on TV in the next two weeks, making it
simple for you to record stuff.
You may also be prompted to select your TV signal provider—Time Warner
Cable or Comcast, for example. If you have a remote control, you’ll be asked to
configure it as well.
If you ever want to revisit this wizard, from the main screen, choose SettingsÆ
GeneralÆWindows Media Center SetupÆSet Up TV Signal.
Tip: Later, you’ll want to cull the stations to hide the ones you never watch. From the main screen, choose
TVÆGuideÆEdit Channels. Turn off the checkboxes for, you know, the Lithuanian Farming Channel and
the Bermuda Curling Network.
•Optimize how Windows Media Center looks on my display. Answer the ques-
tions to adjust Media Center’s brightness, contrast, aspect ratio (widescreen or
not), and so on.
Tip: Path to get here later: TasksÆSettingsÆGeneralÆWindows Media Center SetupÆConfigure Your
TV or Monitor.
•Set up my speakers. Use these controls to set up your surround-sound system, if any.
Tip: Path to get here later: TasksÆSettingsÆGeneralÆWindows Media Center SetupÆSet Up Your Speakers.
•Set up my media libraries. Media Center automatically knows about the photos,
movies, and music on your main hard drive. You have to intervene only if you
want Media Center to catalog and “watch” other folders—folders you’ve created,
folders on other drives, or data on other computers on your network.
Tip: If this business about importing your music and videos sounds familiar, it may be because you’ve already
done this job using Windows Media Player (not the same thing as Windows Media Center), as described in
Chapter 15. In that case, you can skip this section; your Library should already be in place, since Player and
Center share the same Library folders.
In that situation, click “Add folder to watch,” and then browse to the folders when
prompted. (If you’re adding a folder on another PC on the network, select “Add
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552 windows 7: the missing manual
shared folders from another computer.” Note that you’ll be able to “see” only folders
that you’ve explicitly shared, or that are part of a homegroup.)
Click the proper folder, and then click OK.
Tip: Path to get here later: TasksÆSettingsÆLibrary Setup.
When this setup adventure is over, click “I am finished” to start using your new
digital hub.
The Main Menu
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Once the setup is complete—or once you click the Express button—you land at the
main menu (Figure 16-2). Already, you can see that the Media Center looks nothing like
normal Windows programs. There are no standard windows or menus. And the fonts
are huge—they look like they’ve been designed to be read by someone 10 feet away.
The main menu is easy to get to: No matter what else you’re doing in Media Center,
you can always get back here by pressing the round, green button on your remote—or
clicking the round, green button in the upper-right corner of the screen.
It’s also easy to understand. The main screen presents a scrolling vertical list of play-
back categories: Extras, Pictures+Videos, Music, Movies, TV, Sports, Tasks. They’re
described in the following pages.
Use the , and . arrow keys or arrow buttons to walk through this list.
Figure 16-2:
If you’re actually
operating the PC
from a chair
right in front of it,
working at your
PC as usual, the
whole thing might
strike you as a
little weird. But
you’ll remember
the plight of the
people who are
sitting 10 feet
away, and you’ll
thank Microsoft
on their behalf.
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Once you’ve highlighted one of these categories, you can press the < and > arrow
keys or buttons to move horizontally among its suboptions, which are arrayed on what
Microsoft calls a strip. For example, once you select Pictures+Videos, you can move
the highlighting left or right to get to “picture library,” “play all,” and “video library.”
Whenever you’ve highlighted the option you want, press the remote’s OK button, or
your keyboard’s Enter key, to “click” it.
Tip: If all your PCs are part of a homegroup (Chapter 26), then all their pictures, music, and movies show
up in Media Center. It also shares the same library with Windows Media Player, which means that all the
work you’ve done in that program—rating your songs and shows, applying tags, creating playlists and so
on—isn’t wasted. Handy!
Here follows a tour of the main menu, item by item.
Extras
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Microsoft intends for Media Center to be expandable. You’ll be able to get to (and
pay for) new services as they come along.
To start you off, you get these two options:
•Extras library. Here are the standard Windows games—Chess, Solitaire, and so
on—ready to play on your TV set. The links at top let you sort the icons.
The Golden Rules
It may look like Media Center offers a lot of features and a
lot of modules—and it does—but really, you need to learn
only a few basics to operate everything. Here they are: the
golden rules of Media Center.
• Click something to see its details screen. Click an
album to see what songs are on it. Click a movie
to see who’s in it. Click a TV show in the Guide
listings to record it, or every episode of it. Nothing
ever plays instantly; you have to open its details
screen first. (Oh, all right—you can play something
directly if you right-click it and choose Play from
the shortcut menu. But that’s a secret.)
• The More Info button on the remote = right-
clicking. And right-clicking is a good habit; right-
clicking things often takes you directly to the
functions you want.
• The playback controls appear when you wiggle the
mouse. They’re always in the lower-right corner of
the screen when you’re playing music or video.
• The round green button always takes you back
to the main screen. If you have a remote, there’s
a round green button on it. If not, wiggle your
mouse to make the round green button appear
in the upper-left corner of the screen.
• Whatever’s available in Windows Media Player is
also available in Windows Media Center. Music,
photos, videos, playlists, album information—both
programs access the same libraries on your hard
drive.
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Tip: You can hide the ones you don’t want by clicking the “manage extras” link at the top; then choose Extras
Library and turn off the undesired checkboxes. You can also add items to the Extras library; that’s a hacky
maneuver that you can easily find with a quick Google search (“add to Media Center extras,” for example).
•Extras gallery. Here’s another pot of Media Center add-ons—this time, they’re
mostly things you have to subscribe to and pay for. They include movie services
like Netflix and Cinema Now, satellite feeds from XM Satellite radio, NASCAR
and boxing pay-per-view events, and so on.
Pictures+Videos
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Ah, yes: Pictures+Videos. Here you’ll find a list of all the digital photos and video
clips that Media Center has found in all the likely folders on your hard drive. You’re
just a few clicks away from watching your high-res photos on your high-res TV or
computer screen.
These are in the horizontal strip of options under Pictures+Videos:
•picture library. This panel (Figure 16-3) is one of the payoffs for getting to know
the libraries concept (Chapter 2); it shows everything in your Pictures library.
That includes photo files lying loose in there, as well as folders within the library.
Tip: To close the picture, click the Back button. (Don’t click the X button at the top right of the screen—you’ll
shut down the entire Media Center!)
The links at the top let you sort the thumbnails by folders, tags, date taken, ratings,
slide shows, or shared status. At the very top, the “play slide show” is a handy way
to start an immediate playback of whatever batch of photos you’re looking for.
Videos
Media Center can also handle video clips, like the ones
you’ve imported from your camcorder. A Videos category
is also listed in the Pictures+Videos mode. As it turns out,
you navigate your Videos and Pictures folders in exactly
the same way:
Find a video by drilling down to it.
Sort the videos by clicking a heading above them: Folders,
Date Taken, Tags, and so on. (Tags are keywords that you
make up; see Chapter 14.)
Play a video by highlighting its icon and pressing Enter
or Play.
Control playback using your remote control, if you have
one. If not, use the buttons that appear when your mouse
approaches the lower-right corner of the screen.
After a video plays, you’re offered a Finished screen with
three choices: Done, Restart (meaning play again), and
Delete. The fourth option—Back—appears only when you
mouse your way to the top-left corner of the screen.
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•play favorites. With just a couple of clicks, you can start a crazy mosaic-like,
screensaver-ish slideshow of your favorite photos. And which are your “favorites”?
Whatever you’ve selected in advance; see Figure 16-4.
Figure 16-3:
Top: The
thumbnails
with names
under them
are the
folders. Click
a folder to
open it.
Bottom: You
now see the
thumbnails
of the photos
within that
folder. Click
one to open
it full-screen
(and then
wiggle the
mouse
to make
slideshow
controls ap-
pear). Drill
down, baby,
drill down.
Figure 16-4:
On the TasksÆ Set-
tingsÆPicturesÆ
Favorite Pictures
screen, you can define
your Favorites: photos
with four stars or more;
photos added in the
past three months;
unrated photos; or any
combination of those.
You can also define
Favorites to be all your
photos, or one of your
predefined slideshows,
or a certain folder of
pictures.
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•video library. This screen works just like “picture library”: It shows you all your
video clips and lets you click one to begin playback. Sort ‘em by date or name, or
click “play all” to view them one after another. (There’s no way to specify a sequence,
or to build a saved “video slideshow.”)
Slideshows
For a magnificent full-screen display of just some of your pictures, consider creating
a slideshow: a sequence of photos you’ve selected in advance.
To get started, click “slide shows” at the top of the screen, and then click Create Slide
Show. You’re guided through the process of creating a canned, ready-to-roll-anytime
slideshow that incorporates only the pictures you choose. Type a name for it, click
Picture Library, and then work through the folders and photos in your collection,
turning on the checkboxes for the photos you want to include. On the Review and
Edit screen, you can change your mind about certain shots (click the x), or rear-
range their slideshow sequence (click the up and down arrows). Finally, click Create.
Later, whenever you want to soak in the reminders of your past glory, click “slide
shows” at the top of the picture library screen, then click the saved slideshow you want.
You’re shown a summary screen, and then when you click “play slide show,” playback
starts immediately, and—with its slow fades and pans—looks great.
You can control playback using your remote control buttons or, if you’re using the
mouse, move the cursor to the bottom-right corner of the screen to make the playback
controls appear. You can also manually move from one image to another using the
Fast Forward and Rewind buttons.
Tip: If you have a remote, use the channel up/down buttons to go forward/back through your photos.
Click the Back button in the top-left corner to close the slideshow.
Adding music
Of course, just about any slideshow is more compelling if there’s music playing in the
background. In Media Center, that’s an easy effect:
1. Start the music playing.
In Media Center, click MusicÆMusic Library. Select an album, playlist, or other
music grouping, and then click Play.
2. Return to the Pictures+Videos screen.
To do that, click the Back button enough times to return to Media Center’s main
menu, and then select Pictures+Videos.
3. Select “picture library,” select a photos folder, and then hit Play Slideshow.
The music you started continues as the slideshow proceeds.
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Slideshow settings
Unless you change the settings, the standard slideshow presents your pix in random
order, a new photo every 12 seconds, with a standard crossfade (transition) effect.
Frankly, however, 12 seconds per photo is an eternity if you’re anyone but the subject
of the photo (or you’re in love with that subject). Fortunately, you can change the
settings easily enough. During the slideshow, right-click the screen; from the shortcut
menu, choose Settings, and then Slideshows; use the “Show pictures for” controls. (Or,
from the main screen, get there by choosing TasksÆSettingsÆSlideshows.)
Tip: And how do you right-click if you’re using a TV-style remote? Press the More Info button. Same thing.
Editing Pictures
If you really want to edit your photos, of course, Microsoft has a specialized new tool
just for you: Windows Live Photo Gallery (Chapter 14).
But sometimes you spot a misrotated photo, a picture that needs cropping, or some
red eye in a portrait that you just want to fix quickly without exiting Media Center.
Sure enough, you can actually perform basic photo editing from the comfort of your
own living room couch.
Start at the thumbnails page. Right-click the problem photo; next, from the shortcut
menu, choose Picture Details.
Now you arrive at a new screen that lists tasks like Rotate and Print. The real fun,
though, awaits when you click Touch Up. On this new screen, these more powerful
editing options beckon:
•Red Eye is a fully automatic tool. Click the words “Red Eye” to trigger the “Do your
best to remove the reddish retinal reflection from the subject of this flash photo so
my loved one doesn’t look so much like the spawn of Satan” function.
•Contrast is another fully automated feature. One click makes Media Center attempt
to improve the tonal range of the photo—the brights and darks.
•Crop places a smaller rectangle within the larger frame of your photo, indicating
which part of the photo it plans to keep. Everything in the dimmed, foggy outer
margins will shortly be hacked away. Click the directional arrow buttons to posi-
tion the crop box, the magnifying glass buttons to shrink or enlarge the cropping
rectangle, or the far-right button to rotate the cropping rectangle by 90 degrees.
The actual crop doesn’t take place until you click Save.
When you’re finished, click Save. You’re asked if you want to replace the original; click
Yes. There is no other option for saving.
Tip: Click Next and Previous to edit additional pictures.
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Burn a CD of Pictures or Videos
Burning photos or videos to a CD or DVD is a handy way to make a backup of them,
and it’s also a convenient way of taking them with you to a friend’s house or a party.
Note: You’re not actually creating a music CD that will play in a CD player, or a video DVD that plays in a
DVD player. You’re basically creating backup discs that hold a lot of computer files—and that are designed
to go into another computer.
If you want to burn a music CD, see Chapter 15. To burn a video DVD, see the free PDF appendix, “Movie
Maker & DVD Maker.” You can download it from this book’s “Missing CD” at www.missingmanuals.com.
Start on the Media Center main menu. Choose TasksÆBurn CD/DVD.
Windows asks you to insert a blank CD or DVD, if you haven’t done so already. (What
it actually says is, “Insert media,” but it means a blank disc; nobody expects you to
insert CBS News or The New York Times.)
Insert a blank disc and then click Retry; choose the CD or DVD type (Data CD or
Audio CD); type a name; choose the photos folder or music album you want to back
up (Figure 16-4); and then click Burn CD (or Burn DVD).
Tip: During the Burn CD/DVD process, Windows invites you to click OK if you want to do other work while
the disc is being burned. Light background work like typing or Web surfing should be no problem. Heavy
work (Photoshop, video editing) can interfere with the burning, however, resulting in a half-burned, failed
disc—yet another Frisbee for the yard!
Music: Your PC as Jukebox
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Sooner or later, it will occur to you that your copy of Windows actually came with two
massive music- and video-playing programs: Windows Media Center and Windows
Media Player. And it’s true: There’s quite a bit of duplication.
Fortunately, your PC has only one video and music library, which serves up the same
music and movies to both programs. In other words, if you’ve already added music
to Media Player (Chapter 15), then it shows up in Media Center, too.
Using Media Center as your jukebox has its charms—for example, you can use a
remote control.
Tip: Media Center music—any music, actually—sounds best on good speakers. To get the most out of your
sound system, though, you’ll need to connect them correctly, take the room’s size and layout into consideration,
and consider equalization options. If you’d like some guidance, you can download a free bonus appendix to
this chapter that describes how to set up a surround-sound system step by step. It’s called Surround Sound
Setup.pdf, and it’s available on this book’s “Missing CD” at www.missingmanuals.com.
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Here’s what you’ll find on the horizontal Music strip.
•music library. The Music Library is, wildly enough, where Media Center displays
the contents of your music collection. Use the buttons at the top (albums, artists,
genres, and so on) to sort the display (Figure 16-5).
•play favorites. As with the Pictures Favorites, this option gives you a quick way to
start music a-playin’ without a lot of fussin’.
You’re supposed to define what “Favorites” means to you ahead of time, on the
TasksÆMusic pane. Here, you can specify that it means highly rated songs, a certain
playlist, your most-played songs, and/or songs you’ve added in the past 30 days.
•radio. If your PC contains a radio-tuner card—most TV tuner cards include radio
tuners, too—then Media Center’s Music Library also offers an option called Radio.
That’s not Internet radio—we’re talking genuine, bona fide, over-the-air FM radio.
Use the Seek buttons to find the station you want. You can also select Save as Preset
to save the station for easier access next time.
Tip: (If you don’t have a radio tuner, you can still listen to hundreds of Internet radio stations—but not with
Media Center; you need Windows Media Player for that. See Chapter 15.)
•search. Use this command to help you pluck a needle out of your music-collection
haystack.
Music: Your
PC as Jukebox
Figure 16-5:
Another game
of “drill down.”
Click an album
name or playlist
name to see the
“album actions”
screen, where
you can just start
listening (click
“play album”),
highlight the name
of a song within
and start playing
it, or click “add
to now playing.”
(Now Playing is
described later in
this chapter.).
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Playback Fun
While music is playing, a new album-art screensaver fills your screen; details on what’s
playing now bounce around. You can also click View Song List (for the same album),
Visualize (for more traditional visual displays), Shuffle (scramble the sequence), Re-
peat (play the same song again once it’s done), and, inevitably, Buy Music (go online
to Microsoft’s version of the iTunes Store).
Tip: When you’ve turned on one of the visualizations, you can click the + and - channel buttons on your
remote (or your keyboard) to switch to other visualization styles.
Ripping CDs
To rip a CD means to copy its songs onto your computer. You now have two different
programs that can do the ripping: Media Center and Media Player.
Truth is, Media Player is the better program to use for ripping CDs. For one thing, it
lets you rip only some of the songs from a CD. For another, you can configure Media
Player to start ripping automatically whenever you insert a CD into your drive. And
you’re not wasting any effort, since all CD music winds up in the same central PC
music library, whether Media Player or Media Center does the work.
Still, Media Center can rip CDs if you’re so inclined. Here’s how it works:
1. Open Media Center and insert a CD.
The CD starts playing. If you want to listen to the CD, that’s fine; it can keep play-
ing while you rip the tunes. If you don’t want to listen to the CD, move the mouse
to the lower right of the screen and click the Pause button.
Figure 16-6:
When you insert
a CD while Media
Center is on, the
CD plays auto-
matically. Several
choices are then
displayed on
the left side: Rip
CD, Eject CD,
View Song List,
Visualize, Resume
Pictures, Shuffle,
Repeat, and Buy
Music. To rip the
CD to your PC,
select Rip CD.
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In the meantime, the left side of the screen offers a list of useful tasks, like View
Song List, Visualize, Shuffle, Repeat—and Rip CD (Figure 16-6).
2. Click Rip CD. When asked if you’re sure, click Yes.
Ripping an entire CD (that is, copying it to your hard drive) takes about 5 minutes.
Once the ripping process is done, nothing happens at all; you see only a little note
that the ripping process is complete. To rip another CD, eject the first one and
insert another.
To return to the Music Library, click Back again; select Music, and then Music Library.
(Media Center remote controls usually have a Music button that shortens those steps.)
Tip: To edit the information for a song, album, or album artist, right-click it; from the shortcut menu, choose
Edit. You can change the album title, artist name, and genre. This is particularly helpful for songs that are
listed in the wrong genre or for a remake or live version of a song you already have on your hard drive.
Playlists
A playlist is a set of songs you’ve handpicked and hand-sequenced, even from differ-
ent albums. You can read more about playlists in the Media Player chapter (Chapter
15)—because guess what? The same playlists show up in both programs. Any playlists
you create in Media Player appear in Media Center, and vice versa.
Auto playlists are self-building, self-updating lists of songs that change as you listen,
download, and change ratings. These, too, are described in Chapter 15—but unlike
Media Player, Media Center comes pre-stocked with auto playlists. Here you’ll find
playlists of music you listen to the most, music you’ve listened to in the last month,
music rated at four or five stars, and so on. As your preferences and playback habits
change, so do the items in the playlists.
Note: Media Center has playlists for videos and pictures, too.
To view all your playlists—ones that you made, and auto playlists that Microsoft
made—select MusicÆ“music library”Æplaylists.
Click Play (or press Enter) to open the details screen for a highlighted playlist, where
you can see the songs within it, start playing it, or add it to the Now Playing list. You
can also delete a playlist by selecting Delete.
Tip: Once you’ve set up a playlist, you can immortalize it by burning it to a new, custom CD. Suddenly, you’re
a one-person record company. Any songs you’ve imported from your own CD collection or bought online
are fair game. (You generally can’t burn songs you’ve only “rented” using one of those online-music-store
monthly subscription programs.)
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Creating playlists
You can create playlists of your own in Media Center, but it’s awkward; the only way
to go about it is to add songs, albums, or other playlists to the Now Playing list—and
then save that as a playlist, as described below.
All this explains why you’ll probably be a lot happier building your playlists in Me-
dia Player, as described in Chapter 15. The playlists you build there also show up in
Media Center.
Now Playing
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Whenever music or video is playing, a new item appears on the Media Center main
screen, nestled between the Music and Movies headings: Now Playing.
This is something like a special, on-the-fly playlist that holds the items in your music
or video queue, and plays them one after another so you don’t have to hand-feed
your PC new music.
If you click Now PlayingÆView Song List, you open up a screen where you can ex-
amine the songs-in-waiting. Buttons at left let you edit the list, empty it out, shuffle
it, repeat it, burn it to a CD, or save the whole thing as a playlist that you can enjoy
again and again.
Movies
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
In Windows 7, Movies gets its own heading on the main Media Center screen. Here
are your options:
•Netflix. If you’re a member of Netflix’s DVDs-by-mail program, you also have
unlimited access to 15,000 streaming movies at no extra charge. That is, you can
play them right now, from over the Internet, without having to wait by the mailbox.
(They’re not what you’d call new releases, but still—there are some gems in there.)
The first time you select this item, Media Center downloads and installs an add-on
software blob and then asks for your Netflix name and password. A few seconds
later, your screen fills with the movie posters of your entire Netflix online queue—
that is, movies you’ve asked to have available for instant watching on your computer.
That’s right: You can’t actually browse the catalog from within Media Center. You
have to do that beforehand, using your Web browser, at Netflix.com.
Click a movie poster to view its details, and then click Play to start watching.
•movie library. This screen lists movies from whatever sources it can find: movies
you’ve recorded from TV, movies you’ve ripped from DVDs, movies you’ve bought
online. It works much like the pictures and music modules of Media Center.
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In other words, use the links at top (title, genre, year, parental rating, type) to find
a movie worth watching. Click a movie to see its Synopsis page; from there, you
can view cast and production details, a list of similar movies, even reviews—or
just start watching.
Tip: If you right-click a movie (or select it and then press More Info on your remote), you get options to
play the movie, delete it, burn it to a DVD, or perform other housekeeping tasks.
•play dvd. Not much ambiguity here. This takes you to the controls for playing
movie DVDs that you insert into your PC.
TV: Your PC as TiVo
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
There’s nothing as cool as controlling TV: pausing it, rewinding to watch a football
pass (or fumble) again, and fast-forwarding through commercials, all right there on
your PC. Eat your heart out, TiVo owners!
(What’s even more fun is taping Jeopardy!, watching it to learn the answers, and then
playing it again “for the first time” when your spouse gets home.)
If your PC has a TV tuner card or a USB tuner box, that’s exactly what Media Center
offers. Once you’ve tasted life with a DVR (digital video recorder), you’ll find the
commercials, rehashes, and previews of live TV to be excruciating.
Tip: Don’t miss the Media Center gadget. (See Chapter 6 for more on gadgets.) It displays recently recorded
TV shows (click the program’s name for a little panel showing details), news, sports, your music categories,
and so on. Right from this little gadget you can play a recorded program, play an Internet program, or fire
up some music, without having to open Media Center itself.
The TV category of Media Center is really its heart, and it’s by far the most compli-
cated. All of it except the Internet TV portion requires a computer with a TV tuner.
internet tv
Everyone else under the age of 25 is watching TV online, so why shouldn’t Windows
get with the program(s)?
Microsoft’s free Internet TV service includes lots of brand-name TV series, sports,
news, music channels, Web videos, and so on.
It’s not quite as joyous as something like Hulu.com, the Internet’s global center for
legal, free, full-length TV episodes. You have to sit through ads on Media Center
(and they’re longer than on Hulu), the selection is much smaller, and the navigation
is harder to figure out. Still, it’s handy to make the Media Center window small and
tuck it off to one side as you do other work, and it’s all right in the Start menu.
The first time you click “internet tv,” a setup screen asks you to click the “I have read
the legalese” checkbox and click the Install button, so Media Center can download
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the Internet TV module (a one-time deal). Later, when you click an actual show to
watch, you may be asked to OK another installation (of Adobe Flash).
Thereafter, things are a lot more straightforward. The main Internet TV screen is a
bit baffling, but here’s the rundown:
•Giant ads on the top row. Each ad is actually for a TV series, each bearing a Watch
Now button, so the marketing isn’t especially offensive. Scroll horizontally to see
more banners. When you click a Watch Now button, the banner is replaced by a
row of episode buttons, so you can jump right to the Internet (Figure 16-7).
•Rows of TV buffet. The strips of tiles farther down the screen—you can scroll
through them—are a motley assortment of structured listings (like Channels or
Headlines) and whatever Microsoft is promoting this week (like “Special Agents
and Superspies”).
Click your way to any show if you like—but if you’re just confused by the layout, try
the Guide instead (described next).
guide
If you click “guide” (on the main screen under TV) instead, you get a much more
comprehensive look at what Internet shows are available. If your PC has a TV tuner,
you find the Internet options way off at the right end of the regular TV guide; if it
doesn’t have a TV tuner, the Internet grid is the only guide you see (Figure 16-8).
Note: Alas, you can’t record Internet TV shows.
Click a promising-looking TV show to read its Synopsis screen; click “play” to have
a look.
Figure 16-7:
Top: Click a banner
to see its episodes, or
scroll down through
the horizontal rows
of other TV options.
There’s no particular
logic to their organiza-
tion—one row might
be called Full Episodes,
another Top TV (most
popular clips), but a lot
of them are random
promos (“Superspies”
or “Oscar Winners from
Netflix,” for example).
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recorded tv
Here’s the list of shows you’ve told Media Center to record for you—that it has, in
fact, recorded. Click to open a Synopsis screen; click “play” to play. Click a heading
(like “date recorded” or “title”) to sort your holdings.
Tip: Click “view scheduled” to see the shows you’ve requested that haven’t been broadcast or recorded yet.
While you’re watching the show, you can use your remote, the keyboard, or the mouse
to fast-forward through the commercials, to rewind to review a scene, or to pause to
get a bite to eat. As usual, if you’re using the mouse, point to the lower-right corner
to make the controls appear. Otherwise, use the keys and buttons on the keyboard
or remote; see Figure 16-9.
Figure 16-8:
Internet TV is orga-
nized by category.
There’s no timeline,
of course (like 7:00
p.m., 8:00 p.m.),
because Internet
shows air whenever
you want them. But
you can still scroll
horizontally; point to
the right or left end
of a row and wait
for the large < or >
button to appear.
Click it to scroll.
Managing Recorded TV
Recorded shows can really suck up a lot of hard drive space.
Recording your favorite series and Star Trek reruns can bleed
even the biggest hard drive dry in a matter of months. The
next thing you know, you’re struggling to grasp why you
can’t install a game of Tetris for lack of space.
That’s why you’ll want to watch and then delete shows as
often as you can. For the ones you’d like to keep for a while,
like a good movie or the last season of The Sopranos on
HBO, consider burning them to DVD and then deleting the
hard drive copy.
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566 windows 7: the missing manual
If you stop the program before it’s finished playing, you’re offered a Resume com-
mand. If the program ends, or if you’ve had enough of it before it’s over, you can
choose Delete.
Save a show onto a DVD
If you’ve found something you really like and want to burn it to a DVD—to save
forever, or maybe just to let the kids watch in the car—follow these directions:
1. Open Media Center. Insert a blank DVD. Go to TasksÆBurn CD/DVD.
You’re offered several DVD formats to burn, like Data DVD, Video DVD, or DVD
Slide Show. To make a backup of your TV shows, for example (for use in a PC),
you’d opt for the Data DVD. To save a TV show or movie onto a regular old DVD
for playback in a DVD player, you want the regular Video DVD format.
2. Select Video DVD. Click Next.
Figure 16-9:
Top: This info bar
appears when
you right-click the
screen (or press
More Info on
your remote). The
three “tabs” offer
controls like Zoom
(magnifies the
picture in various
ways to fill your
window or moni-
tor) and Captions
(lets you turn on
closed-caption
subtitles, if they’re
available). Press
Enter or click OK
to get rid of this
window.
Bottom: The
Synopsis screens
contain reams of
information about
the recorded show.
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Now you’re asked to name the DVD. If you have a remote control that has only
number keys, you can use the clever little cellphone-like dialing pad to tap out
alphabet letters. For example, to enter Shrek, you’d tap 7777 (for the letter S), 44,
777, 33, 55.
3. Type out a name, and then click Next.
Now you’re asked to choose what you want to burn onto your DVD. You can choose
either Recorded TV or Video Library (which means any video file on your hard
drive that didn’t come from your TV tuner—your camcorder imports, for example).
4. Click Recorded TV, and then click Next.
Media Center displays what’s in your Recorded TV Library. Each show appears
as a giant thumbnail image, complete with a checkbox in the lower-right corner.
5. Turn on the checkboxes of the shows you want to transfer to DVD.
You can also use the Select All, Clear All, “by name,” and “by date” controls for help
in selecting or sorting the videos.
6. Click Next.
You’re offered one final chance to review and edit the list of shows. Here, you can
click the up or down arrow buttons to rearrange their sequence on the DVD, to
rename a show, and so on.
7. Click Burn DVD.
The burning process can take quite a while, depending on how much data you’ve
added and how fast your CD/DVD burner is. Once the burn is finished, eject the
disc and reinsert it to make sure it works.
Overall, though, this is a great way to get that must-see television show from your
computer to the living room—or even those scintillating vacation pictures of
Mexico, if you don’t have a Media Center Extender!
Tip: You can follow these same steps to burn a slideshow onto a DVD, except, of course, that you should
choose DVD Slide Show in step 2.
In fact, you can also insert a regular blank CD, although your options in that case are limited to making data
discs or burning music CDs.
guide
This is your master TV guide—and the place to schedule TV shows you want to record.
The listings here are for your Zip code, specific to your cable or satellite company. The
Guide is downloaded automatically (if that’s the way you configured it).
Tip: If a TV show is already playing, you see it playing in the background, faintly, behind the TV listings grid.
That’s intentional.
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If your PC has a TV tuner, the Guide is a traditional time/channel grid (Figure 16-10,
top). You can scroll it up, down, left, or right by pressing your arrow keys, or by
pointing to the edge of the grid until an arrow button appears and then clicking it.
Tip: Some special Media Center remote controls and keyboards offer a button that lets you scroll a day at
a time; with the mouse, you’re pretty much stuck scrolling hour by hour.
Once you’ve found a show that looks interesting, click it once with the mouse, hit
Enter on the keyboard, or click OK on the remote control. The Synopsis screen ap-
pears (Figure 16-10, bottom). Scroll horizontally to check out its tabs:
•synopsis. A plot and broadcast summary: date, time, channel, duration, language,
category, and so on. Here, too, is where you can click either “record” (this episode)
or “record series” (all episodes).
Note: If you have a Media Center remote, press the Record button once for “Record this episode,” twice for
“Record all episodes,” or three times to turn recording off.
Figure 16-10:
Top: Type a number
into the remote’s
keypad to change
channels. Click Skip to
move forward in the
Guide. Point to a title to
read a synopsis. Right-
click a title (or use the
remote’s Info button) to
get more program info,
record the program, or
record the series. Press
Record on the remote
once (one red dot) for,
“record this episode”;
twice (double dots) for,
“record all episodes.”
Bottom: Using the
links at the top of the
Synopsis page, you can
see a list of upcoming
episodes of the show
(handy if there’s a
conflict with a show
you wanted to record),
a cast list, and so on.
“Record series” makes
your PC record every
episode of the selected
show.
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•actions. Pretty much the same thing as the “synopsis” page, except that now you
get access to the Advanced Record button, which reveals some not-at-all advanced
settings for recording. For example, you can specify the Frequency. (Just this show,
or the whole series? And if you want the whole series, do you also want reruns,
and do you want to limit the broadcasts to a certain channel?)
You can also specify how long you want to Keep the show on the hard drive before
it’s auto-deleted (Until Space Needed, For One Week, Until I Watch, Until I De-
lete). Finally, you can change the Stop time (lets you end the recording between 5
minutes and 3 hours after it’s scheduled to end, so that you don’t miss the ends of
football games that run long).
•other showings. Here you can see when the selected show will be aired again. This
is a good option when a conflict arises between two shows you want to record at
the same time. If you find out that one of the shows will be aired again in the next
day or two, you can work through the conflict by recording the later airing.
Tip: Once a show is scheduled to record, you can right-click its name in the Guide to set options quickly.
You can also right-click any program to record it on the fly, without having to wade through any options at
all—a convenient option when you’re trying to get out the door.
live tv
Your expensive PC can do more than just imitate a TiVo. It can also imitate a regular
old TV set. This option simply shows whatever is on TV right now; you can use the
+/- buttons on the playback controls, or the channel buttons on your remote, to
change the channel.
Note: If you have a cable box connected to your PC, you should be able to get anything on Media Center that
you can get when the box is plugged into a television. That includes premium channels and on-demand movies.
Plenty of people just plug the cable directly into the TV tuner, though. They don’t get the premium channels
but can still tune in to 30 or so standard cable stations. Doing without a cable box simplifies the setup and
saves another monthly fee.
search
This tool helps you pluck one show out of your TV-guide haystack. For instance, from
Search, select Title, type South Park, and find out instantly when the next South Park
airs. Choose CategoriesÆEducational to find something really boring for your kids
to watch. Choose Movie Actor and type Goldie Hawn to see what movies or TV shows
are coming up with her in the cast.
If you get any “hits,” recording them is just a button-click away.
Tricks with Live TV
With Media Center, watching TV is anything but a passive activity. As Figure 16-11
shows, several buttons await.
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570 windows 7: the missing manual
OK, that all seems reasonable—except for the Rewind and Fast Forward buttons
and, well, Pause. How is it possible to rewind a live TV broadcast? Or fast-forward
it? Or pause it?
When live TV comes into the computer, Media Center saves (caches) the show that’s
playing. Even if you haven’t explicitly asked for it to be recorded, it caches the most
recent 60 minutes or so.
Once it’s cached, you can rewind what you’ve already watched (or what has been
cached), and fast-forward through what you don’t want to see, like commercials. If
you hit the Pause button, your PC freezes the frame. But behind the scenes, it’s still
recording, saving up what’s coming in live, so that you can fast-forward again when
you’re back from the bathroom or from answering the door.
Figure 16-11:
If you’re remoteless,
move your mouse to
the lower-right corner
of the screen to sum-
mon these TV controls.
This snapshot comes
from playback of an
Internet show, not a
TV broadcast. How do
you know? Because the
tick marks on the scroll
bar show where the ad
breaks occur. Merci-
fully, they’re short, and
there aren’t many at
each break.
Figure Out What’s Not Working
Every month or so, it’s a good idea to take inventory, to see
how the Media Center TV recording empire is going. Perhaps
you thought American Idol was a good program to record,
but it turns out that everyone in your family watches it live,
and nobody deletes the recorded episodes. Perhaps you
thought you’d watch Survivor but decided after a few shows
that you just weren’t into it. Every now and then, in other
words, you should revisit your automatic recording schedule.
One way to take inventory is to see what’s not being deleted
(because it’s not being watched). If you have 10 episodes
of Pimp My Ride, for example, it may be because your kids
are watching it at someone else’s house; get it off of the
Recorded TV list.
To cancel any recording, navigate to Recorded TV. Right-click
the show you no longer want to record. Click Program Info,
then Series Info, then Cancel Series
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Note: You can’t fast-forward into a live TV show until after you’ve paused or rewound it. Even Microsoft hasn’t
figured out a way to let you fast-forward into part of a TV show that hasn’t yet been broadcast.
A typical Media Center maven learns to harness this caching business in order to skip
the ads. For example, you might turn on Judge Judy at 4:00 p.m., pause it, and then
come back around 4:12. Now you can start it from the beginning and fast-forward
through all the commercials when they appear. You’ll be done by 4:30, in time to
watch something else.
Sports
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Here’s a new category in the Windows 7 version of Media Center; clearly, Microsoft
knows a hot-button TV interest when it sees one. The Sports strip offers these options:
•on now/on later. Available only if you have a TV tuner. Shows you all sports shows
that are on right now, or coming up.
•scores. A handy non-video scrolling list of today’s final game scores (Figure 16-12).
•players. Click the league you love, and then click “add players.” After a moment,
your PC shows you a long list of current players in that league. Click “save.”
From now on, the Players screen will show you a tidy list of those players’ current
stats. It’s got nothing to do with playing media (in terms of music, photos, or
videos), but it’s very cool.
•leagues. This is basically a settings screen for the other Sports options. For each
league, you can specify whether you want its games to show up in “on now” and “on
Figure 16-12:
The Sports option is
available to all, TV
tunerless or not. Use
the links at top to
specify what sports
league you want (NBA,
NHL, and so on).
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572 windows 7: the missing manual
later”; its scores to show up in “scores”; alerts to pop up announcing its imminent
games on TV; and its players to be available to the “players” feature.
Tasks
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
This row on the main menu offers a motley collection of administrative tools like these:
•shut down. Brings up icons for Close, Log Off, Restart, and Shut Down. They’re
provided here primarily for people who use the PC for nothing but running Media
Center. There’s no Start menu in that case, and no other way to turn the thing off.
•settings. An endless array of options, as described in the next section.
•learn more. Opens up a weird little ad for Media Center.
•burn cd/dvd. Lets you burn TV shows or photo slideshows to a CD or DVD, as
described earlier in this chapter.
•sync. Auto-copies selected music or video files onto a pocket music player, exactly
the way Windows Media Player does (but with fewer options and more awkward-
ness).
•add extender. A wizard that helps you set up a Media Center Extender, so that
you can play back your PC’s Media Center holdings to a TV somewhere else in
the house. See page 549.
•media only. This mode hides the Minimize and Close buttons in the upper-right
corner so that nobody can ever leave the Media Center program. That’s what you’d
want on a PC that’s connected right to the TV and never does anything but run
Media Center.
Settings
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Once you’ve had a little experience with Media Center, the elaborate preferences
screens (TasksÆSettings) will make a lot more sense. Here you find all sorts of ways
to personalize Media Center. Most are self-explanatory, but here are a few items
worthy of special note:
General
On the General options screen, you can change the following:
•Startup and Windows Behavior. Should Media Center always stay on top of other
windows, start up automatically when Windows starts, or allow alert messages to
appear?
•Parental Controls. You can set up a four-digit password that stands between your
kids and TV, movies, and DVDs that you consider too violent or racy for them.
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•Optimization. Schedule a time to run these hard drive tune-up tasks, and they’ll
run automatically. You should configure this for a time when you won’t be using
the Media Center, but when the computer is on and idle.
TV
From the TV options page, you can change things like these:
•Set Up TV Signal. Don’t go here unless you need to make changes to your TV signal
setup. You might have to add or remove a set-top box, change cable or satellite
companies, or upgrade your television service, for example.
•Closed Captioning. “Closed captioning” refers to subtitles that appear at the bottom
of the TV screen. Closed captioning is a free service (paid for by the TV networks)
and is great for loud rec rooms, workout rooms, parties, and anyone who’s hard
of hearing or learning to read. (If you tune into the football game with closed
captioning on, people can follow it while listening to music. Loudly.)
Note that even if you turn on closed captioning, not all television shows or televi-
sion channels offer it.
Tip: The Closed Captioning setting in TV Signal options doesn’t affect DVDs.
To make captions appear on DVDs, visit TasksÆSettingsÆDVDÆClosed Captioning. Even then, if your
DVD doesn’t show captions, you may have to open DVD Setup, described below, and turn on subtitles in
your own language.
Pictures
In TasksÆPictures, you find options like these:
•Slide shows. Controls how photos appear during slideshows: how long they stick
around, whether they pan and zoom, whether photo and song information ap-
pears, and what the background screen color is.
•Ratings. If you turn on this option, then whenever a slideshow is playing, you can
rate each photo by tapping the 0 through 5 keys on your keyboard or remote—a
very handy way to rate them, indeed.
Tip: An identical option is available in the Music settings.
Music
From the Music options, you have choices like these:
•Visualizations. If you like to trip with the daisies while listening to music, then
check all of the visualizations (music-driven screen savers) here.
•Now Playing. What’s in the background of the Now Playing screen, and when does
song information appear?
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574 windows 7: the missing manual
Start Menu and Extras
If you’ve added to the list of items on the main menu, use the Start Menu options
to turn them off again. The Extras options govern which games show up in Extras.
DVD
From the DVD options, you can change the language, audio, and subtitle options
here, just as you would on a real DVD player. You can also use the Remote Control
Options to change the Skip and Replay buttons to skip chapters, to skip forward and
back, or to change angles.
Extenders
Add, delete, or manage your Media Center Extenders (page 549).
Media Libraries
On this screen, you can tell Media Center to “watch” a new folder (that is, to add the
video, photo, or music contents of a folder on your hard drive to its listings automati-
cally) or to stop watching one.
Tip: For reams of additional tips, tricks, and conversation about Media Center, visit www.thegreenbutton.
com, the Web’s world headquarters for Media Center info.
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Print, Fax, & Scan
Technologists got pretty excited about “the paperless office” in the 1980s, but
the PC explosion had exactly the opposite effect. Thanks to the proliferation of
inexpensive, high-quality PC printers, the world generates far more printouts
than ever. Fortunately, there’s not much to printing from Windows 7.
Installing a Printer
All Versions
A printer is a peripheral device—something outside of the PC—and as such, it won’t
work without a piece of driver software explaining the new hardware to Windows. In
general, getting this driver installed is a simple process. It’s described in more detail
in Chapter 18; here are a few notes on the process to get you started.
USB Printers
If the technology gods are smiling, then installing the driver for a typical inkjet USB
printer works just as described in Chapter 18: You connect the printer, turn it on,
and marvel as Windows autodetects it and autoinstalls the driver, thanks to its secret
cache of hundreds of printer drivers (Figure 17-1).
If you have a really old printer, its drivers might not be compatible with Windows 7.
Check the manufacturer’s Web site, such as www.epson.com or www.lexmark.com, or
a central driver repository like www.windrivers.com, to see if there’s anything newer.
Network Printers
If you work in an office where people on the network share a single printer (usually a
laser printer), the printer usually isn’t connected directly to your computer. Instead,
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578 windows 7: the missing manual
Installing a Printer it’s elsewhere on the network; your PC’s Ethernet cable or wireless antenna connects
you to it indirectly.
In general, there’s very little involved in ensuring that your PC “sees” this printer. Its
icon simply shows up in the StartÆDevices and Printers folder. (If you don’t see it,
click “Add a printer” in the toolbar. On the wizard’s second screen, you’re offered the
chance to “Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer.” That’s the one you want.)
Note: As you’ve probably guessed, that’s also how you install a wireless or Bluetooth printer.
Parallel, Serial, and Infrared Printers
Although USB printers are the world’s most popular type today, there was, believe
it or not, a time before USB. In those days, most home printers fell into one of these
categories:
•Parallel. Before USB changed the world, most printers connected to PCs using a
printer cable or parallel cable. The cable connects to your PC’s parallel port, which
Microsoft’s help screens call the LPT1 port—a 25-pin, D-shaped jack. (This con-
nector is marked with a printer-icon on the back panel of many PCs.)
•Serial. Other older printers use a cable connected to one of your computer’s serial
(or COM) ports, the connectors that often accommodate an external modem. The
primary advantage of a serial connection is the extended cable length—parallel
cables must be no more than nine feet long, while serial cables up to 50 feet long
work fine.
Tip: To protect its innards, turn off the PC before connecting or disconnecting a parallel or serial cable.
Figure 17-1:
You got lucky. Windows dug
into its own bag of included
drivers and installed the correct
one. Let the printing begin.
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chapter 17: print, fax, & scan 579
Installing a Printer
•Infrared. Certain printers from HP, Canon, Citizen, and other companies print
using infrared technology—that is, there’s no cable at all. Instead, if your PC has
an infrared lens (a few aging laptops may still have them), it can communicate
with the printer’s similar lens wirelessly, as long as the printer and PC are within
sight of, and relatively close to, each other.
Sometimes you get lucky, and these printers work just like modern USB printers:
You connect the printer, turn on your PC, and delight in the “Found new hardware”
message that appears on your taskbar. You’re ready to print.
But if Windows doesn’t recognize the printer model you’ve hooked up, it can’t install
its drivers automatically.
In that case, you’ll have to call upon the mighty powers of the Add Printer Wizard
(Figure 17-2). Choose StartÆDevices and Printers, and then click “Add a printer” on
Figure 17-2:
Top: As the note
explains, use the
Add Printer Wiz-
ard only if your
printer doesn’t
connect to your
USB port.
Bottom: Hurrah!
Windows has
found the laser
printer on the
network. In the
following screens,
you’re asked to
name the printer
and offered the
chance to print a
test page.
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580 windows 7: the missing manual
the toolbar—if indeed the Add Printer wizard hasn’t appeared automatically. Click
Next to walk through the questions until you’ve correctly identified your printer
(Figure 17-3), told Windows which computer it’s connected to, and installed the
appropriate software.
The Devices and Printers Window
If your driver-installation efforts are ultimately successful, you’re rewarded by the
appearance of an icon that represents your printer.
Figure 17-3:
The left pane
lists every printer
manufacturer
Microsoft has
ever heard of.
Once you’ve
selected your
printer’s manu-
facturer, a list
of all the printer
models from that
manufacturer
(that Windows
knows about) ap-
pears in the right
pane. Click the
Have Disk button
if your printer’s
driver is on a disc
supplied by the
manufacturer.
If Your Printer Model Isn’t Listed
If your printer model isn’t in the list of printers (Figure 17-3),
then Windows doesn’t have a driver for it. Your printer
model may be very new (more recent than Windows 7,
that is) or very old. You have two choices for getting around
this roadblock.
First, you can contact the manufacturer (or its Web site) to
get the drivers. Then install the driver software as described
in the previous section.
Second, you can use the printer emulation feature. As it turns
out, many printers work with one of several standard drivers
that come from other companies. For example, many laser
printers work fine with the HP LaserJet driver. (These laser
printers are not, in fact, HP LaserJets, but they emulate one.)
The instructions that came with your printer should have
a section on emulation; the manufacturer’s help line can
also tell you which popular printer yours can impersonate.
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This icon appears in the new Devices and Printers window—an important window
that you’ll be reading a lot about in this chapter. The Start menu includes a link to
Devices and Printers, but you can also open the window in other ways, depending
on how you’ve set up Windows 7:
• If you’ve set up your Start menu to display a submenu for the Control Panel (page
44), just choose StartÆControl PanelÆDevices and Printers.
• If you view your Control Panel in Category view, choose StartÆControl Panel,
and then click “View devices and printers” (in the Hardware and Sound category).
• If you view your Control Panel in the Small Icons or Large Icons view, choose
StartÆControl Panel, and then click the Devices and Printers icon.
In any case, the Devices and Printers window contains big, good-looking icons rep-
resenting every gadget plugged into your PC—including the printers you’ve installed
(Figure 17-4).
If you have a printer from a big-name company, double-clicking its icon here might
open the Device Stage, a new Windows 7 feature: a mini-Web page full of details and
useful links like what’s printing now, ink levels, and so on. Other devices and printers
may open a more generic preference pane or management program.
Installing Fake Printers
If your printer has two paper trays, switching to the secondary
one is something of a hassle. You must spend time making
the changes in the Print dialog box, as described later in this
chapter. Similarly, switching the printout resolution from,
say, 300 dpi to 600 dpi when printing important graphic
documents is a multistep procedure.
That’s why you may find it useful to create several different
icons for the same printer. The beauty of this stunt is that
you can set up different settings for each of these icons. One
might store canned settings for 600 dpi printouts from the
top paper tray, another might represent 300 dpi printouts
from the bottom one, and so on. When it comes time to
print, you can switch between these virtual printers quickly
and easily.
To create another icon, just run the Add Printer Wizard a
second time, as described on the preceding pages. At the
point in the installation where you name the printer, invent
a name that describes this printer’s alternate settings, like
HP6-600 dpi or Lexmark-Legal Size.
When the installation process is complete, you see both
printer icons—the old and the new—in the Devices and
Printers window. Right-click the new “printer” icon, choose
“Printing preferences” from the shortcut menu, and change
the settings to match its role.
To specify which one you want as your default printer—the
one you use most of the time—right-click the appropriate icon
and choose “Set as default printer” from the shortcut menu.
Thereafter, whenever you want to switch to the other set of
printer settings—when you need better graphics, a different
paper tray, or other special options for a document—just
select the appropriate printer from the Select Printer list in the
Print dialog box (Figure 17-5, top). You’ve just saved yourself
a half-dozen additional mouse clicks and settings changes.
gem in the rough
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582 windows 7: the missing manual
No matter which approach you take, printer icons come in handy in several different
situations, as the rest of this chapter clarifies.
Note: When you’re finished with a printer—when you sell it, for example—you can eliminate its icon from
your Devices and Printers window. Right-click its icon; from the shortcut menu, choose “Remove device.”
Printing
All versions
Fortunately, the setup described so far in this chapter is a one-time-only task. Once
it’s over, printing is little more than a one-click operation.
Printing from Programs
After you’ve created a document you want to see on paper, start the printout (choose
FileÆPrint, click the Print button on the toolbar, or press Ctrl+P. The Print dialog
box appears, as shown at top in Figure 17-5.
Figure 17-4:
At first, the toolbar in
the Devices and Print-
ers window offers few
commands. But when
you click a particular
printer icon, other
useful options appear,
as shown here. Some
of them duplicate the
options that appear
when you right-click a
printer icon.
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This dialog box, too, changes depending on the program you’re using—the Print
dialog box in Microsoft Word looks a lot more intimidating than the WordPad ver-
sion—but here are the basics:
•Name. If your PC is connected to several printers, or if you’ve created several
differently configured icons for the same printer, choose the one you want from
this list of printers.
•Preferences/Properties. Clicking this button opens a version of the printer’s Prop-
erties dialog box, as shown in Figure 17-6.
•Page range controls which pages of the document you want to print. If you want to
print only some of the pages, click the Pages option and type in the page numbers
you want (with a hyphen, like 3-6 to print pages 3 through 6).
Tip: You can also type in individual page numbers with commas, like 2, 4, 9, to print only those three
pages—or even add hyphens to the mix, like this: 1-3, 5-6, 13-18.
Figure 17-5:
Top: The options in the Print
dialog box are different for each
printer model and each applica-
tion, so your Print dialog box
may look slightly different. For
example, here is the Print dialog
box from WordPad in Windows 7.
Most of the time, the factory
settings shown here are what you
want (one copy, print all pages).
Just click OK or Print (or press
Enter) to close this dialog box and
send the document to the printer.
Bottom: During printing, the
tiny icon of a printer appears in
your notification area. Pointing
to it without clicking produces a
pop-up tooltip, like this one, that
reveals the background printing
activity.
Printing
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584 windows 7: the missing manual
Click Current Page to print only the page where you’ve placed the blinking inser-
tion point. Click Selection to print only the text you selected (highlighted) before
opening the Print dialog box. (If this option button is dimmed, it’s because you
didn’t highlight any text—or because you’re using a program that doesn’t offer
this feature.)
•Number of copies. To print out several copies of the same thing, use this box to
specify the exact number. You get several copies of page 1, then several copies of
page 2, and so on, in sequence—unless you also turn on the Collate checkbox,
which produces complete sets of pages, in order.
•Print. The Print drop-down list that might appear in the lower-left section of the
dialog box offers three options: “All pages in range,” “Odd pages,” and “Even pages.”
Use the Odd and Even pages options when you have to print on both sides of the
paper but your printer has no special feature for this purpose. You’ll have to print
all the odd pages, turn the stack of printouts over, and run the pages through the
printer again to print even pages.
•Application-specific options. The particular program you’re using may add a few
extra options of its own to an Options tab in this dialog box. For example, Internet
Explorer offers an Options tab (Figure 17-7).
When you’ve finished making changes to the print job, click OK or Print, or press
Enter. Thanks to the miracle of background printing (also called spooling), you don’t
Figure 17-6:
When you open
Properties from the
Print dialog box,
you can specify the
paper size you’re
using, whether
you want to print
sideways on the
page (landscape
orientation), what
kind of photo paper
you’re using, and
so on. Here, you’re
making changes
only for a particular
printout; you’re not
changing any set-
tings for the printer
itself. (The specific
features of this dia-
log box depend on
the program you’re
using.)
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have to wait for the document to emerge from the printer before returning to work on
your PC. In fact, you can even exit the application while the printout is still under way,
generally speaking. (Just don’t put your machine to sleep until it’s finished printing.)
Printing from the Desktop
You don’t necessarily have to print a document while it’s open in front of you. You
can, if you wish, print it directly from the desktop or from an Explorer window in a
couple of ways:
• Right-click the document icon, and then choose Print from the shortcut menu.
Windows launches the program that created it—Word or Excel, for example. The
document is then printed automatically to the default printer.
• If you’ve opened the printer’s own print queue window (Figure 17-8) by right-
clicking the Printers icon in your Devices and Printers window and choosing “See
Figure 17-7:
Say you’re printing something from Internet
Explorer. The Web page about to be printed uses
frames (individual, independent, rectangular
sections). The Print dialog box in Internet Explorer
recognizes frames and lets you specify exactly
which frame or frames you want to print. If the
page contains links to other Web pages (and
these days, what Web page doesn’t?), you can
print those Web pages, too, or just print a table of
the links (a list of the URLs).
Figure 17-8:
The first document,
called “Internet Security
3.0,” has begun printing;
the waiting documents
are put on hold. By
right-clicking docu-
ments in this list, you
can pause or cancel any
document in the queue—
or all of them at once.
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what’s printing,” then you can drag any document icon directly into the list of
waiting printouts. Its name joins the others on the list.
These methods bypass the Print dialog box and therefore give you no way to specify
which pages you want to print, or how many copies. You just get one copy of the
entire document.
Controlling Printouts
All Versions
Between the moment you click OK in the Print dialog box and the arrival of the
first page in the printer’s tray, there’s a delay. Usually, it’s very brief, but when you’re
printing a complex document with lots of graphics, the delay can be considerable.
Fortunately, the waiting doesn’t necessarily make you less productive, since you can
return to work on your PC, or even quit the application and go watch TV. An invis-
ible program called the print spooler supervises this background printing process.
The spooler collects the document that’s being sent to the printer, along with all the
codes the printer expects to receive, and then sends this information, little by little,
to the printer.
Note: The spooler program creates huge temporary printer files, so a hard drive that’s nearly full can wreak
havoc with background printing.
To see the list of documents waiting to be printed—the ones that have been stored by
the spooler—open the Devices and Printers window, right-click your printer’s icon
(Figure 17-4), and then choose “See what’s printing” to open its window.
Tip: While the printer is printing, a printer icon appears in the notification area. As a shortcut to opening the
printer’s window, just double-click that icon.
The printer’s window lists the documents currently printing and waiting; this list is
called the print queue (or just the queue), as shown in Figure 17-8. (Documents in
the list print in top-to-bottom order.)
You can manipulate documents in a print queue in any of the following ways during
printing:
•Put one on hold. To pause a document (put it on hold), right-click its name, and
then choose Pause from the shortcut menu. When you’re ready to let the paused
document continue to print, right-click its listing and choose Resume (Figure 17-8).
•Put them all on hold. To pause the printer, choose PrinterÆPause Printing from
the window’s menu bar. You might do this when, for example, you need to change
the paper in the printer’s tray. (Choose PrinterÆPause Printing again when you
want the printing to pick up from where it left off.)
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•Add another one. As noted earlier, you can drag any document icon directly from
its disk or folder window into the printer queue. Its name joins the list of printouts-
in-waiting.
•Cancel one. To cancel a printout, click its name and then press the Delete key. If
you click Yes in the confirmation box, the document disappears from the queue;
it’ll never print out.
•Cancel all of them. To cancel the printing of all the documents in the queue, choose
PrinterÆCancel All Documents.
Note: A page or so may still print after you’ve paused or canceled a printout. Your printer has its own memory
(the buffer), which stores the printout as it’s sent from your PC. If you pause or cancel printing, you’re only
stopping the spooler from sending more data to the printer.
•Rearrange them. If you’re used to, say, Windows Me, it may take you a moment—or
an afternoon—to figure out why you can’t simply drag documents up or down in
the list of waiting printouts to rearrange their printing order. In Windows 7, the
procedure is slightly more involved.
Start by right-clicking the name of one of the printouts-in-waiting; from the
shortcut menu, choose Properties. On the General tab, drag the Priority slider left
or right. Documents with higher priorities print first.
Fancy Printer Tricks
The masses of Windows users generally slog through life choosing FileÆPrint, clicking
OK, and then drumming their fingers as they wait for the paper to slide out of the
printer. But your printer can do more than that—much more. Here are just a few of
the stunts that await the savvy PC fan.
Printing at 39,000 Feet
Printing any document is really a two-step procedure. First, Windows converts the
document into a seething mass of printer codes in the form of a spool file on your
hard drive. Second, it feeds that mass of code to the printer.
When you’re not connected to your printer—for example, when you’re sitting in seat
23B several miles over Detroit—you can separate these two tasks. You can do the
time-consuming part of the printing operation (creating the spool files) right there
on the plane. Then, later, upon your happy reunion with the printer, you can simply
unleash the flood of stored spool files, which then print very quickly.
To set this up, right-click the icon for your printer in the Devices and Printers window
(Figure 17-4). From the shortcut menu, choose “See what’s printing.” Then, on the
Printer menu, choose “Pause printing.” That’s all there is to it. Now you can merrily
“print” your documents, 100 percent free of error messages. Windows quietly stores
all the half-finished printouts as files on your hard drive.
Controlling
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When the printer is reconnected to your PC, right-click its icon once again, choose
“See what’s printing,” and then click “Pause printing” again to clear this setting. The
printer springs to life almost immediately, spewing forth your stored printouts with
impressive speed.
Sharing a Printer
If you have more than one PC connected to a network, as described in Chapter 24,
they all can use the same printer. In the old days, this convenience was restricted to
expensive network printers like laser printers. But in Windows 7, you can share even
the cheapest little inkjet connected to the USB port of one computer.
To begin, sit down at the computer to which the printer is attached. Choose StartÆ
Control Panel. Click Network and Internet, and then open Network and Sharing
Center. In the left pane, click “Change advanced sharing settings.” Proceed as described
in Figure 17-9.
Once you’ve shared the printer, other people on the network can add it to their own
Devices and Printers windows using these steps:
1. Choose StartÆDevices and Printers. In the Devices and Printers window, click
“Add a printer.”
The “What type of printer do you want to install” window appears.
2. Click “Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer.”
After a pause while your PC searches, you see a window populated by all the print-
ers available to the other PC.
Location-Aware Printing
Speaking of shared printers, if you’re running the Profes-
sional or Ultimate edition of Windows 7 and working on a
laptop computer, you can let Windows handle the printing
chores that arise when you move from one network to
another. Windows uses a feature called location-aware
printing to do this.
When you’re at home, for example, and printing to your fam-
ily’s homegroup printer, Windows uses that as your default
printer. When you head back to the office the next day and
log onto your company’s network, Windows knows which
printer you used the last time you printed at the office and
switches to that printer as the default.
To associate printers with a particular network, choose
StartÆDevices and Printers, and then select one of the
printers you’ve installed. On the toolbar, click “Manage
default printers.”
In the resulting dialog box, you can tell Windows to always
use the same printer as your default (if that’s your prefer-
ence) or change default printers network to network. Use the
Select Network and Select Printer lists to assign the printers
you want to use.
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3. Click the icon of the printer you want to use, and then click Next. On the “which
driver” page, click Next again. Finally, type a name for the printer (as you want
it to appear on your PC), and then click Next. On the final screen, click Finish.
Figure 17-9:
Top: Sharing
a printer takes
a couple of
steps. First
be sure that
the network
you’re using
has printer
sharing turned
on. (Home and
Work networks
have this set-
ting turned on
automatically.)
Under the cur-
rent network
profile, check
that “Turn on
file and printer
sharing” is
selected. If it
isn’t turned
on, select it,
and then click
Save Changes.
(Authenticate
yourself if
necessary.)
Bottom:
Open Devices
and Printers
from the
Start menu.
Right-click the
printer you
want to share,
and then click
Printer proper-
ties. Click the
Sharing tab,
and select
the “Share
this printer”
checkbox.
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The shared printer appears in your Devices and Printers window, even though it’s
not directly connected to your machine. It’s now available for any printing you
want to do.
Printing to a File
When it comes to printing, most of the time you probably think of printing onto pa-
per. In certain circumstances, however, you may not actually want a printout. Instead,
you might want to create an electronic printer file on your hard drive, which can be
printed later. You might want to do so, for example, when:
• You’re working on a document at home, and you’ve got only a cheesy $49 inkjet
printer. By creating a printer file, you can delay printing until tomorrow, in order
to use the office’s $4,000 color laser printer.
• You plan to send your finished work to a service bureau—that is, a professional
typesetting shop. Sending a finished printer file avoids incompatibilities of ap-
plications, fonts, layout programs, and so on. (OK, these days, you’d just send a
PDF. But let’s just pretend.)
Creating a printer file
To create such a printer file, choose FileÆPrint, just as you would print any document.
The Print dialog box appears; now turn on the “Print to file” option. When you then
click OK or Print, the Print to File dialog box opens.
Some programs let you choose where you want to save the file; others ask you only
to name the file itself. In that case, your saved printout goes automatically into your
Documents folder. The file extension for these printer files is .prn.
Printing a printer file
To print a printer file, type cmd.exe into the Start menu and press Enter. You’ve just
started command-line session; your cursor is blinking on the command line.
Now type copy c:\foldername\filename.prn lpt1: /b and then press Enter.
Here’s how this instruction breaks down:
•Copy is the name of the command you use to print the file—notice that it’s fol-
lowed by a space.
•C: is the letter of the drive that contains your printer file. You can omit this part
if the printer file is on the current drive (usually C:).
•\foldername is the name of the folder into which you saved the printer file (Docu-
ments, for example).
•\filename is the name you gave the file.
•.prn is the filename extension (which Windows added to the file automatically
when you saved the printer file).
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•lpt1: is the port to which the printer is connected. Note the colon following the
name, and also note that there’s a space before this part of the command. If the
printer is attached to LPT2, substitute that port name.
•/b tells the Copy command that the file is binary (containing formatting and other
codes), not simply text.
Note: A printer file (a .prn file) can be printed only on the same printer model that was selected in the Print
dialog box when the file was generated. If you want to create a printer file for that color printer at work, in
other words, be sure to first install its driver on your computer.
Limiting Hours of Access
If it’s just you, your Dell, and a color inkjet, then you’re entitled to feel baffled by this
feature, which lets you declare your printer off-limits during certain hours of the day.
But if you’re the manager of some office whose expensive color laser printer makes
printouts that cost a dollar apiece, you may welcome a feature that prevents employees
from hanging around after hours in order to print out 500 copies of their head shots.
To specify such an access schedule for a certain printer, follow the instructions in
Figure 17-10.
Figure 17-10:
Right-click your printer’s icon in the
Printers window. From the shortcut
menu, choose Properties, and then
click the Advanced tab, shown here.
Select “Available from,” and use the
time-setting controls to specify when
your underlings are allowed to use this
printer from across the network. Click-
ing OK renders the printer inoperable
during off hours.
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Add a Separator Page
If your PC is on a network whose other members bombard a single laser printer with
printouts, you might find separator pages useful—the printer version of fax cover
sheets. A separator page is generated before each printout, identifying the document
and its owner.
This option, too, is accessible from the Advanced tab of the printer’s Properties dialog
box (Figure 17-10). Click the Separator Page button at the bottom of the dialog box.
In the Separator Page dialog box, click the Browse button to choose a .sep (separator
page) file.
Color Management
As you may have discovered through painful experience,
computers aren’t great with color. That’s because each device
you use to create and print digital images “sees” color a little
bit differently, which explains why the deep amber captured
by your scanner may be rendered as brownish on your
monitor, but come out as a
bit orangey on your Epson
inkjet printer. Since every
gadget defines and renders
color in its own way, colors
are often inconsistent as
a print job moves from
design to proof to press.
The Windows color man-
agement system (CMS)
attempts to sort out this
mess, serving as a transla-
tor among all the different
pieces of hardware in your
workflow. For this to work,
each device (scanner, mon-
itor, printer, copier, and so
on) must be calibrated with a unique CMS profile—a file that
tells your PC exactly how your particular monitor (or scanner,
or printer, or digital camera) defines colors. Armed with the
knowledge contained within the profiles, the CMS software
can make on-the-fly color corrections, compensating for the
quirks of the various devices.
Most of the people who lose sleep over color fidelity do
commercial color scanning and printing, where “off” colors
are a big deal—after all, a customer might return a product
after discovering, for example, that the actual product color
doesn’t match the photo on a Web site. Furthermore, not
every gadget comes with a CMS profile, and not every gadget
can even accommodate one. (If yours does, you’ll see a tab
called Color Management
in the Properties dialog box
for your printer, as shown
here.)
If you’re interested in
this topic, open the Color
Management tab for your
printer. (Opening the Color
Management applet in the
Control Panel gets you to
the same place, shown
here.) The Automatic set-
ting usually means that
Windows came with its
own profile for your printer,
which it has automatically
assigned. If you click Man-
ual, you can override this decision and apply a new color
profile (that you downloaded from the printer company’s
Web site, for example).
Remember to follow the same procedure for the other pieces
of your color chain—monitors, scanners, and so on. Look for
the Color Management tab or dialog box, accessible from
their respective Properties dialog boxes.
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If you scroll to the very bottom of the resulting list of geeky Windows folder names,
you’ll find four of them:
•Sysprint.sep is the one you probably want. Not only does this page include the
name, date, time, and so on, but it also automatically switches the laser printer to
PostScript mode—if it’s not already in that mode, and if it’s a PostScript printer.
•Pcl.sep is the same idea, except that it switches the laser printer to PCL mode—
commonly found on HP printers—before printing. (PostScript and PCL are the
two most common languages understood by office laser printers.)
•Pscript.sep switches the printer to PostScript mode but doesn’t print out a separa-
tor page.
•Sysprtj.sep prints a separator page, switches the printer to PostScript mode, and
sets Japanese fonts, if they’re available on your printer.
Printer Troubleshooting
All Versions
If you’re having a problem printing, the first diagnosis you must make is whether the
problem is related to software or hardware. A software problem means the driver files
have become damaged. A hardware problem means there’s something wrong with
the printer, the port, the cable, the toner, the ink, or whatever.
Test the printer by sending it a generic text file from the command line. To perform
such a test, locate a text file or create one in Notepad. Then open a command prompt
(type cmd.exe into the Start menu ; press Enter). Send the file to the printer by typing
copy filename.txt prn and then pressing Enter. (Of course, remember to type the file’s
actual name and three-letter extension instead of filename.txt.)
If the file prints, then the printing problem is software-related. If it doesn’t, then the
problem is hardware-related.
For software problems, reinstall the printer driver. Open the Devices and Printers
window, right-click the printer’s icon, and then choose Remove Device from the
shortcut menu. Then reinstall the printer as described at the beginning of this chapter.
If the problem seems to be hardware-related, try these steps in sequence:
• Check the lights or the LED panel readout on the printer. If you see anything
other than the normal “Ready” indicator, check the printer’s manual to diagnose
the problem.
• Turn the printer off and on to clear any memory problems.
• Check the printer’s manual to learn how to print a test page.
• Check the cable to make sure both ends are firmly and securely plugged into the
correct ports.
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• Test the cable. Use another cable, or take your cable to another computer/printer
combination.
Another way to check all these conditions is to use the built-in Windows trouble-
shooter—a wizard specifically designed to help you solve printing problems. To run,
choose StartÆHelp and Support. Type printing troubleshooting into the Search box
and press Enter. Click “Open the Printer troubleshooter” to open that article.
If none of these steps leads to an accurate diagnosis, you may have a problem with the
port, which is more complicated. Or even worse, the problem may originate from your
PC’s motherboard (main circuit board), or the printer’s. In that case, your computer
(or printer) needs professional attention.
Figure 17-11:
Top: All your fonts
sit in the Fonts
folder. You’ll
frequently find an
independent font
file for each style
of a font: bold,
italic, bold italic,
and so on.
Bottom: To see
how a font looks
at various sizes
and styles, click
it, and then click
Preview.
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Fonts
All Versions
Some extremely sophisticated programming has gone into the typefaces that are
listed in the Fonts dialog boxes of your word processor and other programs. They
use OpenType and TrueType technology, meaning that no matter what point size you
select for these fonts, they look smooth and professional—both on the screen and
when you print.
Managing Your Fonts
Windows comes with several dozen great-looking fonts: Arial, Book Antiqua, Hel-
vetica, Times New Roman, and so on. But the world is filled with additional fonts.
You may find them on Web sites or in the catalogs of commercial typeface compa-
nies. Sometimes you’ll find new fonts on your system after installing a new program,
courtesy of its installer.
To review the files that represent your typefaces, open the Fonts icon in the Control
Panel. (Switch to Large Icons or Small Icons view to see the Fonts icon.) As Figure
17-11 illustrates, it’s easy and enlightening to explore this folder.
Tip: The Fonts icon in your Control Panel window is only a shortcut to the real folder, which is in your Local
Disk (C:)ÆWindowsÆFonts folder.
To remove a font from your system, right-click it and then choose Delete from the
shortcut menu, or highlight it and then click Delete on the toolbar. To install a new
font, first download the font (from the Internet, for example) and then drag its file
icon into this window (or right-click the font and then click Install). You can also
choose to show or hide specific fonts in your programs. The Fonts window in Control
Panel includes a column that shows the status of a font. Select a font, and then click
Show or Hide to make this font available in the programs you use.
Whatever you do, you see the changes immediately reflected in your programs’ Font
dialog boxes; you don’t even have to quit and re-open them.
Faxing
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
One of Windows 7’s most spectacular features is its ability to turn your PC’s built-in
fax modem into a fax machine. This feature works like a charm, saves all kinds of
money on paper and fax cartridges, and may even spare you the expense of buying
a physical fax machine.
Faxing in Windows 7 is a much more official feature than it was in Windows XP, where
it wasn’t even installed automatically. Now there’s a new program dedicated just to
faxing: Windows Fax and Scan.
Sending a fax is even easier on a PC than on a real fax machine; you just use the
regular FileÆPrint command (Ctrl+P), exactly as though you’re making a printout
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of the onscreen document. When faxes come in, you can opt to have them printed
automatically, or you can simply read them on the screen.
Tip: The similarity with printing doesn’t stop there. The Devices and Printers folder even contains a Fax icon
that works just like a printer icon.
Sending a Fax from Any Program
Now, the one big limitation of PC-based faxing is that you can only transmit docu-
ments that are, in fact, on the computer. That pretty much rules out faxing notes
scribbled on a legal pad, clippings from People magazine, and so on (unless you scan
them first).
If you’re still undaunted, the procedure for sending a fax is very easy:
1. Open up whatever document you want to fax. Choose FileÆPrint.
The Print dialog box appears.
2. Click the Fax icon (or choose Fax from the Select Printer list, as shown in Figure
17-12), and then click OK or Print.
The very first time you try faxing, you encounter the Fax Setup Wizard. It first
asks you to connect to a fax modem. Choose that option, and then type a name
for your fax modem.
Cover-Page Art Class
You don’t have to be content with the handful of fax cover
pages that Microsoft provides. The Fax and Scan program
comes with its own little cover-page design studio. To get
started, choose ToolsÆCover Pages.
At this point, you could click the New button to call up a
pure, empty, virginal cover page. But by far the easiest way
to get going is to open one of the existing cover pages,
make changes to it, and then save it under a different name.
To do so, click the Copy button now in front of you, and then
open one of the four cover-page templates that Windows
presents. Windows puts it into what’s now a one-item list.
Select the item and click Rename to give it a new name, if
you like, and then click Open to begin work on your redesign.
The design program works like any standard drawing pro-
gram. In order to type text that won’t change—a confidenti-
ality notice, for example—click the Text tool on the toolbar
(which looks like this: ab|), and then click the page. Use the
commands in the Insert menu to plop placeholder text boxes
onto the page—special rectangles that, on the actual cover
sheet, will be filled by your name, fax number, the number
of pages, and so on. You can transfer your own company
logo onto the page just by pasting it there (EditÆPaste).
Every item you place on the page—a text block, a graphic,
and so on—is a separate object that you can move around
independently using the arrow tool. In fact, you can even
move a selected object in front of, or behind, other objects,
using the commands in the Layout menu.
When you’re finished with your masterpiece, choose
FileÆSave. It gets saved into your DocumentsÆFaxÆPer-
sonal CoverPages folder (meaning that only you have access
to it—not other people who share the PC and log in with
their own accounts).
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Next, it wants you to specify what happens when someone sends a fax to you (that
is, when the phone line your PC is connected to “rings”). Click “Answer automati-
cally” if you want Windows to answer incoming calls after five rings, assuming that
if you haven’t picked up by that time, the incoming call is probably a fax.
Figure 17-12:
Top: To send a fax,
pretend you’re print-
ing the document—
but choose Fax as the
printer.
Middle: Address and
send the fax.
Bottom: Good news!
This old-fashioned
analog technology
actually worked.
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If you choose “Notify me,” then each incoming call triggers an onscreen mes-
sage, asking you whether you want the PC to answer as a fax machine. And if you
choose “I’ll choose later,” you can postpone the decision and get on with sending
your first fax.
Note: At this point, the Windows Firewall, rather stupidly, may interrupt to ask if it’s OK for Windows Fax
and Scan to run. Click Unblock.
Finally, you arrive at a New Fax window (like a New Message window) (Figure
17-12, middle).
3. Type the recipient’s fax number into the “To:” box.
Or click the tiny envelope next to “To:” to open up the Select Recipients list (where
you can find people listed as your Windows Contacts and others). Double-click
the name of the fax-equipped buddy you want.
4. If you want a cover page, choose a cover-page design from the Cover Page drop-
down menu.
If you do, then a new text box opens up, where you can type a little note, which
also appears on the cover page.
Note: You can ignore the main message box at the bottom of the window for now. It’s intended for creating
faxes from thin air, as described below, rather than faxes that began life as documents on your PC.
At this point, type a subject for your fax. You may also want to choose ViewÆPre-
view (or click the tiny Preview icon on the toolbar) to give it a final inspection
before it goes forth over the wires. When you’re finished looking it over, your fax
is ready to send.
5. Click Send in the toolbar.
Your modem dials, and the fax goes on its merry way. A status dialog box appears
(although its progress bar doesn’t actually indicate how much time remains). You
can go do other work on the PC; when the fax goes through, a cheerful message
appears in your notification area (Figure 17-12, bottom).
Your recipient is in for a real treat. Faxes you send straight from your PC’s brain
emerge at the receiving fax machine looking twice as crisp and clean as faxes sent
from a standalone fax machine. After all, you never scanned them through a typical
fax machine’s crude scanner on your end.
Faxing Using Windows Fax and Scan
If you just have a few quick words to fax to somebody, you can use Fax and Scan by
itself, without first opening a document on your PC. Open the Fax and Scan program
from your StartÆAll Programs menu.
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Click New Fax in the toolbar, fill in the fax number, and choose a cover page as de-
scribed in the preceding steps. This time, however, you can use the broad message
area at the bottom of the window to type the body of your text.
Tip: Cover pages automatically include your name, fax number, and so on. And how does it know all this?
Because, in Fax and Scan, you chose ToolsÆSender Information and filled it out.
Receiving Faxes
There are several reasons why you may not want your PC to receive faxes. Maybe you
already have a standalone fax machine that you use for receiving them. Maybe your
house has only one phone line, whose number you don’t want to give out to people
who might blast your ear with fax tones.
But receiving faxes on the PC has a number of advantages, too. You don’t pay a cent
for paper or ink cartridges, for example, and you have a handy, organized software
program that helps you track every fax you’ve ever received.
Note: The discussion here applies to normal people who send faxes using a computer’s built-in fax modem.
If you work in a corporation where the network geeks have installed a fax server, life is even easier. Incoming
faxes automatically arrive in the Inbox of the Fax and Scan program.
Exactly what happens when a fax comes in is up to you. Start by opening Windows
Fax and Scan; then choose ToolsÆFax Settings, and proceed as shown in Figure 17-13.
You have two options for receiving faxes:
•Manually answer. This option is an almost-perfect solution if your PC and tele-
phone share the same phone line—that is, if you use the line mostly for talking,
but occasionally receive a fax. From now on, every time the phone rings, a balloon
in your notification area announces: “Incoming call from [the phone number].
Click here to answer this call as a fax call.” (See Figure 17-13.)
When you do so, your PC answers the phone and begins to receive the fax. To see
it, open Fax and Scan.
•Automatically answer after. Use this option if your PC has a phone line all to
itself. In this case, incoming faxes produce a telephone-ringing sound, but there’s
otherwise no activity on your screen until the fax has been safely received. Once
again, received faxes secret themselves away in your Fax and Scan program.
While you’re setting things up in the Fax Settings dialog box, don’t miss the “More
options” button. It’s the gateway to two useful features:
•Print a copy to. If you like, Windows can print out each incoming fax, using the
printer you specify here. Of course, doing so defeats the environmental and cost
advantages of viewing your faxes onscreen, but at least you’ve got something you
can hold in your hand.
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600 windows 7: the missing manual
•Save a copy to. Ordinarily, incoming faxes are transferred to your Fax and Scan
program. If you turn on this option, however, you can direct Windows to place a
duplicate copy of each one—stored as a graphics file—in a folder of your choice.
Figure 17-13:
Top: Click the General tab, and then turn
on “Allow device to receive fax calls.” If you
choose “Automatically answer,” you can also
specify how many rings you want to go by
before the PC answers; you don’t want it an-
swering regular incoming voice calls before
you’ve had a chance to pick up.
Second from top: Uh-oh! You’re getting a call!
Click the balloon itself if you think it’s a fax.
Third from top: Windows Fax and Scan takes
over and begins to download the fax. This
window is cleverly known as the Fax Status
Monitor.
Bottom: The incoming fax winds up in your
Inbox, just as though it’s a particularly old-
fashioned email message.
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(Either way, it’s handy to know that these are standard TIFF graphics files that you
can email to somebody else—or even edit.)
To look at the faxes you’ve received, open Fax and Scan. Click the Inbox to see a list
of faxes that have come in—and then double-click one to open it up (Figure 17-13,
bottom).
Tip: Another great way to capitalize on the power of your PC for fax purposes is to sign up for J2 or eFax
(www.j2.com and www.efax.com). These services issue you your own personal fax number. And here’s the
twist—all faxes sent to that number arrive at your PC as email attachments.
The brilliance of the system, of course, is that you don’t need another phone line for this, and you can get
these faxes anywhere in the world, even on the road. And here’s the best part: As of this writing, both of
these services are absolutely free. (You might consider reserving a separate email address just for your J2 or
eFax account, however, since waves of junk mail are part of the “free” bargain.)
Scanning Documents
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
You already know that Windows Fax and Scan makes a great little fax center. But faxing
is only one technology that turns paper into digital bits. Scanning is the other—and
that, too, is a talent of Fax and Scan.
First, install your scanner (and its driver) as described in Chapter 18.
Load it up with the page you want to scan. In Fax and Scan, click New Scan. The
New Scan dialog box appears. Click Preview to trigger a quick, temporary scan so
that you can see how the document will look after the scan (Figure 17-14). If it all
looks good, click Scan.
Scanning Text—and Then Editing It
I scanned an article from a magazine. How do I copy a
couple of paragraphs from it into my word processor?
When you scan an article or a page of a book, you’re not
capturing text; you’re just taking a picture of text. You can no
more copy and paste a paragraph out of the resulting graph-
ics file than you can copy text out of a photograph. Your PC
sees everything on the scanned page as one gigantic graphic.
If you want to edit text that you’ve scanned, then you need
optical character recognition (OCR) software, which comes
free with certain scanners. This kind of software analyzes the
patterns of dots in each scanned graphics file and does a
fairly good job of turning it into a word processor document
that contains the original text. When businesses decide to
convert old paper documents into computer files (insur-
ance policies, research papers, and so on), OCR software
is what they use.
frequently asked question
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602 windows 7: the missing manual
Once the document has magically turned into a graphic in your Scan list, you can
do all kinds of neat things with it: Forward it as a fax or an email attachment (click
“Forward as Fax” or “Forward as E-mail” on the toolbar); export it as a JPEG, GIF,
BMP, TIFF, or PNG document (click “Save as” on the toolbar); print it; or delete it.
Figure 17-14:
In this box, you
have the chance to
specify what sort
of thing you want
to scan—picture?
document?—and
specify its resolu-
tion and color
settings.
Choose 300 to
600 dots per inch
resolution (dpi) for
professional scans;
for everyday
scanning, 150 to
200 dpi is plenty.
The more dots, the
bigger the result-
ing file.
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18
chapter 18: hardware 603
Hardware
A
PC contains several pounds of wires, slots, cards, and chips—enough hardware
to open a True Value store. Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about mak-
ing all your PC’s preinstalled components work together. In theory, at least,
the PC maker did that part for you. (Unless you built the machine yourself, that is.
In that case, best of luck.)
But adding new gear to your computer is another story. For the power user, hard
drives, flash drives, cameras, printers, scanners, network cards, video cards, keyboards,
The Master Compatibility List
Remember that Windows 7 is another leap ahead in the
evolution of the operating system. Discovering that a piece
of your existing equipment is now flaky or nonfunctional is
par for the course.
If you’d like to eliminate every glitch and every shred of
troubleshooting inconvenience, limit your add-on gear to
products that pass the test—the one administered by the
Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. That’s a little program you
can download from this Web site:
www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-
advisor.aspx
Even if your computer uses Windows Vista—which means it’s
probably fine for Windows 7—running the Upgrade Advisor
is a good idea. If you plan to upgrade to Windows 7 from
Windows XP, you’ll definitely want to test things out; you
should know how many of your peripherals won’t work
before you install Windows 7. (The Upgrade Advisor takes
the place of the old Hardware Compatibility List [HCL], an
online list of every gadget and program on earth that had
been shown to work with Windows XP.)
Plug in all your external gadgets—scanners, printers, hard
drives, and so on—and then run the Advisor program you’ve
downloaded.
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604 windows 7: the missing manual
External Gadgets monitors, game controllers, palmtop cradles, and other accessories all make life worth
living. When you introduce a new piece of equipment to the PC, you must hook it
up and install its driver, the software that lets a new gadget talk to the rest of the PC.
The driver issue is a chronic, nagging worry for the average Windows fan, however.
Drivers conflict; drivers are missing; drivers go bad; drivers go out of date.
Fortunately, in Windows 7, Microsoft has made further strides in addressing the
driver problem. Win7 comes with thousands upon thousands of drivers for common
products already built in, and Microsoft deposits dozens more on your hard drive,
behind the scenes, with every Windows Update (page 662). Chances are good that
you’ll live a long and happy life with Windows 7 without ever having to lose a Saturday
manually configuring new gizmos, as your forefathers did.
This chapter guides you through installing accessory gadgets and their drivers—and
counsels you on what to do when the built-in, auto-recognized drivers don’t do the
trick.
Note: Chapter 17 contains additional hardware-installation details specific to printers.
External Gadgets
All Versions
Over the years, various engineering organizations have devised an almost silly num-
ber of different connectors for printers, scanners, and other peripherals (Figure 18-1
shows a typical assortment). The back panel—or front, or even side panel—of your
PC may include any of these connector varieties.
USB Jacks
Man, you gotta love USB (Universal Serial Bus). The more of these jacks your PC
has, the better.
Of Hubs and Power
If your PC doesn’t have enough built-in USB jacks to handle
all your USB devices, you can also attach a USB hub (with,
for example, four or eight additional USB ports), in order to
attach multiple USB devices simultaneously.
Whether the jacks are built in or on a hub, though, you
have to be aware of whether or not they’re powered or
unpowered jacks.
Unpowered ones just transmit communication signals with
the USB gadget. These kinds of USB gadgets work fine with
unpowered jacks: mice, keyboards, flash drives, and anything
with its own power cord (like printers).
Powered USB jacks also supply current to whatever’s plugged
in. You need that for scanners, Webcams, hard drives, and
other gadgets that don’t have their own power cords but
transmit lots of data.
The bottom line? If a gadget isn’t working, it may be be-
cause it requires a powered jack and you’ve given it an
unpowered one.
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External Gadgets
The USB jack itself is a compact, thin, rectangular connector that’s easy to plug and
unplug. It often provides power to the gadget, saving you one more cord and one
more bit of clutter. And it’s hot-pluggable, so you don’t have to turn off the gadget
(or the PC) before connecting or disconnecting it.
Tip: Be careful, though, not to yank a USB flash drive or hard drive out of the PC when it might be in the
middle of copying files.
USB accommodates a huge variety of gadgets: USB hard drives, scanners, mice,
phones, keyboards, printers, palmtop cradles, digital cameras, camcorders, and so on.
Most modern PCs come with two or more USB ports, often on both the front and
back panels.
Figure 18-1:
The back panel of a typical
PC. Not every computer
has every kind of jack, and
the standard assortment is
evolving. But these days,
you can generally count on
a basic collection like the
one shown here.
PS/2 port (keyboard, mouse)
USB ports (cameras, printers,
scanners, iPods, phones,
hard drives, etc.)
Parallel port (printer)
Serial (COM) port (older
mouse, modem,
camera, scanner, etc.)
Video (VGA) port (monitor)
Ethernet port (office network)
Modem and phone line
Microphone, speakers
Even more USB ports
Firewire
TV tuner connections
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606 windows 7: the missing manual
Note: Today’s USB gadgets and PCs offer USB 2.0 jacks—a faster, enhanced form of USB. You can still plug
the older, slower USB 1.1 gadgets into USB 2.0 jacks, and vice versa—but you’ll get the older, slower speed.
Other Jacks
At one time, the backs of PCs were pockmarked with all manner of crazy jacks: serial
ports, PS/2 ports, SCSI ports, parallel ports, keyboard ports. Today, all these connec-
tors are rapidly disappearing, thanks to the all-powerful superiority of the USB jack.
Here’s what else you may find on the modern PC, though:
•FireWire port. Not all PCs come with this special jack (the faster FireWire 800
has a rectangular jack; the original, FireWire 400 jack is a rectangle-with-one-V-
shaped-end), but it’s a winner nevertheless. (Various companies may also call it
IEEE 1394 or i.Link.) It’s a hot-pluggable, extremely high-speed connector that’s
ideal for digital camcorders (for video editing) and external hard drives.
•Bluetooth adapters. Bluetooth is a fascinating short-range wireless technology.
Don’t think of it as a networking scheme—it’s intended for the elimination of
cable clutter. A Bluetooth-equipped PC can print to a Bluetooth printer, or “talk”
to a Bluetooth headset, or sync with a Bluetooth phone, from up to 30 feet away.
•PC card or ExpressCard slot. These slots are found primarily on laptops. They
accommodate miniature expansion cards, which look like metal Visa cards. Each
card adds a useful feature to your laptop: additional USB jacks, a cellular high-
speed modem, external eSATA adapters (for plugging in hard drives), and so on.
Tip: Hundreds of PC cards are available, for thousands of laptop models. The industry has moved to a nar-
rower type of card, however, called ExpressCard, which fits into a narrower kind of slot. (Actually, there are
two ExpressCard types—one narrow, and one really narrow.) Just make sure, before you buy any card, that
it fits the kind of slot your laptop has.
•Video (VGA) or DVI port. The VGA connector is a narrow female port with 15
holes along three rows. Most monitors are designed to plug into either a VGA jack
or the more modern DVI (digital visual interface) jack, which has 24 pins and is
designed for modern digital LCD screens.
•Game port. This connector, which is usually part of a sound card, is a wide female
port that accepts joysticks and steering wheels.
•SD card reader. Pop the SD memory card out of your camera and straight into
this slot to import the photos. Sweet.
Connecting New Gadgets
In books, magazines, and online chatter about Windows, you’ll frequently hear people
talk about installing a new component. In many cases, they aren’t talking about physi-
cally hooking it up to the PC—they’re talking about installing its driver software.
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The really good news is that Windows 7 comes equipped with thousands of drivers
for gadgets, especially USB gadgets. When you plug the thing into the PC for the
first time, Windows 7 autodetects its presence, digs into its trunk for the driver, and
installs it automatically. Only a flurry of balloons in the notification area lets you
know what’s going on (Figure 18-2).
If Windows can’t find the driver, a dialog box appears, suggesting that you insert
whatever software-installation disc came with the gadget.
And now, the fine print:
• Usually the process shown in Figure 18-2 is all it takes—that is, you start by plug-
ging the device in. Sometimes, though, you’re supposed to install the driver before
connecting the gizmo. (Check the manual.)
• Usually, the device should be turned on before you plug it in. Again, though,
check the manual, because some devices are supposed to be switched on during
the installation.
In either case, your gear is now completely installed—both its hardware and its soft-
ware—and ready to use.
Device Stage
The Device Stage is a new Windows 7 feature that does wonders to demystify the
sometimes baffling world of external gadgets. Its mission: to depict, in visual form,
Windows’s understanding of whatever gadgets you’ve connected to it.
Microsoft refers to Device Stage as a “home page” for the most popular kinds of
gadgets: cellphones, music players, cameras, printers, scanners, multifunction print-
Figure 18-2:
Installing a USB gadget is usually
no more involved than plugging
it into the PC. Windows takes
it from there. All you have to
do is wait for the “successfully
installed” message—and even
that‘s a one-time ritual for a
given device.
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608 windows 7: the missing manual
ers, mice, and keyboards. They can be connected to your PC by a USB cable or even
a wireless Bluetooth or WiFi connection.
For each gadget, the Device Stage window (Figure 18-3, bottom) is supposed to display
highly specific information and links. For a camera, you might see a handsome photo
of the camera model you’ve plugged in, the number of photos on it to be downloaded,
how much space remains on the card, and the current battery level—and you’re offered
links to import the photos, read the manual, buy accessories, and so on.
For a printer, you might see ink-level details, options to buy paper and ink online,
and so on; for a cellphone, you see options to edit or buy ringtones, sync with your
Windows address book and calendar, and so on. For any kind of gadget, you probably
get a link to the manufacturer’s Web site, too.
Figure 18-3:
Top: When
you connect
a portable
gizmo that’s
compatible
with Device
Stage, its
icon appears
on the
taskbar,
complete
with a jump
list featuring
useful tasks.
Bottom: For
printers, the
taskbar icon
appears only
when the
Device Stage
window is
open, like
this one.
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chapter 18: hardware 609
There’s usually a “Change how your device works with Windows” link, too, which
brings up what looks like a glorified AutoPlay box: You specify what function you want
to trigger the next time you plug this thing in (auto-downloading photos, for example).
Microsoft doesn’t create these little model-specific pages; the gadget manufacturers
are supposed to do it and submit them to Microsoft. When you attach the device to
your PC, you see its own custom Device Stage page.
When you connect a portable gadget (cellphone, music player, camera), you get a
handy related bonus feature: Your taskbar shows an actual icon for that model. Here’s
what you can do with it:
• Right-click that icon to see a jump list offering a handy set of options: “Import
pictures and videos,” “Read the manual,” “Browse files,” and so on.
• Point to the taskbar icon without clicking to see a thumbnail panel with key sta-
tistics: battery level, shots remaining, and so on.
• Click the taskbar icon to open the gadget’s Device Stage page.
Note: No taskbar icon appears for permanently attached gadgets like printers until you open their Device
Stage window yourself. To do that, choose StartÆDevices and Printers, and then double-click the picture
of your device.
When you disconnect your gadget, its icon disappears from the taskbar, and all Device
Stage windows close automatically.
Device Stage is great for both Windows veterans, who should appreciate the nifty
graphics and ease of use, and for novices, who’ll appreciate knowing exactly where
to do things and the simply stated commands, like “Set ringtones.”
Now, the bad news: Very few gadgets do have Device Stage information built in. As
Windows 7’s master world-domination plan chugs along, more gadgets will presum-
ably become Device Stage–compatible. But for now, a lot of gadgets—including most
of the several trillion pre-Windows 7 models—produce either no Device Stage at all,
or, sometimes a generic one. This “baseline” page may offer the basic tasks—import
pictures from a camera, for example—but won’t offer the photo and functions of
your exact model.
Note: When the hardware makers get around to it, they’ll update their Device Stage screens, or add them
to gizmos that are currently showing you only the generic basic pages. You’ll know when an updated Device
Stage is available, because the top of the window will sprout a little banner inviting you to download it.
Installing Cards in Expansion Slots
All Versions
Modems and adapter cards for video, TV, sound, network cabling, disk drives, and
tape drives generally take the form of circuit boards, or cards, that you install inside
your PC’s case. These slots are connected to your PC’s bus, an electrical conduit that
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610 windows 7: the missing manual
connects all the components of the machine to the brains of the outfit: the processor
and memory.
The two common (and incompatible) kinds of slots are called PCI and PCI Express
(PCIe). The PCI slot (Peripheral Component Interconnect) has been around since
the dawn of the PC in the early 1990s. PCI Express is newer and offers much better
speed, but is typically used only for graphics cards. Most computers in use today have
both kinds of slots.
Note: There’s a third type of slot in some computers, called AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port). This slot is
almost always occupied by a graphics card. PCIe is the most popular slot type for graphics cards, but you
may encounter AGP in older PCs.
Knowing the characteristics of the different bus types isn’t especially important.
What is important is knowing what type of slots your computer has free, so you can
purchase the correct type of expansion card. To do this, you’ll have to open your PC’s
case to see which type of slots are empty:
The Add Hardware Wizard
Microsoft really, really hopes you’ll never need the Add Hard-
ware Wizard. This little program is a holdover from Windows
past, designed for very old, pre-Plug-and-Play gadgets (what
Microsoft calls “legacy hardware”) that Windows doesn’t
autorecognize when you plug them in.
Begin by connecting the new gear; turn off the computer first,
if necessary. Turn the machine
on again, and then open the
Add Hardware Wizard pro-
gram, which takes a few steps.
Open the Start menu; start typ-
ing device manager until you
see its name in the results list;
click it. Then right-click your PC
at the top of the list and choose
“Add legacy hardware” from
the shortcut menu.
The wizard makes another
attempt to detect the new equipment and install its driver.
If a happy little “Found new hardware” balloon appears in
your notification area, all is well; the wizard’s work is done. If
not, you’re walked through the process of specifying exactly
what kind of gadget seems to have gone missing, choosing
its manufacturer, inserting its driver disc, and so on.
If you choose “Install the hardware that I manually select
from a list” and click Next (or if the previous option fails),
the wizard displays a list of device types, as shown here.
From that list, find and select
the type of hardware you want
to install—“Imaging devices” for
a digital camera or a scanner,
for example, “PCMCIA adapt-
ers” for a PC card, and so on.
(Click Show All Devices if you
can’t figure out which category
to choose.)
Click Next to forge on through
the wizard pages. You may be
asked to select a port or con-
figure other settings. When you click the Finish button on
the last screen, Windows transfers the drivers to your hard
drive. As a final step, you may be asked to restart the PC.
workaround workshop
Installing Cards in
Expansion Slots
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chapter 18: hardware 611
• PCIe slots come in different lengths, depending on their speed (from x1, the slow-
est, to x16, the fastest and most common). The have metal pins or teeth in the
center and a small crossbar partway down the slot. There’s also a slot on one end
that the card uses to lock into place.
• The plastic wall around a PCI slot is usually white or off-white, and shorter than
an ISA slot. A PCI slot has a metal center and a crossbar about three-quarters of
the way along its length.
Installing a card usually involves removing a narrow plate (the slot cover) from the
back panel of your PC, which allows the card’s connector to peek through to the
outside world. After unplugging the PC and touching something metal to discharge
static, unwrap the card, and then carefully push it into its slot until it’s fully seated.
Note: Depending on the type of card, you may have to insert one end first, and then press the other end
down with considerable force to get it into the slot. A friendly suggestion, however: Don’t press so hard that
you flex and crack the motherboard.
Troubleshooting Newly Installed Gear
All Versions
If, when you connect a new component, Windows doesn’t display a “successfully
installed” message like the one at the bottom of Figure 18-2, it probably can’t “see”
your new device.
• If you’ve installed an internal card, make sure that it’s seated in the slot firmly (after
shutting down your computer, of course).
• If you attached something external, make sure that it’s turned on, has power (if it
came with a power cord), and is correctly connected to the PC.
In either case, before panicking, try restarting the PC. If you still have no luck, try
the Add New Hardware Wizard described in the box on the facing page. (And if even
that doesn’t work, call the manufacturer.)
Driver vs. Driver
Which is better: the drivers that come with Windows, or the
drivers I’ve downloaded from the manufacturer’s Web site?
In many cases, they’re the same thing. The drivers included
with Windows usually did come from the hardware’s manu-
facturer, which gave them to Microsoft. However, you should
still use the drivers that came from your gadget’s manufac-
turer whenever possible, especially if you got them from the
manufacturer’s Web site. They’re likely to be newer versions
than the ones that came with Windows.
frequently asked question
Installing Cards in
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612 windows 7: the missing manual
If your new gadget didn’t come with a disc (or maybe just a disc with drivers, but no
installer), then hooking it up may produce a “Found New Hardware” balloon in the
notification area, but no message about happy success. In that case, click the balloon
to make the New Hardware Wizard appear.
Proceed as shown in Figure 18-4.
Tip: As you work with newly installed gadgets, don’t forget about their new informational headquarters:
the Device Stage screen. Choose StartÆDevices and Printers; you see a window that pictures and lists the
devices connected to your machine. Right-click a device to change settings and properties, or double-click it
to open its Properties dialog box or a Device Stage window. Details on page 607.
Figure 18-4:
Top: If you have the drivers
on a CD from the manufac-
turer, select the first option,
“Locate and install driver
software.”
Bottom: Now Windows
asks for the driver CD. Win-
dows either finds the com-
patible driver and installs
it automatically, or it offers
you a choice. If you do not,
in fact, have the CD, click
“I don’t have the disc.”
You’re offered two final,
fatalistic options: “Check
for a solution” (Windows
dials the mother ship on
the off chance that a driver
has miraculously cropped
up since its last update) or
“Browse my computer,”
designed for people who
have downloaded a driver
from the Web on their own.
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Driver Signing
All Versions
Every now and then, when you try to install the software for one new gadget or an-
other, you’ll see a warning box that says, “Windows can’t verify the publisher of this
driver software.”
It’s not really as scary as it sounds. It’s just telling you that Microsoft has not tested this
driver for Windows 7 compatibility and programming solidity. (Technically speak-
ing, Microsoft has not put its digital signature on that driver; it’s an unsigned driver.)
Note: In very rare circumstances, you may also see messages that say, “This driver software has been altered”
or “Windows cannot install this driver software.” In those cases, go directly to the hardware maker’s Web site
to download the official driver software; Windows is trying to warn you that hackers may have gotten their
hands on the driver version you’re trying to install.
In theory, you’re supposed to drop everything and contact the manufacturer or its
Web site to find out if a Windows 7–certified driver is now available.
In practice, just because a driver isn’t signed doesn’t mean it’s no good; it may be that
the manufacturer simply didn’t pony up the testing fee required by Microsoft’s Win-
dows Hardware Quality Labs. After all, sometimes checking with the manufacturer
isn’t even possible—for example, it may have gone to that great dot-com in the sky.
So most people just plow ahead. If the installation winds up making your system slower
or less stable, you can always uninstall the driver, or rewind your entire operating sys-
tem to its condition before you installed the questionable driver. (Use System Restore,
described on page 697, for that purpose. Windows automatically takes a snapshot of
your working system just before you install any unsigned driver.)
Tip: There is no way to turn off the “unsigned driver” messages permanently in Windows 7, much to the
dismay of Windows veterans who want to be left alone. (If you Google this problem, you’ll find some hacks
that purport to do the trick—but you’ll also find reports that they don’t actually work.) There is a way to turn
off the messages, but you have to repeat it each time you turn on your PC. See page 704.
The Device Manager
All Versions
The Device Manager is an extremely powerful tool that lets you troubleshoot and
update drivers for gear you’ve already installed. It’s a master list of every component
that makes up your PC: floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, keyboard, modem, and so on
(Figure 18-5). It’s also a status screen that lets you know which drivers are working
properly and which ones need some attention.
The quickest way to open the Device Manager, as usual, is to open the Start menu.
Start typing device manager until you see its name in the results list; click it.
Driver Signing
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Tip: Or type devmgmt.msc into the Start menu’s Search box, and press Enter. That’s the Device Manger’s
real name.
Authenticate yourself if necessary. You then arrive at the screen shown in Figure 18-5.
The Curse of the Yellow ! Badge
A yellow circled exclamation point next to the name indicates a problem with the
device’s driver. It could mean that either you or Windows installed the wrong driver,
or that the device is fighting for resources being used by another component. It could
also mean that a driver can’t find the equipment it’s supposed to control. That’s what
happens to your Webcam driver, for example, if you’ve detached the Webcam.
The yellow badget may also be the result of a serious incompatibility between the
component and your computer, or the component and Windows. In that case, a call
to the manufacturer’s help line is almost certainly in your future.
Tip: To find out which company actually created a certain driver, double-click the component’s name in the
Device Manager. In the resulting Properties dialog box, click the General tab, where you see the name of
the company, and the Driver tab to see the date the driver was created, the version of the driver, and so on.
Figure 18-5:
The Device Manager lists types of
equipment; to see the actual model(s)
in each category, you must expand
each sublist by clicking the flippy
triangle.
A device that’s having problems is easy
to spot, thanks to the black down-
arrows and yellow exclamation points.
You can see a disabled driver (. logo)
and a problem driver (! logo) in the
“Network adapters” category here,
although in this illustration, they’re very
tiny and not in color.
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Duplicate devices
If the Device Manager displays icons for duplicate devices (for example, two modems),
remove both of them. (To remove a device, click Uninstall in the dialog box shown
in fi 18-7.) If you remove only one, Windows will find it again the next time the PC
starts up, and you’ll have duplicate devices again.
If Windows asks if you want to restart your computer after you remove the first icon,
click No, and then delete the second one. Windows won’t ask again after you remove
the second incarnation; you have to restart your computer manually.
When the PC starts up again, Windows finds the hardware device and installs it
(only once this time). Open the Device Manager and make sure there’s only one of
everything. If not, contact the manufacturer’s help line.
Resolving resource conflicts
If the yellow-! problem isn’t caused by a duplicate component, then double-click the
component’s name. Here you find an explanation of the problem (see Figure 18-6).
Turning Components Off
The Driver tab shown in Figure 18-7 contains another useful tool: the Disable but-
ton. It makes your PC treat the component in question as though it’s not even there.
Figure 18-6:
The General tab should have all the information
you need to resolve a problem. Any resource with
a conflict is marked with a red X “not working”
icon. If you click “Check for solutions,” your PC
sends a silent signal back to the mother ship,
Microsoft, in hopes of finding a newer driver or a
compatibility patch available for downloading.
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You can use this function to test device conflicts. For example, if a yellow exclamation
point indicates that there’s a resource conflict, then you can disable one of the two
gadgets, which may clear up a problem with its competitor.
When you disable a component, a circled . appears next to the component’s listing
in the Device Manager. To undo your action, click the device’s name and click the
Enable button in the toolbar (formerly the Disable button).
Updating Drivers
If you get your hands on a new, more powerful (or more reliable) driver for a device,
you can use the Device Manager to install it.
Tip: Newer isn’t always better, however; in the world of Windows, the rule “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
contains a grain of truth the size of Texas.
Open the dialog box shown in Figure 18-7, and then click the Update Driver button.
The Update Device Driver Wizard walks you through the process.
Figure 18-7:
To get here, double-click a component listed
in your Device Manager and then click the
Driver tab. Here, you find four buttons and
a lot of information. The Driver Provider in-
formation, for example, lets you know who’s
responsible for your current driver—Micro-
soft or the maker of the component.
Click the Driver Details button to find out
where on your hard drive the actual driver
file is. Or click Update Driver to install a
newer version, the Roll Back Driver button to
reinstate the earlier version, the Disable but-
ton to hide this component from Windows
until you change your mind, or the Uninstall
button to remove the driver from your
system entirely—a drastic decision.
(If the buttons here are dimmed, click the
General tab, click “Change settings,” shown
in Figure 18-6, and then authenticate.)
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Along the way, the wizard offers to search for a better driver, or to display a list of
drivers in a certain folder so you can make your own selection. In either case, you may
have to restart the PC to put the newly installed driver into service.
Driver Rollback
Suppose that you, the increasingly proficient PC user, have indeed downloaded a new
driver for some component—your scanner, say—and successfully installed it using
the instructions in the previous paragraphs. Life is sweet—until you discover that
your scanner no longer scans in color.
In this situation, you’d probably give quite a bit for the chance to return to the previous
driver, which, though older, seemed to work better. That’s the beauty of Driver Roll-
back. To find it, open the dialog box shown in Figure 18-7, and click Roll Back Driver.
Windows 7, forgiving as always, instantly undoes the installation of the newer driver,
and reinstates the previous driver.
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chapter 19: laptops, tablets, & touchscreens 619
Laptops, Tablets, &
Touchscreens
Portability is today’s reality in computing. Laptop sales are trouncing desktop
PC sales. Netbooks are cheap and insanely popular. And for millions of people,
the computing platform of choice isn’t a computer at all—it’s a cellphone.
That’s why Windows 7 is crammed with special features for the peripatetic PC. On
a laptop, for example, you can change your power-consumption configuration with
a quick click on the battery icon in the notification area. All the important laptop
settings, like network switching and projector settings, are clustered in a single place:
the Windows Mobility Center.
Touchscreen computing is, in Microsoft’s opinion, ready for prime time, despite the
fact that only about six people ever bought those tablet PC machines that Bill Gates
was once so excited about. To prove its point, Microsoft has built iPhone-like multi-
touch gestures—pinching and spreading, swiping a finger, rotating two fingers—right
into the operating system, ready for any touchscreen-equipped PC that comes along.
Those features join all the existing tablet PC features like pen control, digital ink text
input, and handwriting recognition. (This stuff used to be available only in a special
Tablet PC Edition of Windows; now it’s part of the basic operating system.)
And finally, are you a fan of the old offline files feature, which keeps folders on your
laptop synchronized with the master copies on the company network? If so, you’re in
luck; the Sync Center is still around. It’s covered in this chapter, too.
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Laptops Note: Are you in the market for a netbook? Microsoft’s take is that any version of Windows 7 will run on
these lightweight, low-cost machines. But be careful to check the hardware specs for a netbook to be sure they
meet Microsoft’s minimum requirements. If you own a netbook that runs Windows XP, you must upgrade to
Windows 7. You can purchase a copy online at http://store.microsoft.com/win7netbooks, and you can find
more information by Googling “Windows 7 on a netbook.”
Laptops
All Versions
Windows 7 is full of special software features designed expressly for battery-powered
computing. There’s a whole control panel, for example, dedicated to managing bat-
tery power. You can control screen brightness, when your computer sleeps, and other
features, all in the name of saving juice.
That’s not the only gift to laptoppers in Windows 7, however. Read on for all the
good stuff.
Battery Meter
The notification area (system tray) has always displayed a little battery meter that
shows how your laptop’s battery charge is doing. Its icon looks like a tiny battery—or
a battery with a plug (p) when the laptop’s charging.
If you point to this icon, a tooltip displays the status of your laptop’s battery, including
the current battery charge. Click this icon, and you see what power plan you’re using.
There’s even more to it than that, though, as you can see in Figure 19-1.
Figure 19-1:
To change the power configuration plan on the fly,
click the Power icon once, and click again on the power
plan you’d like to use. (A power plan is a set of set-
tings like, “Put the laptop to sleep after __ minutes of
inactivity, to save power.”)
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Laptops
Mobility Center
The Windows Mobility Center is a handy, centralized hub for managing everything
that makes a laptop a laptop (Figure 19-2): battery, wireless networking, external
projector connection, and so on. To find it, open the Start menu. Start typing mobility
until you see its name in the results list; click it.
Or just press w+X, which is quite a bit quicker. (On a desktop, w+X does nothing.)
Tip: You can also open one of these icons entirely from the keyboard. See the underlined letter beneath each
panel, such as Battery Status or Wireless Network? Tap that letter to highlight the icon, and then press Enter.
Here’s the complete list of tiles that may appear in your Mobility Center. (You may
not have all of them, depending on what kind of computer you’re using and what
components it has. And you may have more of them, if your computer company has
installed its own options.)
•Display brightness. The slider dims your screen for this work session only, which
can save enormous amounts of battery power. Click the icon to open the Power
Options control panel, where you can make brightness changes that are always
in effect.
•Volume. Change your speakers’ volume, or mute them entirely. Click the icon to
open the Sound control panel.
•Battery Status. This is your battery’s fuel gauge. The drop-down menu lets you
choose a canned setting like “High performance” (your PC doesn’t go to sleep, but
uses up battery power faster) or “Power saver” (the laptop goes to sleep sooner to
conserve juice). Click the icon to open the Power Options control panel, where
you can change the power-plan settings for good.
Figure 19-2:
Each setting in
Mobility Center is
illustrated with a
cute little icon—but
don’t be fooled.
This is so much
more than an icon!
It’s also a button
that, when double-
clicked, opens up
a Control Panel
applet or configura-
tion page.
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622 windows 7: the missing manual
•Wireless Network. Turns your WiFi circuitry on or off (which saves power and
makes flight attendants happy), and shows how many bars of signal you have. Click
the icon to open the “Connect to a network” dialog box, which lists all wireless
networks within your range.
•Screen Orientation. This one shows up mostly on tablet PCs. It lets you turn the
screen image 90 degrees. Click the icon to open the Display Settings control panel
for additional screen settings.
Tip: On some laptops and tablets, Ctrl+Alt+arrow key rotates the screen, which saves you a few steps.
•External Display. Have you hooked up a second monitor? If so, click “Connect
display” to make Windows aware of its new responsibilities. This tile also reveals
whether or not Windows “sees” the second screen. Click the icon to open the
Display control panel, where you can configure the resolution and other settings
of the second monitor.
•Sync Center. The Sync Center is the communications hub for offline files, the “sync
my copies with the network copies” feature described on page 635. This tile shows
you the status of a sync that’s already under way. Click the icon (or “Sync settings”)
to open the Sync Center program, where you can set up new “sync partnerships”
between your PC and other network PCs.
Figure 19-3:
When you’re in Presentation mode, your
screen saver and system notifications
don’t appear, and your laptop won’t go
to sleep. You might also want to specify
a piece of uncontroversial artwork for
your desktop wallpaper, so your bosses
and potential employers won’t acciden-
tally spot the HotBikiniBabes.com JPEG
you usually use.
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•Presentation Settings. This feature is available only in the Professional, Enterprise,
and Ultimate editions of Windows 7, but it’s great; it’s the answer to a million
PowerPoint pitchers’ prayers. It makes sure that your laptop won’t do anything
embarrassing while you’re in the middle of your boardroom presentation.
On the Presentation Settings tile of Mobility Center, click “Turn on.” When the tile
says “Presenting,” your laptop won’t go to sleep. No alarms or reminder dialog boxes
appear. The screen saver doesn’t kick in. You’re free to give your pitch in peace.
Click the icon to open the Presentation Settings dialog box shown in Figure 19-3.
Note: You also enter Presentation mode when you hook up a network projector (page 273), or when you
connect an external monitor.
Tablet PCs and Touchscreen PCs
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
A tablet PC is a laptop or a slate-shaped computer with a touchscreen that you oper-
ate with a stylus (pen). In theory, that design means a tablet PC can be thinner and
lighter than a laptop, because it can do without a keyboard.
When Microsoft unveiled its concept for the tablet PC in 2002, it was convinced that
the tablet was the future. “Within five years, I predict it will be the most popular form
of PC sold in America,” Bill Gates told the crowd at a keynote speech.
Clearly, that never happened. The tablet PC isn’t exactly dead, but its popularity is
concentrated in fairly rarefied circles: healthcare, insurance, and so on.
In the meantime, in the age of the Apple iPad, finger-touchscreen computers are
coming on strong. Windows 7 was designed to handle, in fact, multitouch laptops
and desktops, where you can touch the screen with two fingers to pinch, spread, or
rotate objects, just as on the iPhone.
As a bonus, many of the existing Windows features for pen-based computers—digi-
tal ink, handwriting recognition, and so on—work very well on this newer breed of
touch machines.
Handwriting Recognition
The accuracy and convenience of Window’s handwriting recognition have come a
very long way—which is fortunate indeed, since some tablet PCs don’t have keyboards
(or they have keyboards that you can detach). Hey, if tablet PCs can decipher doctors’
handwriting, surely you can get your tablet PC to recognize yours.
Using a pop-up transcription window called the Input panel, you can enter text any-
where you can type: Microsoft Word, your email program, your Web browser, and
so on. Windows 7 also comes with a special program called Windows Journal that’s
a note-taking module designed expressly for tablets.
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Teaching Windows how you write
The first step in using the handwriting recognition feature is to train your PC to
recognize your writing. You provide samples of your handwriting, and Windows
studies your style.
To get started, open the Start menu. Start typing handwriting until you see “Personalize
Handwriting Recognition” in the results list; click it. From the options, choose “Teach
the recognizer your handwriting style.” Proceed as shown in Figure 19-4.
After working through the exercises, you can start using handwriting recognition.
Figure 19-4:
Top: The handwrit-
ing recognition
training wizard of-
fers you the chance
to fix certain recog-
nition errors (good
if you’ve been at it
awhile), or to teach
it your general style
(best if you’re just
starting out).
You’re offered the
chance to write
either sentences or
numbers, symbols,
and letters; for
best accuracy,
you should work
through both.
More than once, in
fact. (They’re not
brief exercises—the
Sentences option
involves about 50
screens—but it’s all
for a good cause.)
Bottom: Write
just the way you
would on paper—in
cursive, printing, or
a mixture of both.
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Handwriting anywhere
To make Windows recognize your handwriting, open any program where you would
otherwise type—a word processor, for example.
Now open the Input panel, which is a floating handwriting window that automati-
cally converts anything you write into typed text (Figure 19-5). You can summon the
Input panel in a couple of ways:
• Tap to put the insertion point in a text-entry area—an empty word processor
document or email message, for example, or the address bar of a Web browser. A
tiny Input panel icon appears right by the insertion point (Figure 19-5, top); tap it.
Figure 19-5:
Top: You can open the Input panel
by tapping the Input panel icon
that appears next to any selected
text box.
Middle: You can also tap the tiny
tab that hugs the edge of the
screen.
Bottom: Once the Input panel is
open, you can use it to enter text
into any program at all. If you make
an error before hitting the Insert
button, you can just scratch it out,
with a right-to-left horizontal line,
to make it disappear. (Hint: You
can customize the heck out of the
Input panel—ink thickness, tab ap-
pearance, and so on—by choosing
ToolsÆOptions within the panel.)
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626 windows 7: the missing manual
• Tap the Input panel tab, which peeks out from the left edge of the screen (Figure
19-5, middle).
• If you have a touchscreen PC that’s not technically a tablet, the Input panel may not
appear automatically. But you can summon it easily enough. Open the Start menu.
Start typing tablet until you see “Tablet PC Input Panel” in the results list; click it.
Tip: If you’re left-handed, you’ll probably want to move the panel to the right side of the screen, which
you can do by clicking ToolsÆOptions in the Input panel, and then choosing “Right edge of the screen”
on the Opening tab.
Once the Input panel is open, the buttons in the top-left corner offer a couple of
ways to enter text. (Point without clicking to see their names, or consult Figure 19-6.)
The Writing pad is by far the most convenient method. To use it, just start writing on
the line. Use your normal writing style.
The buttons at the top right (shown in Figure 19-5) trigger tiny, short animations that
illustrate the proper gestures for Correcting, Deleting, Splitting, and Joining words
together inside the Input panel, thereby correcting mistakes before they get commit-
ted to your document. (You can hide this row of “play video” buttons by clicking the
™ button to their right.)
Tip: The little video shows a single straight line, right to left, as the “Delete text” gesture. And it works fine.
But it’s a lot more fun to use the old one: literally scribble out a word, scritch-scratching up and down a few
times to make it disappear.
Figure 19-6:
Top: If Windows
is having trouble
understanding,
say, an Eastern Eu-
ropean last name,
you can open the
Character pad by
choosing “Write
character by
character” on the
tools menu. Write
letters one by one
and wait as they’re
recognized.
Bottom: The On-
Screen keyboard.
Use your pen (or
your fingers on a
touchscreen) to
tap letters.
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Now then: The “digital ink” doesn’t just sit there where you wrote it. A split second
after you finish each word, Windows transcribes that word into typed text within the
Input panel, as shown at bottom in Figure 19-5. Cute how it uses a handwriting-style
font to keep you in the mood, eh?
You can edit or correct this transcription while it’s still in the panel, as described below.
But finally, when you tap the little Insert button, all of this writing and typing van-
ishes—and the converted, typed text appears in your document or dialog box. (If
you’d rather simply point to the Insert button, open the Input panel’s Tools menu and
choose Options. On the Insertion tab, choose “Point to the Insert button.”)
Gestures
In the pen-computing world, a gesture is a quick pen movement that lets you “type”
a space (a long, quick line to the right), a Backspace (long and quick to the left), a
press of the Enter key, or a Tab (Figure 19-7).
To try out a gesture or two, make sure the Input panel is completely empty. You’re
going to draw one of these special shapes in the Input panel, but you’ll see its effect
in whatever Windows program you’re using. You don’t have to tap Insert or wait, as
you do when writing; Windows recognizes the gestures instantly.
You can also scratch out text in the Writing pad before it gets transcribed. Scribble
it out just as you’d scratch out handwriting on a real piece of paper. You can draw a
straight line through what you’ve written, scribble out with an M or W motion, draw
looping scribbles, and so on. The text disappears from the pad.
Fixing mistakes
Windows’s handwriting recognition is amazingly accurate. It is not, however, per-
fect—in part because your handwriting isn’t either.
Correcting a mistake is important for two reasons. First, it fixes the error in your
document—and second, it teaches Windows so that it’s less likely to make that mistake
Figure 19-7:
Mastering gestures can be tricky. If it’s not working for you, try writing
faster, or making the horizontal strokes longer.
Tab
Enter key
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628 windows 7: the missing manual
again. Figure 19-8 shows the steps. (This is where the Correcting, Deleting, Splitting,
and Joining techniques illustrated by the videos at the top edge of the panel come
in very handy.)
The finer points of handwriting recognition
The handwriting recognition feature in Windows 7 is considerably better than it was
on the old Windows XP Tablet Edition. Here are a few reasons why:
•AutoComplete. As you write items in the Input panel such as email addresses, file-
names, or URLs, AutoComplete attempts to save you time by guessing what you’re
going for. If it’s right, tap the guess and enjoy how Windows finishes your word.
•Scratch-out gestures. As mentioned earlier, scratch-out gestures let you use your
pen to erase anything you’ve handwritten by scratching it out with the pen.
•Back-of-pen erase. Some tablet pens have an “eraser end” that lets you erase text
you’ve written. To find out if your pen is so equipped, flip it upside-down and
drag across something you’ve written. If an eraser icon appears—and your text
disappears—then you’re one of the lucky ones.
•Web quick keys. The Web button in the Input panel opens a panel filled with
one-tap bits of Web addresses: http://, www., .com, and so on. It’s a lifesaver when
you’re using your tablet with a Web browser.
Note: Anything you tap on the Num, Sym, or Web panels gets deposited directly into your document. It
doesn’t first appear in the Input panel, like your handwriting does. After all, Windows is already sure of what
you intended to type; there’s no need for you to approve or correct it.
Some of the old features, meanwhile, are still useful:
Figure 19-8:
Top: The first step in
correcting a mistran-
scribed word is to tap
it, as shown here.
Bottom: Windows
offers a selection
of other possible
readings of your
scrawl. Tap the one
you want, or correct
it one letter at a time;
just write directly
over the wrong letter
or choose a letter
from the drop-down
alphabet menu.
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•Numbers and symbols. The Input panel displays buttons for Bksp (Backspace),
Del (Delete), Tab, Enter, Space, and left and right arrow keys. For ease in entering
numbers and symbols, special number and symbol pads are available, too (tap
Num or Sym).
•Add words to the Handwriting Dictionary. To add a word to the Handwriting
Dictionary, write the word neatly in the Writing pad, and correct it if necessary
in the Character pad. In the Character pad, tap the tiny ≥ above the word; select
“Add [this word] to the handwriting dictionary.” Consider adding your own name,
acronyms, and other information you use often.
•Calibrating. Calibration involves fine-tuning how accurately your tablet detects
the pen’s location. If you feel as though your tablet could benefit from calibration,
choose StartÆControl Panel. In the Search box, type Tablet PC Settings, and then
choose this option in the list of results. (It’s not available on non-touch PCs.) On
the Display tab, under Display Options, click Calibrate.
Tip: Windows Help is full of tips and tricks for getting better handwriting recognition. You’ve just read some
of them (add words to the dictionary, recalibrate your screen, use the pads of shortcuts for numbers, symbols,
and Web address bits). Help also advises lefties to inform the machine by opening the Tablet PC Settings
dialog box from Control Panel and choosing Left-Handed.
Windows Journal
Among programs that work well with handwriting, few can top Windows Journal. It’s
a program for taking notes, keeping a journal, or recording info-tidbits as you come
across them during the work day. It’s a great tool for students, since it does away with
the usual note-taking tools (notebooks, pens, and paper).
When you open it (type journal into the Start menu), you’re presented with a blank
page of what looks like the lined paper of an old spiral notebook.
Note: The first time your start Windows Journal, click Install when Windows asks if you want to install the
Journal Note Writer print driver.
So why not just make your scribbles, doodles, and math equations in a program like
Word? Because Word doesn’t accept handwriting—only typed text converted from
handwriting. Windows Journal, on the other hand, stores the actual graphic repre-
sentation of anything you write (Figure 19-9).
As you write along, keep in mind that your notes and sketches aren’t locked in Journal
forever. For example:
•Mail it. Choose FileÆSend to Mail Recipient to send a page by email. Be sure to
choose Journal Note as the format for the message attachment if you want the
recipient to be able to open and edit the note in Windows Journal.
Of course, there are a couple of problems with this approach. Some people might
not have Windows Journal on their computers, which means they can’t open the
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attachment. You can also send the attachment as a Web page or as a TIFF file. People
who receive your message can see the image of the note, but they can’t work with
it in Windows Journal. If you’re using a recent version of Outlook, you can search
for and find text you’ve written in a Windows Journal note that’s stored in email.
You can also select a swath of handwriting and choose ActionÆConvert Selection
to E-mail. Journal does its best to convert the handwriting to text, which it then
pastes into an open outgoing email message.
•Export it to a Web archive or a TIFF graphics file (FileÆExport As).
•Convert parts of it to text. See Figure 19-10.
Tip: Pressing the button on the side of your stylus automatically puts it into Selection mode, saving you a
trip to the toolbar or Edit menu.
•Change your “pen.” Select some text, and then choose EditÆ“Format ink” to
change the thickness, color, and other attributes of the ink style.
Flicks
Pen flicks let you navigate documents and manipulate data using your stylus alone.
With a flick of the wrist, you can scroll a page at a time, copy, paste, delete, undo,
Figure 19-9:
Windows Journal
stores your
handwriting as
digital ink, without
attempting to
convert everything
to typed text. Still,
it’s not stupid. You
can, for example,
search your reams
of notes for a
certain word or
phrase. You can
also use the Selec-
tion tool (looks
like a rope lasso)
to select text to
move, transcribe,
or format.
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and so on. You have eight pen flicks available to you: up, down, left, right, and the
four diagonals.
(So what’s the difference between a flick and a gesture? Very little, except that to make a
flick, you draw an invisible line across your document, rather than in the Input panel.)
To turn on this feature, open the Pen and Touch control panel (start typing pen and
touch into the Start menu to find it). Once the dialog box opens, click the Flicks tab.
The Flicks tab opens. Turn on “Use flicks…” at the top of the dialog box. At this point,
you get only four flicks: up and down (for scrolling) and left and right (for Back and
Forward, as in a Web browser). If you turn on “Navigational flicks and editing flicks,”
however, you add the diagonal options, making flicks even more useful.
At the bottom, click “Practice using flicks.” The Flicks Training dialog box opens,
probably startling you with the sudden appearance of an actual video that shows
someone scrolling with the pen.
When you click Next, you’re offered the opportunity to practice the flicking technique.
It suggests that you draw short lines “as though you were brushing something off the
screen with the tip of the pen,” which is well put.
Figure 19-10:
Use the Selection
tool (the rope lasso
icon on the toolbar)
to select any text
you’ve written (by
dragging a circle or
oval around it); at
that point, you can
choose ActionÆ
Convert Handwriting
to Text to turn the
writing into typed
text, suitable for
pasting into another
program or deposit-
ing right there on
the Journal page.
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632 windows 7: the missing manual
Figure 19-11 shows the built-in flick movements for Page Up and Page Down, Back
and Forward, Delete, Copy, Paste, and Undo. You can change these assignments if you’d
prefer (click Customize on the Flicks tab), either by rearranging the flick directions
or assigning entirely different functions to them: Save, Open, Print, press the Alt key
(or Ctrl, Shift, or w), and so on.
Tablet and touch settings
If you get into flicking, you should know that, since Microsoft is Microsoft, you have
a long list of customizations and tweaks available to you. Open the Pen and Touch
control panel. (Fastest way to get there: Open the Start menu. Start typing pen and
until you see “Pen and Touch” in the results list; click it.)
Tip: If you have a tablet, you can make life easier for yourself by adding the Pen and Touch control panel to
the top of your Start menu, where it’s easy to get to. Click StartÆControl Panel. Click Hardware and Sound.
Drag Pen and Touch—either the little pen icon or the words “Pen and Touch”—to the Start button. Without
releasing the mouse, wait for the Start menu to open, and then drop the icon at the top-right corner of the
Start menu. You can now get to the settings quickly.
Figure 19-11:
Top: The Pen and
Touch program
controls all aspects
of pen and finger-
touch interactions.
On the Touch tab,
for example, you
can turn touch
off altogether,
if it’s getting in
your way. On the
Flicks and Pen
Options tab, you
can adjust the pen
actions that cor-
respond to mouse
actions.
Bottom: In Tablet
PC Settings, you
can tell Windows
if you’re left- or
right-handed.
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Figure 19-11 shows both the Pen and Touch control panel and the Tablet PC Settings
control panel. Each offers useful adjustments for touch computing. Neither makes
clear why they’re two separate programs.
Windows Touch
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
On a tablet PC, you navigate and operate your PC with gestures, flicks, and the touch
of your pen. Touchscreen PCs, available as both laptops and desktops (usually all-in-
one designs), take you one step further: You can scroll Web pages, select music and
photos, zoom in and out, rotate things, or open documents by touching the screen
with your fingers.
Windows 7 has multitouch features built in, meaning that—if your PC has a multitouch
screen—you can use two fingers on the screen, iPhone style, to perform common
commands. To imitate a right-click of the mouse, for example, you touch a file’s icon
with one finger and tap the screen with another.
All through Windows 7, you’ll find indications that Microsoft designed Windows 7
with touch in mind. That’s one reason icons on the taskbar are larger than before,
making them more accessible to your touch. Jump lists are easily managed on a touch-
screen. The onscreen keyboard, originally designed for tablets, has been upgraded
for fingertip operation.
Touch Gestures
If your PC has a multitouch screen, here are the four basic built-in Windows 7 multi-
touch gestures that work at the desktop and in many programs:
•Panning is like scrolling with the mouse; it works anytime scroll bars are visible in
a window. You can drag one or two fingers up, down, left, or right. (The problem
with one-finger dragging is that you might accidentally select what’s under your
finger—a line of text, for example. Two-finger dragging is therefore usually safer.)
The faster you drag, the faster you scroll.
•Flicking is a quick horizontal swipe with one finger. It’s the same thing as click-
ing a Back or Forward button—in your Web browser or Windows Explorer, for
example. When you’ve opened a photo (in, for example, Windows Live Photo
Gallery), flicking means next/previous photo.
•Zooming works just as it does on an iPhone or iPod Touch. Place two fingers on
the screen. Spreading them apart zooms in (enlarges a smaller area of a picture or
a map); pinching them together zooms out for a larger view. This feature works
in most basic Microsoft programs: Internet Explorer, Photo Viewer and Photo
Gallery, Microsoft Office, and so on.
•Rotating a picture, a PDF page, or another object involves placing two fingers
against the screen, then rotating them clockwise or counterclockwise.
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•Right-clicking, to open something’s shortcut menu, is done like this: While touch-
ing the object with one finger, tap another spot on the screen with a second finger.
Tip: You can use and customize flicks with a touchscreen PC in the same way you can use them with a tablet PC.
These gestures are supposed to work in all programs, even those that haven’t been
designed especially for touchscreens. Your mileage, however, may vary.
Minor Tweaks
Other nods to the new finger-driven generation are lurking everywhere in Windows 7.
For example, on a touchscreen PC, you’ll notice these changes:
• The Show Desktop button (far right of the taskbar) is twice as wide.
• Windows snap against the edge of the screen with more “magnetism,” so you don’t
have to be as precise.
• When you open a jump list (page 51) by flicking upward from a taskbar icon, the
commands in it are spaced more widely than usual, for easier targeting with a finger.
• In Paint, you can paint with two fingers at once (or as many as your computer’s
multitouch screen is designed to track simultaneously).
• In Windows Media Center, you can swipe up, down, left, or right from most screens.
• The Hearts and Solitaire games have been rewritten for touch control.
Note: You can turn multitouch input off, if you like, in the Pen and Touch control panel. (But why?) Here,
you can also set up custom touch actions to match common mouse actions.
Touch and Internet Explorer
Windows Touch and Internet Explorer go especially well
together. There’s something about the direct manipulation
of Web links and buttons on the screen that makes this
combination appealing.
All the usual two-finger gestures work here: panning (scroll-
ing), zooming, and flicking (to go back or forward a page).
You can swipe downward from the address bar to see the
list of recent Web sites and bookmarks, rather than having
to aim for the tiny arrow next to it—and the resulting menu
has extra-wide spacing, for greater finger comfort.
But links on traditional Web pages can be tiny—too tiny for
fat fingers. There are, however, some workarounds.
For example, a two-finger tap zooms into that spot on any
Web page, which is especially handy when you want to mag-
nify the area of a link you want to tap, making a bigger target.
You can return the page to normal size with another
two-finger tap. (Of course, you can also zoom in much
more, and with much greater control, using the two-finger
spreading gesture described above. Pinch to shrink the
page back down.)
Remember, too, that you can flick right or left to simulate
clicks on the Back or Forward buttons.
Finally, try this: To open a link in a new tab, don’t just click
it; drag it a short way in any direction. (It takes practice.)
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Overall, you’ll probably find that multitouch computing is better in theory than in
practice. You never know which gestures a certain program is going to recognize.
Worst, very few programs have been designed for touch—with big, finger-friendly
buttons and controls. (That, at least, you can partly ameliorate by blowing up the size
of Windows’s on-screen elements; see page 194.)
Windows Mobile
All Versions
Windows Mobile isn’t really Windows. It’s a much smaller, simpler series of operating
systems designed for cellphones, palmtops, ultra-mobile PCs, and portable media
centers (handheld music/video/photo players).
All of them have certain Windows-esque interface elements—a Start menu is a com-
mon one—but they are not, in fact, all the same.
The Sync Center, described next, used to be responsible for keeping Windows Mobile
gadgets up to date with the latest info on your PC, including your email, address book,
and calendar. These days, though, Device Stage (page 607) has taken over that job.
Sync Center is now used for only one purpose: managing offline files.
Offline Files & Sync Center
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
The offline files feature is designed for laptop lovers. It lets you carry off files that gen-
erally live on your office network, so you can get some work done while you’re away.
Then, when you return and connect your laptop to the office network, Windows
automatically copies your edited, updated documents back to their original locations
on the network, intelligently keeping straight which copies are the most recent. (And
vice versa—if people changed the network copies while you were away, Windows
copies them onto your laptop.)
Tip: If your purpose is to have the same files waiting for you at home that are on your PC at work, Windows
Live Sync is a better choice. See page 474.
Offline Files is a great feature for corporate workers, which explains why it’s not
available in all versions of Windows 7. And it’s been greatly simplified since the
Windows XP version. For example, reconnecting to the network now triggers an
automatic, seamless, invisible synchronization of the files you worked on while you
were away—there’s no more alert balloon, no need to shut down all programs and
manually trigger the sync, and so on.
You can also command Windows to sync at more specific times: every time you con-
nect to the network, for example, or at 3:00 a.m.
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Preparing to Leave the Network
To tell Windows which files and folders you want to take away with you on the laptop,
find them on the network. Proceed as shown in Figure 19-12.
Note: If you can’t seem to make this work, it may be because the Offline Files master switch has been turned
off. Open the Start menu. Start typing offline until you see “Manage offline files” in the results list; click it. On
the General tab of the Offline Files dialog box, the Enable Offline Files button awaits. (Unless Offline Files is
already turned on, in which case the button says “Disable offline files.”)
Windows now takes a moment—well, quite a few moments, actually—to copy the
selected files and folders to your laptop. Fortunately, it works in the background,
between your mouse clicks and keystrokes.
Note: If somebody on the network is actually using those files right now—has them open—you’ll get an error
message at this point. Wait until those documents are closed, and then try again.
It’s an excellent idea to synchronize your folders manually every time you’re about to
leave the network, so the files on your laptop are up to date. (In fact, if you’re away
and you try to edit an out-of-date file, Windows won’t even let you open it!)
To trigger the syncing, right-click the folder; from the shortcut menu, choose “Sync
selected offline files.” See “The Sync Schedule,” below, for some other approaches.
Working Offline
Now suppose you’re untethered from the network, and you have a moment to get
some work done. You can find the synced folders in three different places:
Figure 19-12:
Right-click the icon of
a file or folder that’s
on another computer
on the network. From
the shortcut menu,
choose “Always
available offline.” (A
checkmark appears.
To stop making this
file or folder available
offline, choose the
same command
again.) Your PC takes
a quick moment to
copy the files onto
your own hard
drive (that is, to the
client machine—your
laptop).
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•In the ghost of the networked PC. This might seem weird, but you can actually
navigate to the network machine that originally stored those offline folders in the
usual way—clicking its name in the Network folder in the Navigation pane, for
example—even though you’re no longer connected to it. Burrow into its folders
far enough, and you’ll eventually find the folder you “subscribed” to, just as though
you were still connected.
(The files and folders you haven’t subscribed to show up with Xs, as shown in
Figure 19-13, indicating that you can’t open them now.)
Tip: The folders you’ve subscribed to appear with a special green Offline Files logo. If you click it, the Details
pane indicates that, indeed, this folder is “Always available.”
•In the Offline Files folder. To see a complete list of all offline files from all PCs, open
the Start menu and type offline files. Click “Manage offline files”; in the resulting
dialog box, click “View your offline files.”
•In the Sync Center, described below.
Figure 19-13:
Top: When
you open Sync
Center, double-
clicking Offline
Files shows
you a list of
the folders you
added to your
offline list.
Bottom: The
folders you’ve
subscribed
to appear in
green, with a
special logo;
the surround-
ing folders
display X’s to
remind you that
you haven’t
requested them
for offline use.
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638 windows 7: the missing manual
There, before you, is a list of all the files and folders to which you “subscribed” before
you left the network. In fact, you also see icons for all the folders that were in that
networked folder. Only the ones you explicitly requested are available, however; the
rest display X’s, as shown in Figure 19-13.
You’re free to work with offline files and folders exactly as you would if you were still
connected to the network. You can revise, edit, and duplicate files, and even create
new documents inside offline folders. The permissions remain the same as when you
connect to the network.
Tip: Sometimes, you want to work with your laptop copies (not than the network copies) even if you’re still
on the network—if, say, the network connection is not so much absent as slow. To do that, open the folder
on the network that contains the offline files. On the toolbar, click “Work offline.”
Reconnecting to the Network
Now suppose you return from your jaunt away from the office. You plop your laptop
down on your desk and reconnect to the network.
The Briefcase
The trouble with progress is that it entails change—and when
you change things, somebody, somewhere is going to be
upset. Just ask Microsoft’s Windows division.
Anyway, Windows 7 may have the Sync Center, but it also
still has the Briefcase, which is something like its predeces-
sor. Microsoft plays it way down, to the point of invisibility.
But it still does one thing the Sync Center can’t do. It keeps
your files straight between two PCs (as opposed to one PC
and a network server). That’s handy when you transport
files from desktop to laptop, or from home to work. If you
learn to use the Briefcase, you’ll be less likely to lose track
of which copies of your documents are the most current.
To use the Briefcase, start by adding a Briefcase icon on your
desktop. To do so, right-click any spot on the desktop; from
the shortcut menu, choose NewÆBriefcase. A new icon
appears, called New Briefcase. (If you’re feeling inspired,
rename it as you would any folder.)
Now round up the icons of the documents you’ll work on
when away from your main PC. Drag them onto the Briefcase
icon. Windows copies the files into this special temporary
holding tank.
Connect your laptop to the desktop PC, if you haven’t
already. (See Chapter 24 for tips on connecting machines.)
Or, if you plan to take your files with you on a USB flash
drive, insert it. Drag the Briefcase icon onto the laptop or
the flash drive.
You’re ready to leave your office. When you get to wherever
you’re going, open and edit the documents in the copied
Briefcase “folder” icon. Whatever you do, don’t move those
files. (For example, work on the documents right on the
flash drive.)
If the copied Briefcase is actually on the laptop’s hard drive
(not a flash drive), Windows can keep track of changes
made to the documents on both computers, the original
and the copy.
When you return to your main PC, reconnect the laptop
or reinsert the flash drive. All your careful step-following is
about to pay off.
Right-click the briefcase icon; from the shortcut menu,
choose Update All. Windows copies the edited files back
to their original folders on your desktop-PC hard drive,
automatically replacing the older, original copies.
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Once Windows discovers that it’s home again, it whirls into action, automatically
comparing your set of offline files and folders with the master set on the network.
(This process is much faster than it was in Windows XP, because Windows 7 copies
only the changed pieces of each file—not the entire file.)
Along the way, Windows 7 attempts to handle discrepancies between the two sets of
files as best it can. For example:
• If your copy and a network copy of a file don’t match, Windows wipes out the
older version with the newer version, so both locations have the latest edition.
• If you deleted your copy of a file, or if somebody on the network deleted the origi-
nal, Windows deletes the corresponding file so that it no longer exists on either
machine. (That’s assuming that nobody edited the file in the meantime.)
• If somebody added a file to the network copy of a folder, you get a copy of it in
your laptop’s copy of the folder.
• If you’ve edited an offline file that somebody on the network has deleted in the
meantime, Windows offers you the choice to save your version on the network or
to delete it from your laptop.
• If you delete a file from your hard drive that somebody else on the network has
edited in the meantime, Windows deletes the offline file from your hard drive but
doesn’t delete the network copy from the network.
• If both your copy and the network copy of a file were edited while you were away,
a balloon in the notification area notifies you of the conflict. Click it to open the
Sync Center, where you can decide which version “wins.” (Until you do that, the
file in question remains offline, on your laptop.)
The Sync Schedule
Ordinarily, Windows updates your offline files each time you connect to the network.
(It also updates the folder a couple of times a day while you’re still connected.)
Windows SideShow
Device lovers, take note. SideShow, which was introduced in
Windows Vista, is a feature built into a few—very few—porta-
ble computers and mobile phones. Microsoft had high hopes
for it, but the feature has disappeared almost completely.
Still, for the record: SideShow-compatible devices use a
tiny display screen to show you certain kinds of important
information—your calendar, new email, the time or weather,
your address book, a PowerPoint slide—even if the laptop is
turned off or asleep.
With a SideShow machine, you can specify which gadget
(mini-program) you want to see. You can download gadgets
by clicking Start and typing gadgets into the Search box. Then
click “Get more gadgets online.” Check out Windows Help
and Support to learn more about installing a device that’s
compatible with Windows SideShow. (You can run SideShow
gadgets on your desktop to preview them; just right-click the
desktop, and from the shortcut menu, choose Gadgets, just
as you would for regular gadgets.)
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If you’re about to catch a flight, however, and you’re nervous that you might not have
the latest versions of all the network files you need, you can force Windows to do
the entire copying job right now. The quickest way to do that is to open the offline
folder and then click the Sync icon on its toolbar; from the shortcut menu, choose
“Sync offline files in this folder.” For even more control over the syncing schedule,
see Figure 19-14.
Tip: You can even sync one individual file if you have to. Right-click it, and choose Sync from the shortcut
menu. (The Sync buttons are available only while you are, in fact, connected to the network.)
Figure 19-14:
If you’d like more
control over the timing
of the syncing, you
should fire up the
Sync Center (type sync
center into the Start
menu to find it). You
get the special window
shown here at top.
Double-click Offline
Files to see a sum-
mary of all the folders
you’ve “subscribed”
to. Click Offline Files;
in the toolbar, click
Schedule.
Middle and bottom:
Now a wizard walks
you through setting
when the syncing hap-
pens—not only at what
time, but when certain
triggers (like connect-
ing or disconnecting)
take place.
Note: Sync Center
was once the hub
for syncing Windows
Mobile phones and
music players with
your PC. In Windows
7, the Sync Center is
exclusively for manag-
ing offline files. Use
the Device Stage, or
the syncing software
that came with your
gadget, to handle
those other gizmos.
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20
chapter 20: maintenance & speed tweaks 643
Maintenance & Speed
Tweaks
Your computer requires periodic checkups and preventive maintenance—pretty
much like you, its human sidekick. Fortunately, Microsoft has put quite a bit
of effort into equipping Windows 7 with special tools, all dedicated to keeping
your system stable and fast. Here’s a crash course in keeping your PC—and its hard
drive—humming.
The Action Center
All Versions
If you’re looking for the best place to go for at-a-glance information about the current
state of your PC’s maintenance and Internet security, open the new Action Center
(it was called the Security Center in Windows Vista). To open it, click the tiny a or
F on your system tray.
Here, all in one place, are all the security and maintenance messages that Windows
wants you to see. Be grateful; they used to pop up as individual nag balloons on the
system tray all day. Now they accumulate here.
Color coding lets you know what steps Windows thinks you should take. Messages
marked with a red vertical bar are things you should fix right now, like not having a
virus program installed. Items with a yellow bar are less urgent; they’re maintenance
recommendations, for example.
You can read the full scoop on the Action Center on page 361. For now, it’s enough
to remember that here’s the place to check to see how your Windows Updates and
PC backups are doing.
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Disk Cleanup Disk Cleanup
All Versions
As you use your computer, Windows litters your hard drive with temporary files.
Programs, utilities, and Web sites scatter disposable files everywhere. If you could see
your hard drive’s surface, it would eventually look like the floor of a minivan whose
owners eat a lot of fast food.
To run Windows 7’s built-in housekeeper program, the quickest route is to open the
Start menu. Start typing disk cleanup until you see its name in the results list; click it.
(Disk Cleanup is also available in the Control Panel.)
The Disk Cleanup program dives right in. If you have more than one drive, it lets you
choose the one you want to work on; then it goes to work, inspecting your drive and
reporting on files you can safely remove.
Left to its own devices, it will clean up only your files. But if you’d like to clean up all
the files on the computer, including Microsoft’s own detritus, click “Clean up system
files.” Authenticate if necessary.
Figure 20-1:
Disk Cleanup announces how much free space
you stand to gain. After you’ve been using your
PC for awhile, it’s amazing how much crud you’ll
find there—and how much space you can recover.
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chapter 20: maintenance & speed tweaks 645
Disk Cleanup
The Disk Cleanup dialog box shown in Figure 20-1 appears when the inspection is over.
Turn on the checkboxes of the file categories you’d like to have cleaned out, and then
click OK to send them to the digital landfill. It’s like getting a bigger hard drive for free.
Disk Defragmenter
All Versions
When you save a new file, Windows records its information onto the hard drive in
small pieces called blocks. On a new PC, Windows lays the blocks end-to-end on the
hard drive’s surface. Later, when you type more data into a document (thus enlarg-
ing it), the file no longer fits in the same space. Windows puts as much of the file in
the original location as can fit, but it may have to store a few of its blocks in the next
empty spot on the hard drive.
Ordinarily, you’ll never even notice that your files are getting chopped up in this way,
since they open promptly and seamlessly. Windows keeps track of where it has stored
the various pieces, and reconstitutes them when necessary.
As your drive fills up, though, the free space that’s left is made up of smaller and
smaller groups of blocks. Eventually, a new file may not fit in a single “parking place”
on the hard drive’s surface, since there are no free spaces left large enough to hold it.
Windows may have to store a file in several different areas of the disk, or even hundreds.
When you try to open such a fragmented file, the drive heads (which read the disk)
must scamper all over the disk surface, rounding up each block in turn, which is slower
than reading contiguous blocks one after the other. Over time, this file fragmentation
gets worse and worse. Eventually, you wind up griping to your buddies or spouse that
you need a new computer, because this one seems to have gotten so slow.
The solution: Disk Defragmenter, a program that puts together pieces of files that have
become fragmented (split into pieces) on your drive. The “defragger” also rearranges
the files on your drives to make the operating system and programs load more quickly.
A freshly defragged PC feels faster and more responsive than a heavily fragmented one.
The big news in Windows 7 is that its disk-defragging software runs automatically at
regular intervals, in the tiny moments when you’re not actually typing or clicking. It’s
Beyond Disk Defragmenter
Disk Defragmenter isn’t the only tool for the defrag job;
the world is full of disk-defragmenting programs that offer
additional features.
For example, some of them track how often you use the vari-
ous files on your drive, so they can store the most frequently
used files at the beginning of the disk for quicker access. In
some programs, you can even choose which files go at the
beginning of the disk.
Do these additional features actually produce a measurable
improvement over Windows 7’s built-in defragger? That’s
hard to say, especially when you remember the biggest
advantage of Disk Defragmenter—it’s free.
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like having someone take out your garbage for you whenever the can is full. Slow-PC
syndrome should, therefore, be a much less frequent occurrence.
Tip: Fragmentation doesn’t become noticeable except on hard drives that have been very full for quite a
while. Don’t bother defragmenting your drive unless you’ve actually noticed it slowing down. The time you’ll
spend waiting for Disk Defragmenter to do its job is much longer than the fractions of seconds caused by
a little bit of file fragmentation.
And if you’re the lucky owner of a solid-state drive (SSD)—fast, quiet, super-expensive—you’ll find that frag-
mentation has only a minimal hit on your computer’s speed. In fact, if Windows 7 detects that you’re using
an SSD, it disables automatic defragmentation.
Defragging Settings
Even though Windows 7 defrags your hard drive automatically in the background,
you can still exert some control. For example, you can change the schedule, and you
can trigger a defragmentation manually when you’re feeling like a control freak.
Start by opening the Disk Defragmenter main screen. You can get there via the Control
Panel, but as usual, it’s faster to type. Open the Start menu. Start typing defragment
until you see Disk Defragmenter in the results list; click it.
Figure 20-2:
Unless there’s a
good reason you
don’t want to
schedule defrag-
mentation, it’s a
good idea to have
Windows do it for
you automatically—
it’s like getting
someone to take
out your trash.
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Tip: Throughout Windows, and throughout its book and magazine literature, disks are referred to as volumes.
Usually, volume means disk. But technically, it refers to anything with its own disk icon in the Computer
window—including disk partitions (page 651), DVDs, and so on.
The Disk Defragmenter window opens (Figure 20-2). From here, you can either adjust
the schedule or trigger defragmentation manually.
•Adjust the schedule. Click “Configure schedule.” Authenticate if necessary. A screen
appears, showing that Windows 7 ordinarily defrags your disk late every Wednesday
night (1:00 a.m., in fact). You can use the pop-up menus here to specify a Weekly,
Daily, or Monthly schedule, complete with day-of-week and time-of-day options.
Click OK, and then OK again.
•Manually. Click “Defragment disk”; the defragmenter does its work. Depending on
the size of your hard disk, your processor speed, and the amount of fragmentation,
it will take anywhere from several minutes to several hours.
Tip: During the defragmentation process, Windows picks up pieces of your files and temporarily sets them
down in a different spot, like somebody trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle. If your hard drive is very full, defrag-
menting will take a lot longer than if you have some empty space available—and if there’s not enough free
disk space, Windows can’t do the job completely. Before you run Disk Defragmenter, use Disk Cleanup and
make as much free disk space as possible.
Hard Drive Checkups
All Versions
Every time you shut down the PC, Windows tidies up, ensuring that all files are saved
properly on the drive. When all is well, Windows turns off the machine. (All Windows
7–compatible PCs can turn themselves off; the days of messages telling you, “It is now
safe to turn off your computer” are over.) The time that elapses between your Turn Off
Computer command and the actual power-down moment is the “tidying up” period.
But sometimes, thanks to a system crash, power outage, or toddler playing with your
surge suppressor, your computer gets turned off without warning—and without the
usual shutdown checks. In the olden days, way back even before Windows XP, restart-
ing the PC after such a dirty shutdown automatically ran a program called ScanDisk,
a utility designed to detect and, when possible, repair drive damage that may have
occurred as a result of an improper shutdown.
ScanDisk doesn’t exist in Windows 7, but its functions have been reincarnated. You
get to this feature by right-clicking the icon of the hard drive you want to check (in
the Computer window). From the shortcut menu, choose Properties; click the Tools
tab, and click Check Now. Authenticate yourself if needed (page 726).
Note: Geeks fondly refer to the feature described here as chkdsk (apparently named by someone with no
vowels on his keyboard). You get to the geek-friendly, text-only version of it by typing chkdsk in a Command
Prompt window. But the method described here is much better-looking.
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648 windows 7: the missing manual
As shown in Figure 20-3, a box appears, offering two options:
•Automatically fix file system errors. Clearly, you want this option turned on, so
that any problems Windows finds are taken care of automatically.
Figure 20-3:
Checking your disk for errors regularly will go a long way toward
making sure your files won’t get corrupted. If you use the “fix file
errors” option, the check occurs at the next startup; the “scan”
option goes into effect immediately.
When Good Drives Go Bad
I was surprised when the Check Disk dialog box found
some problems with my hard drive. I don’t understand
what could have gone wrong. I treat my PC with respect,
talk to it often, and never take it swimming. Why did my
hard drive get flaky?
All kinds of things can cause problems with your hard drive,
but the most common are low voltage, power outages,
voltage spikes, and mechanical problems with the drive
controller or the drive itself.
An inexpensive gadget called a line conditioner (sold at
computer stores) can solve the low-voltage problem. A more
expensive gizmo known as an Uninterruptible Power Supply
(UPS) maintains enough backup battery power to keep your
computer going when the power goes out completely—for
a few minutes, anyway, so you can shut it down properly.
The more expensive models have line conditioning built
in. A UPS is also the answer to power outages, if they’re
common in your area.
Voltage spikes are the most dangerous to your PC. They
frequently occur during the first seconds when the power
comes back on after a power failure. A surge suppressor
is the logical defense here. But remember that the very
cheap devices often sold as surge suppressors are actually
little more than extension cords. Furthermore, some of the
models that do provide adequate protection are designed
to sacrifice themselves in battle. After a spike, you may have
to replace them.
If you care about your computer (or the money you spent on
it), buy a good surge suppressor, at the very least. The best
ones come with a guarantee that the company will replace
your equipment (up to a certain dollar value) if the unit fails
to provide adequate protection.
On the other hand, insufficient power is just as dangerous
as voltage spikes. If you own a desktop PC, chances are
good that the built-in power supply is strong enough for
whatever components your PC was born with. But if you’ve
upgraded—adding a faster hard drive or a beefier video
card, for example—you may be pushing your PC’s power
supply to its limits.
If you’re doing a bunch of upgrades to convert an entry-
level office PC into a gaming powerhouse, then make sure
you’re including a newer, stronger, power supply among
those upgrades.
frequently asked question
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Note: Even though the button you clicked was called Check Now, Windows cannot, in fact, check for errors
on the system disk (or a disk with open files) now; that’d be like a surgeon operating on herself. When you
click Start, a message cheerfully informs you that Windows will be happy to run this error check the next
time it starts up. And indeed it will. Click “Schedule disk check” to make it so.
•Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. If you turn on this option, then
whenever the scan finds a damaged section of a drive, it moves any files located
there elsewhere on the drive. Then the program surrounds that hard-disk area with
the digital equivalent of yellow “Police Line—Do Not Cross” tape so that Windows
won’t use the damaged area for storing files in the future.
When you’ve made your choice, click Start. If you selected only the “Scan” option,
the procedure begins immediately; otherwise, the test is performed at the next
startup.
Disk Management
All Versions
“Disk management” isn’t just a cool, professional-sounding skill—it’s the name of a
built-in Windows maintenance program that lets you perform all kinds of operations
on your hard disk.
To open this technical database of information about your disks and drives, you can
use either of these two methods:
Disk Management
Figure 20-4:
The Disk Manage-
ment window
does more than
just display your
drives; you can also
operate on them
by right-clicking
them. Don’t miss
the View menu,
by the way, which
lets you change
either the top or the
bottom display. For
example, you can
make your PC dis-
play all your disks
instead of your
volumes. (There’s
a difference; see
page 668.)
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650 windows 7: the missing manual
• Choose StartÆControl Panel. Click System and SecurityÆ“Create and format
hard disk partitions.” (It’s at the very bottom of the window.)
• In the Start menu’s Search box, type diskmgmt.msc and then press Enter.
In either case, you arrive at the window shown in Figure 20-4. At first glance, it appears
to be nothing more than a table of every disk (and partition of every disk) currently
connected to your PC. In truth, the Disk Management window is a software toolkit
that lets you operate on these drives.
Change a Drive Letter
As you’ve probably noticed, Windows assigns a drive letter to each disk drive associated
with your PC. In the age of floppy disks, the floppy drive was always A:. The primary
internal hard drive is generally C:; your CD/DVD drive may be D: or E:; and so on.
Among other places, you see these letters in parentheses following the names of your
drives in the StartÆComputer window.
Figure 20-5:
Right-click a drive icon. From the shortcut menu,
choose Change Drive Letter and Paths.
Top: In this dialog box, click Change.
Bottom: Next, choose a letter that hasn’t already
been assigned. Click OK, and then approve your
action in the confirmation box.
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Windows generally assigns these letters in the order that you install new drives to your
system. You’re not allowed to change the drive letter of the floppy drive or any startup
hard drive (the C: drive and, if you’re set up for dual booting, any other boot drives).
You can, however, override the other drives’ unimaginative Windows letter assignments
easily enough, as shown in Figure 20-5.
Note: If Windows 7 is currently using files on the disk whose drive letter you’re trying to change, Disk
Management might create the new drive letter assignment but leave the old one intact until the next time
you restart the computer. This is an effort not to pull the rug out from under any open files.
Partition a New Drive
The vast majority of Windows PCs have only one hard drive, represented in the
Computer window as a single icon.
Plenty of power users, however, delight in partitioning the hard drive—dividing its
surface so that it appears on the screen as two different icons with two different names.
At that point, you can live like a king, enjoying the following advantages (just like
people who have two separate hard drives):
• You can keep Windows 7 on one of them and Windows XP (for example) on the
other, so you can switch between the two at startup. (This feature, called dual
booting, is described on page 821.)
• Two partitions make life much easier if you frequently install and reinstall the
operating system, or different versions of it. Having the partitions allows you to
keep all your files safely on one partition, confining all the installing/uninstalling
activity to the other.
• You can use multiple partitions to keep your operating system(s) separate from
folders and files. In this way, you can perform a clean install of Windows (page 820)
onto one partition without having to worry about losing any of your important
files or installation programs.
Now, in earlier Windows days, partitioning a hard drive using the tools built into
Windows required first erasing the hard drive completely. Fortunately, Windows 7’s
Disk Management console (page 671) can save you from that hassle, although mak-
ing a backup before you begin is still a smart idea. (The short version: Right-click the
disk’s icon in Disk Management; from the shortcut menu, choose Shrink Volume. In
the Shrink dialog box, specify how much space you want to free up, and then click
Shrink. Then turn the free space into a new volume, as described next.)
Creating a partition
In the Disk Management window, free space (suitable for turning into a partition of
its own) shows up with a black bar and the label Unallocated.
To create a new partition, right-click one of these unallocated segments. From the
shortcut menu, choose New Simple Volume (if this option isn’t available, right-click
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652 windows 7: the missing manual
the disk and choose Initialize Disk). A wizard appears; its screens ask you to make
some decisions:
•How big you want the volume to be. If you’re dividing up a 500 GB drive, for
example, you might decide to make the first volume 300 GB and the second 200
GB. Begin by creating the 300 GB volume (right-clicking the big “Unallocated”
bar in Figure 20-4). When that’s done, you see a smaller “Unallocated” chunk
still left in the Disk Management window. Right-click it and choose New Simple
Volume again, this time accepting the size the wizard proposes (which is all the
remaining free space).
•What drive letter you want to assign to it. Most of the alphabet is at your disposal.
•What disk-formatting scheme you want to apply to it. Windows 7 requires NTFS
for the system drive. But if you’re just using the drive to store data (and not to
contain a copy of Windows 7), the old FAT32 format is fine. In fact, if you plan to
dual-boot Windows 7 with Linux, Mac OS X, or an old version of Windows, then
FAT32 might be the only file system all those OSes can recognize simultaneously.
When the wizard is through with you, it’s safe to close the window. A quick look at
your Computer window confirms that you now have new “disks” (actually partitions
of the same disk), which you can use for different purposes.
Turn a Drive into a Folder
Talk about techie! Most people could go their entire lives without needing this feature,
or even imagining that it exists. But it’s there if you’re a power user and you want it.
Using the Paths feature of Disk Management, you can actually turn a hard drive (or
partition) into a folder on another hard drive (or partition). These disks-disguised-
as-folders are technically known as mounted drives, junction points, or drive paths.
This arrangement affords the following possibilities:
• In effect, you can greatly expand the capacity of your main hard drive—by install-
ing a second hard drive that masquerades as a folder on the first one.
• You can turn a burned CD or DVD into a folder on your main hard drive, too—a
handy way to fool your programs into thinking the files they’re looking for are still in
the same old place on your hard drive. (You could pull this stunt in a crisis—when
the “real” folder has become corrupted or has been thrown away.)
• If you’re a power power user with lots of partitions, disks, and drives, you may feel
hemmed in by the limitation of only 26 assignable letters (A through Z). Turn-
ing one of your disks into a mounted volume bypasses that limitation, because a
mounted volume doesn’t need a drive letter at all.
• A certain disk can be made to appear in more than one place at once. You could
put all your MP3 files on a certain disk or partition—and then make it show up
as a folder in the Music folder of everyone who uses the computer.
Note: You can create a mounted volume only on an NTFS-formatted hard drive.
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To bring about this arrangement, visit the Disk Management window, and then right-
click the icon of the disk or partition you want to turn into a mounted volume. From
the shortcut menu, choose Change Drive Letter and Paths.
In the Change Drive Letter and Paths dialog box (Figure 20-8, top), click Add; in the
next dialog box, click Browse. Navigate to and select an empty folder—the one that
will represent the disk. (Click New Folder, shown at bottom in Figure 20-6, if you
didn’t create one in advance.) Finally, click OK.
Once the deed is done, take time to note a few special characteristics of a mounted
volume:
• The mounted volume may behave just like a folder, but its icon is a dead giveaway,
since it still looks like a hard drive (or CD drive, or DVD drive, or whatever).
Still, if you’re in doubt about what it is, you can right-click it and choose Proper-
ties from the shortcut menu. You see that the Type information says “Mounted
Volume,” and the Target line identifies the disk from which it was made.
• Avoid circular references, in which you turn two drives into folders on each other.
Otherwise, you risk throwing programs into a spasm of infinite-loop thrashing.
Figure 20-6:
Here’s how to make a drive appear
as a folder icon on any other drive:
Designate an empty folder to be the
receptacle—a metaphysical portal—
for the drive’s contents.
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654 windows 7: the missing manual
• To undo your mounted-drive effect, return to the Disk Management program and
choose ViewÆDrive Paths. You’re shown a list of all the drives you’ve turned into
folders; click one and then click Remove.
You’ve just turned that special, “I’m really a drive” folder into an ordinary folder.
Task Scheduler
All Versions
The Task Scheduler, another power-user trick for techies, lets you set up programs and
tasks (like disk defragmentation) so they run automatically according to a schedule
you specify.
This feature has been greatly beefed up and user-friendlified in Windows 7, to the
point that both mere mortals and power geeks may actually find it useful. For example:
• Create an email message that gets sent to your boss each morning, with yesterday’s
sales figures attached automatically.
• Have the Recycle Bin emptied automatically once a month.
• Create a phony dialog box that appears every time the office know-it-all’s PC starts
up. Make it say: “The radiation shield on your PC has failed. Please keep back seven
feet.” You get the idea.
Figure 20-7:
It’s easy to
automate tasks
using the Task
Scheduler, but
when you open it,
don’t be surprised
to see many tasks
there already.
Windows 7 does
a lot of house-
keeping work in
the background,
and it uses the
Task Scheduler to
run a lot of tasks
without your hav-
ing to know the
details.
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Adding a Task
Here’s how you add a new task:
1. Open the Task Scheduler.
For example, open the Start menu. Start typing scheduler until you see Task Sched-
uler in the results list; click it. The Task Scheduler window appears (Figure 20-7).
2. Click Create Basic Task.
This link appears on the right-hand pane of the Task Scheduler. A wizard appears.
3. Type a name for the task and a description, and then click Next.
Now you’re supposed to choose what Windows calls a “trigger”—in plain Eng-
lish, when to run the task (Figure 20-8). You can specify that it run daily, weekly,
monthly, or just once; every time the computer starts or every time you log in; or
when a specific event occurs—like when a program starts.
4. Choose a trigger, and then click Next.
The next screen varies according to the trigger you chose. If you chose to run the
task on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, you’re now asked to specify when during
that day, week, or month. Once that’s done, click Next.
You now wind up at the Action screen. This is where you say what you want to
happen at the appointed time. Your choices are “Start a program,” “Send an e-mail,”
or “Display a message.”
5. Choose an action; click Next.
Now you’re supposed to say what program, email, or message you want the PC
to fire up.
Task Scheduler
Figure 20-8:
This screen lets you set
a schedule for your task.
Depending on the trigger you
set, you may see a completely
different screen here, because
the options are determined by
the trigger you choose.
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656 windows 7: the missing manual
If you chose the email option, you now fill out a form with the recipient’s name,
address, subject line, message body, and so on; you can even specify an attachment.
If you chose to run a program, you now browse to select the program. At this
point, programmers can also add arguments, which are codes that customize how
the program starts.
And if you opted to display a message, you get to type a name and text for the
message. At the appointed time, an actual Windows dialog box will appear on the
screen—except that it will contain text that you wrote.
6. Complete the details about the email, program, or phony dialog box, and then
click Next.
Finally, a screen appears, summarizing the task, when it will run, and so on. To
edit it, click the Back button.
7. To confirm the automated task, click Finish.
You return to the Task Scheduler window. Although you may have to scroll down
to see it, your new task appears in the Active Tasks list at the bottom of the window.
If all goes well, Windows will fire it up at the moment you specified.
Editing Scheduled Tasks
To change a scheduled task, you first need to find it in the Task Scheduler Library,
which is on the left side of the window. Click Task Scheduler Library, and then look
at the topmost pane in the middle part of your screen (Figure 20-9). You see a list of
scheduled tasks. Highlight the one you want to change.
Delete the task by simply hitting the Delete key. To edit a task, click it and then click
the Properties link at the right side of the screen. The tabs in the resulting dialog
box (General, Triggers, and so on) may sound familiar, but they actually give you
far more control over how each task runs than the basic controls you saw when you
first set the task up.
Here are some examples of what you can do on each tab:
•General. Select which user account should run the task, and tell Windows whether
or not to run when the user is logged in.
•Triggers. You can delay the task’s execution by a few minutes or until a certain date;
have it repeat automatically at regular intervals; stop it after a certain time period;
and so on. The “Begin the task” pop-up menu offers a wealth of new triggers, like
“On idle” and “On workstation unlock.”
•Actions. Change the action.
•Conditions. Specify that the task will run only under certain conditions—for
example, after the computer has been idle for a certain amount of time, when the
computer is on AC power, or when it switches to battery power, and so on. You
can even say you want to run the task if the PC is sleeping (by waking it first).
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•Settings. Here’s a miscellaneous batch of additional preferences: what actions to
take if the task doesn’t work, what to do if the computer was turned off at the
appointed time, and so on.
•History. On this tab, you get to see the task’s life story: when it ran and whether
each attempt was successful.
Note: Lots of tasks are already present on your PC. Microsoft set them up to ensure the proper running of
your computer. To see them all, expand the flippy triangle next to the words “Task Scheduler Library,” and
then expand Microsoft, and then Windows. You see dozens of tasks in many different categories. In other
words, your PC is very busy even when you’re not there.
Three Speed Tricks
All Versions
It’s a fact of computing: Every PC seems to get slower the longer you own it.
There are plenty of reasons. When the PC is new, consider that:
• The hard drive has loads of free space and zero fragmentation.
• The boot process hasn’t yet been cluttered up by startup code deposited by your
programs.
• Few background programs are constantly running, eating up your memory.
• You haven’t yet drained away horsepower with antivirus and automatic backup
programs.
Figure 20-9:
This screen lets you do
more than just edit a
task. Look at the right-
hand pane; you see
links that let you run
the task right now, end
the task if it’s already
started, and disable the
task, among others.
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658 windows 7: the missing manual
• Every year, the programs you buy or download are more demanding than the
previous year’s software.
Some of the usual advice about speeding up your PC applies here, of course: Install
more memory or a faster hard drive.
But in Windows 7, here and there, nestled among the 50 million lines of code, you’ll
find some free tricks and tips for giving your PC a speed boost. For example:
SuperFetch
Your PC can grab data from RAM (memory) hundreds of times faster than from the
hard drive. That’s why it uses a cache, a portion of memory that holds bits of software
code you’ve used recently. After all, if you’ve used some feature or command once,
you may want to use it again soon—and this way, Windows is ready for you. It can
deliver that bit of code nearly instantaneously the next time.
When you leave your PC for a while, however, background programs (virus checkers,
backup programs, disk utilities) take advantage of the idle time. They run themselves
when you’re not around—and push out whatever was in the cache.
That’s why, when you come back from lunch (or sit down first thing in the morn-
ing), your PC is especially sluggish. All the good stuff—your stuff—has been flushed
from the cache and returned to the much slower hard drive, to make room for those
background utilities.
SuperFetch attempts to reverse that cycle. It attempts to keep your most frequently
used programs in the cache all the time. In fact, it actually tracks you and your cycle
of work. If you generally fire up the computer at 9 a.m., for example, or return to it
at 1:30 p.m., SuperFetch will anticipate you by restoring frequently used programs
and documents to the cache.
There’s no on/off switch for SuperFetch, and nothing for you to configure. It’s on all
the time, automatic, and very sweet.
ReadyBoost
Your PC can get to data in RAM (memory) hundreds of times faster than it can fetch
something from the hard drive. That’s why it uses a cache, a portion of memory that
holds bits of software code you’ve used recently. (Does this paragraph sound familiar?)
The more memory your machine has, the more that’s available for the cache, and the
faster things should feel to you. Truth is, though, you may have a bunch of memory
sitting around your desk at this moment that’s completely wasted—namely, USB
flash drives. That’s perfectly good RAM that your PC can’t even touch if it’s sitting
in a drawer.
Note: ReadyBoost can also work with memory cards, like SD and Compact Flash cards from digital cam-
eras—but only if your PC has a built-in card slot. External card readers don’t work. (All the descriptions below
apply equally to these memory cards.)
PlaysForSure music players don’t work, either—although Apple’s iPod Shuffle does!
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That’s the whole point of ReadyBoost: to use a flash drive as described above as addi-
tional cache storage. You can achieve the same effect by installing more RAM, of course,
but that job can be technical (especially on laptops), forbidden (by your corporate
masters), or impossible (because you’ve used up all your PC’s RAM slots already).
Note: You won’t run into problems if you yank out the flash drive; ReadyBoost stores a copy of the hard
drive’s data on the card/flash drive.
You also don’t have to worry that somebody can steal your flash drive and, by snooping around the cache
files, read about your top-secret plans for world domination. Windows 7 encrypts the data using CIA-quality
algorithms.
To take advantage of this speed-boosting feature, just plug a USB flash drive into
your computer’s USB jack.
Note: Both the flash drive and your PC must have USB 2.0 or later. USB 1.1 is too slow for this trick to work.
In any case, the AutoPlay dialog box now opens, as shown in Figure 20-10 (left).
Click “Speed up my system”; in the flash device’s Properties dialog box (which opens
automatically), turn on “Use this device.” That box is shown in Figure 20-10 (right).
That’s all there is to it. Your PC will now use the flash drive as an annex to its own
built-in RAM, and you will, in theory, enjoy a tiny speed lift as a result.
And now, the fine print:
• Not all flash drives are equally fast, and therefore not all work with ReadyBoost.
Look closely at the drive’s packaging to see if there’s a Windows ReadyBoost logo.
(Technically speaking—very technically—its throughput must be capable of
2.5 MB per second for 4 KB random reads, and 1.75 MB per second for 512 KB
random writes.)
• ReadyBoost works only with memory gadgets with capacities from 256 megabytes
to 4 gigabytes.
• If Windows decides that your drive is fast enough without ReadyBoost, it disables
ReadyBoost entirely. If you’re the lucky owner of a computer with a solid state disk
(SSD), for example, don’t bother with ReadyBoost.
• Windows makes its own suggestions about how much of the drive’s capacity to
dedicate to ReadyBoost; but if you’re the meddlesome type, you can return to
the dialog box shown at bottom in Figure 20-10 and change how much of it is
used for cache storage. Open StartÆComputer and right-click the flash drive’s
icon. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Click the ReadyBoost tab, and
configure away.
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660 windows 7: the missing manual
• Once you’ve set aside space on the flash drive for ReadyBoost, you can’t use it for
storing everyday files. (Unless, of course, you change the settings in its Properties
dialog box or reformat it.)
• You can use one flash drive per PC, and one PC per flash drive.
• Ordinarily, saving files and then erasing them over and over again shortens a flash
drive’s life. Microsoft insists, however, that you can get 10 years out of one flash
drive using ReadyBoost.
• The biggest speed gains appear when you have a 1-to-1 ratio between real PC
memory and your flash drive. For example, if your PC has 1 gigabyte of RAM,
adding a 1-gig flash drive should give you a noticeable speed boost.
The speed gains evaporate as you approach a 2.5-to-1 ratio. For example, suppose
your PC has 1 gigabyte of RAM and you add a 256-megabyte flash drive. That’s
an 8-to-1 ratio, and you won’t feel any acceleration at all.
Shutting Off Bells and Whistles
Windows, as you know, is all dressed up for “Where do you want to go today?” It’s
loaded with glitz, glamour, special effects, and animations. And every one of them
saps away a little bit of speed.
Figure 20-10:
Left: The AutoPlay
dialog box opens when
you insert a flash drive.
“Speed up my system”
is the English version of
the term ReadyBoost.
Right: You can decide for
yourself how much of
the flash drive’s storage
is used for ReadyBoost
purposes, although you
won’t notice any speed
difference unless the
real-to-flash memory
ratio is 2.5 to 1 or lower.
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With any luck, your PC is a mighty fortress of seething gigahertz that brushes off that
kind of resource-sapping as though it were a mere cloud of gnats. But when things
start to bog down, remember that you can turn off some of the bells and whistles—and
recover the speed they were using.
Here’s how.
Open the Start menu. Right-click Computer; from the shortcut menu, choose Prop-
erties. In the System control panel that appears, click “Advanced system settings” at
left. Authenticate yourself if needed (page 726).
Now, on the Advanced tab (Figure 20-11, top), click the uppermost Settings button.
You’ve just found, in the belly of the beast, the complete list of little animations that
make up Windows’s window dressing (Figure 20-11, bottom). For example, “Animate
windows when minimizing and maximizing” makes Windows present a half-second
animation showing your window actually shrinking down onto the taskbar when you
Three Speed Tricks
Figure 20-11:
Top left: The Advanced tab of
the System Properties dialog
box offers three Settings but-
tons. The one you want is at
the top.
Bottom right: Depending on the
speed and age of your machine,
you may find that turning off all
these checkboxes produces a
snappier, more responsive PC—
if a bit less Macintosh-esque.
(Leave “Use visual styles on
windows and buttons” turned
on, however, if you like the new,
glossy look of Windows 7.)
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662 windows 7: the missing manual
minimize it. “Show shadows under mouse pointer” produces a tiny shadow beneath
your cursor, as though it were floating a quarter-inch above the surface of your screen.
With one click—on “Adjust for best performance”—you can turn off all these effects.
Or, if there are some you can’t live without—and let’s face it, tooltips just aren’t the
same if they don’t fade into view—click Custom, and then turn off the individual
checkboxes for the features you don’t need.
Windows Update
All Versions
Windows 7 is far more secure than previous versions of Windows, but you may have
noticed that Microsoft isn’t going so far as to say, “You don’t need an antivirus program
anymore.” The hackers will have a much harder time of it, but with so many million
lines of code to explore, they’re sure to break in somehow.
Microsoft and other security researchers constantly find new security holes—and as
soon as they’re found, Microsoft rushes a patch out the door to fix it. But creating a
patch is one thing; actually getting that patch installed on multiple millions of copies
of Windows 7 around the world is another thing entirely.
Note: In fact, it’s Microsoft’s patches that usually alert hackers to the presence of the security hole in the first
place! They exploit the fact that not everyone has the patch in place instantly. (Which brings up the question:
Should Microsoft even be creating the patches? But that’s another conversation.)
That’s where Windows Update comes in. When Microsoft releases a security fix, it
gets delivered straight to your PC and automatically installed. (If you want, you can
first review the fix before installing it, although few people have enough knowledge
to judge its value.)
Windows Update doesn’t just deliver patches to Windows itself; it can also send you bet-
ter drivers for your hardware and patches to other Microsoft products, notably Office.
If you bought a PC with Windows 7 already on it, Windows Update has already been
turned on. And if you upgraded to Windows 7 or installed it from scratch, you were
asked a series of questions about how you wanted Windows Update to work, although
you may have forgotten by now.
Three Speed Tricks
Whatever Happened to the Windows Update Sites?
In previous versions of Windows, you could forgo auto-
matic updates entirely, and instead get your updates via
Microsoft’s Windows Update site. You’d get there via http://
windowsupdate.microsoft.com, or by choosing StartÆAll
ProgramsÆWindows Update.
But if you try these tactics in Windows 7, you just end up
at the Windows Update screen on your PC. Updates via the
Web site are a thing of the past; it’s all done on your PC now.
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Fiddling with Windows Update
To open Windows Update, open the Start menu. Start typing update until you see
Windows Update in the results list; click it.
If there are any available updates that you haven’t yet installed, you see them here
(Figure 20-12).
If you click “Change settings,” the screen pictured in Figure 20-13 appears. The four op-
tions here correspond to four levels of trust people have in Microsoft, the mother ship:
•Install updates automatically (recommended). Translation: “Download and install
all patches automatically. We trust in thee, Microsoft, that thou knowest what
thou do-est.” (All of this will take place in the middle of the night—or according
to whatever schedule you set on this screen—so as not to inconvenience you.)
•Download updates but let me choose whether to install them. The downloading
takes place in the background and doesn’t interfere with anything you’re download-
ing for yourself. But instead of installing the newly downloaded patch, Windows
asks your permission.
•Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them.
When Windows detects that a patch has become available, a note pops up from
your system tray, telling you an update is available. Click the icon in the system
tray to indicate which updates to download and then install.
Windows Update
Figure 20-12:
If there are any
available up-
dates, you can
install them by
clicking “Install
updates.” To get
details about
an update, click
“View available
updates.”
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664 windows 7: the missing manual
•Never check for updates (Not recommended). Microsoft will leave your copy
of Windows completely alone—and completely vulnerable to attacks from the
Internet.
Microsoft hates when people choose anything but the first option, because it leaves
them potentially open to security holes. On the other hand, patches have sometimes
been known to be a bit buggy, so some people like to do a Google search on any new
patch before installing it.
Notice, at the bottom of Figure 20-13, that there are several sections, two of which affect
which updates are downloaded: There’s one for Recommended updates, and one for
Microsoft Update. A recommended update, in Microsoft lingo, is an update that isn’t
required to keep your PC safe or to keep your operating system from blowing up, but
that can solve “non-critical problems and help enhance your computing experience.”
That’s usually an updated driver or a Windows bug fix or feature enhancement. Turn
on Recommended updates if you want them to be included in Windows Update.
The Microsoft Update section delivers updates for other Microsoft software on your
PC, notably Microsoft Office.
Figure 20-13:
Windows’s
auto-update
feature can ask
that you be
notified either
before the
software patch
is downloaded
(third choice) or
after it’s been
downloaded
and is ready to
install (second
choice). You
can also permit
the updates to
be updated and
then installed
automatically,
on a schedule
you specify (top
choice).
Windows Update
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Beyond the Basics
There’s a lot more to Windows Update than these basics, though. You can take a look
at all the updates installed on your PC, for example, and you can even uninstall an
update. And you can also restore the mysterious-sounding “hidden updates.”
To begin, get back to the screen shown in Figure 20-12. (Choose Control PanelÆ
System and SecurityÆWindows Update to get there.) The left side of the screen
includes these links:
•Check for updates checks for updates right now, and installs them, if you want.
•Change settings works as described earlier.
•View update history shows you a list of all the updates that have been downloaded
and installed. You see the date of each update, whether it was successful, the type
of update, and its purpose. Double-click one to get more details.
•Restore hidden updates. As noted below, you can hide an update to get it out of
your hair. When you click “Restore hidden updates,” they reappear so you can
reinstall them.
Windows Update
Moving Virtual Memory
So how do you move the virtual memory swap file for
more speed?
Well, you don’t, really.
Virtual memory is a trick computers use to keep a lot of
programs open at once—more, in fact, than they technically
have enough memory (RAM) for. How do they manage
keeping so many software balls in the air? Easy—they set
some of them down on the hard drive.
When you bring Photoshop to the front, for example, Win-
dows frees up the necessary memory for it by storing some
of the background programs’ code on the hard drive. When
you switch back to, say, Microsoft Word, Windows swaps
Photoshop for the Word code it needs from the hard drive,
so that the frontmost program always has full command of
your actual memory.
In the days of yore, power geeks argued that you could
eke out a little extra speed by relocating this setting-down
area—the swap file—to another hard drive. A clean, fast,
dedicated drive, for example.
These days, though, that’s a lot of effort for very little notice-
able speed boost, if any. Today’s hard drives are a lot faster
than they once were, and a lot better at handling multiple
simultaneous requests for data.
Anyone who really wants to move the swap file to a different
drive is probably the kind of power user who’d go whole
hog, adding a RAID 0 or RAID 0+1 hard drive setup (and if
you know what that is, you’re enough of a techie to know
how to set it up). That would speed up a lot of other aspects
of the PC, too.
If you’re still determined to move the swap file, though, you
can do it. Open the System Properties dialog box. (Right-
click Computer in the Start menu; choose Properties.) Click
“Advanced system settings.” Click the Advanced tab.
In the Performance section, click Settings. In the next dialog
box, click the Advanced tab. (Are you getting the idea that
this is an advanced technique?) Under “Virtual memory,”
click Change.
Turn off “Automatically manage paging size for all drives,”
highlight the new destination hard drive for the swap file,
and then click OK.
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Removing Updates
If an update winds up making life with your PC worse instead of better, you can
remove it. Head to Control PanelÆProgramsÆView Installed Updates, right-click
an update, and then select Remove.
Note: You can’t remove all updates, however. Security-related updates are usually nonremovable.
There’s one problem with this action. The next time Windows Updates does its job,
it will reinstall the update you just removed.
The workaround is to hide the update so that it doesn’t get downloaded and installed
again. Open Windows Update, and then click “Check for updates.”
After Windows finds updates, click “View available updates.” Right-click the update you
don’t want; select “Hide update.” From now on, Windows Update ignores the update.
If, later, you change your mind, click “Restore hidden updates,” select the update you
want installed, and then click Restore.
Windows Update
Resource Monitor
This little app (type resource into the Start menu) is a
dashboard for your PC’s guts: its processor chip (CPU),
memory, and disk space. It shows you how much of your
PC’s horsepower and capacity is being used up, and by what.
Even when you’re only
running a program or
two, dozens of compu-
tational tasks (processes)
are going on in the back-
ground. The top table
of the Overview screen
shows you all the dif-
ferent processes—visible
and invisible—that your
PC is handling at the
moment.
Some are easily recog-
nizable (such as wmplayer.exe, meaning Windows Media
Player); others are background system-level operations you
don’t normally see. For each item, you can see the percent-
age of CPU being used, how much memory it’s using, and
other details.
You can isolate one program (or one set of them) using
the checkboxes down the left side of any Resource Monitor
list; read the details of your selection in the lower half of
the window. You can add or delete columns (right-click a
column heading, choose
Select Columns); you
can also drag them to
rearrange them or adjust
their widths.
The tabs above the list
let you drill down into
the details of your CPU,
memory use, disk space,
and network activity.
Normal people living
normal lives probably
won’t root around in Re-
source Monitor much. But in times of troubleshooting, either
you or your designated tech guru may find its information
very helpful indeed.
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21
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The Disk Chapter
Files and folders, as you’ve probably noticed, have a tendency to multiply. Creat-
ing new documents, installing new software, and downloading new files can fill
up even the largest disk drives in no time—especially if, as Microsoft fervently
hopes, you get heavily into music, pictures, and video.
Fortunately, Windows offers a number of ways to manage and expand the amount
of space on your hard drives. You can subdivide your drives’ storage into individual
partitions (sections), save space using disk compression, encrypt the contents of your
drives for security, and so on.
You can skip this entire chapter, if you wish, and get along quite well without using
any of these features. They’re strictly optional. But if you aspire to wear the “Power
User” T-shirt, read on.
Note: Three of the features described in this chapter—dynamic disks, disk compression, and EFS (encryption
file system)—all require the NTFS file system on your computer’s disk drives. That’s probably what you’re
using on your main hard drive, because Windows 7 requires it.
But other kinds of disks—memory cards, iPods, external USB disks, and so on—probably use the older FAT32
file system instead. You won’t be able to use NTFS tricks on them.
Dynamic Disks
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Suppose you’ve run out of space on the hard drive you use to store movies and music,
and you’ve installed another one to collect the overflow. Thanks to a Windows 7 feature
called dynamic disks, you don’t have to move files to the new drive or reorganize your
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668 windows 7: the missing manual
Dynamic Disks folder scheme. Instead, you can make the new drive fold its space seamlessly with
the first drive’s, so you suddenly have more disk space on your “one” combo drive.
If you’re working with very large files (like those home movies you spend all your
free time editing), you can do something similar; instead of folding one drive into
another, you can tell Windows to treat a pair of disks as a single disk.
Windows can then save data onto them in an alternating pattern. This makes every-
thing a lot faster, because Windows doesn’t have to wait until the first disk finishes
saving a chunk of a file to start saving the next chunk. Instead, it can save (or open)
files two chunks at a time, on two disks simultaneously.
Note: Unfortunately, you can’t extend your startup drive (the C: drive that contains your Windows 7 instal-
lation). If you’re running out of disk space on your C: drive, you can move your large documents and media
files onto another drive you’ve installed. You can also save a lot of space by uninstalling large programs from
the C: drive, and then reinstalling them on the other drive. (If you do this with a game, though, be sure to
back up your saved games when you uninstall, and restore them when you reinstall; see the support forums
or FAQ for the game before you proceed).
How Dynamic Disks Work
If this setup intrigues you, a bit more technical explanation is required.
When you (or your PC maker) first installed Windows, it configured each drive as a
basic disk—a disk with its own drive letter. But before you can combine two actual
drives into one volume, you must first convert them into a more flexible format that
Microsoft calls a dynamic disk.
Volumes Defined
You won’t get far in this chapter, or at PC user group
meetings, without understanding a key piece of Windows
terminology: volume.
For most people, most of the time, volume means “disk.”
But technically, there’s more to it than that—a distinction that
becomes crucial if you explore the techniques described in
this chapter.
If you open your Computer window, you see that each disk
has its own icon and drive letter (C:, for example). But each
icon isn’t necessarily a separate disk. It’s possible that you,
or somebody in charge of your PC, has split a single drive
into multiple partitions (Appendix A), each with a separate
icon and drive letter. Clearly, the world needs a term for
“an icon/drive letter in the Computer window, whether it’s
a whole disk or not.” That term is volume.
With Windows 7’s dynamic disks, you can do more than
partition one hard drive into multiple volumes—you can
also do the reverse, as described in this chapter. If you’ve
installed more than one hard drive, you can actually request
that Windows represent them on the screen as one volume.
This way, you can have as many hard disk drives in your
computer as you want and combine their storage space into
a unit, represented by one icon and drive letter.
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Dynamic Disks
The good news is that you can convert a basic disk into a dynamic disk without losing
any data on the drive. The bad news is that you can’t change a dynamic disk back to
a basic disk unless you erase all the data stored there.
And why would you want to change it back? Because dynamic disks, for all their flex-
ibility, also have some limitations. Before you proceed with converting basic disks to
dynamic disks, assume a reclining position and read the following fine print:
• Once you’ve combined two physical disks into an über-disk (technically called a
spanned volume), a fatal problem on one of the two hard drives will make you lose
all the data on both drives—an event that can ruin your whole morning. Keeping
regular backups of your spanned volume is critically important (see Chapter 22).
• Dynamic disks are a specialty of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate.
No other version of Windows can read them (not even other Windows 7 versions).
• A dynamic disk can contain only one operating system. You can’t dual boot from
another partition on a dynamic disk, as you can with basic disks. (Dual booting
means choosing which of two operating systems to use each time you turn on the
PC.) Since you can’t extend your boot drive, it’s unlikely that you’d want to turn
it into a dynamic disk, but you should keep this limitation in mind if you decide
to install another operating system, such as Linux, onto the disks you want to
convert to dynamic disks.
Note: You might have a dual-boot system and not even know it. Many manufacturers hide a bootable
operating system on the hard drive whose sole purpose is to restore your computer to its original configura-
tion when things go wrong.
For example, some manufacturers put a copy of DOS on a small partition. If you hold down F11 as the
computer is starting up, it launches into DOS, loads disk-imaging software, and uses it to restore your hard
drive using files from yet another partition—this time, a hidden 3.5 GB partition.
If you convert your drive to a dynamic disk, you will lose the ability to invoke this rescue mode.
• To convert a hard drive to a dynamic disk, it must set aside an invisible storage area
to hold a dynamic disk database. If you partitioned the drive using Windows, then
it already reserved enough space for this purpose. But if the drive was partitioned
with another operating system, you may have to erase it before converting it to a
dynamic disk.
• Dynamic disks generally don’t work on laptops, removable disks, disks connected
by USB cables or IEEE 1394 (FireWire) cables, or disks connected to shared SCSI
or Fibre Channel buses. If your disks fall into any of these categories, Windows 7
won’t let you convert them to dynamic disks.
Extending onto Another Disk
If you’ve installed a new hard drive, Windows 7 treats it as unallocated space—disk
space that doesn’t belong to any volume yet. It’s just sitting there, unaccounted for,
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670 windows 7: the missing manual
unusable, waiting for you to make it part of one volume or another. And whenever you
find yourself with unallocated space, you can savor the flexibility of dynamic disks.
If you haven’t yet been scared off by the cautions in the previous section and are
ready to extend one of your existing disks onto another, the procedure is simple. First,
back up your computer. Tragedy isn’t likely to befall you, but it’s a good idea to back
up before performing any kind of traumatic surgery to the disks in your computer.
Next, log onto the computer as a user with administrative privileges, and exit any
programs that might be running on the disk you plan to convert.
You convert disks and manage the dynamic volumes on them using a special window
called the Disk Management console. To open it, use either of these methods:
• Choose StartÆControl PanelÆSystem and Security and scroll down to the Ad-
ministrative Tools section. Click the “Create and format hard disk partitions” link.
• Type diskmgmt.msc into the Start menu’s Search box, and then press Enter.
Once this window is before you, you see a display of your drives and the partitions
on them, as shown in Figure 21-1.
Note: If you’ve just installed an additional hard drive, Disk Management notices the next time you start it up.
It prompts you to initialize the new disks; select the partition style you want to use. In most cases, you should
choose the proposed format, MBR (Master Boot Record, which has been used by Windows and MS-DOS for
years). The dialog box will tell you when the other choice, GPT (the newfangled GUID Partition Table, used by
PCs that are designed around a replacement for the venerable PC BIOS called EFI), is appropriate. Click OK.
The top part of the window lists the partitions on your computer. The bottom part
contains a horizontal box representing each drive on your computer, with smaller
boxes inside indicating the partitions on each drive. Notice that the header box for
each drive indicates the number of the drive in your system, its capacity, whether or
not it’s online, and the word “Basic” (indicating that it’s currently a basic disk).
Extending a Volume
One big advantage of dynamic disks is that you can extend
an existing volume whenever you feel like it, just by allocat-
ing additional disk space to it. If, for example, you run out
of space on a volume you’ve named Data, and you still
have some unallocated space on some other disk, you can
simply add it to the Data volume to make it bigger. The
unallocated space you specify becomes a permanent part
of the Data volume. (Note that this is a one-way trip. Once
you’ve added free space to a dynamic volume, it becomes
part of that volume permanently, or at least until you delete
the volume—and its data—and recreate it.)
The disk space you use to extend the volume can come
from either the same disk or another dynamic disk (in which
case you create a spanned volume). Note, though, that you
can’t extend the system volume, nor any volume that was
originally a partition created by another operating system.
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Next, you need to decide how you want to expand the disk. You have a choice between
spanning and striping. You can also choose to create a simple dynamic disk, but that
won’t let you combine two disks into one.
Tip: You can delete a dynamic volume as easily as you created it. Just right-click it in the Disk Management
window and select Delete Volume from the shortcut menu. Doing so deletes the entire volume, erasing all
the data on it and removing its space from any spanned or striped space on other disks.
Here’s a rundown of each:
Extending into a spanned volume
Suppose you’ve managed to shoehorn every byte of data you possibly can onto the
hard drive you use for holding video files. You decide to install a second hard drive,
to give you more space.
But then what? You don’t want to spoil the carefully organized folder structure on
your old hard drive by moving parts of it to the new drive; you just want to continue
to build on your folders as they are.
The solution, as you know if you’ve read the beginning of this chapter, is to create a
spanned volume, a single disk icon (and drive letter) that’s actually composed of the
space from both your old and new drives.
Figure 21-1:
The Disk
Management
console is
the central
toolbox for
all your disk-
related tasks.
This is where
you create
the dynamic
volumes on
your disks.
Notice that
drive E: is in
trouble—it has
no remaining
free space.
Read on for
the solution.
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The first order of business (after restarting the computer) is to make sure Windows
has recognized the new drive. When you launch the Disk Management console, a
new drive appears in the list, with a great big block of unallocated space for you to
fill, as shown in Figure 21-2.
Figure 21-2:
When you install
a new hard drive
in your computer,
it appears in the
Disk Management
console as a large
block of unallocated
space. Of course,
you’ll notice that the
new drive is a basic
drive; therefore, all
you can do is create
a basic partition
on it.
What About Extending Basic Disks?
Windows 7 allows you to extend (and shrink) basic disks as
well as dynamic disks. Previously, you’d have to buy a pro-
gram like Partition Magic to perform this kind of operation.
But why would you want to resize your basic disk? In most
cases, your basic disk already takes up the entire physical
disk drive. However, many computer manufacturers devote
several gigabytes of precious disk space to storing restore
images so you can quickly and easily restore your computer
to its factory-fresh state (minus the new-computer smell).
You may not need these restore images. Maybe your PC
manufacturer provided a utility program that can generate
a set of installation discs, or will sell you a set for a small
fee, or maybe you bought a full retail copy of Windows 7
(not an upgrade version). The point is, though, that if you’re
sure you’ll never need the volume that contains your restore
images, you may be able to delete it and extend your C: drive
into the space you freed up.
To delete a partition, right-click it in the Disk Management
window; from the shortcut menu, choose Delete Volume
(this is a good time to pause and think about how fresh your
backups are). Once you’ve done that, you can right-click your
C: drive and select Extend Volume.
You can just as easily shrink your C: drive, perhaps to make
room for dual-booting another operating system such as
Linux.
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To use the new drive to enlarge your existing volume, right-click your almost-full
volume (drive E: in this example), and select Extend Volume from the shortcut menu.
The Extend Volumes Wizard appears. Click Next to begin.
When the Select Disks screen appears (Figure 21-3), you see that the only available
unallocated space in your computer is on your new drive. Select it in the Available
column and click Add to add it to the Selected column. Specify how much of the new
drive you want to add to the volume (or, to add all of it to your original drive, do
nothing). Finally, click Next and then Finish.
Note: This operation doesn’t erase any of your existing data. Still, this sort of major change is not without
risk. So now is the time to ask yourself, “Do I feel lucky?” If not, make that backup before you do something
we’ll all regret.
This process converts both disks into a dynamic disk and creates a spanned volume.
You get a warning from Disk Management about the consequences of converting to
a dynamic disk, as described earlier in this chapter. Click Yes to continue.
Notice now that your original volume and your new drive both have a purple header
bar and use the same drive letter, as shown in Figure 21-4. You now have a spanned
volume using space on both of your hard drives. Your hard drive is now effectively
bigger (117 GB of free space out of a combined total of 156 GB), and you can continue
to amass new files at your accustomed rate.
Figure 21-3:
When extending a volume
to another disk, click its
name in the Available
column before adding it to
the Selected column.
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Creating a striped volume
As you now know, a spanned volume is like a virtual hard drive made up of storage
space from more than one dynamic disk. When Windows saves data onto a spanned
volume, it completely fills up the allotted space on one drive, then proceeds to the
next drive in the volume, until the allotted space on all the drives is full.
A striped volume is similar, in that it’s a single volume made up of space from several
actual disks, but the way Windows saves data to the drives is different. Instead of fill-
ing up one drive and proceeding to the next one, Windows saves pieces of each file
Creating a New Spanned Volume
The flexibility of dynamic disks never ends. If you find your-
self with bits of unallocated space on two or more dynamic
disks, you can actually sweep these scraps together into a
single new volume—a spanned volume—that behaves, in
Windows, as though it’s a single hard drive.
To do this, start in the Disk Management window (Figure
21-1). Right-click any unallocated space on any of the disks
and select New Spanned Volume from the shortcut menu.
On the Select Disks screen, the unallocated space you clicked
appears in the Selected column, and any unallocated space
on other dynamic disks appears in the Available column.
Add the unallocated space you want to use, and proceed
through the wizard to create the new volume.
gem in the rough
Figure 21-4:
A dynamic vol-
ume extended
to another disk
appears in the
Disk Manage-
ment console
with the same
color header
bar and the
same drive
letter. Note, too,
that the volume
list in the top
of this dialog
box identifies
this volume as
“Spanned.”
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on more than one disk. Because more than one hard drive is saving and reading data
in parallel, a speed benefit can theoretically result.
The truth is, though, that for the sorts of small files most people work with, the dif-
ferences are measured in milliseconds—thousandths of a second—so it’s generally
not worth creating striped volumes on everyday PC workstations. (On corporate file
servers that handle hundreds or thousands of file access requests per minute, or on
video-editing workstations, it’s a different story. The cumulative savings in access
times can be significant.)
If you’re still tempted to create a striped-volume set, the process is nearly identical to
creating a new spanned volume (see the box on the facing page), except that, when
you right-click, you select New Striped Volume instead of New Spanned Volume.
You must also use the same amount of space on each of the drives you select. For
example, if you have 100 gigabytes of unallocated space on Disk 0 and 50 gigabytes
of unallocated space on Disk 1, your striped volume can be no larger than 100 giga-
bytes—50 from each drive.
Compressing Files and Folders
All Versions
The hard drives made these days have greater capacities than ever, but programs
and files are much bigger, too. Running out of disk space is still a common problem.
Fortunately, Windows 7 is especially effective at compressing files and folders to take
up less disk space.
Compressing files and folders can also be useful when you want to email files to
someone without dooming them to an all-night modem-watching session. That’s
Data Compression
Data compression is the process of replacing repetitive
material in a file with shorthand symbols. For example, if
a speech you’ve written contains the phrase going forward
21 times, a compression scheme like the one in NTFS may
replace each occurrence with a single symbol, making the
file that much smaller. When you reopen the file later,
the operating system almost instantaneously restores the
original, expanded material.
The degree to which a file can be compressed depends on
what kind of data the file contains and whether it’s already
been compressed by another program. For example,
programs (executable files) often shrink by half when
compressed. Bitmapped graphics like TIFF files squish down
to as little as one-seventh their original size, saving a great
deal more space.
The PNG and JPEG graphics files so popular on the Web,
however, are already compressed (which is why they’re so
popular—they take relatively little time to download). As a
result, they don’t get much smaller if you try to compress
them manually. That’s one of the main rules of data compres-
sion: Data can be compressed only once.
In short, there’s no way to predict just how much disk space
you’ll save by using NTFS compression on your drives. It all
depends on what you have stored there.
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why Microsoft has endowed Windows 7 with two different schemes for compressing
files and folders: NTFS compression for storing files on your hard drive, and zipped
folders for files that might have to be transferred.
NTFS Compression
If Windows 7 was installed on your PC when you bought it, or if you upgraded your
PC from Windows XP, or if you erased your hard drive before installing Windows 7,
then your hard drive is probably formatted using a file system called NTFS (short
for NT file system).
Most people can live a long and happy life without knowing anything about NTFS.
If you work in a corporation, you might be grateful for the additional security it
offers to Windows fans (Chapter 23), and leave it at that. Now and then, however,
you’ll read about features that are available only if your hard drive was prepared using
NTFS—and this is one of those cases.
Tip: The hard drive that’s running Windows 7 has the NTFS format; Windows 7 requires it. To find out what
formatting some other drive uses (a flash drive or external hard drive, for example), choose StartÆComputer.
Right-click the hard drive icon; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties. In the resulting dialog box, you
see either “File system: NTFS” or “File system: FAT 32.” Unfortunately, special NTFS features like automatic
compression aren’t available to you unless you upgrade the drive formatting to NTFS. For instructions,
download the free appendix to this chapter from this book’s “Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.
com. The file is called NTFS Upgrade (pdf). (Note, however, that if you convert a flash drive to NTFS, you
may no longer be able to use it with non-Windows computers and devices like digital cameras and palmtops.)
The NTFS compression scheme is especially likable because it’s completely invisible
to you. Windows automatically compresses and decompresses your files, almost
instantaneously. At some point, you may even forget you’ve turned it on. Consider:
• Whenever you open a compressed file, Windows quickly and invisibly expands it to
its original form so you can read or edit it. When you close the file again, Windows
instantly recompresses it.
• If you send compressed files via email or copy them to a PC whose hard drive
doesn’t use NTFS compression, Windows 7 once again decompresses them, quickly
and invisibly.
• Any file you copy into a compressed folder or disk is compressed automatically. (If
you only move it into such a folder from elsewhere on the disk, however, it stays
compressed or uncompressed—whichever it was originally.)
Compressing files, folders, or disks
To turn on NTFS compression, right-click the icon for the file, folder, or disk whose
contents you want to shrink. Choose Properties from the shortcut menu. Click the
Advanced button, and in the resulting dialog box, turn on “Compress contents to
save disk space” (Figure 21-5), click OK, and then click Apply or OK when you return
to the Properties dialog box. If you have selected a folder for compression, you’re
prompted as to whether you also want to compress the files and subfolders within it.
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Many Windows veterans wind up turning on compression for the entire hard drive.
It can take Windows 7 several hours to perform the initial compression of every file
on the drive.
If you do this, or even if you try to compress a large folder such as C:\Program Files,
you will invariably run into a few files that can’t be compressed because they’re
currently in use. Short of opening up the Task Manager and shutting down nearly
every process on your system (not recommended), you won’t be able to avoid a few
of these. Your best bet is to select Ignore All the first time Windows 7 notifies you
about this problem. Then you can safely walk away from your computer and let the
compression continue.
When Windows is finished compressing, the compressed file and folder icons appear
in a different color, a reminder that Windows is doing its part to maximize your disk
space. (If they don’t change color, then somebody—maybe you—must have turned
off the “Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color” option described on
page 100.)
When you look at the Properties dialog box for a compressed file (right-click the file
and choose Properties from the shortcut menu), you see two file sizes. The Size value
indicates the actual (uncompressed) size of the file, while the Size On Disk value is the
compressed size of the file—that is, the amount of disk space it’s occupying.
Zipped Folders
As noted above, NTFS compression is great for freeing up disk space while you’re
working at your PC. But when you email your files to somebody else or burn them to
a CD, Windows 7 always decompresses them back to their original sizes first.
Fortunately, there’s another way to compress files: Zip them. If you’ve ever used Win-
dows before, you’ve probably encountered Zip files. Each one is a tiny little suitcase,
Figure 21-5:
If you don’t see the “Compress contents to
save disk space” checkbox (highlighted here),
then your hard drive probably doesn’t use the
NTFS formatting scheme.
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an archive, whose contents have been tightly compressed to keep files together, to
save space, and to transfer them online faster (see Figure 21-6). Use Zip files when
you want to email something to someone, or when you want to pack up a completed
project and remove it from your hard drive to free up space.
Creating zipped folders
In Windows 7, you don’t even need a shareware program like PKZip or WinZip to
create or open Zip files. You can create a Zip archive in either of two ways:
• Right-click any blank spot on the desktop or an open window. From the shortcut
menu, choose NewÆCompressed (zipped) Folder. Type a name for your newly
created, empty archive, and then press Enter.
Figure 21-6:
Top: A Zip archive
looks like an ordinary
folder—except for the
tiny zipper.
Bottom: Double-click
one to open its window
and see what’s inside.
Notice (in the Ratio col-
umn) that JPEG graph-
ics and PNG graphics
usually don’t become
much smaller than they
were before zipping,
since they’re already
compressed formats.
But word processing
files, program files, and
other file types undergo
quite a bit of shrinkage.
PKZip
The Zip archive format was developed in the late 1980s by
Phil Katz, a pioneer of PC compression technology. Katz’s
original product, PKZip, was a DOS-based archiving program
that soon became an industry standard.
There have been many other archive compression standards
over the years, but none of them became as ubiquitous as
the Zip format. Every program today that creates or manipu-
lates Zip files, including Windows 7, owes a debt of thanks—if
not a free T-shirt or two—to Phil Katz.
history class
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Now, each time you drag a file or folder onto the archive’s icon (or into its open
window), Windows automatically stuffs a copy of it inside.
Of course, you haven’t actually saved any disk space, since now you have two copies
of the original material (one zipped, one untouched). If you’d rather move a file
or folder into the archive—in the process deleting the full-size version and saving
disk space—then right-drag the file or folder icon onto the archive icon. Now from
the shortcut menu, choose Move Here.
• To turn an existing file or folder into a zipped archive, right-click its icon. (To zip
up a handful of icons, select them first, then right-click any one of them.) Now,
from the shortcut menu, choose Send ToÆCompressed (zipped) Folder. You’ve
just created a new archive folder and copied the files or folders into it.
Tip: At this point, you can right-click the zipped folder’s icon and choose Send ToÆMail Recipient. Windows
automatically whips open your email program, creates an outgoing message ready for you to address, and
attaches the zipped file to it—which is now set for transport.
Working with zipped folders
In many respects, a zipped folder behaves just like any ordinary folder, in that you
double-click it to see what’s inside.
If you double-click one of the files you find inside, however, Windows 7 opens up a
read-only copy of it—that is, a copy you can view, but not edit. To make changes to
a read-only copy, you must use the FileÆSave As command and save it somewhere
else on your hard drive first.
Note: Be sure to navigate to the desktop or the Documents folder, for example, before you save your edited
document. Otherwise, Windows saves it into an invisible temporary folder, and you may never see it again.
To decompress only some of the icons in a zipped folder, just drag them out of the
archive window; they instantly spring back to their original sizes. To decompress the
entire archive, right-click its icon and choose Extract All from the shortcut menu (or,
if its window is already open, click the “Extract all files” link on the toolbar). A wizard
asks you to specify where you want the resulting files to wind up.
Encrypting Files and Folders
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
If your Documents folder contains nothing but laundry lists and letters to your mom,
data security is probably not a major concern for you. But if there’s some stuff on
your hard drive that you’d rather keep private, Windows (Professional edition and
higher) can help you out. The Encrypting File System (EFS) is an NTFS feature that
stores your data in a coded format that only you can read.
The beauty of EFS is that it’s effortless and invisible to you, the authorized owner.
Windows 7 automatically encrypts your files before storing them on the drive, and
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decrypts them again when you want to read or modify them. Anyone else who logs
onto your computer, however, will find these files locked and off-limits.
If you’ve read ahead to Chapter 23, of course, you might be frowning in confusion at
this point. Isn’t keeping private files private the whole point of Windows’s accounts
feature? Don’t Windows’s NTFS permissions (page 740) keep busybodies out already?
Yes, but encryption provides additional security. If, for example, you’re a top-level
agent assigned to protect your government’s most closely guarded egg salad recipe,
you can use NTFS permissions to deny all other users access to the file containing the
information. Nobody but you can open the file in Windows 7.
However, a determined intruder from a foreign nation could conceivably boot the
computer using another operating system—one that doesn’t recognize the NTFS
Encrypting Files
and Folders
Disk Quotas
Does one of your account holders have a tendency to
become overzealous about downloading stuff, threatening
to overrun your drive with shareware junk and MP3 files?
Fortunately, it’s easy enough for you, the wise administra-
tor, to curb such behavior among
holders of Standard accounts.
Choose StartÆComputer. Right-
click the hard drive icon; from the
shortcut menu, choose Proper-
ties. In the Properties dialog box,
click the Quota tab. Click Show
Quota Settings to bring up the
Quota Settings dialog box, shown
here, and then turn on Enable
Quota Management.
You might start by turning on
“Deny disk space to users exceed-
ing quota limit.” This, of course,
is exactly the kind of muzzle you
were hoping to place on out-of-
control downloaders. The instant
they try to save or download a file that pushes their stuff
over the limit, an “Insufficient disk space” message appears.
Use the “Limit disk space to __” controls to specify the
cap you want to put on each account holder. Using these
controls, you can specify a certain number of kilobytes (KB),
megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB)—or even terabytes (TB),
petabytes (PB), or exabytes (EB). (Then write a letter to PC
World and tell the editors where you bought a multiexabyte
hard drive.)
You can also set up a disk-space
limit (“Set warning level to ___”)
that will make a warning appear—
not to the mad downloader, but
to you, the administrator. By
clicking the Quota Entries button,
you get a report that shows how
much disk space each account
holder has used up. (This is
where you see the warning as a
written notation.)
If you just want to track your
underlings’ disk usage without
actually limiting them, then set
the warning level to the desired
value, but set the Limit Disk Space
value to something impossibly
high, like several exabytes.
When you click OK, Windows warns you that it’s about to
take some time to calculate just how much disk space each
account holder has used so far.
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permissions—and access the hard drive using a special program that reads the raw
data stored there. If, however, you had encrypted the file using EFS, that raw data
would appear as gibberish, foiling your crafty nemesis.
Using EFS
You use EFS to encrypt your folders and files in much the same way that you use
NTFS compression. To encrypt a file or a folder, open its Properties dialog box, click
the Advanced button, turn on the “Encrypt contents to secure data” checkbox, and
then click OK (see Figure 21-7). (For a quicker way, see page 839.)
Depending on how much data you’ve selected, it may take some time for the encryp-
tion process to complete. Once the folders and files are encrypted, they appear in a
different color from your compressed files (unless, once again, you’ve turned off the
“Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color” option).
Note: You can’t encrypt certain files and folders, such as system files, or any files in the system root folder
(usually the Windows folder). You can’t encrypt files and folders on FAT32 drives, either.
Finally, note that you can’t both encrypt and compress the same file or folder. If you attempt to encrypt a
compressed file or folder, Windows needs to decompress it first. You can, however, encrypt files that have
been compressed using another technology, such as Zip files or compressed image files.
After your files have been encrypted, you may be surprised to see that, other than
their color change, nothing seems to have changed. You can open them the same way
you always did, change them, and save them as usual. Windows 7 is just doing its job:
protecting these files with the minimum inconvenience to you.
Still, if you’re having difficulty believing that your files are now protected by an invisible
force field, try logging off and back on again with a different user name and password.
Figure 21-7:
To encrypt a file or folder using EFS, turn on
the “Encrypt contents to secure data” checkbox
(at the bottom of its Properties dialog box). If
you’ve selected a folder, a Confirm Attribute
Changes dialog box appears, asking if you
want to encrypt just that folder or everything
inside it, too.
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682 windows 7: the missing manual
When you try to open an encrypted file now, a message cheerfully informs you that
you don’t have the proper permissions to access the file. (For more on Windows 7
security, see Chapter 10.)
EFS Rules
Any files or folders you move into an EFS-encrypted folder get encrypted, too. But
dragging a file out of one doesn’t unprotect it; it remains encrypted as long as it’s
on an NTFS drive. A protected file loses its encryption only in these circumstances:
• You manually decrypt the file (by turning off the corresponding checkbox in its
Properties dialog box).
• You move it to a FAT32 drive.
• You transmit it via a network or email. When you attach the file to an email or send
it across the network, Windows will decrypt the file before sending it on its way.
By the way, EFS doesn’t protect files from being deleted. Even if passing evildoers
can’t open your private file, they can still delete it—unless you’ve protected it using
Windows’s permissions feature (Chapter 23). Here, again, truly protecting important
material involves using several security mechanisms in combination.
BitLocker Drive Encryption
Enterprise • Ultimate
If you think EFS sounds like a great way to keep prying eyes out of your files, you
ain’t seen nothing yet!
Recovering Encrypted Data
Every now and then, encrypted data becomes inacces-
sible. Maybe a hard drive crash nukes your password, and
therefore your ability to open your own encrypted files. Or
maybe a disgruntled employee quits, deliberately refusing
to divulge his password or to decrypt his important files first.
The first time you encrypt a file, Windows puts a prompt
in the notification area suggesting that you back up your
encryption key. Click the prompt to start the process of
backing up your key (that is, your password).
You can also back up your key by right-clicking an encrypted
file and selecting Properties. In the Properties dialog box,
click Advanced, and then click Details. You can then select
your user name and click Back Up Keys to start the process.
Once you’ve backed it up to a CD or flash drive, keep it
secret, keep it safe, and don’t make multiple copies of it. If
you lose your key, you can restore it by double-clicking on
this file and then going through the Certificate Import Wizard.
You’ll need to provide the password you supplied when you
backed up the key, so don’t forget it!
If all else fails, Windows has a fallback mechanism—a back
door. The local administrator account on a PC can be
designated as a recover agent for users, which gives the
administrator the ability to decrypt their files in case of an
emergency. For instructions on setting up this feature, see
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887414.
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Windows’s standard protections—your account password, the encryption of certain
files, and so on—are all very nice.
But when million-dollar corporate secrets are at stake, they’re not going to stop a
determined, knowledgeable thief. The guy could swipe your laptop or even steal the
hard drive out of your desktop PC.
If security is that important for you, then you’ll be happy to know about BitLocker
Drive Encryption, a Windows 7 feature. When you turn on this feature, your PC
automatically encrypts (scrambles) everything on your entire system hard drive,
including all of Windows itself.
If the bad guy tries any industrial-strength tricks to get into the drive—trying to re-
program the startup routines, for example, or starting up from a different hard drive—
BitLocker presents a steel-reinforced password screen. No password, no decryption.
You won’t notice much difference when BitLocker is turned on. You log in as usual,
clicking your name and typing your password.
We’re talking hard-core, corporate-level security—with hard-core, corporate-level
requirements:
• The Enterprise or Ultimate edition of Windows 7.
• Two NTFS hard drives or drive partitions on your system: one that will be en-
crypted, and one that Windows 7 will use to boot the system. (It won’t move your
Windows folder there, but it will use that drive to hold the files needed to boot up
a PC whose C: drive is encrypted.)
If you don’t have this kind of setup, don’t worry. BitLocker will do the partition-
ing for you, even if you’ve already installed Windows 7 and lived in it for a while.
• You generally need a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), a special circuit that’s built
onto the system boards of BitLocker-compatible PCs. However, there’s a sneaky
workaround if your PC doesn’t have this item. Read on.
To find out if the planets are aligned and all the components are installed for you to
use BitLocker, choose StartÆControl PanelÆSystem and Security applet and click
BitLocker Drive Encryption.
If you see an option there to “Turn on BitLocker” (Figure 21-8), well, great! You’re
ready to step up to the strongest encryption Windows 7 has to offer. Click that link,
and wait while Windows 7 encrypts your hard drive. Oh, and don’t forget the pass-
word you provided.
You also have the option to print out a BitLocker Recovery Key, which gives you
another way in. Keep this printout somewhere secret, somewhere safe.
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Tweaking Windows 7 to Run BitLocker
If, on the other hand, you see a note there explaining why you can’t use BitLocker
(Figure 21-8), proceed like this:
• If you don’t have a TPM, you need a USB flash drive. With some tweaks to Windows
7’s configuration, you can use this as the “ignition key” to bootstrap BitLocker’s
strong encryption, eliminating the need for the TPM.
The USB flash drive option works only on PCs whose BIOS can see flash drives in
the “pre-OS environment”—that is, before Windows has actually loaded at startup.
The Flash-Drive Workaround
Of course, a TPM is a special circuit that you either have in your PC or you don’t.
Fortunately, there’s a clever workaround that, believe it or not, lets you use an ordinary
USB flash drive instead of a TPM:
1. Open the Start menu. In the search box, type gpedit.msc. Press Enter.
Yo u’ v e j u s t o p e n e d t h e G r o u p Po l i c y O b j e c t E d i t o r , a p r o g r a m y o u c a n u s e t o
configure advanced settings on Windows.
Figure 21-8:
Unfortunately,
this computer
doesn’t have
what it takes to
run BitLocker.
But with the
right tweaks, you
might be able to
change Windows
7’s mind about
that.
What About Encrypting Removable Drives?
Windows 7 brings a new feature, BitLocker To Go, which
encrypts removable disks such as USB and flash memory.
To use it, plug in your removable disk and visit the BitLocker
Drive Encryption Control Panel. If you see an option to Turn
On BitLocker for your removable disk, you’re all set. (Unlike
your system disk, BitLocker To Go does not require a TPM
to be encrypted.)
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2. Drill down to Local Computer PolicyÆComputer ConfigurationÆAdministrative
TemplatesÆWindows ComponentsÆBitLocker Drive EncryptionÆOperating
System Drives.
Examine the right side of the window.
3. Find “Require additional authentication at startup,” and double-click it.
The Properties dialog box appears.
4. Select Enabled. Make sure “Allow BitLocker without a compatible TPM (requires
a startup key on a USB flash drive)” is turned on. Click OK.
Reboot your computer.
Turning on BitLocker
Now reopen the Control Panel, and select SecurityÆBitLocker Drive Encryption;
the window should now look like Figure 21-9. Click Turn On BitLocker, follow the
instructions, and let Windows encrypt your drive; this can take some time. You’re
now protected, even from the most determined and knowledgeable hard drive thieves.
Note: Along the way, BitLocker asks you to save your password somewhere. Be sure to keep it secret and
safe. You’re going to need it if you do something to make Windows think you’re a hacker trying to get in,
like installing a second operating system in a dual-boot configuration.
Figure 21-9:
You’re now
ready to
encrypt your
drive to keep
it safe from
prying eyes.
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chapter 22: backups, system restore, & troubleshooting 687
Backups, System Restore,
& Troubleshooting
PC troubleshooting is among the most difficult propositions on earth, in part
because your machine has so many cooks. Microsoft made the operating system,
another company made the computer, and dozens of others contributed the
programs you use every day. The number of conflicts that can arise and the number
of problems you may encounter is nearly infinite. That’s why, if you were lucky, you
bought your PC from a company that offers a toll-free, 24-hour help line. You may
need it.
In the meantime, Windows is crawling with special diagnostic modes, software tools,
and workarounds designed to revive a gasping or dead PC. Some are clearly intended
only for licensed geeks. Others, however, are available even to mere mortals armed
with no more information than, “It’s not working right.”
Whether you get it working or not, however, there’s one constant that applies to
novices and programmers alike—you’re always better off if you have a backup copy
of your files. This chapter covers both the backing up—and the shooting of troubles.
Automatic Backups
All Versions
Consider that the proximity of your drive’s spinning platters to the head that reads
them is roughly the same proportion as the wheels of an airliner flying at 500 miles
per hour, 12 inches off the ground. It’s amazing that hard drives work as well, and
as long, as they do.
Still, a hard drive is nothing more than a mass of moving parts in delicate alignment,
so it should come as no surprise that every now and then, disaster strikes. That’s why
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Automatic Backups backing up your data (making a safety copy) on a regular basis is an essential part of
using a PC. Even if computers aren’t your career, there’s probably a lot of valuable
stuff on your hard drive: all your photos, the addresses and phone numbers you’ve
spent hours typing in, a lifetime’s worth of email, the Web sites in your Favorites
folder, and so on.
If you use Windows in a corporation, you probably don’t even have to think about
backing up your stuff. A network administrator generally does the backing up for
you and your coworkers.
But if you use Windows at home, or in a smaller company that doesn’t have network
nerds running around to ensure your files’ safety, you’ll be happy to know about the
Windows 7 Backup program. It’s much more flexible and powerful than the one that
came with Vista, and light-years better than the Windows XP version (which couldn’t
even back up your stuff onto CDs or DVDs!).
Backup Hardware
If you have a home or small business network, backing up to a folder on another PC
on your network is a wise idea. An inexpensive external hard drive makes a super-
convenient backup disk, too.
The advantage of blank CDs and DVDs, though, is that you can store them some-
where else: in a fireproof box, a safe deposit box at the bank, or the trunk of your
car. Keep them anywhere except in your office, so your data is safe even in the case
of fire or burglary.
Tip: You can’t back up a laptop’s files when it’s running on battery power. The program won’t let you—it’s
too worried about losing juice in the middle of the operation.
Your First Backup
Once you’ve decided to back up your PC and also figured out what you’re going to
back it up onto, proceed like this:
1. Open the Backup and Restore program.
As usual, the quickest way is to use the Start menu. Open it and type backup; click
“Backup and Restore.” The Backup and Restore program opens (Figure 22-1).
2. Click “Set up backup.” Authenticate if necessary (page 726).
Now Windows looks through your system, locating hard disks and removable
drives. The “Select where you want to save your backup” screen appears, offering
you the chance to specify where you want to store the backup copies.
3. Specify where you want to save the backup (Figure 22-2).
The best option is an external hard drive; it’s safe, it’s big, and it’s fast.
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Automatic Backups
You can also back up to CDs or DVDs, although not automatically on a schedule.
Tip: USB flash drives and memory cards show up in this list, too. Flash drives make particularly handy backup
disks because they’re small, inexpensive, and can store several gigabytes of data.
Finally, you can back up to a folder that’s shared on a networked PC; select “Save
on a network,” and then browse to the folder. (This option is available only in the
Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows 7.) You may have to
type in a user name and password to use that folder, depending on how you’ve set
up sharing on the PC.
4. Click Next.
Now you meet the “What do you want to back up?” screen. Here, you get to choose
which kinds of files to back up: Pictures, Music, Videos, E-mail, Documents, and
several others.
5. Click either “Let Windows choose” or “Let me choose.”
If you click “Let Windows choose,” then Windows will back up all account holders’
libraries (Pictures, Music, Videos, Documents), plus the standard Windows folder
(AppData, Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, Favorites, Links, Saved Games, and
Searches). The AppData folder is especially important, because it’s where prorams
like Outlook and Windows Live Mail keep your email stash.
Not included: your programs and Windows itself. Windows will also set up a
schedule for this backup so that it repeats automatically every week.
Figure 22-1:
The primary purpose
of this screen is to
back up and restore
your PC. But on the
left-hand side, you’ll
also find links for cre-
ating a system image
(a perfect replica of
your entire hard drive)
and a system repair
disc (a startup disc
that can boot your PC
when your hard drive
can’t).
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If you click “Let me choose” instead, then you’re shown the screen in Figure 22-3.
Turn on the checkboxes for the things you want protected by a backup.
Figure 22-2:
Top: Where do you want the
backup stored? You can, in
theory, back up to another
partition of your own main
hard drive. It’s risky, though;
if something goes wrong
with your drive, you could
lose both your originals and
your backup. Better to use
another drive, another PC on
the network, or a set of CDs
or DVDs.
Bottom: Here’s the cycle if
you decide to back your stuff
up onto another computer
on the network. Click Browse
to see the actual list of other
computers on your network;
expand the flippy triangles to
choose a folder.
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Tip: Here’s where your familiarity with Windows 7 libraries pays off. You can create a single library called Back
Me Up. Fill it with folders, from all over your system, that might not otherwise get backed up, and designate
Back Me Up to be backed up. (The original folders, of course, stay right where they are.)
This is a great trick if you store important stuff outside of your Personal folder—on external drives, say—or if
you don’t feel the need for a full massive whole-system backup.
6. Click Next.
Now, on the ”Review your backup settings” dialog box, you see a summary of
everything Windows intends to back up. Here, you can also see that Windows in-
tends to perform this backup every Sunday at 7:00 p.m., presumably while you’re
watching “60 Minutes.”
You can, of course, click “Change schedule” to choose a more opportune time. (For
best results, choose times of day when you know the computer will be turned on.)
7. Click “Save settings and start backup.”
Backup goes to work, copying your files to their new backup location (Figure 22-4).
Figure 22-3:
Here, you get expand-
able checkboxes for
everything in every
account holder’s
libraries, plus an-
other set for the
entire computer. That
lower “tree” lets you
handpick what gets
backed up, anywhere
on your system, even
on external drives.
Note: The Backup
program never backs
up your programs,
your copy of Windows,
files in the Recycle Bin,
or files on drives that
have been formatted
using the old FAT32
scheme.
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From now on, your PC backs itself up, on the schedule you set for it (unless you set
up a backup on CDs; it would be kind of hard for your PC to insert blank discs when
you’re not there). Each time, it backs up only new files or files that have changed since
the last backup; it doesn’t waste its time backing up files that haven’t been touched.
If you want to change your backup settings—back up on a different schedule, say,
or add or take away file types—return to the Backup and Restore Center, and click
“Change backup settings.” From here, you can change anything about your backup.
Tip: Windows stores the backup as a standard .zip file. That’s great, because it means that in times of trouble,
you can open and root through it to find a precious file or two even using a different computer that’s not
running Windows.
Restoring Files from a Backup
When your good luck runs out, and you find yourself with a virus/drive crash/meddle-
some toddler who threw out an important folder, you’ll be glad indeed that you had
a backup. This is the payoff.
Fortunately, Backup lets you restore individual files and folders—you don’t have to
restore all files in one fell swoop.
Figure 22-4:
The backing-up
process may take
several seconds
or several hours,
depending on how
much you’re copy-
ing. (If you specified
backing up onto
CDs or DVDs, you’re
prompted to insert
a disc, erase it, and
then replace it with a
fresh one when the
first one is full.) You
can continue to work
on your PC; copying
takes place in the
background. You’ll
be notified once the
backup is complete.
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Tip: Perform regular test restores to make sure your data is retrievable from the backup disks. (Consider
restoring your files to a test folder—not the folder where the files came from—so you don’t wind up with
duplicates.) There’s no other way to be absolutely sure your backups are working properly.
Here are the steps. (These steps assume that your whole hard drive died, you replaced
it with a new one, and that you reinstalled Windows.)
1. Open the Backup and Restore program.
The quick way to find it: Type backup into the Start menu Search box.
2. Click “Restore my files.”
(You can also click “Restore all users’ files”—which is what you want if you lost
your entire hard drive.)
Now you see the screen shown in Figure 22-5. This is where you indicate what
you want restored.
3. Fill the list with the names of the files and folders you want to resurrect.
Click “Browse for files” to restore individual files, or “Browse for folders” to restore
individual folders.
You can also search for files if you’re not sure where a file is that you want to back
up. Click Search, type what you’re looking for, and then add the file or files.
Figure 22-5:
At this point, al-
though it may look
like you’re browsing
through your hard
disk, you’re not.
You’re only brows-
ing the backup you
made.
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4. Click Next. Indicate where you want the restored files put.
You can restore files to their original locations, or to a different folder on your PC.
5. Click “Start restore.”
Backup now starts copying files and folders back from the backup to your hard drive.
If you’ve chosen to save files to their original locations, you may be asked what
you want to happen if the original files are still there. Do you want the backup
copies to “win,” do you want to keep the originals, or do you want to keep both?
If you choose to keep both, the restored file gets a (2) after it. So the original file
would be budget.doc, for instance, and the copy would be budget (2).doc.
System Images
All Versions
When your hard disk crashes, you lose more than just your personal files. You also lose
your operating system—and all the programs you’ve installed, and all their updates
and patches, and all your settings and options and tweaks. It can take you a very long
time to restore your PC to that state.
A system image solves the problem easily. This feature, which was called Complete PC
Backup in Windows Vista, creates a perfect snapshot of your entire hard drive at this
moment: documents, email, pictures, and so on, plus Windows, and all your programs
and settings. Someone could steal your entire hard drive, or your drive could die, and
you’d be able to install a new, empty one and be back in business inside of an hour.
It’s a good idea to make a fresh system image every few months, because you’ll probably
have installed new programs and changed your settings in the interim. (Then again,
one of the options when you make a regular backup is to create a system image at the
same time—so if you have the disk space, that’s a convenient option.)
Note: For the techies scoring at home, the disk image created by Complete PC Backup is a .vhd file, the
same kind that’s created by Microsoft’s Virtual PC software—and therefore, you can mount it using Virtual
PC, if you like.
Make the Image
To make a system image, open the Backup and Restore program as described above.
In the panel at left, click “Create a system image.” Authenticate if necessary.
You’re now asked where you want to store the backup image. Your options, once again:
a hard drive (must be NTFS formatted), a stack of CDs or DVDs, or (if you have the
Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate editions of Windows 7) another computer on
the network.
In each case, you’ll need a lot of empty disk space. Not as much as your entire PC
drive, because you won’t be backing up empty space or temporary files. But a lot.
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Note: You can keep multiple system images around—representing your PC’s world at different times—if
you back up to discs or hard drives. If you save to a network location, though, you can keep only the most
recent system image.
After you make your selection, click Next. You’re asked to choose your backup loca-
tion—which hard drive or network folder, for example. If you’re backing up to discs,
you’re told how many you’ll need. (Hint: It’s a lot of them.)
Click “Start backup”; the backup begins. You’ll be prompted when you need to insert
new DVDs or other discs.
Tip: At the end of the backing up, Windows asks if you’d like it to burn a system repair disc—a CD or DVD
that can start up your PC when it won’t start up from the hard drive. It’s an excellent idea.
Restore the Image
Suppose the worst has come to pass: Your hard drive is trashed. Fortunately, restoring
your entire system using a system image is very easy.
Start up your PC from the Windows 7 DVD; on the welcome screen, click “Repair your
computer.” (Alternatively, just boot up from the system repair disc you made when you
created the system image.) In the System Recovery Options dialog box that appears,
click “Restore your computer using a system image you created earlier,” and click
Next. When prompted, find that drive or disc; the rest, as they say, is history recreated.
Just be forewarned that this process reformats your hard drive, and in the process
wipes out all your data and files. They’ll be replaced with the Windows Complete PC
Restore snapshot, and with the data from the most recent backup you’ve made. (Of
course, you may well have a regular backup that’s more recent; you can restore that
as the final step.)
Note: If you were thinking of using a system image to turn a new PC into a replica of your old, crashed one,
be warned: You can’t restore a system image to a new PC’s hard drive if it’s smaller than the old one. (Yes,
even if the data on the backup drive would easily fit on the target drive.)
System Restore
All Versions
As you get more proficient on a PC, pressing Ctrl+Z—the keyboard shortcut for
Undo—eventually becomes an unconscious reflex. In fact, you can sometimes spot
veteran Windows fans twitching their Ctrl+Z fingers even when they’re not near the
computer—after knocking over a cup of coffee, locking the car with the keys inside,
or blurting out something inappropriate in a meeting.
Windows 7 offers the mother of all Undo commands: System Restore. This feature
alone can be worth hours of your time and hundreds of dollars in consultant fees.
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The pattern of things going wrong in Windows usually works like this: The PC works
fine for a while, and then suddenly—maybe for no apparent reason, but most often
following an installation or configuration change—it goes on the fritz. At that point,
wouldn’t it be pleasant to be able to tell the computer: “Go back to the way you were
yesterday, please”?
System Restore does exactly that. It “rewinds” your copy of Windows back to the
condition it was in before you, or something you tried to install, messed it up. Best of
all, System Restore doesn’t change your files. Your email, pictures, music, documents,
and other files are left up to date.
Tip: If your PC manages to catch a virus, System Restore can even rewind it to a time before the infection—if
the virus hasn’t gotten into your documents in such a way that you reinfect yourself after the system restore.
An up-to-date antivirus program is a much more effective security blanket.
In fact, if you don’t like your PC after restoring it, you can always restore it to the way
it was before you restored it. Back to the future!
System Restore vs. Your Hard Drive
Ever wonder where Windows stashes all these backup
copies of your operating system? They’re in a folder called
System Volume Information, which is in your Local Disk (C:)
window. Inside that are individual files for each restore point.
(System Volume Information is
generally an invisible folder, but
you can make it visible by fol-
lowing the instructions on page
99. You still won’t be allowed
to move, rename, or delete it,
however—thank goodness. In
fact, you won’t even be able to
look inside it.)
Now, in Windows XP, you could
set a limit on how much disk
space all these restore points
consumed. But no longer. In
Windows Vista, you could delete
older restore points yourself. But
no longer.
In Windows 7, you can turn off System Restore entirely, or
you can limit it to eating up a certain percentage of your
hard drive space.
Open the Start menu. Right-click Computer; from the short-
cut menu, choose Properties.
In the resulting dialog box, click “System protection” in the
left-side panel. Authenticate
yourself if necessary. On the
System Protection tab, click
Configure. You get the dialog
box shown here.
Use the Max Usage slider to put
a cap on how much drive space
all these restore points are al-
lowed to eat up.
In times of strife, there’s also a
nuclear option here: the Delete
button.
Note, however, that this button
deletes not just all your restore
points, but also the backups of
all your documents (those cre-
ated by the Shadow Copy feature described on page 700).
So be careful out there.
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Note: A new subfeature of System Restore also makes daily safety copies of your documents. See “Shadow
Copies” on page 700.
In Windows 7, the System Restore feature has been polished and improved. Overall,
it’s one of the handiest tools in your kit.
About Restore Points
System Restore works by taking snapshots of your operating system. Your copy of
Windows has been creating these memorized snapshots, called restore points, ever
since you’ve been running it. When the worst comes to pass, and your PC starts act-
ing up, you can use System Restore to rewind your machine to its configuration the
last time you remember it working well.
Windows automatically creates landing points for your little PC time machine at the
following times:
• Once a week.
• Every time you install a new program or install a new device driver for a piece of
hardware.
• When you install a Windows Update.
• When you make a backup using Backup and Restore.
• Whenever you feel like it—for instance, just before you install some new
component.
Note: When your hard drive is running low on space, System Restore turns off automatically, without notice.
It turns itself back on when you free up some space.
To create one of these checkpoints manually, open the System Protection dialog
box (follow the steps in the box on the facing page). At the bottom of that box,
the Create button lets you create and name a new manual restore point. (Don’t
include the date and time in the name of the restore point; you’ll see that when
you get around to doing an actual restoration.)
As you can well imagine, storing all these copies of your Windows configuration
consumes quite a bit of disk space. That’s why Windows automatically begins deleting
restore points when it’s running out of disk space. That’s also why the System Restore
feature stops working if your hard drive is very full.
And that’s also why you should run the System Restore feature promptly when your
PC acts strangely.
Performing a System Restore
If something goes wrong with your PC, here’s how to roll it back to the happy, bygone
days of late last week—or this morning, for that matter:
1. Open the System Restore program.
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The quickest way: Type restore into the Start menu. Click System Restore.
Authenticate if necessary; then the “Restore system files and settings” welcome
screen appears.
2. Click Next. Look over the restore points; click the one you want to rewind to
(Figure 22-6, top).
Figure 22-6:
Top: You get to choose
from a list of all the
restore points Windows
or you have made,
anticipating just this
moment. You’re shown
the date and time of your
most recent restore point,
as well as why the restore
point was created—for
example, because you
installed a new piece
of software, or because
you applied a Windows
Update. That’s a clue as
to which restore point
you should use.
Bottom: You can now see
which programs will be
affected by this system
rewind.
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As you survey the restore points, try to remember when, exactly, your system went
wonky. Use the new “Scan for affected programs” button to help you figure out
which apps and drivers will be affected if you go through with the restore. (It also
lets you create a password-reset disk, which might be a lifesaver if, since the restore
point was made, you’ve added or changed your account password.)
Tip: The list shows only the most recent five restore points; usually, one of those is what you want. But if
you turn on “Show more restore points,” you get to see the complete list, stretching back as far as Windows
can remember.
3. Click Next.
You have one more chance to back out: Windows displays the date and time of the
restore point, shows you which drives will be affected, gives you another chance to
create a password-reset disk, and asks if you really want to go back in time.
4. Click Finish. In the confirmation box, click Yes.
Windows goes to town, reinstating your operating system to reflect its condition
on the date you specified. Leave your PC alone while this occurs.
When the process is complete, the computer restarts automatically. When you log
back in, you’re back to the past—and with any luck, your PC runs smoothly again.
(None of your email or files are disturbed.)
If it didn’t work—if you only made things worse—repeat step 1. At the top of the
System Restore welcome screen, you’ll see an option called Undo System Restore. It
lets you undo your undoing.
Or, of course, you can click “Choose a different restore point” if you think that maybe
you didn’t rewind your PC far back enough, and want to try again with a different
restore point.
Turning System Restore Off
You really shouldn’t turn off System Restore. You really, really shouldn’t. It’s just so
incredibly useful, when you’re pressed for time and things start going wacky, to be
able to hit rewind and grant yourself a perfectly smooth PC, even if you never do
find out what the trouble was.
But if you’re an advanced power user with no hard drive space to spare—is there such
a person?—here’s how you shut off this feature:
1. Open the Start menu. While it’s open, right-click Computer; from the shortcut
menu, choose Properties.
The System Properties control panel appears.
2. In the left-hand pane, click “System protection.” Authenticate if necessary.
You arrive at the System Protection tab of the System Properties dialog box.
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3. Click the hard drive in the Available Drives list, then click Configure, then click
“Turn off system protection.”
Or click “Only restore previous versions of files.” It turns off System Restore, but
leaves Previous Versions (described below) turned on.
4. Click OK. In the “Are you sure?” box, click Yes.
That’s it. You’re flying without a net now, baby.
Shadow Copies (Previous Versions)
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate Edition
System Restore is an amazing, powerful, career-saving feature—but it’s awfully self-
interested. It cares only about protecting Windows.
How can you rewind your documents to their earlier, healthier, or pre-edited condi-
tions?
The Shadow knows…Shadow Copy, that is.
Shadow Copy is a time machine for documents in the same way System Restore is a
time machine for your system software. It’s an incredible safety net against damage,
accidental modification, or late-night bouts of ill-advised editing.
Making Shadow Copies
The beauty of Shadow Copy is that it’s automatic and invisible. It’s part of System
Restore, actually, meaning that unless you’ve turned System Restore off, Shadow
Copy is protecting your documents, too. To save time and disk space, Shadow Copy
only bothers copying files that have changed since the last Restore Point was created.
Recovering Old Document Versions
If the worst should happen, and you realize that you really preferred the draft of your
novel that you had three revisions ago, right-click the file or folder in question. From
the shortcut menu, choose Restore Previous Version.
The Previous Versions tab of the Properties dialog box opens (Figure 22-7), complete
with a list of all the shadow copies of the file. Select the file you want to restore.
What Shadow Copies Aren’t
The Shadow Copy feature isn’t a substitute for backing up
your computer. For example, this feature won’t help you if
you deleted a document, because it’s designed only to give
you previous versions of existing documents. It’s also no
protection against hard drive death, since shadow copies
are usually stored on the same hard drive as the originals.
Shadow copies also aren’t the same as an infinite Undo
command. Copies are made only once a day, so you can’t,
for example, rewind a document to the state it was in three
hours ago.
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Now, you could just click Restore; that would certainly do the trick. Trouble is, this
is a permanent maneuver, so once you restore a document to the Tuesday version,
today’s more recent draft is gone forever.
Therefore, it’s a good idea to play it safer using one of these techniques:
• Highlight the file; click Open. The document opens on the screen so you can make
sure this is the version you wanted.
• Select the file and click Copy. A dialog box appears so you can peel off a copy of
the older document instead of nuking the modern one.
Note: Here’s a warning to anyone who dual-boots between Windows 7 and Windows XP: For some ex-
tremely technical and extremely unfortunate reasons, starting up in Windows XP deletes all your shadow
copies and restore points.
The only workaround is to turn off the hard drive that contains these files before starting up in Windows XP.
Microsoft is very sorry.
Figure 22-7:
Older versions of a file are listed on the Previous
Versions tab. Before restoring a file, it’s a good idea
to open it first and preview it, to make sure you do
want to use that version instead of the current one.
For absolute safety, click Copy; the screen on the
right appears, letting you save a copy of the file in a
different folder.
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Safe Mode and the Startup Menu
All Versions
If the problems you’re having are caused by drivers that load just as the computer is
starting up, turning them all off can be helpful. At the very least, it allows you to get
into your machine to begin your troubleshooting pursuit. That’s precisely the purpose
of the Startup menu screen—a menu most people never even know exists until they’re
initiated into its secret world by a technically savvy guru.
Making the Startup menu appear is a matter of delicate timing. First, restart the
computer. Immediately after the BIOS startup messages disappear, press the F8 key
(on the top row of most keyboards).
The BIOS startup messages—the usual crude-looking text on a black screen, filled
with copyright notices and technical specs—are the first things you see after turning
on the computer.
If you press the F8 key after the Windows logo makes its appearance, you’re too late.
But if all goes well, you see the Advanced Boot Options screen (Figure 22-8). Displayed
against a black DOS screen, in rough lettering, is a long list of options that includes
Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, Enable
Boot Logging, and so on. Use the arrow keys to “walk through” them.
Figure 22-8:
Let’s hope you never
need to see this
screen. It’s the Ad-
vanced Boot Options
screen—a graphically
uninteresting but
troubleshootingly
critical starting point.
To make a selection,
press the , or .
keys to walk through
the list. Press Enter
when you’ve high-
lighted the option
you want.
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Here’s what the Startup menu commands do:
•Safe Mode. Safe Mode starts up Windows in a special, stripped-down, generic,
somewhat frightening-looking startup mode—with the software for dozens of
hardware and software features turned off. Only the very basic components work:
your mouse, keyboard, screen, and disk drives. Everything else is shut down and
cut off. In short, Safe Mode is the tactic to take if your PC won’t start up normally,
thanks to some recalcitrant driver.
Once you select the Safe Mode option on the Startup menu, you see a list, filling
your screen, of every driver Windows is loading. Eventually, you’re asked to log in.
Your screen now looks like it was designed by drunken cavemen, with jagged,
awful graphics and text. That’s because in Safe Mode, Windows doesn’t load the
driver for your video card. (It avoids that driver, on the assumption that it may be
causing the very problem you’re trying to troubleshoot.) Instead, Windows loads
a crude, generic driver that works with any video card.
The purpose of Safe Mode is to help you troubleshoot. If you discover that the
problem you’ve been having is now gone, you’ve at least established that the culprit
is one of the drivers Windows has now turned off. Safe Mode also gives you full
access to the technical tools of Windows, including System Restore, the Device
Manager, the Registry Editor, the Backup and Restore Center, and Help. You might
use the Device Manager, for example, to roll back a driver you just updated, or
System Restore to undo some other installation that seems to have thrown your
PC into chaos.
If this procedure doesn’t solve the problem, contact a support technician.
•Safe Mode with Networking. This option is exactly the same as Safe Mode, ex-
cept that it also lets you load the driver software needed to tap into a network, if
you’re on one, or onto the Internet—an arrangement that offers a few additional
troubleshooting possibilities, like being able to access files and drivers on another
PC or from the Internet. (If you have a laptop that uses a PC Card networking
card, however, this option still may not help you, since the PC Card driver itself
is still turned off.)
•Safe Mode with Command Prompt. Here’s another variation of Safe Mode, this
one intended for ultra–power users who are more comfortable typing out text
commands at the command prompt than using icons, menus, and the mouse.
•Enable Boot Logging. This startup method is the same as Normal, except that
Windows records every technical event that takes place during the startup in a
log file named ntbtlog.txt (located on the startup drive, in the Windows folder).
Most of the time, you’ll use the Boot Logging option only at the request of a sup-
port technician you’ve phoned for help. After confirming the operating system
startup, the technician may ask you to open ntbtlog.txt in your Notepad program
and search for particular words or phrases—usually the word “fail.”
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•Enable VGA Mode. In this mode, your PC uses a standard VGA video driver that
works with all graphics cards, instead of the hideously ugly generic one usually
seen in Safe Mode. Use this option when you’re troubleshooting video-display
problems—problems that you’re confident have less to do with drivers than with
your settings in the Display control panel (which you’re now ready to fiddle with).
(Of course, VGA means 640 × 480 pixels, which looks huge and crude on today’s
big monitors. Do not adjust your set.)
•Last Known Good Configuration. Here’s yet another method of resetting the clock
to a time when your PC was working correctly, in effect undoing whatever configu-
ration change you made that triggered your PC’s current problems. It reinstates
whichever set of drivers, and whichever Registry configuration, was in force the
last time the PC was working right. (This option, however, isn’t as effective as the
System Restore option, which also restores operating-system files in the process.)
•Directory Services Restore Mode. This extremely technical option is useful only in
corporations with specialized domain controller computers running Windows .NET
Server or Windows 2000 Server.
•Debugging Mode. Here’s another extremely obscure option, this one intended for
very technical people who’ve connected one PC to another via a serial cable. They
can then use the second computer to analyze the first, using specialized debugger
software.
•Disable automatic restart on system failure. Under normal conditions, Windows
will automatically reboot after a system crash. Choose this option if you don’t
want it to reboot.
•Disable Driver Signature Enforcement. As a way to protect your PC, Windows
uses a technique called Driver Signature Enforcement, which is designed to load
only drivers that are verified to be valid. Of course, there are plenty of times when
drivers aren’t verified but in fact are usable. If you suspect that to be the case,
choose this option; Windows will load all your drivers.
•Start Windows Normally. This option starts the operating system in its usual
fashion, exactly as though you never summoned the Startup menu to begin with.
It lets you tell the PC, “Sorry to have interrupted you…go ahead.”
Troubleshooting Tools
All Versions
These days, a first-time Windows user probably doesn’t even know what you mean
by the phrase “blue screen of death.” PCs don’t crash nearly as often as they used to.
But there are still a million things that can go wrong—and about a million trouble-
shooting tools to help you, or somebody you’ve begged to help you, solve them. Here’s
the, ahem, crash course.
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Automatic Error Reporting
In the Windows XP days, every time a program crashed, a dialog box asked if you
wanted to send details of the crash, anonymously, to Microsoft. Maybe, just maybe,
the cumulative stream of these reports might lead some programmer somewhere to
detect a pattern—and fix his darned bug.
In Windows 7, you can tell your PC to send those reports to Microsoft automati-
cally—without interrupting or bothering you—or not to send them at all. You can
also look over a running diary of all the crashes you’ve had.
To fiddle with these settings, open the Action center. (Click the F on your taskbar
system tray, and click Open Action Center.) Expand the Maintenance section, if nec-
essary, and then click Settings. Proceed as shown in Figure 22-9.
Automatic Solution Reporting
It doesn’t happen often, but it’s conceivable that all those millions of crash reports that
Microsoft collects might one day result in a patch that fixes the problem—maybe even
a problem you reported. If Windows finds out that some bug-fix update is available
for a crash you’ve had, a message in the Action Center will let you know and offer
you the chance to download it.
Figure 22-9:
Here’s where you
approve or deny
the automatic crash
reporting feature of
Windows. Or use the
third option, which
means, “Send it, but
ask me first.” (The
second option means,
“If some crash log
or other file—which
doesn’t contain iden-
tifying information—is
required, upload that
without asking me.”)
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The Diary of Windows Crashes
Windows 7 maintains a tidy list of all the problems you’ve been having with your
machine. Needless to say, this little item isn’t featured very prominently in Windows,
but it’s there.
To see it, type reports into the Start menu. Click “View all problem reports.” You get
the astonishing box shown in Figure 22-10 (top).
Figure 22-10:
Top: Diary of a typi-
cal Windows 7 ma-
chine. It’s a list of all
the things that have
gone wrong recently.
Double-click one to
open up a screen of
techie details that
could conceivably
be useful to some
tech-support rep.
Bottom: Here’s
a mighty graph
of your crashes
stretching back one
year, which explains
why your PC has
seemed so cranky
lately. Each dot on
the graph shows
something that went
wrong—a crash, a
freeze, an error mes-
sage. Click a column
to see everything
that happened that
day.
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Tip: For the even more technically inclined, Windows includes an older, even more technical list of the
behind-the-scenes goings-on on your PC: the Event Viewer. Open it by typing event viewer into the Start
menu. Enjoy looking over eye-glazing lists of every log that Windows keeps: lists of happenings concerning
programs, setup, security, services, and more. You can sort, filter, and group these events—but if you can
understand the significance of these obscure messages, you shouldn’t be reading a Windows 7 book—you
should be writing one.
Reliability Monitor
If you prefer to get the bad news in visual form, try opening the new Reliability Moni-
tor (Figure 22-10, bottom). To see it, type history into the Start menu. Click “View
reliability history.”
If you see a lot of ˛ (crashes) following one of the little ˆ’s (which represent instal-
lations and other changes to your system), you might have spotted yourself a cause-
and-effect situation. You now have a clue to your PC’s recent instability.
Startup Repair (Windows Recovery Environment)
All Versions
You might play by all the rules. You might make regular backups, keep your antivirus
software up to date, and floss twice a day. And then one day, you get your reward:
The PC won’t even start up. You can’t use any of Windows’s software troubleshooting
tools, because you can’t even get to Windows.
In that most dire situation, Microsoft is pleased to introduce Startup Repair, known
to techies as WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment). It’s a special recovery mode,
loaded with emergency tools. You can run it from the Windows DVD, so that it can
fix whatever’s damaged or missing on the hard drive’s copy of Windows, or—new in
Windows 7—it can run right from the hard drive.
Note: Depending on who sold you your PC, you might not have a traditional Windows DVD. Your PC company
might even have replaced Startup Repair with a similar tool; check its Web site or manual.
To open Startup Repair, follow these steps:
•From the hard drive. If the hard drive is operational, you might save some time
and steps by running WinRE right from your existing copy of Windows. To do that,
hold down the F8 key as your PC is booting up; let go when you see the Advanced
Boot Options screen (Figure 22-8). Repair Your Computer should be highlighted
already; press Enter.
After a moment of loading and waiting, you’re asked to specify your keyboard
input method (for example, U.S.). Click Next. Now log in with an administrator’s
name and password; click OK.
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•From the Windows DVD. Insert the DVD. Then restart the PC—but as it’s coming
to life, press the F8 key. Your PC says something like, “Press a key to boot from CD
or DVD.” So do it—press a key.
After a moment, the Windows installation screen appears. But you’re not going to
install Windows—not yet. Instead, click “Repair your computer.” Now you’re asked
which copy of Windows you want to repair. Chances are you’ve got only one; click it.
In either case, the Recovery Environment appears (Figure 22-11).
At this point, you have some powerful tools available to help you out of your PC’s
mess. If you’re running off the DVD, you can perform surgeries on the hard drive that
you wouldn’t be able to if the hard drive itself were in control. That’d be like trying
to paint the floor under your own feet.
Your options are:
•Startup Repair. If there is indeed a missing or damaged file in your copy of
Windows, click this link to trigger an automatic repair job. You’re running off
the original installation DVD, for heaven’s sake, so it’s extremely easy for Startup
Repair to reach into its bag of spare parts if necessary.
•System Restore. Remember System Restore, described at the beginning of this
chapter? When better to rewind your Windows installation to a healthier, happier
time than right now? Click this link to choose a restore point. With any luck, the
rewinding job will include restoring the undamaged startup files that your PC
needs right about now.
Figure 22-11:
If your hard drive won’t even let
you in, the Windows Recovery
Environment is loaded with
tools to get you back in gear.
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•System Image Recovery. If you’ve taken advantage of the system image option
(page 694), then you’re in luck. You have at your disposal a complete disk image
of your hard drive, presumably made when the disk was working fine. This mir-
ror includes everything on it: your copy of Windows, all your programs, all your
documents and settings, the works. It’s like super System Restore. Click this link
to copy the whole schmear back onto your hard drive. (Of course, you’ll lose any
documents or settings you’ve changed since the backup was made.)
•Windows Memory Diagnostic. Click this link if you suspect that it’s your RAM
(memory), not the hard drive, that’s causing your problems. The software does a
quick check to make sure your memory hardware is actually working right.
•Command Prompt. If you’re lucky enough to know what you’re doing at the com-
mand prompt (page 272), you’re in luck. You can use it to issue commands, move
and rename files, and generally perform repair surgery.
Thanks to these powerful tools, there’s less reason than ever to pay $35 for the privi-
lege of talking to some technician named “Mike” who’s actually in India, following
a tech-support script that instructs you to first erase your hard drive and reinstall
Windows from scratch.
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chapter 23: accounts & logging on 713
Accounts & Logging On
For years, teachers, parents, tech directors, and computer lab instructors struggled
to answer two difficult questions: How do you rig one PC so several different
people can use it throughout the day, without interfering with one another’s files
and settings? And how do you protect a PC from getting fouled up by mischievous
(or bumbling) students and employees?
Introducing User Accounts
All Versions
Windows 7 was designed from the ground up to be a multiple-user operating system.
Anyone who uses the computer must log on—click (or type) your name and type in a
password—when the computer turns on. Upon doing so, you discover the Windows
universe just as you left it, including these elements:
•Desktop. Each person sees his own shortcut icons, folder icons, and other stuff
left out on the desktop.
•Start menu. If you reorganize the Start menu, as described in Chapter 1, you
won’t confuse anybody else who uses the machine. No one else can even see the
changes you make.
•Documents folder. Each person sees only her own stuff in the Documents folder.
•Email. Windows maintains a separate stash of email messages for each account
holder—along with separate Web bookmarks, a Windows Messenger contact list,
and other online details.
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714 windows 7: the missing manual
Introducing User
Accounts
•Favorites folder. Any Web sites, folders, or other icons you’ve designated as Favorites
appear in your Favorites menu, and nobody else’s.
•Internet cache. This folder stores a copy of the Web pages you’ve visited recently
for faster retrieval the next time you visit them.
•History and cookies. Windows maintains a list of recently visited Web sites inde-
pendently for each person; likewise, it stores a personal collection of cookies (Web
site preference files).
•Control Panel settings. Windows memorizes the preferences each person estab-
lishes using the Control Panel (see Chapter 8), including keyboard, sound, screen
saver, and mouse settings.
Note: Not all Control Panel settings are available to everyone. Really important ones that affect the entire PC,
like the date and time and network settings, can be changed only by the Lord of the PC—the administrative
account holder, described in a moment.
•Privileges. Your user account also determines what you’re allowed to do on the
network and even on your own computer: which settings you can change in the
Control Panel, and even which files and folders you can open.
Behind the scenes, Windows stores all these files and settings in a single folder—your
Personal folder, the one that bears your name. You can open it easily enough; it’s at the
top right of the Start menu. (Technically, your Personal folder is in the ComputerÆ
Local Disk (C:)ÆUsers folder.)
This feature makes sharing the PC much more convenient, because you don’t have
to look at everybody else’s files (and endure their desktop design schemes). It also
adds a layer of security, making it less likely that a marauding 6-year-old will throw
away your files.
Tip: Even if you don’t share your PC with anyone and don’t create any other accounts, you might still ap-
preciate this feature because it effectively password-protects the entire computer. Your PC is protected from
unauthorized casual fiddling when you’re away from your desk (or if your laptop is stolen)—especially if
you tell Windows to require your logon password after any time the screen saver has kicked in (page 185).
Since the day you installed Windows 7 or fired up a new Win7 machine, you may have
made a number of changes to your desktop—fiddled with your Start menu, changed
the desktop wallpaper, added some favorites to your Web browser, downloaded files
onto your desktop, and so on—without realizing that you were actually making these
changes only to your account.
Accordingly, if you create an account for a second person, then when she turns on the
computer and signs in, she’ll find the desktop exactly the way it was as factory-installed
by Microsoft: basic Start menu, standard desktop picture, default Web browser home
page, and so on. She can make the same kinds of changes to the PC that you’ve made,
but nothing she does will affect your environment the next time you log on.
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Introducing User
Accounts
In other words, the multiple-accounts feature has two benefits: first, the convenience
of hiding everyone else’s junk; and second, security that protects both the PC’s system
software and everyone’s work.
If you’re content simply to use Windows, that’s really all you need to know about
accounts. If, on the other hand, you have shouldered some of the responsibility for
administering Windows machines—if it’s your job to add and remove accounts, for
example—read on.
Windows 7: The OS with Two Faces
All Versions
Windows is designed to handle either of two different kinds of networks: workgroups
(small, informal home or small-business networks) and domains (corporate networks,
professionally and centrally administered).
This distinction becomes particularly important when it comes to user accounts.
•Workgroup network. In this smaller kind of network, each computer stores its
own security settings, such as user accounts, passwords, and permissions. Clearly,
setting up an account on every PC for every employee in a big company would
get out of hand.
If you’re part of a workgroup network (or no network), you’ll find that Windows
gives you simplified access to user accounts and permissions, both of which are
described in this chapter.
•Domain network. In a corporation, your files may not be sitting right there on
your hard drive. They may, in fact, sit on a network server—a separate computer
dedicated to dishing out files to employees from across the network. As you can
probably imagine, protecting all this information is somebody’s Job Number One.
That’s why, if your PC is part of a domain, you’ll find Windows 7 more reminis-
cent of Windows 2000, with more business-oriented features and full access to the
account-maintenance and permissions-management options. (Only the Profes-
sional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of 7 can speak to domain networks.)
This chapter tackles these two broad feature categories—the workgroup scenario and
the domain scenario—one at a time.
Local Accounts
All Versions
This section is dedicated to computers in a workgroup network—or no network at
all. Corporate networks (domains) are described later in this chapter.
To see what accounts are already on your PC, open the Start menu. Start typing ac-
counts until you see User Accounts in the results list; click it. The User Accounts and
Family Safety control panel opens (Figure 23-1).
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716 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: The Start menu offers a big, fat shortcut to this dialog box: Just click your picture at the top of the open
Start menu.
What you see here depends on which kind of account you have: Administrator or
Standard. Read on.
Administrator vs. Standard Accounts
It’s important to understand the phrase that appears just under your name in the
panel shown in Figure 23-2. On your own personal PC, the word “Administrator”
probably appears here.
Because you’re the person who installed Windows 7, the PC assumes that you’re one
of its administrators—the technical wizards who will be in charge of it. You’re the
teacher, the parent, the resident guru. You’re the one who will maintain this PC and
who will be permitted to make system-wide changes to it.
You’ll find settings all over Windows (and all over this book) that only people with
Administrator accounts can change. For example, only an administrator is allowed to:
•Create or delete accounts and passwords on the PC.
•Install new programs (and certain hardware components).
•Make changes to certain Control Panel programs that are off-limits to non-
administrators.
•See and manipulate any file on the machine.
There’s another kind of account, too, for people who don’t have to make those kinds
of changes: the Standard account.
Figure 23-1:
The User Accounts
and Family
Safety control panel
always opens up
showing you only
the details of your
account. You can’t
even see who else
has accounts on
your PC—unless
you click “Manage
another account”
and authenticate
yourself.
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Now, for years, people doled out Administrator accounts pretty freely. You know: The
parents got Administrator accounts, the kids got Standard ones.
The trouble is, an Administrator account itself is a kind of security hole. Any time
you’re logged in with this kind of account, any nasty software you may have caught
from the Internet is also, in effect, logged in—and can make changes to important
underlying settings on your PC, just the way a human administrator can.
Put another way: A virus you’ve downloaded will have a much harder time infecting
the rest of the machine if you were running a Standard account than an Administra-
tor account.
Today, therefore, Microsoft recommends that everyone use Standard accounts—even
you, the wise master and owner of the computer!
So how are you supposed to make important Control Panel changes, install new
programs, and so on?
That’s gotten a lot easier in Windows 7. Using a Standard account no longer means
that you can’t make important changes. In fact, you can do just about everything
on the PC that an Administrator account can—if you know the password of a true
Administrator account.
Note: Every Windows 7 PC can (and must) keep at least one Administrator account on hand, even if you
rarely log in with that account.
Figure 23-2:
If you click “Man-
age another ac-
count” (in the box
shown in Figure
23-1), you finally
get to see, and
make changes
to, all the other
accounts.
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718 windows 7: the missing manual
Whenever you try to make a big change, you’re asked to authenticate yourself. As
described on page 726, that means supplying an Administrator account’s password,
even though you, the currently logged-in person, are a lowly Standard account holder.
If you have a Standard account because you’re a student, a child, or an employee,
you’re supposed to call an administrator over to your PC to approve the change you’re
making. (If you’re the PC’s owner, but you’re using a Standard account for security
purposes, you know an administrator password, so it’s no big deal.)
Now, making broad changes to a PC when you’re an administrator still presents you
with those “prove yourself worthy” authentication dialog boxes. The only difference
is that you, the administrator, can click Continue to bypass them, rather than having
to type in a password.
You’ll have to weigh this security/convenience tradeoff. But you’ve been warned: The
least vulnerable PC is one where everyone uses Standard accounts.
All of this is a long-winded way of explaining why, when you open User Accounts,
you may see one of two different things.
Adding an Account
It’s easy to create a new account in the User Accounts panel: Click “Manage another
account.” Authenticate yourself.
You arrive on the master list of accounts (Figure 23-2). If you’re new at this, there’s
probably just one account listed here: yours. This is the account Windows created
when you installed it.
If you see more than one account here—not just yours—then one of these situations
probably applies:
•You created them when you installed Windows 7, as described in Appendix A.
•You bought a new computer with Windows 7 preinstalled and created several ac-
counts when asked to do so the first time you turned on the machine.
•You upgraded the machine from an earlier version of Windows, and Windows 7
gracefully imported all your existing accounts.
To add another one, click “Create a new account.” The next screen asks you to name
the account and choose an account type: Administrator or Standard (Figure 23-3).
When you’re finished with the settings, click Create Account (or press Enter). After a
moment, you return to the User Accounts screen, where the new person’s name joins
whatever names were already there. You can continue adding new accounts forever
or until your hard drive is full, whichever comes first.
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Tip: If you never had the opportunity to set up a user account when installing Windows—if you bought a PC
with Windows already on it, for example—you may see an account named Owner already in place. Nobody
can use Windows at all unless there’s at least one Administrator account on it, so Microsoft is doing you a
favor here.
Just double-click it and click “Change the account name” to change the name Owner to one that suits you
better. Make that account your own using the steps in the following paragraphs.
Editing an Account
Although the process of creating a new account is swift and simple, it doesn’t offer
you much in the way of flexibility. You don’t even have a chance to specify the new
person’s password, let alone the tiny picture that appears next to the person’s name
and at the top of the Start menu (rubber ducky, flower, or whatever).
That’s why the next step in creating an account is usually editing the one you just set
up. To do so, once you’ve returned to the main User Accounts screen (Figure 23-2),
click the name or icon of the freshly created account. You arrive at the screen shown
at the top in Figure 23-4, where—if you are an administrator—you can choose from
any of these options:
•Change the account name. You’re offered the opportunity to type in a new name
for this person and then click the Change Name button—just the ticket when one
of your coworkers gets married or joins the Witness Protection Program.
•Create a password. Click this link if you’d like to require a password for access to
this person’s account (Figure 23-4, bottom). Capitalization counts.
Figure 23-3:
If it’s all in the family,
the account’s name
could be Casey or
Robin. If it’s a corpora-
tion or school, you’ll
probably want to use
both first and last
names. Capitaliza-
tion doesn’t matter,
but most punctuation
is forbidden. This
is also where you
specify whether or
not this unsuspecting
computer user will be
an administrator, as
described above.
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720 windows 7: the missing manual
The usual computer book takes this opportunity to stress the importance of having
a long, complex password, such as a phrase that isn’t in the dictionary, something
made up of mixed letters and numbers—and not, by the way, the word “password.”
This is excellent advice if you create sensitive documents and work in a corporation.
But if you share the PC only with a spouse or a few trusted colleagues in a small
office, you may have nothing to hide. You may see the multiple-users feature
more as a convenience (for keeping your settings and files separate) than a way of
protecting secrecy and security.
In these situations, there’s no particular need to dream up a convoluted password.
In fact, you may want to consider setting up no password—leaving both password
blanks empty. Later, whenever you’re asked for your password, just leave the
Figure 23-4:
Top: Here’s the master
menu of account-
changing options. Add/
change password,
change picture, change
from Standard to
Administrative (or vice
versa), and so on.
Bottom: You’re sup-
posed to type your
password twice to
make sure you didn’t
introduce a typo the
first time. (The PC
shows only dots as you
type, to guard against
the possibility that
some villain is snooping
over your shoulder.)
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chapter 23: accounts & logging on 721
Password box blank. You’ll be able to log on and authenticate yourself that much
faster each day.
If you do decide to provide a password, you can also provide a hint (for yourself or
whichever coworker’s account you’re operating on). This is a hint that anybody can
see (including bad guys trying to log on as you), so choose something meaningful
only to you. If your password is the first person who ever kissed you plus your
junior-year phone number, for example, your hint might be “first person who ever
kissed me plus my junior-year phone number.”
Later, when you log in and can’t remember your password, leave the Password
box empty and hit Enter. You wind up back at the login screen to try again—but
this time, your hint will appear just below the Password box to jog your memory.
Tip: This low-security, high-convenience attitude is precisely the idea behind homegroups (Chapter 26).
But homegroups work only if everybody in the house or the office is on Windows 7. If you’re not, then you’ll
have to create accounts on each PC that each person might want to access over the network. A word of advice:
On each PC, set them up with the same passwords they use when logging onto their own computers. You’ll
save them time and hassle. Once they’ve logged onto another machine on the network, they’ll be able to
connect to their own computer without having to type in another name and password.
•Change the picture. The usual sign-in screen displays each account holder’s name,
accompanied by a little picture. When you first create the account, however, it
assigns a picture to you at random—and not all the pictures are necessarily ap-
propriate for your personality. Not every extreme-sport headbanger, for example,
is crazy about being represented by a kitten.
If you like one of the selections Microsoft has provided, just click it to select it as
the replacement graphic. If you’d rather use some other graphics file on the hard
drive instead—a photo of your actual face, for example—see Figure 23-5.
•Set up Parental Controls. Whenever you edit a Standard account, this link is avail-
able, on the premise that this person is either a child or someone who acts like one.
See page 390 for Parental Controls details.
•Change the account type. Change a Standard account into an Administrator ac-
count, or vice versa.
•Delete the account. See page 723
•Manage another account. You return to the accounts list.
You’re free to make any of these changes to any account at any time; you don’t have
to do it immediately after creating the account.
The Forgotten Password Disk
As described above, Windows contains a handy hint mechanism for helping you recall
your password if you’ve forgotten it.
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722 windows 7: the missing manual
But what if, having walked into a low-hanging branch, you’ve forgotten both your
password and the correct interpretation of your hint? In that disastrous situation,
your entire world of work and email would be locked inside the computer forever.
(Yes, an administrator could issue you a new password—but as noted in the box on
page 724, you’d lose all your secondary passwords in the process.)
Fortunately, Windows offers a clever solution-in-advance: the Password Reset Disk.
It’s a CD or USB flash drive (not a floppy, as in Windows XP) that you can use like a
physical key to unlock your account in the event of a forgotten password. The catch:
You have to make this disk now, while you still remember your password.
To create this disk, insert a blank CD or a USB flash drive. Then open the Start menu
and click your picture (top right). The “Make changes to your user account” window
opens (Figure 23-1).
The second link in the task pane says, “Create a password reset disk.” Click that to open
the Forgotten Password Wizard shown in Figure 23-6. Click through it, supplying
your current password when you’re asked for it. When you click Finish, remove the
CD or flash drive. Label it, and don’t lose it!
Tip: Behind the scenes, Windows saves a file onto the CD or flash drive called userkey.psw. You can guess
what that is.
Figure 23-5:
Here’s where you change
your account picture.
If you click “Browse for
more pictures,” then
Windows shows you a list
of the graphics files on
your hard drive so you
can choose one, which
Windows then auto-
matically scales down to
postage-stamp size (48
pixels square).
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When the day comes that you can’t remember your password, leave the Password
box empty and hit Enter. You wind up back at the login screen; this time, in addition
to your password hint, you see a link called “Reset password.” Insert your Password
Reset CD or flash drive and then click that link.
A Password Reset Wizard now helps you create a new password (and a new hint to
remind you of it). You’re in.
Even though you now have a new password, your existing Password Reset Disk is
still good. Keep it in a drawer somewhere for use the next time you experience a
temporarily blank brain.
Deleting User Accounts
It happens—somebody graduates, somebody gets fired, somebody dumps you. Sooner
or later, you may need to delete an account from your PC.
To delete a user account, open User Accounts, click the appropriate account name,
and then click “Delete the account.”
Windows asks if you want to preserve the contents of this person’s Documents folder.
If you click the Keep Files button, you find a new folder, named for the dearly departed,
on your desktop. (As noted in the dialog box, only the documents, the contents of the
desktop, and the Documents folder are preserved—but not programs, email, or even
Web favorites.) If that person ever returns to your life, you can create a new account
for him and copy these files into the appropriate folder locations.
Figure 23-6:
The screens of this wizard
guide you through the
process of inserting a
blank CD or flash drive
and preparing it to be your
skeleton key. If you forget
your password—or if some
administrator has changed
your password—you can
use this disk to reinstate it
without the risk of losing all
your secondary pass-
words (memorized Web
passwords, encrypted files,
and so on).
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If you click the Delete Files button, though, the documents are gone forever.
A few more important points about deleting accounts:
• You can’t delete the account you’re logged into.
• You can’t delete the last Administrator account. One must remain.
• You can create a new account with the same name and password as one you deleted
earlier, but in Windows’s head, it’s still not the same account. As described in the
box on this page, it won’t have any of the original secondary passwords (for Web
sites, encrypted files, and so on).
• Don’t manipulate accounts manually (by fooling around in the Users folder).
Create, delete, and rename them only using User Accounts in the Control Panel.
Otherwise, you’ll wind up with duplicate or triplicate folders in Users, with the
PC name tacked onto the end of the original account name (Bob, Bob.DELL, and
so on)—a sure recipe for confusion.
Tip: If you’re an administrator, don’t miss the Users tab of the Task Manager dialog box. (Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc
to get to the Task Manager.) It offers a handy, centralized list of everybody who’s logged into your machine
and contains buttons that let you log them off, disconnect them, or even make a little message pop up on
their screens. All of this can be handy whenever you need some information, a troubleshooting session, or
a power trip.
Passwords Within Passwords
The primary password that you or your administrator sets
up in the User Accounts program has two functions. You
already know that it lets you log on each day so you can
enter your Windows world of desktop clutter, Start-menu
tailoring, Web bookmarks, and so on.
But what you may not realize is that it’s also the master key
that unlocks all the other passwords associated with your
account: the passwords that Internet Explorer memorizes for
certain Web sites, the passwords that get you into shared
disks and folders on the network, the password that protects
your encrypted files, and so on. The simple act of logging
onto your account also unlocks all these other secure areas
of your PC life.
But remember that anyone with an Administrator account
can change your password at any time. Does that mean that
whoever has an Administrator account—your teacher, boss,
or teenager, for example—has full access to your private stuff?
After you leave the household, company, or school, what’s
to stop an administrator from changing your password,
thereby gaining access to your electronic-brokerage account
(courtesy of its memorized Internet Explorer password),
and so on?
Fortunately, Microsoft is way ahead of you on this one. The
instant an administrator changes somebody else’s password,
Windows wipes out all secondary passwords associated with
the account. That administrator can log onto your account
and see your everyday files, but he can’t see Web sites with
memorized passwords and so on. (The bad news is that he’ll
also wipe out your stored passwords for EPS-encrypted files,
if any; they’re described on page 679.)
Note that if you change your own password—or if you use
a Password Reset Disk, described in these pages—none of
this applies. Your secondary passwords survive intact. It’s
only when somebody else changes your password that this
little-known Windows security feature kicks in, sanitizing the
account for your protection.
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Disabling Accounts
If you do expect that your colleague may one day return to your life, you might con-
sider disabling the account instead of deleting it. A disabled account doesn’t show up
on the login screen or in the User Accounts program, but it’s still there on the hard
drive, and you can bring it back when necessary.
There’s no pretty Control Panel link for disabling an account; you’ll have to get your
hands greasy in the power-user underpinnings of Windows. See “Account is disabled”
on page 732 for details.
The Guest Account
Believe it or not, Administrator and Standard aren’t the only kinds of accounts you
can set up on your PC.
A third kind, called the Guest account, is ideal for situations where somebody is just
visiting you for the day. Rather than create an entire account for this person, complete
with password, hint, little picture, and so on, you can just switch on the Guest account.
To find the on/off switch, open the Start menu and type guest; click “Turn guest ac-
count on or off” in the results list. Authenticate yourself if necessary.
In the Manage Accounts window, click Guest, and then click Turn On.
Now, when the visitor tries to log in, she can choose Guest as the account. She can use
the computer but can’t see anyone else’s files or make any changes to your settings.
The Other Administrator Account
This will sound confusing. But there’s another kind of Ad-
ministrator account—the Administrator account.
This is an emergency backup account with full administrator
powers and no password. Even if you delete all your other
accounts, this one still remains, if only to give you some
way to get into your machine. It’s called Administrator, and
it’s ordinarily hidden.
Most people see it only in times of troubleshooting, when
they start up their PCs in Safe Mode. It’s the ideal account
to use in those situations. Not only does it come with no
password assigned, but it’s also not limited in any way. It
gives you free powers over every file, which is just what you
may need to troubleshoot your computer.
In Windows XP, the problem was, of course, that anyone
who knew about it could get into Windows with full Ad-
ministrator privileges—and no need to know a password.
Your kid, for example, could blow right past your carefully
established Parental Controls—and let’s not even consider
what a virus could do.
So in the more security-minded Windows 7, the secret
Administrator account is still there. But it’s ordinarily dis-
abled. It comes to life only if (a) you’re starting your PC in
Safe Mode, and (b) there are no other, real Administrator
accounts on the machine.
(That’s on a standard home or small-office PC. On a cor-
porate domain network, only a networking geek who’s got
a Domain Admins account can start up in Safe Mode. You
know who you are.)
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726 windows 7: the missing manual
When the visitor to your office is finally out of your hair, healthy paranoia suggests
that you turn off the Guest account once again. (To do so, follow precisely the same
steps, except click “Turn off the guest account” in the final step.)
Authenticate Yourself: User Account Control
All Versions
You can’t work in Windows 7 very long before encountering the dialog box shown
in Figure 23-7. It appears any time you install a new program or try to change an
important setting on your PC. (Throughout Windows, a colorful s icon next to a
button or link indicates a change that will produce this message box.)
The Secret, Fully Automatic Logon Trick
You’re supposed to do most of your account-editing work
in the User Accounts program of the Control Panel, which
is basically a wizard that offers one option per screen. That
requirement may not thrill veteran Windows 2000 fans,
however, who are used to
the much more direct—and
more powerful—User Ac-
counts screen.
Actually, it’s still in Windows
7. To make it appear, press
w+R to open the Run dialog
box, type out control User-
passwords2, authenticate
yourself if necessary, and
then press Enter. You see the
program shown here.
Most of the functions are the
same as what you’d find in
the User Accounts program—
it’s just that you don’t have to
slog through several wizard
screens to get things done. Here you can add, remove, or
edit accounts, all in a single screen.
This older Control Panel program also offers a few features
that you don’t get at all in the new one. For example, you
can turn off the checkbox called, “Users must enter a user
name and password to use this computer.” When you
do so, you get, when you click OK, a dialog box called
Automatically Log On, where you can specify a user name
and password of one special
person. This lucky individual
won’t have to specify any
name and password at logon
time, and can instead turn on
the PC and cruise directly to
the desktop. (This feature
works only at startup time. If
you choose StartÆLog Off,
the standard Logon dialog
box appears so that other
people have the opportunity
to sign in.)
This automatic-logon busi-
ness is ordinarily a luxury
enjoyed by solo operators
whose PCs have only one
account and no password. By
using the secret User Accounts method, however, you can
set up automatic logon even on a PC with several accounts,
provided you recognize the security hole that it leaves open.
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Clearly, Microsoft chose the name User Account Control (UAC) to put a positive spin
on a fairly intrusive security feature; calling it the IYW (Interrupt Your Work) box
probably wouldn’t have sounded like so much fun.
Why do these boxes pop up? In the olden days, nasties like spyware and viruses could
install themselves invisibly, behind your back. That’s because Windows ran in Admin-
Figure 23-7:
Top: When you try
to make a major
change to Windows,
like deleting an
account or installing
a new program,
Windows wants to
make absolutely
sure that it’s you
and not some virus
doing the changing.
So it stops the show
to ask for confirma-
tion that it’s you, an
administrator, out
there.
Bottom: This
dialog box offers
what amounts to
a Nuisance slider;
you control where
Windows stands on
the security/interrup-
tion continuum by
dragging it up (more
alarmist) or down
(no interruptions
at all).
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728 windows 7: the missing manual
istrative mode all the time, meaning it left the door open for anyone and anything to
make important changes to your PC. Unfortunately, that included viruses.
Windows 7, on the other hand, runs in Standard mode all the time. Whenever some-
body or some program wants to make a big change to your system—something that
ought to have the permission of an administrator (page 716)—the UAC box alerts you.
If you click Continue, Windows elevates (opens) the program’s permissions settings
just long enough to make the change.
Most of the time, you are the one making the changes, which can make the UAC box a
bit annoying. But if that UAC dialog box ever appears by itself, you’ll know something
evil is afoot on your PC, and you’ll have the chance to shut it down.
How you get past the UAC box—how you authenticate yourself—depends on the
kind of account you have:
•If you’re an administrator, the UAC box generally doesn’t appear at all. Even when
you click a link marked with a s icon, you generally blow right past it. (That’s a
welcome change from Vista, when you’d see the UAC box for no good reason—
you’d hit Enter to blow past it.)
•If you’re a Standard account holder, the UAC dialog box requires the password
of an administrator. You’re supposed to call an administrator over to your desk
to indicate his permission to proceed by entering his own name and password.
Questions? Yes, you in the back?
•Why does the screen go dark around the dialog box?
That’s another security step. It’s designed to prevent evil software from tricking you
by displaying a fake Windows dialog box. Windows darkens and freezes everything
on the screen except the one, true Windows dialog box: the UAC box.
•Can I turn off the UAC interruptions?
Well, yes. But listen: You should be grateful that they don’t appear nearly as often
as they did in Vista, where they became a profound nuisance.
All right then. If even the few remaining interruptions are too much for you, you
can turn them off altogether. Open the Start menu. Type uac; click “Change User
Account Control settings.”
You get the dialog box shown at bottom in Figure 23-7. If you drag the slider all
the way to the bottom, you won’t be interrupted by UAC boxes at all.
This truly isn’t a good idea, though. You’re sending your PC right back to the days
of Windows XP, when any sneaky old malware could install itself or change your
system settings without your knowledge. Do this only on a PC that’s not connected
to a network or the Internet, for example, or maybe when you, the all-knowing
system administrator, are trying to troubleshoot and the UAC interruptions are
slowing you down.
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Local Accounts on a Domain Computer
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
When your computer is a member of a corporate domain, the controls you use to
create and manage user accounts are quite a bit different.
In this case, when you choose StartÆControl Panel, you see a category called “User
Accounts” instead of “User Accounts and Family Safety.” And the option called “Add
or remove user accounts” on a workgroup PC is now called “Give other users access
to this computer.”
When you click that option, you see the dialog box shown in Figure 23-8. The layout
is different, but the idea is the same: You can see all the accounts on the computer.
This dialog box lets you create local accounts—accounts stored only on your computer,
and not on the corporate domain machine—for existing citizens of the domain.
Why would you need a local account, if all your files and settings are actually stored
elsewhere on the network? Because certain tasks, like installing drivers for new hard-
ware, require you to log on using a local Administrator account.
Figure 23-8:
A computer that’s a member of
a domain has a more detailed
User Accounts dialog box.
Instead of creating new accounts
on your local machine, these
controls let you give other people
on your domain the ability to log
onto your computer locally (that
is, in person, rather than from
across the network).
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Note: This business of creating a local account that corresponds to an existing domain account isn’t quite
the same thing as creating a completely new account for a completely new person. For that purpose, see
the following pages.
Creating a Local Account for a Domain Member
When you click the Add button (Figure 23-8), an Add New User Wizard appears. It
lets you specify the person’s name and the name of the domain that already stores his
account. (You can also click the Browse button to search your domain for a specific
person.)
When you click Next, the wizard prompts you to specify what level of access you want
to grant this person. You have three choices:
•Standard user. This person will be allowed to change certain system settings and
install programs that don’t affect Windows settings for other users.
•Administrator. This person gets the same privileges as a local administrative user.
•Other. If you choose this option, you’ll be allowed to specify what local group this
person belongs to, as described later in this chapter.
Once the account you selected appears in the User Accounts list, that person is now
ready to log into your PC using the local account.
Local Users and Groups
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
The control panels you’ve read about so far in this chapter are designed for simplicity
and convenience, but not for power. Windows offers a second way to create, edit, and
delete accounts: an alternative window that, depending on your taste for technical
sophistication, is either intimidating and technical or liberating and flexible.
It’s called the Local Users and Groups console.
Opening the Console
The quickest way to open up the Local Users and Groups window is to press w+R to
open the Run dialog box, type out Lusrmgr.msc, and authenticate yourself if necessary.
(Microsoft swears that “Lusrmgr.msc” is not short for “loser manager,” even though
network administrators might hear that in their heads.)
The Local Users and Groups console appears, as shown in Figure 23-9.
In this console, you have complete control over the local accounts (and groups, as
described in a moment) on your computer. This is the real, raw, unshielded command
center, intended for power users who aren’t easily frightened.
The truth is, you probably won’t use these controls much on a domain computer. After
all, most people’s accounts live on the domain computer, not the local machine. You
might occasionally have to log in using the local Administrator account to perform
system maintenance and upgrade tasks, but you’ll rarely have to create new accounts.
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Workgroup computers (on a small network) are another story. Remember that you’ll
have to create a new account for each person who might want to use this computer—or
even to access its files from across the network. If you use the Local Users and Groups
console to create and edit these accounts, you have much more control over the new
account holder’s freedom than you do with the User Accounts control panel.
Creating a New Account
To create a new account in the Local Users and Groups console, start by double-clicking
the Users folder in the middle of the window. It opens to show you a list of the ac-
counts already on the machine. It includes not only the accounts you created during
the Win7 installation (and thereafter), but also the Guest and secret Administrator
accounts described earlier in this chapter.
To create a new account, choose ActionÆNew User. In the New User dialog box
(Figure 23-10), type a name for the account, the person’s full name, and, if you like, a
description. (The description can be anything you like, although Microsoft no doubt
has in mind “Shipping manager” rather than “Short and balding.”)
In the Password and Confirm Password text boxes, specify the password your new
colleague will need to access the account. Its complexity and length are up to your
innate sense of paranoia.
Tip: If you can’t create a new account, it’s probably because you don’t have the proper privileges yourself.
You must have an Administrator account (page 716) or belong to the Administrators group (page 733).
If you turn off the “User must change password at next logon” checkbox, then you
can turn on options like these:
•User cannot change password. This person won’t be allowed to change the password
you’ve just made up. (Some system administrators like to maintain sole control
over the account passwords on their computers.)
Figure 23-9:
Local Users and Groups
is a Microsoft Manage-
ment Console (MMC)
snap-in. MMC is a shell
program that lets you
run most of Windows’s
system administration
applications. An MMC
snap-in typically has two
panes. You select an item
in the left (scope) pane
to see information about
it displayed in the right
(detail) pane.
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732 windows 7: the missing manual
•Password never expires. Using software rules called local security policies, an ad-
ministrator can make account passwords expire after a specific time, periodically
forcing employees to make up new ones. It’s a security measure designed to foil
intruders who somehow get hold of the existing passwords. But if you turn on this
option, the person whose account you’re now creating will be able to use the same
password indefinitely, no matter what the local security policy says.
•Account is disabled. When you turn on this box, this account holder won’t be able
to log on. You might use this option when, for example, somebody goes on sab-
batical—it’s not as drastic a step as deleting the account, because you can always
reactivate the account by turning the checkbox off. You can also use this option to
set up certain accounts in advance, which you then activate when the time comes
by turning this checkbox off again.
Note: When an account is disabled, a circled . badge appears on its icon in the Local Users and Groups
console. (You may have noticed that the Guest account appears this way when you first install Windows.)
When you click the Create button, you add the new account to the console, and you
make the dialog box blank again, ready for you to create another new account, if
necessary. When you’re finished creating accounts, click Close to return to the main
console window.
Figure 23-10:
When you first create a new user, the “User
must change password at next logon” checkbox
is turned on. It’s telling you that no matter
what password you make up when creating
the account, your colleague will be asked to
make up a new one the first time he logs in. This
way, you can assign a simple password (or no
password at all) to all new accounts, but your
underlings will still be free to devise passwords
of their own choosing, and the accounts won’t
go unprotected.
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Groups
As you may have guessed from its name, you can also use the Local Users and Groups
window to create groups—named collections of account holders.
Suppose you work for a small company that uses a workgroup network. You want
to be able to share various files on your computer with certain other people on the
network. You’d like to be able to permit them to access some folders but not others.
Smooth network operator that you are, you solve this problem by assigning permis-
sions to the appropriate files and folders.
In fact, you can specify different access permissions to each file for each person. But if
you had to set up these access privileges manually for every file on your hard drive,
for every account holder on the network, you’d go out of your mind.
That’s where groups come in. You can create one group—called Trusted Comrades,
for example—and fill it with the names of every account holder who should be al-
lowed to access your files. Thereafter, it’s a piece of cake to give everybody in that
group access to a certain folder, in one swift step. You end up having to create only
one permission assignment for each file, instead of one for each person for each file.
Furthermore, if a new employee joins the company, you can simply add her to the
group. Instantly, she has exactly the right access to the right files and folders, without
your having to do any additional work.
Creating a group
To create a new group, click the Groups folder in the left side of the Local Users and
Groups console (Figure 23-9). Choose ActionÆNew Group. Into the appropriate
boxes (Figure 23-11), type a name for the group, and a description, if you like. Then
click Add.
Figure 23-11:
The New Group dialog box lets you specify the
members of the group you’re creating. A group
can have any number of members, and a per-
son can be a member of any number of groups.
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734 windows 7: the missing manual
A Select Users dialog box appears. Here you can specify who should be members of
your new group. Type each account holder’s name into the text box, separated by
semicolons, and then click Check Names to make sure you spelled them right. (You
can always add more members to the group, or remove them, later.)
Finally, click OK to close the dialog box, and then click Create to add the group to the
list in the console. The box appears empty again, ready for you to create another group.
Built-in groups
You may have noticed that even the first time you opened the Users and Groups win-
dow, a few group names appeared there already. That’s because Windows comes with
a canned list of ready-made groups that Microsoft hopes will save you some time.
For example, when you use the User Accounts control panel program to set up a new
account, Windows automatically places that person into the Standard or Adminis-
trators group, depending on whether or not you made him an administrator (page
716). In fact, that’s how Windows knows what powers and freedom this person is
supposed to have.
Here are some of the built-in groups on a Windows 7 computer:
•Administrators. Members of the Administrators group have complete control
over every aspect of the computer. They can modify any setting, create or delete
accounts and groups, install or remove any software, and modify or delete any file.
But as Spider-Man’s uncle might say, with great power comes great responsibil-
ity. Administrator powers make it possible to screw up your operating system in
thousands of major and minor ways, either on purpose or by accident. That’s why
it’s a good idea to keep the number of Administrator accounts to a minimum—and
even to avoid using one for everyday purposes yourself.
Note: The Power Users group was a big deal in Windows XP. Power Users had fewer powers than Administra-
tors, but still more than mere mortals in the Users group. But Microsoft felt that they added complexity and
represented yet another potential security hole. In Win7, this group is essentially abandoned.
•Users. Standard account holders (page 716) are members of this group. They can
access their own Start menu and desktop settings, their own Documents folder, the
Shared Documents folder, and whatever folders they create themselves—but they
can’t change any computer-wide settings, Windows system files, or program files.
If you’re a member of this group, you can install new programs—but you’ll be
the only one who can use them. That’s by design; any problems introduced by
that program (viruses, for example) are limited to your files and not spread to
the whole system.
If you’re the administrator, it’s a good idea to put most new account holders into
this group.
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•Guests. If you’re in this group, you have pretty much the same privileges as members
of the Users group. You lose only a few nonessential perks, like the ability to read the
computer’s system event log (a record of behind-the-scenes technical happenings).
In addition to these basic groups, there are some special-purpose groups like Backup
Operators, Replicator, Cryptographic Operators, Event Log Readers, and so on. These
are all groups with specialized privileges, designed for high-end network administra-
tion. You can double-click one (or widen its Description column) to read all about it.
Note: You can add an individual account to as many groups as you like. That person will have the accumulated
rights and privileges of all of those groups.
Modifying Users and Groups
To edit an account or group, just double-click its name in the Local Users and Groups
window. A Properties dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 23-12.
You can also change an account password by right-clicking the name and choosing
Set Password from the shortcut menu. (But see page 724 for some cautions about
this process.)
Figure 23-12:
In the Properties dialog box for a user
account, you can change the full name or
description, modify the password options,
and add this person to, or remove this per-
son from, a group. The Properties dialog box
for a group is simpler still, containing only a
list of the group’s members.
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Fast User Switching
Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
Suppose you’re signed in and you’ve got things just the way you like them. You have
11 programs open in carefully arranged windows, your Web browser is downloading
some gigantic file, and you’re composing an important speech in Microsoft Word.
Now Robin, a coworker/family member/fellow student, wants to duck in to do a
quick email check.
In the old days, you might have rewarded Robin with eye-rolling and heavy sighs, or
worse. If you chose to accommodate the request, you would have had to shut down
your whole ecosystem—interrupting the download, closing your windows, saving
your work, and exiting your programs. You would have had to log off completely.
Thanks to Fast User Switching, however, none of that is necessary. All you have to
do is press the magic keystroke, w+L (which locks the screen), and then click Switch
User. (Maybe it’s more direct to just choose StartÆ“Shut down”Æ“Switch user.”)
Now the list of accounts appears (Figure 23-13), ready for the next person to sign in.
The words “Logged on” beneath your name indicate that you haven’t actually logged
off. Instead, Windows has memorized the state of affairs in your account—complete
with all open windows, documents, and programs—and shoved it into the back-
ground.
Figure 23-13:
At this mo-
ment, you
have several
alternatives.
If you click
the π button
(lower-right
corner of the
screen), you
can make the
computer turn
off, restart,
sleep, and so
on—maybe
because you’re
in a sudden
panic over
the amount of
work you have
to do. Or you
can just log in.
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Robin can now click the Robin button to sign in normally, do a little work, or look
something up. When Robin logs out, the accounts screen comes back once again,
at which point you can log on again. Without having to wait more than a couple
of seconds, you find yourself exactly where you began, with all your programs and
documents still open and running—an enormous timesaver.
Logging On
All Versions
When it comes to the screens you encounter when you log onto a Windows computer,
your mileage may vary. What you see depends on how your PC has been set up. For
example:
You Get the Accounts Screen
This is what people on standalone or workgroup computers see most of the time
(Figure 23-13).
To sign in, click your account name in the list. If no password is required for your
account, you proceed to your Windows desktop with no further interruption.
If there is a password associated with your account, you see a place for it. Type your
password and then press Enter (or click the blue arrow button).
There’s no limit to the number of times you can try to type in a password. With each
incorrect guess, you’re told, “The user name or password is incorrect,” and an OK
button appears to let you try again. The second time you try, your password hint ap-
pears, too (page 720).
Tip: If your Caps Lock key is pressed, another balloon lets you know. Otherwise, because you can’t see
anything on the screen as you type except dots, you might be trying to type a lowercase password with all
capital letters.
You Zoom Straight to the Desktop
If you’re the only account holder, and you’ve set up no password for yourself, you
can cruise all the way to the desktop without any stops. The setup steps appear in
the box on page 726
This password-free scenario, of course, is not very secure; any evildoer who walks
by your machine when you’re in the bathroom has complete access to all your files
(and protected Web sites). But if you work in a home office, for example, where the
threat of privacy invasion isn’t very great, it’s by far the most convenient arrangement.
You Get the “Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to Begin” Dialog Box
You or your friendly network geek has added your PC to a domain while installing
Windows 7 and activated the “Require Users to Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete” option. This is
the most secure configuration, and also the least convenient.
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738 windows 7: the missing manual
Tip: Even when you’re looking at the standard, friendly Accounts screen (Figure 23-13), you can switch to the
older, Classic logon screen: Just press Ctrl+Alt+Delete. (If you’re having trouble making it work, try pressing
down the Alt key before the other ones.)
You may be used to using the Ctrl+Alt+Delete keystroke for summoning the box where you can open the
Task Manager or lock your computer; but at the Accounts screen, it means something else entirely.
Profiles
All Versions
As you’ve read earlier in this chapter, every document, icon, and preference setting
related to your account resides in a single folder: By default, it’s the one bearing your
name in the Local Disk (C:)ÆUsers folder. This folder’s friendly name is your Personal
folder, but to network geeks, it’s known as your user profile.
The Public Profile
Each account holder has a user profile. But your PC also has a couple of profiles that
aren’t linked to human beings’ accounts.
Have you ever noticed, for example, that not everything you actually see in your Start
menu and on your desktop is, in fact, in your user profile folder?
Part of the solution to this mystery is the Public profile, which also lurks in the Users
folder (Figure 23-14). As you can probably tell by its name, this folder stores many
of the same kinds of settings your profile folder does—except that anything in (C:)
ÆUsersÆPublicÆDesktop appears on everybody’s desktop.
Figure 23-14:
Behind the scenes,
Windows maintains
another profile folder,
whose subfolders
closely parallel those
in your own. What
you see—the contents
of the Desktop, Docu-
ments folder, Favorites
list, and so on—is a
combination of what’s
in your own user pro-
file folder and what’s
in the Public folder.
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All of this is a long-winded way of suggesting another way to make some icon avail-
able to everybody with an account on your machine. Drag it into the Desktop folder
in the Public profile folder.
But if you’re wondering where the common Start menu items are, you’ll have to look
somewhere else. If you’re prowling around your hard drive, you’ll find them in (C:)Æ
ProgramDataÆMicrosoftÆWindowsÆStart Menu. But the ProgramData folder is
ordinarily hidden, so here’s a faster way: Open the Start menu, right-click All Programs,
and then choose Open All Users.
Whose software is it, anyway?
These locations also offer a handy solution to the “Whose software is it, anyway?”
conundrum, the burning question of whose Start menu and desktop reflect new
software that you’ve installed using your own account.
As noted in Chapter 6, some software installers ask if you’d like the new program to
show up only in your Start menu, or in everybody’s Start menu. But not every installer
is this thoughtful. Some installers automatically deposit their new software into the
ProgramData and Public folders, thereby making its Start menu and desktop icons
available to everybody when they log on.
On the other hand, some installers may deposit a new software program only into your
account (or that of whoever is logged in at the moment). In that case, other account
holders won’t be able to use the program at all, even if they know it’s been installed,
because their own Start Menu and Desktop folders won’t reflect the installation. Worse,
some people, not seeing the program’s name on their Start menus, might not realize
that you’ve already installed it—and may well install it again.
One possible solution is to open the Start MenuÆPrograms folder in your user profile
folder (open the Start menu, right-click All Programs, and choose Open). Copy the
newly installed icon, and then paste it into the “everybody” profile folder (open the
Start menu, right-click All Programs, and then choose Open All Users.)
Repeat with the Desktop folder, if you’d like everyone to see a desktop icon for the new
program. To open the shared desktop folder, open (C:)ÆUsersÆPublicÆDesktop.
(You’ll have to make the Desktop folder visible first—see “Show hidden files, fold-
ers, and drives” on page 99—and then make it invisible again afterward.) You’ve just
made that software available and visible to everybody who logs onto the computer.
The Default User Profile
When you create a new account, who decides what the desktop picture will be—and
the Start menu configuration, the assortment of desktop icons, and so on?
Well, Microsoft does, of course—but you can change all that. What a newly created
account holder sees is only a reflection of the Default user profile. It’s yet another
folder—this one usually hidden—in your (C:)ÆUsers folder, and it’s the common
starting point for all profiles.
Profiles
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If you’d like to make some changes to that starting point, turn on “Show hidden files,
folders, and drives” (page 99). Then open the (C:)ÆUsersÆDefault folder, and make
whatever changes you like.
NTFS Permissions: Protecting Your Stuff
All Versions
There’s one final aspect of user accounts that’s worth mentioning: NTFS permissions,
a technology that’s a core part of Windows 7’s security system. Using this feature, you
can specify exactly which coworkers are allowed to open which files and folders on
your machine. In fact, you can also specify how much access each person has. You can
dictate, for example, that Gomez and Morticia aren’t allowed to open your Fourth-
Quarter Projections spreadsheet at all, that Fred and Ginger can open it but not make
changes, and George and Gracie can both open it and make changes.
Your colleagues will encounter the permissions you’ve set up like this in two different
situations: when tapping into your machine from across the network, or when sitting
down at it and logging in using their own names and passwords. In either case, the
NTFS permissions you set up protect your files and folders equally well.
Figure 23-15:
The Security tab of an NTFS folder’s Properties
dialog box. If you have any aspirations to be a
Windows power user, get used to this dialog box.
You’re going to see it a lot, because almost every
icon on a Windows system—files, folders, disks,
printers—has a Security tab like this one.
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Tip: In Chapter 26, you can read about a very similar form of access privileges called share permissions.
There’s a big difference between share permissions and the NTFS permissions described here, though: Share
permissions keep people out of your stuff only when they try to access your PC from over the network.
Actually, there are other differences, too. NTFS permissions offer more gradations of access. And using NTFS
permissions, you can declare individual files—not just folders—accessible or inaccessible to specific coworkers.
See page 740 for details.
Using NTFS permissions is most decidedly a power-user technique because of the
added complexity it introduces. Entire books have been written on the topic of NTFS
permissions alone.
You’ve been warned.
Setting Up NTFS Permissions
To change the permissions for an NTFS file or folder, you open its Properties dialog
box by right-clicking its icon and then choosing Properties from the shortcut menu.
Click the Security tab (Figure 23-15).
Step 1: Specify the person
The top of the Security tab lists the people and groups that have been granted or
denied permissions to the selected file or folder. When you click a name in the list,
the Permissions box at the bottom of the dialog box shows you how much access that
person or group has.
The first step in assigning permissions, then, is to click Edit. You see an editable ver-
sion of the dialog box shown in Figure 23-15.
If the person or group isn’t listed, click the Add button to display the Select Users or
Groups dialog box, where you can type them in (Figure 23-16).
NTFS Permissions:
Protecting Your Stuff
Figure 23-16:
Type the names of the people or
groups in the “Enter the object
names to select” box at the bot-
tom, trying not to feel depersonal-
ized by Microsoft’s reference to you
as an “object.” If you’re adding
more than one name, separate
them with semicolons. Because re-
membering exact spellings can be
iffy, click Check Names to confirm
that these are indeed legitimate
account holders. Finally, click OK
to insert them into the list on the
Security tab.
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Tip: Instead of typing in names one at a time, as shown in Figure 23-16, you can also choose them from a
list, which lets you avoid spelling mistakes and having to guess at the variations. To do so, click the Advanced
button to display an expanded version of the dialog box, and then click Find Now to search for all the accounts
and groups on the computer. Finally, in the resulting list, click the names of the people and groups you want
to add (Ctrl+click to select more than one at a time). Click OK to add them to the previous dialog box, and
then click OK again to add the selected users and groups to the Security tab.
If you’ve used Windows 2000, you might wonder why this process is so much more convoluted in Windows
7. The answer is: Good question!
Step 2: Specify the permissions
Once you’ve added the users and groups you need to the list on the Security tab, you
can highlight each one and set permissions for it. You do that by turning on the Allow
or Deny checkboxes at the bottom half of the dialog box.
The different degrees of freedom break down as follows (they’re listed here from least
to most control, even though that’s not how they’re listed in the dialog box):
•List folder contents, available only for folders, means that the selected individuals
can see (but not necessarily open) the files and folders inside. That may sound
obvious—but believe it or not, if you don’t turn on this option, the affected people
won’t even be able to see what’s in this folder. The folder will just appear empty.
•Read lets people examine the contents of the file or folder, but not make changes.
(They can also examine the permissions settings of these files and folders—the
ones you’re setting up right now.)
•Read & Execute is a lot like Read, except that it also lets people run any programs
they find inside the affected folder. When applied to a folder, furthermore, this
permission adds the ability to traverse folders. (Traversing means directly opening
inner folders even when you’re not allowed to open the outer folder. You might get
Allow vs. Deny
Why do I see both Allow and Deny checkboxes in the
Permissions dialog box? Isn’t not allowing permission the
same as denying it?
In this case, no. “Deny” permissions always take precedence
over “Allow” permissions.
For example, if somebody has been granted access to a file or
folder because he’s a member of a group, you can explicitly
revoke his permission by using the Deny checkboxes for his
account. You’ve just overridden the group permission, just
for him, leaving the rest of the group’s permissions intact.
You can also use the Deny checkboxes to override permis-
sions granted by inheritance from a parent folder. For
example, you can grant somebody access to the C: drive by
sharing it and assigning her Allow permissions to it, but then
prevent her from accessing the C:\Program Files folder by
sharing that and denying her permission.
infrequently asked question
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to an inner folder by double-clicking a shortcut icon, for example, or by typing
the folder’s path into the address bar of a window.)
•Write is like Read, but adds the freedom to make and save changes to the file.
When applied to a folder, this permission means that people can create new files
and folders inside it.
•Modify includes all the abilities of the Write and Read & Execute levels, plus the
ability to delete the file or folder.
•Full control confers complete power over the file or folder. The selected person or
group can do anything they like with it, including trashing it or its contents, chang-
ing its permissions, taking ownership of it (away from you, if they like), and so on.
Of course, turning on Allow grants that level of freedom to the specified user or group,
and turning it off takes away that freedom. (For details on the Deny checkbox, see
the box on the facing page.)
Note: If you’re not careful, it’s entirely possible to “orphan” a file or folder (or even your entire drive) by
revoking everyone’s permission to it, even your own, making it completely inaccessible by anyone. That’s
why, before you get too deeply into working with NTFS permissions, you might consider creating an extra
user account on your system and granting it full control for all your drives, just in case something goes wrong.
Groups and Permissions
Once you understand the concept of permissions, and you’ve enjoyed a thorough
shudder contemplating the complexity of a network administrator’s job (six levels
of permissions × thousands of files × thousands of employees = way too many per-
mutations), one other mystery of Windows will fully snap into focus: the purpose of
groups, introduced on page 733.
On those pages, you can read about groups as canned categories, complete with
predefined powers over the PC, into which you can put different individuals to save
yourself the time of adjusting their permissions and privileges individually. As it turns
out, each of the ready-made groups also comes with predefined permissions over the
files and folders on your hard drive.
Here, for example, is how the system grants permissions to the items in your Windows
folder for the Users and Administrators groups:
Users Administrators
Full control X
Modify X
Read & Execute X X
List folder contents X X
Read X X
Write X
If you belong to the Users group, you have the List Folder Contents permission, which
means you can see what’s in the Windows folder; the Read permission, which means
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744 windows 7: the missing manual
you can open up anything you find inside; and the Read & Execute permission, which
means you can run programs in that folder (which is essential for Windows itself to
run). But people in the Users group aren’t allowed to change or delete anything in the
Windows folder, or to put anything else inside. Windows is protecting itself against
the mischievous and the clueless.
Members of the Administrators group have all those abilities and more—they also
have Modify and Write permissions, which let them add new files and folders to the
Windows folder (so that, for example, they can install a new software program on
the machine).
When Permissions Collide
If you successfully absorbed all this information about permissions, one thing should
be clear: People in the Administrators group ought to be able to change or delete any
file in your Windows folder. After all, they have the Modify permission, which ought
to give them that power.
In fact, they can move or delete anything in any folder in the Windows folder, because
the first cardinal rule of NTFS permissions is this:
NTFS permissions travel downstream, from outer folders to inner ones.
In other words, if you have the Modify and Write permissions to a folder, then you
ought to have the same permissions for every file and folder inside it.
But in Windows XP, there was something called the Power Users group. It’s been turned
off in Windows 7, but for the sake of illustration, let’s say you’re part of it. You’d find
that you can’t, in fact, delete any files or folders in the Windows folder. That’s because
each of them comes with Modify and Write permissions turned off for Power Users,
even though the folder that encloses them has those permissions turned on.
Why would Microsoft go to this trouble? Because it wanted to prevent people in this
group from inadvertently changing or deleting important Windows files—and yet it
wanted these people to be able to put new files into the Windows folder, so they can
install new programs.
This is a perfect example of the second cardinal rule of NTFS permissions:
NTFS permissions that have been explicitly applied to a file or folder always over-
ride inherited permissions.
Here’s another example: Suppose your sister, the technical whiz of the household, has
given you Read, Write, Modify, Read & Execute, and List Folder Contents permissions
to her own Documents folder. Now you can read, change, or delete any file there. But
she can still protect an individual document or folder inside her Documents folder—
the BirthdayPartyPlans.doc file, for example—by denying you all permissions to it.
You’ll be able to open anything else in there, but not that file.
Believe it or not, NTFS permissions get even more complicated, thanks to the third
cardinal rule:
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Permissions accumulate as you burrow downward through subfolders.
Now suppose your sister has given you the Read and List Folder Contents permis-
sions to her Documents folder—a “look, but don’t touch” policy. Thanks to the first
cardinal rule, you automatically get the same permissions to every file and folder
inside Documents.
Suppose one of these inner folders is called Grocery Lists. If she grants you the Modify
and Write permissions to the Grocery Lists folder so you can add items to the shop-
ping list, you end up having Read, Modify, and Write permissions for every file in that
folder. Those files have accumulated permissions—they got the Read permission from
Documents, and the Modify and Write permissions from the Grocery Lists folder.
Because these layers of inherited permissions can get dizzyingly complex, Microsoft
has prepared for you a little cheat sheet, a dialog box that tells you the bottom line,
the net result—the effective permissions. To see it, follow these steps:
1. Click the Advanced button on the Security tab.
The Advanced Security Settings dialog box appears.
2. Click the Effective Permissions tab; click Select.
Now you see the same Select User or Group dialog box you saw earlier when you
were creating permissions.
Figure 23-17:
The Effective Permis-
sions tab for an NTFS
folder. Note that you
can’t turn these check-
boxes on or off; this is
a read-only screen that
tells you what permis-
sions the selected user
or group has for the
file or folder. You can’t
modify the permissions
here. You can’t tell from
this display how these
effective permissions
have been calculated,
either (that is, where
the permissions have
been inherited from).
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3. Click the user or group whose effective permissions you want to see, and then
click OK.
You now see checkmarks next to the permissions that are in effect, taking into
account folder-permission inheritance and all other factors, for the user or group
of that particular file or folder (Figure 23-17).
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24
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Setting Up a Workgroup
It’s a rare Windows machine indeed that isn’t connected, sooner or later, to some
kind of network (known to nerds as a local area network, or LAN). And no wonder:
The payoff is considerable. Once you’ve created a network, you can copy files from
one machine to another just as you’d drag files between folders on your own PC. You
can store your music or photo files on one computer and play them on any other.
Everyone on the network can consult the same database, phone book, or calendar.
When the workday’s done, you can play games over the network.
Most importantly, you can share a single printer, cable modem or DSL Internet con-
nection, fax modem, or phone line among all the PCs in the house.
If you work at a biggish company, you probably work on a domain network, which
is described in Chapter 25. You, lucky thing, won’t have to fool around with build-
ing or designing a network, because your job, and your PC, presumably came with a
fully functioning network (and a fully functioning geek responsible for running it).
If you work at home, or if you’re responsible for setting up a network in a smaller
office, this chapter is for you. It guides you through the construction of a less formal
workgroup network, which ordinary mortals can put together.
You’ll soon discover that, when it comes to simplicity, setting up a network has a long
way to go before it approaches, say, setting up a desk lamp. It involves buying equip-
ment, hooking up (or even installing) network adapter cards, and configuring software.
But in Windows 7, there’s some terrific news on this front. A new feature called
HomeGroups makes the setup incredibly fast and easy—if all your PCs are running
Windows 7, and if you have no particular need to keep your music, photo, and video
collections private from the rest of your family members.
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Kinds of Networks If not, you can still use the networking methods that were refined back in Windows
Vista. They’ll take you an afternoon to set up and understand—but they’ve come a
long way since Windows XP.
Kinds of Networks
All Versions
You can connect your PCs using any of several different kinds of gear. Many of the
world’s offices are wired with Ethernet cable, but, as you probably know, wireless net-
works are very popular for small offices and homes. Here and there, a few renegades
are even installing networking systems that rely on the phone or power lines already
in the walls. Here’s an overview of the most popular networking systems.
Note: Be sure that whatever networking gear you buy is compatible with Windows 7, either by checking
logos on the package or by checking the maker’s Web site. Networking is complicated enough without having
to troubleshoot some gadget that’s not designed for Win7.
Ethernet
Ethernet is the world’s most popular networking protocol. It gives you fast, reliable,
cheap, trouble-free communication. All you need are three components:
•Network adapters. An Ethernet jack is built into virtually every Windows
7-compatible PC ever made. That’s your network adapter—the circuitry that pro-
vides the Ethernet jack (Figure 24-1). You may also hear a network adapter called
a network interface card or NIC (“nick”).
In the freakish event that your desktop PC doesn’t have an Ethernet jack, you can
add one—as an internal card, an external USB attachment, or a laptop card.
•A router. If you have a cable modem or DSL connection to the Internet, a router
(about $60) distributes that Internet signal to all the computers on your network.
(The dialog boxes in Windows call these devices gateways, although almost no
one else does.)
Routers with five or eight ports (that is, Ethernet jacks where you can plug in
computers) are popular in homes and small offices.
It’s worth noting that you can inexpensively expand your network by plugging a
hub or switch into one of the router’s jacks. Hubs and switches are similar-looking
little boxes that offer another five or eight Ethernet jacks, connecting all your
computers together. (A switch is more intelligent than a hub. It’s more selective
when sending data to the right PCs on your network; as a result, the bits and bytes
move a little faster.)
Tip: There’s also such a thing as a wireless router, which offers both physical Ethernet jacks and wireless
antennas that broadcast the signal throughout your place.
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Kinds of Networks
To set up a router, plug it into your cable or DSL modem using an Ethernet cable.
Restart the cable modem. Now use whatever software came with the router to set
up its security features. Often, the software is actually built into the router; you’re
supposed to view it by opening up a special page in your Web browser, of all things.
The router then logs onto your Internet service and stands ready to transmit In-
ternet data to and from all the computers on your network.
As a bonus, the router provides excellent security, serving as a firewall that isolates
your network computers from the Internet and keeps out hackers. (See Chapter 10
for much more on firewalls.)
Figure 24-1:
Top: The Ethernet cable is connected to a
computer at one end, and the router (shown
here) at the other end. The computers
communicate through the router; there’s no
direct connection between any two comput-
ers. The front of the router has little lights
for each connector port, which light up only
on the ports in use. You can watch the lights
flash as the computers communicate with
one another.
Bottom: Here’s what a typical “I’ve got three
PCs in the house, and I’d like them to share
my cable modem” setup might look like.
Wiring or wireless signal
Router/hubCable modem
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•Ethernet cables. The cables used for most Ethernet networks look something
like telephone cables, but they’re not the same thing—and they’re definitely not
interchangeable! Both the cable itself (called 10BaseT, 100BaseT, or Cat 5) and the
little clips at each end (RJ-45 connectors) are slightly fatter than those on a phone
cable (Figure 24-1). You can buy Ethernet cables in a variety of lengths and colors.
Each computer must be connected to the hub, switch, or router with a cable that’s
no longer than about 100 yards.
Tip: If you’ve got a computer that sits in one place, like a desktop PC, you should use an Ethernet cable
even if you have a wireless network.
One reason is security (wired networks are harder for the baddies to “sniff”). Another is speed. Yes, wireless
technologies like 802.11n promise speeds of 300 megabits per second, which is very, very fast. But first of
all, the real-world speed is about a third of that; second, that speed is shared among all computers on the
network. As a result, if you’re copying a big file across the network, it will probably go twice as fast if it’s going
between one wireless and one wired PC than between two wireless PCs.
Ethernet gear can be shockingly inexpensive; a search at www.buy.com, for example,
reveals five-port Ethernet hubs for $30 from no-name companies. If you’re willing
to pay slightly more—$20 for the card, $50 for the hub, for example—you can get
brand-name gear (like D-Link, NETGEAR, 3Com, or Linksys) whose support with
installation, phone help, and driver updates through the years may reward you many
times over. Setting up an Ethernet network generally goes very smoothly, but in the
few cases where trouble arises, cheapo equipment is often the problem.
Network hookups
On paper, the hardware part of setting up the network is simple: Just connect each
computer to the router or hub using an Ethernet cable.
Network Devices Have Speed Limits
Ethernet cards and hubs are available in different speeds.
The most common are 10BaseT (10 megabits per second,
or Mbps) and 100BaseT (100 Mbps, sometimes cleverly
called Fast Ethernet).
Note, however, that the speed of the network has no effect
on your computers’ Internet speed—Web surfing, email
downloading, and so on. The reason: Even the slowest
network operates far faster than your Internet connection.
Remember, the top speed of a typical broadband Internet
connection is around 5 or 10 megabits per second—still five
to 10 times slower than the slowest home network.
So why does a faster network matter? Primarily to save time
when you’re transferring big files between the PCs on the
network. For example, you can play MP3 music files stored
on another computer over a 10BaseT connection with no
problems at all. However, if you plan to install video cameras
all around your palatial estate and want to watch all the video
feeds simultaneously, opt for Fast Ethernet—or even Gigabit
Ethernet, the current Ethernet speed champ at 1,000 Mbps.
The bottom line? As you shop for gear, you may as well go for
the higher speeds so you’ll be ready for any high-bandwidth
application that comes down the pike.
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It’s that “using an Ethernet cable” part that sometimes gets sticky. Depending on where
your PCs are and how concerned you are about the network’s appearance, this wiring
process may involve drilling holes in floors or walls, stapling cables to baseboard trim,
or calling in an electrician to do the job.
When all your computers are in the same room, you can run the cables along the
walls and behind the furniture. (Buying cables that are the same color as your walls
or floors can help hide the installation.) If you have to run cables between rooms, you
can secure the cables to the floor or baseboards using staples—use the round kind
that won’t crush the cables—or plastic “raceways” with adhesive backing.
Of course, you might not be thrilled about having any exposed cables in your home
or office. In that case, the installation process can be much more complicated. You
should probably hire a professional cable installer to do the job—or don’t use cables
at all. Read on.
Wireless Networks (WiFi or 802.11)
So far, this discussion has focused on using wired Ethernet to hook up your computers.
Millions of people, however, have embraced the flexibility of WiFi (802.11), a wireless
networking system. (Your Macintosh friends probably call the same thing AirPort,
because that’s what Apple calls it.)
Every laptop sold today has a WiFi antenna built in. You can also add it to a desktop
in the form of a wireless card or USB adapter. Once all your equipment is wireless,
that’s it: Your PCs can now communicate with one another.
To get onto an existing wireless network, follow the steps on page 346.
But if you want your own wireless network, right there in your own home or office,
you also need a wireless router (about $50)—a box that connects to your router or
hub and broadcasts the Internet signal to the whole building. The usual suspects—
Linksys, NETGEAR, D-Link, and others—sell these routers. They’re also called base
stations or access points.
Now, 802.11 equipment has a range of about 150 feet, even through walls. In concept,
this setup works much like a cordless phone, where the base station is plugged into
the wall phone jack and a wireless handset can talk to it from anywhere in the house.
Wireless networking is not without its downsides, however. You may get intermittent
service interruptions from 2.4-gigahertz cordless phones and other machinery, or
even the weather. Furthermore, big metal things, or walls containing big metal things
(like pipes) can interfere with communication among the PCs, much to the disap-
pointment of people who work in subways and meat lockers.
A wireless network isn’t as secure as a cabled network, either. It’s theoretically possible
for some hacker, sitting nearby, armed with “sniffing” software, to intercept the email
you’re sending or the Web page you’re downloading. (Except secure Web sites, those
marked by a little padlock in your Web browser.)
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Still, nothing beats the freedom of wireless networking, particularly if you’re a laptop
lover; you can set up shop almost anywhere in the house or in the yard, slumped into
any kind of rubbery posture. No matter where you go within your home, you’re online
at full speed, without hooking up a single wire.
Other Kinds of Networks
There are a couple of other network types that are worth looking into. Both are wired
networks, but they use the wires you already have.
Phone line networks
Instead of going to the trouble of wiring your home with Ethernet cables, you might
consider using the wiring that’s already in your house—telephone wiring. That’s the
idea behind a kind of networking gear called HomePNA. With this system, you can
use the network even when using the modem or talking on the phone, although you
can’t make a modem and a voice call simultaneously.
Unfortunately, the average American household has only two or three phone jacks
in the entire house, meaning you don’t have much flexibility in positioning your PCs.
802.11 Networks: Regular or Supersized?
Wireless gear comes in several flavors, each offering dif-
ferent degrees of speed, distance, and compatibility. They
have such appetizing-sounding names as 802.11b, 802.11a,
802.11g, and 802.11n.
So what’s the difference? Equipment bearing the “b” label
transfers data through the air at up to 11 megabits per sec-
ond; the “g” system is almost five times as fast. (Traditionally,
geeks measure network speeds in megabits, not megabytes.
Here’s a translation: The older “b” gear has a top speed of 1.4
megabytes per second, versus more than 6 megabytes per
second for the “a” and “g” stuff. Remember, though, you’ll
usually get around half that speed. Your wireless network
uses a lot of the bandwidth for such network housekeeping
chores as correcting transmission errors.)
The beauty of 802.11g gear, though, is that it’s backward-
compatible with the older “b” gear. If your laptop has an
802.11b card, you can hop onto an 802.11g base station
simultaneously with people using “g” cards. And if you have
an 802.11g card, you can hop onto older base stations. You
won’t get better speed, of course, but at least you won’t need
a separate base station.
The current standard is 802.11n, which offers better speed
and better range than its predecessors (thanks to multiple
antennas). Remember, though, you won’t get the better
speed unless both your base station and your networking
cards speak “n.”
Faster equipment doesn’t speed up your email and Web
activity, though. A cable modem or DSL box delivers Inter-
net information at a fraction of the speed of your home or
office network. The bottleneck is the Internet connection,
not your network.
Instead, the speed boost you get with “g” gear is useful only
for transferring files among computers on your own network,
streaming video or audio between computers (or PCs and
your TV), and playing networked games.
Finally, the great thing about wireless networking is that it
all works together, no matter what kind of computer you
have. There’s no such thing as an “Apple” wireless network
or a “Windows” wireless network. All computers work with
any kind of access point.
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If you’re trying to avoid the plaster-dust experience of installing additional wiring,
consider WiFi or Powerline networking.
Power outlet networks
Here’s another way to connect your computers without rewiring the building: Use
the electrical wiring that’s already in your walls. Unlike phone jacks, electrical outlets
are usually available in every room in the house.
If you buy Powerline adapters (also called HomePlug adapters), you get very fast speeds
(from 14 up to 100 Mbps), very good range (1,000 feet, although that includes the
twists and turns your wiring takes within the walls), and the ultimate in installation
simplicity. You just plug the Powerline adapter from your PC’s Ethernet or USB jack
into any wall power outlet. Presto—all the PCs are connected.
Powerline adapters are inexpensive (about $40 apiece) and extremely convenient.
Sharing an Internet Connection
All Versions
If you have high-speed Internet service, like a cable modem or DSL, you’re a very
lucky individual. Not only do you get spectacular speed when surfing the Web or
doing email, but you also have a full-time connection. You never have to manually
connect or disconnect.
But you’d be nuts to confine that glorious connection to one PC. Share it! Make it
available to the whole house!
Your broadband company probably supplied you with a router (probably both wire-
less and wired) that shares the Internet connection with more than one computer. If
not, there are two ways to do it yourself.
PC-to-PC Micronetworks
If your network has modest ambitions—that is, if you have
only two computers you want to connect—you can ignore
all this business about hubs, routers, and wiring. Instead,
you can create a tiny, two-computer wireless network
between them.
These so-called ad hoc networks are great when you want to
grab a folder full of files from a friend on a plane, for example.
(You can’t create a wired ad-hoc network anymore, using
an Ethernet crossover cable—only wireless.)
To bring about this arrangement, open the Network and
Sharing Center. (Quickest way: Click the n or N icon on
your system tray; from the shortcut menu, choose Open
Network and Sharing Center.)
Click “Set up a new connection or network.” On the next
screen, click “Set up a wireless ad hoc (computer-to-
computer) network.” Windows walks you through the steps
to set up the connection.
up to speed
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Get a Broadband Router
As noted earlier, a router (a gateway in Microsoft lingo) is a little box, about $60,
that connects directly to the cable modem or DSL box. It generally doubles as a hub,
providing multiple Ethernet jacks to accommodate your wired PCs, plus WiFi anten-
nas that broadcast to your wireless PCs. The Internet signal is automatically shared
among all the PCs on your home network.
Use Internet Connection Sharing
Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) is a built-in Windows feature that simulates a
router. Like a hardware router, ICS distributes a single Internet connection to every
computer on the network—but unlike a router, it’s free. You just fire it up on the one
PC that’s connected directly to your cable modem or DSL box—or, as networking
geeks would say, the gateway or host PC.
But there’s a downside: If the gateway PC is turned off or goes into Sleep mode, no-
body else in the house can go online.
Also, the gateway PC requires two network connections: one that goes to the cable
modem or DSL box, and another that connects it your network. It might be two Eth-
ernet cards, two WiFi cards, or—most commonly of all, especially for laptops—one
Ethernet and one WiFi card. One connects to the Internet (for example, via a cable
modem, DSL box, or WiFi), and the other goes to the hub or the router to distribute
the signal to the other computers.
If you decide to use Internet Connection Sharing, start by making sure the gateway
PC can already get onto the Internet on its own.
Open the Network and Sharing Center (for example, click the n or N icon on your
system tray, and choose “Open Network and Sharing Center.”) At left, click “Manage
network connections.”
Right-click the icon of the network connection you want to share. From the shortcut
menu, choose Properties. Authenticate yourself if necessary, and then click the Sharing
tab. Finally, turn on “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s
Internet connection,” shown in Figure 24-2, and click OK.
Thereafter, other computers on the network can share the gateway PC’s Internet con-
nection, even if they’re running earlier versions of Windows, or even Mac OS X and
Linux. In fact, they don’t need to be computers at all: You can use ICS to share your
Internet connection with a video game console, palmtop, or smartphone.
Tip: If you’ve created a VPN (virtual private network) on the gateway machine (page 803), all the PCs sharing
the Internet connection can get onto the corporate network!
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And now the fine print:
• Internet Connection Sharing doesn’t work with domain networks, DNS servers,
gateways, or DHCP servers (you know who you are, network geeks).
• The “receiving” PCs (the ones that will share the connection) can’t have static (fixed)
IP addresses. (You’ll know if you have one, because you’re the one who set it up.)
The Network and Sharing Center
All Versions
Once you’ve set up the networking equipment, Windows does a remarkable job of
determining how to configure everything. To see how well it’s doing, visit the Network
and Sharing Center. This, by the way, is where you set up the sharing of files, folders,
printers, and multimedia files over the network.
To open the center, click the Network icon in the system tray (n or N); from the
shortcut menu, choose Open Network and Sharing Center (Figure 24-3). It gives you
an excellent central status screen for your network.
To do anything with your network, however, you need to click one of the links in blue.
Links at the Left Side
The commands in the panel at the left side include these:
Figure 24-2:
Internet Connection Sharing lets you broadcast
your cable modem/DSL’s signal to all the grateful,
connectionless computers in the house. Your sav-
ings: the price of a hardware router.
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“Manage wireless networks”
This one shows up, of course, only if your PC has WiFi networking. It shows you a list
of all the WiFi networks you’ve told your PC to memorize. The little table shows you
The Full Map
The map that appears when you first open the Network
center has only three icons, representing your PC, your
network, and the Internet.
But if you click “See full map,” your PC sends out silent
signals to all the other computers on your network. It then
processes the responses so that it may draw you a far more
detailed map, showing all the computers on the network.
All right, not all. The mapping feature relies on Windows’s
Link-Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) technology, which,
despite its fancy name, is actually pretty simple. It provides a
way for computers and other devices to describe themselves
to one another, announcing their presence to the other
machines on the network.
Unfortunately, computers that don’t know about LLTD don’t
show up in the map. Windows Vista and Win7, of course,
have LLTD, and there’s a software add-on for Windows XP
that adds LLTD to it. Older Windows computers (not to men-
tion Macs and Linux machines), however, are out of luck.
If you’re on a home or office network, clicking “See full map”
makes Windows query the computers and devices on your
network and draw a map of the results.
Note: On networks you’ve designated as public (such as
wireless hot spots), no map appears, for security reasons.
gem in the rough
Figure 24-3:
The Network
and Sharing
Center is where
you specify how
Windows talks
to the network.
The network map
at the top gives
you, at a glance,
reassurance that
you’re connected
both to your
network and to
the Internet
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what kind of password security is on each one, whether you’ve told the computer to
autoconnect, and so on. You can add, remove, or change the settings for each.
You can drag and drop them to choose the priority of each network, too. That is,
if Windows detects two wireless networks where you are, it will connect to the one
closer to the top of the list.
You can double-click a network’s name to open its Properties dialog box, where you
can specify whether or not you want to connect to the network automatically.
“Change adapter settings”
Click this link to view a list of all your network adapters—Ethernet cards and WiFi
adapters, mainly—as well as any VPNs or dial-up connections you’ve set up on your
computer (Figure 24-4).
Double-click a listing to see its connection status, which leads to several other dialog
boxes where you can reconfigure the connection or see more information. The toolbar
offers buttons that let you rename, troubleshoot, disable, or connect to one of these
network doodads.
Note: If you right-click one of these icons and then choose Properties, you get a list of protocols that your
network connection uses. Double-click “Internet Protocol Version 4” to tell Windows whether to get its IP and
DNS server addresses automatically, or whether to use addresses you’ve specified. Ninety-nine times out
of 100, the right choice is to get those addresses automatically. Every once in a while, though, you’ll come
across a network that requires manually entered addresses.
Figure 24-4:
The network
connection status
dialog box lets
you view the
details of a con-
nection, disable
(or enable) the
adapter, or diag-
nose a problem
with a network
connection.
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“Change advanced sharing settings”
This section is the master control panel of on/off switches for Windows’s network
sharing features. (Most of these have on/off switches in other, more scattered places,
too.) Here’s a rundown.
Note: The options here are actually listed twice: once for networks you’ve designated as Home or Work
networks, and one for Public networks. (Page 348 has details on these differences.)
•Network discovery makes your computer visible to others and allows your com-
puter to see other computers on the network. (It’s that LLTD feature in action.)
•File and printer sharing lets you share files and printers over the network. (See
Chapter 26.)
•Public folder sharing lets you share whatever files you’ve put in the UsersÆPublic
folder. (See Chapter 26.)
•Media streaming is where you listen to one PC’s music playing back over the
network while seated at another. (See Chapter 15.)
•File sharing connections lets you turn off the super-strong security features of
Windows file sharing, to accommodate older gadgets that don’t recognize it.
•Password protected sharing requires other people to supply their account names
and passwords before they can access the shared files, folders, and printers on your
PC—including, by the way, the Public folder.
If this feature is turned off, then other people can get at your stuff without hav-
ing to sign in, which makes life easier if you’re on a small network among trusted
colleagues. You can still protect your shared files and folders using permissions,
however. For instance, you might say that other people can see what files you’ve
shared, but not view or edit them. (All this stuff is described in Chapter 26.)
•HomeGroup connections. Here’s the master on/off switch for the delightful
HomeGroup feature described in the next chapter.
Links in the Main Window
In the main part of the Network and Sharing Center window, the “Change your
networking settings” heading offers a few more handy tools:
“Set up a new connection or network”
Most of the time, Windows does the right thing when it encounters a new network.
For example, if you plug in an Ethernet cable, it assumes that you want to use the
wired network and automatically hops on. If you come within range of a wireless
network, Windows offers to connect to it.
Some kinds of networks, however, require special setup. They’re listed here:
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•Connect to the Internet. Use this option when Windows fails to figure out how
to connect to the Internet on its own. You can set up a WiFi, PPPoE broadband
connection (required by certain DSL services that require you to sign in with a
user name and password), or a dial-up networking connection.
•Set up a new network. You can use this option to configure a new wireless router
that’s not set up yet, although only some routers can “speak” to Windows in this
way. You’re better off using the configuration software that came in the box with
the router.
•Manually connect to a wireless network. Some wireless networks don’t announce
(broadcast) their presence. That is, you won’t see a message popping up on the
screen, inviting you to join the network, just by wandering into it. Instead, the
very name and existence of such networks are kept secret to keep the riffraff out.
If you’re told the name of such a network, use this option to type it in and connect.
•Connect to a workplace. That is, set up a secure VPN connection to the corpora-
tion that employs you, as described on page 803.
•Set up a wireless ad hoc (computer-to-computer) network. Consult the box on
page 753.
•Set up a dial-up connection. See page 345.
Connect to a network
This link does nothing more than open the palette of available networks—the same
balloon you’d get if you clicked the n or N icon on your system tray. The list includes
wireless networks, dial-up connections, and VPN (secure corporate) connections.
Select a network and click Connect to establish a connection to it. You can disconnect
from your current network by selecting it and clicking Disconnect.
Choose homegroup and sharing options
Opens the HomeGroup box, where you can create or join (or leave) a homegroup,
as described in Chapter 25.
These options let you see all the shared files and folders (which are accessible to other
users on your computer), as well as folders you’ve shared with other people on your
network.
Troubleshoot problems
Very few problems are as annoying or difficult to troubleshoot as flaky network con-
nections. You visit the Network and Sharing Center, and instead of seeing those reas-
suring double lines connecting your PC’s icon to the network icon and the Internet
icon, you see a broken line.
With this option, Microsoft is giving you a tiny head start. See Figure 24-5.
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760 windows 7: the missing manual
If the troubleshooter doesn’t pinpoint the problem, check to see that:
• Your cables are properly seated in the network adapter card and hub jacks.
• Your router, Ethernet hub, or wireless access point is plugged into a working
power outlet.
• Your networking card is working. To check, open the Device Manager (type its name
into the Start menu’s Search box). Look for an error icon next to your networking
card’s name. See Chapter 18 for more on the Device Manager.
If that doesn’t fix things, you’ll have to call Microsoft, your PC, or your local teenage
PC guru for help.
Figure 24-5:
When you click “Trouble-
shoot problems,” Windows
asks what, exactly, you’re
having trouble with. Click
the topic in question;
invisibly and automatically,
Windows performs several
geek tweaks that were once
the realm of highly paid
networking professionals: It
renews the DHCP address,
reinitializes the connection,
and, if nothing else works,
turns the networking card
off and on again.
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chapter 25: network domains 761
Network Domains
Windows 7 was designed to thrive in two very different kinds of network
worlds: the workgroup (an informal, home or small-office network) and
the domain (a hard-core, security-conscious corporate network of dozens
or thousands of PCs). Depending on which kind of network your PC belongs to, the
procedures and even dialog boxes you experience are quite a bit different.
Chapter 24 guides you through the process of setting up a workgroup network, but
no single chapter could describe setting up a corporate domain. That’s a job for Super
Geek, otherwise known as the network administrator—somebody who has studied
the complexities of corporate networking for years.
This chapter is designed to help you learn how to use a corporate domain. If your PC
is connected to a workgroup network or no network at all, on the other hand, feel
free to use these pages as scratch paper.
Note: In the context of this chapter, the term domain refers to a group of Windows computers on the same
network. It’s not the same as an Internet domain, which you may occasionally see mentioned. An Internet
domain is still a group of computers, but they don’t have to be connected to the same network, and they
don’t have to be running Windows. In addition, the domain name (like amazon.com) must be registered
to ensure that there’s no duplication on the Internet. Because Windows domains are private, they can be
named any way the administrator chooses.
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762 windows 7: the missing manual
The Domain The Domain
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
As you may remember from Chapter 24, nobody else on a workgroup network can
access the files on your PC unless you’ve created an account for them on your machine.
Whenever somebody new joins the department, you have to create another new ac-
count; when people leave, you have to delete or disable their accounts. If something
goes wrong with your hard drive, you have to recreate all of the accounts.
What’s Wrong with Workgroups
You must have an account on each shared PC, too. If you’re lucky, you have the same
name and password on each machine—but that isn’t always the case. You might have
to remember that you’re pjenkins on the front-desk computer, but JenkinsP on the
administrative machine.
Similarly, suppose there’s a network printer on one of the computers in your work-
group. If you want to use it, you have to find out whose computer the printer is con-
nected to, call him to ask if he’ll create an account for you, and hope that he knows
how to do it. You either have to tell him your user name and password, or find out
what user name and password he’s assigned to you. In that case, every time you want
to use that printer, you might have to log on by typing that user name and password.
If you multiply all of this hassle by the number of PCs on your small network, it’s easy
to see how you might suddenly find yourself spending more time managing accounts
and permissions than getting any work done.
The Domain Concept
The solution to all of these problems is the network domain. In a domain, you only
have a single name and password, which gets you into every shared PC and printer
on the network. Everyone’s account information resides on a central computer called
a domain controller—a computer so important, it’s usually locked away in a closet or
a data-center room.
A domain controller keeps track of who is allowed to log on, who is logged on, and
what each person is allowed to do on the network. When you log onto the domain
with your PC, the domain controller verifies your credentials and permits (or denies)
you access.
Most domain networks have at least two domain controllers with identical informa-
tion, so if one computer dies, the other one can take over. (Some networks have many
more than two.) This redundancy is a critical safety net, because without a happy,
healthy domain controller, the entire network is dead.
Without budging from their chairs, network administrators can use a domain
controller to create new accounts, manage existing ones, and assign permissions. The
domain takes the equipment-management and security concerns of the network out
of the hands of individuals and puts them into the hands of trained professionals.
You may sometimes hear this kind of networking called client/server networking.
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chapter 25: network domains 763
The Domain
Each workstation—that is, each mere mortal PC like yours—relies on a central server
machine for its network access.
If you use Windows in a medium- to large-sized company, you probably use a domain
every day. You may not even have been aware of it, but that’s no big deal; knowing
what’s been going on right under your nose isn’t especially important to your ability
to get work done. After all, it’s not your job—it’s the network administrator’s. But
understanding the domain system can help you take better advantage of a domain’s
features.
Active Directory
As you know, Microsoft sells several versions of Windows 7: Home Basic, Home Pre-
mium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. One key difference is that computers
running the two Home editions can’t join a domain.
There are other versions of Windows, however: the specialized ones that run on those
domain-controller computers. To create a domain, at least one computer must be
running either Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Server. These are far more
expensive operating systems (the price depends on the number of machines that they
serve) and they run only on high-octane PCs. They also require high-octane expertise
to install and maintain.
One key offering of these specialized Windows versions is an elaborate application
called Active Directory. It’s a single, centralized database that stores every scrap of
information about the hardware, software, and people on the network. (The older
operating system called Windows NT Server can create domains, but it doesn’t include
Active Directory.)
After creating a domain by installing Active Directory on a server computer, network
administrators can set about filling the directory (database) with information about
the network’s resources. Every computer, printer, and person is represented by an
object in the database and attributes (properties) that describe it. For example, a user
object’s attributes specify that person’s name, location, telephone number, email ad-
dress, and other, more technical, elements.
Active Directory lets network administrators maintain an enormous hierarchy of
computers. A multinational corporation with tens of thousands of employees in offices
worldwide can all be part of one Active Directory domain, with servers distributed
in hundreds of locations, all connected by wide-area networking links. (A group of
domains is known as a tree. Huge networks might even have more than one tree; if
so, they’re called—yes, you guessed it—a forest.)
The objects in an Active Directory domain are arranged in a hierarchy, something
like the hierarchy of folders within folders on your hard drive. Some companies base
their directory-tree designs on the organization of the company, using departments
and divisions as the building blocks. Others use geographic locations as the basis for
the design, or use a combination of both.
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Unless you’ve decided to take up the rewarding career of network administration, you’ll
never have to install an Active Directory domain controller, design a directory tree, or
create domain objects. However, you very well may encounter the Active Directory
at your company. You can use it to search for the mailing address of somebody else
on the network, for example, or locate a printer that can print on both sides of the
page at once. Having some idea of the directory’s structure can help in these cases.
Domain Security
Security is one of the primary reasons for Active Directory’s existence. First off, all of
the account names and passwords reside on a single machine (the domain control-
ler), which can easily be locked away, protected, and backed up. The multiple domain
controllers automatically replicate the changes to one another, so that each one has
up-to-date information.
Active Directory is also a vital part of the network’s other security mechanisms. When
your computer is a member of a domain, the first thing you do is log on, just as in a
workgroup. But when you log into a domain, Windows 7 transmits your name and
password (in encrypted form) to the domain controller, which checks your credentials
and grants or denies you access.
Joining a Domain
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
If you work in a corporation, the computer supplied to you generally has Windows
already installed and joined to the domain, ready to go.
But if you ever have occasion to add a PC to a domain yourself, here’s how you go
about it. (You can make your PC join a domain either during the installation of
Windows 7, or at any time afterward.)
1. Log on using the local Administrator account.
See page 716 for details.
2. Choose StartÆControl PanelÆSystem and MaintenanceÆSystem. In the page
that comes up, click the Change Settings button under “Computer name, domain,
and workgroup settings.”
Authenticate yourself (page 726). You should now see the names of your computer
and any workgroup or domain it belongs to (see Figure 25-1).
3. Click the Network ID button.
The Join a Domain or a Workgroup Wizard appears.
4. Click “This computer is part of a business network,” and then click Next.
Now the wizard wants to know: “Is your company network on a domain?”
The Domain
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5. Click “My company uses a network with a domain,” and then click Next.
An information screen appears. It lets you know that, before you can join a do-
main, you need a domain user account, user name, and password. Your network
administrator should create and give these to you in advance.
6. Click Next.
The next page asks you to “Type your user name, password, and domain name.”
7. Enter the user account name and password supplied by your administrator, plus
the name of the domain in which your account has been created.
Remember this domain name; you’ll need it again later to log on.
8. Click Next again.
If the wizard asks you whether you want to use the existing domain account for
your computer, say Yes. Otherwise, you’ll be prompted to specify the name of your
computer and the domain the computer object is in. If you see this page, it means
that your computer isn’t listed in the Active Directory domain you specified on
the previous wizard screen. Flag down your network administrator and point out
the problem. Then click Next to proceed.
Figure 25-1:
The Computer Name tab of the System
Properties dialog box displays the name
of your computer and the workgroup or
domain of which it is currently a member.
From here, you can change the computer
or workgroup name or join a new do-
main. The Network ID button launches a
Network Identification Wizard, while the
Change button displays a dialog box in
which a more experienced person can
perform the same tasks.
Joining a Domain
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In any case, you should now arrive at a page where you’re asked whether you
want to enable the domain user account as a local account for your computer.
Of course, if you’re going to be logging onto a domain, you don’t really need a
local account on your PC.
9. Click “Do not add a domain user account.” Click Next, and finally click Finish
to complete the wizard.
You wind up back at the System Properties dialog box.
10. Click OK to dismiss the System Properties dialog box.
Restart the computer for your changes to take effect.
Four Ways Life Is Different on a Domain
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
The domain and workgroup personalities of Windows are quite different. Here are
some of the most important differences.
Logging On
What you see when you log onto your PC is very different when you’re part of a
domain. Instead of the standard Welcome screen (which shows a list of people with
accounts on your PC), you generally encounter a two-step sign-in process:
• First, you see a startup screen that instructs you to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to log
on. (As noted on page 771, this step is a security precaution.)
• When you select Switch User from the Logon screen, you’ll have the opportunity
to click “Other User” and then log into the domain you joined (see Figure 25-2).
Figure 25-2:
Joining a domain
lets you keep using
the Windows 7 Wel-
come screen, but
you can click Switch
User and choose
Other User to have
the opportunity to
log in as a domain
user.
Joining a Domain
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Tip: You can turn off the requirement to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete at each log on, if you like. Choose StartÆ
Control Panel; then click User AccountsÆUser Accounts. Next, click Manage User Accounts. (You may be
prompted for a local administrator’s password.) Now select the Advanced tab and turn off the “Require users
to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete” checkbox.
As you see in Figure 25-2, the Log onto Windows dialog box provides a place for you
to type your user name and password. To save you time, Windows fills in the User
Name box with whatever name was used the last time somebody logged in.
Browsing the Domain
When your PC is part of the domain, all of its resources—printers, shared files, and
so on—magically appear in your desktop windows, the StartÆNetwork window, and
so on (Figure 25-3).
Tip: If you open the Network window (StartÆNetwork), a message might appear that says, “Network discovery
and file sharing are turned off,” which means you’re cut off from the network. To rejoin the game, click this
message (or click Network and Sharing Center in the toolbar) to turn on Network Discovery.
Life Is Different
on a Domain
Figure 25-3:
When you choose
StartÆNetwork,
you see an icon for
each computer on
the network. You
can browse through
the computers
in a domain and
access their shared
folders (if you have
the appropriate
permissions) just as
you would those of
a workgroup. On
a large network,
you’ll just see a lot
more computers.
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768 windows 7: the missing manual
Searching the Domain
You can read all about the Search command in Chapter 3. But when you’re on a do-
main, this tool becomes far more powerful—and more interesting.
Figure 25-4:
Top left: Searching for
people in your network’s
Active Directory is like
using a phone book. You
supply the information you
know about the person.
Lower right: When you
find that person (techni-
cally, her user object), you
can view the information
stored in the user object’s
attributes. Of course, the
usefulness of this feature
depends on how much
information your network
administrators enter when
creating the user objects.
Life Is Different
on a Domain
Knowing What You’re Logging Onto
You may remember from Chapter 23 that there are two kinds
of accounts: domain accounts, maintained by a highly paid
professional in your company, and local accounts—accounts
that exist only on the PC itself. It’s actually possible to find
domain accounts and local accounts that have the same
name—a perennial source of confusion for beginners (and
occasionally experts).
For example, you know that every Windows computer has an
Administrator account, which the Windows 7 installer creates
automatically. The trouble is, so does the domain controller.
In other words, typing Administrator into the User Name
text box might log you onto either the local machine or the
domain, depending on what password you supply. (With
luck, the two accounts won’t have the same password, but
you never know.)
To avoid this kind of confusion, Windows 7 lets you specify
which domain to log onto. Just prefix the account name with
the domain name, like this: 2K3DOMAIN\Administrator.
And if you forget this secret code, you can always click the
link marked “How do I log onto another domain?” at the
logon screen.
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When you choose StartÆNetwork, the toolbar changes to include an option to Search
Active Directory. Click it to open the dialog box shown at top left in Figure 25-4.
The name of this dialog box depends on what you’re looking for. Your choices are:
•Users, Contacts, and Groups. Use this option to search the network for a particular
person or network group (Figure 25-4). If your search is successful, you can, for
example, find out someone’s telephone number, email address, or mailing address,
or see what users belong to a particular group.
•Computers. This option helps you find a certain PC in the domain. It’s of inter-
est primarily to network administrators, because it lets them open a Computer
Management window for the computer they find. It also lets them manage many
of the PC’s functions by remote control.
•Printers. In a large office, it’s entirely possible that you might not know where
you can find a printer with certain features—tabloid-size paper, for example, or
double-sided printing. That’s where this option comes in handy (see Figure 25-5).
Life Is Different
on a Domain
Figure 25-5:
Searching for a printer
in Active Directory lets
you find the printing
features you need.
Network administrators
may also record the
physical locations of
the network printers.
This way, when your
search uncovers a
printer that can handle
executive paper and
also print double-sided,
you can simply look
at its attributes to find
out that it’s located on
the fourth floor of the
building.
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770 windows 7: the missing manual
•Shared Folders. In theory, this option lets you search for shared folders on the
domain’s computers—but you’ll quickly discover that searches for a certain shared
folder generally come up empty-handed.
That’s because just sharing a folder on your computer doesn’t “publish” it to Ac-
tive Directory, which would make it available to this kind of search. Only network
administrators can publish a shared folder in Active Directory.
•Organizational Units. You may not have heard of organizational units, but your
network administrator lives and breathes them. (They’re the building blocks of
an Active Directory hierarchy.) You, the mere mortal, can safely ignore this search
option.
Figure 25-6:
To perform a custom
search, use the drop-
down menus to select
an object type and
then a particular field
in that object. You then
specify a condition (such
as whether you want
to search for an exact
value or just the begin-
ning or end of the value)
and the value you want
to look for. When you
click Find Now, a list of
the objects matching
your criteria appears.
Life Is Different
on a Domain
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Custom Searches
In addition to these predefined searches, you can also create a custom search of your
own by looking for information in specific fields (that is, attributes) of Active Direc-
tory, as shown in Figure 25-6.
When used creatively, these custom searches can be powerful indeed, in ways you
might not expect. For example, suppose your car won’t start, and you need a ride
home from the office. You can open this dialog box, click the Field button, and choose
UserÆHome Phone. Change the Condition drop-down menu to Starts With, and then
type your own area code and telephone exchange into the Value text box. When you
click the Find Now button, you’ll get a list of coworkers who live in your neighbor-
hood (as indicated by the first three digits of their phone numbers).
Assigning Permissions to Domain Members
Chapter 26 describes the process of assigning permissions to certain files and folders,
so that only designated people and groups can open them from across the network.
When you’re a member of a domain, the process is the same, except that you can
select people and groups from the domain as well.
When you open the Properties dialog box for a file or folder, click the Security tab,
then click Edit and then Add, you don’t get the same dialog box that you’d see on a
Life Is Different
on a Domain
The Double-Thick Security Trick
If you use Windows Vista in a corporation, you may see the
startup box shown here when you first turn on the machine.
You don’t proceed to the Classic logon box (Figure 23-12)
until you first press Ctrl+Alt+Delete.
This somewhat inconve-
nient setup is intended
as a security feature.
By forcing you to press
Ctrl+Alt+Delete to by-
pass the initial Welcome
box, Windows rules out
the possibility that some
sneaky program (such as
a Trojan-horse program),
designed to look like the Classic logon box, is posing as
the Classic logon box—in order to “capture” the name and
password you type there.
This two-layer logon system is what you get when you add
your PC to a network domain during the Windows Vista in-
stallation. If you want to use it on a workgroup machine, you
can, but you have to do a little digging to find it. Press w+R
to open the Run dialog
box; type control User-
passwords2, and then
press Enter. Authenticate
yourself (page 191). You
see the program shown
on page 680—the old-style
User Accounts box. Click
the Advanced tab.
At the bottom of the Ad-
vanced tab, turn on “Require users to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete,”
and then click OK. From now on, turning on the PC greets you
not with a logon screen, but with the unfakeable Welcome
box shown here.
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772 windows 7: the missing manual
workgroup network. On a domain, it’s called the Select Users, Computers, or Groups
dialog box (Figure 25-7). You’ll also see this dialog box if you right-click on a folder,
click Share, and then select Find from the drop-down menu to the left of the Add
button.
Life Is Different
on a Domain
Figure 25-7:
Note that the standard location
for the objects is your current
domain. You can still click the
Locations button and select your
computer’s name (to specify local
user and group accounts), or even
choose another domain on the
network, if others are available.
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26
chapter 26: sharing files on the network 773
Sharing Files
on the Network
Whether you built the network yourself (Chapter 24) or work in an office
where somebody has done that work for you, all kinds of fun can come
from having a network. You’re now ready to share all kinds of stuff among
the various PCs on the network:
•Files, folders, and disks. No matter what PC you’re using on the network, you can
open the files and folders on any other networked PC, as long as the other PCs’
owners have made these files available for public inspection. That’s where file shar-
ing comes in, and that’s what this chapter is all about.
The uses for file sharing are almost endless. It means you can finish writing a letter
in the bedroom, even if you started it downstairs at the kitchen table—without
having to carry a flash drive around. It means you can watch a slideshow drawn
from photos on your spouse’s PC somewhere else in the house. It means your
underlings can turn in articles for your small-company newsletter by depositing
them directly into a folder on your laptop.
Tip: File sharing also lets you access your files and folders from the road, using a laptop. See Chapter 27 for
more information on this road-warrior trick.
•Music and video playback. Windows Media Center can stream music and videos
from one PC to another one on the network—that is, play in real time across the
network, without your having to copy any files. In a family situation, it’s super-
convenient to have Dad’s Mondo Upstairs PC serve as the master holding tank
for the family’s entire music collection—and be able to play it using any PC in
the house.
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Three Ways to
Share Files
•Printers. You don’t need a printer for every PC; all the PCs can share a much smaller
number of printers. If several printers are on your network—say, a high-speed
laser printer for one computer and a color printer on another—everyone on the
network can use whichever printer is appropriate to a particular document. You’ll
find step-by-step instructions starting on page 588.
•Your Internet connection. Having a network means that all the PCs in your home
or office can share a single connection (Chapter 24).
Note: Your network might include a Windows 7 PC, a couple of Windows XP or Vista machines, older PCs,
and even Macs. That’s perfectly OK; all of these computers can participate as equals in this party. This chapter
points out whatever differences you may find in the procedures.
Three Ways to Share Files
All Versions
It’s not easy to write one operating system that’s supposed to please everyone, from a
husband and wife at home, to a small business owner, to a network administrator for
the federal government. Clearly, these people might have slightly different attitudes
on the tradeoff between convenience and security.
That’s why Windows 7 offers three ways to share files. Each is light-years more con-
venient, secure, and comprehensible than file sharing in the Windows XP days. And
each falls at a different spot on the security/convenience spectrum:
•Homegroups. This is the big networking news in Windows 7. The HomeGroup
feature was invented for families or small-business owners—places where people
don’t have a lot to hide from one another. This kind of network is really easy to
set up and use; nobody has to enter names and passwords to use files on other
PCs in the house.
Setup is a one-time deal: You type the same code into each computer, and presto:
Everyone can see everyone else’s Music, Photos, Videos, and Documents folders.
Everyone can send printouts to everyone else’s printers. Everyone can listen to
everyone else’s Windows Media Player music collections, too. (You can turn these
shared items off individually, if you like.)
Downsides: A PC can join a homegroup only if it’s running Windows 7. And
homegroups don’t offer the level of security, passwords, and networky red tape
that bigger companies require. The idea is to give everyone in the house free access
to everyone else’s stuff with one click.
•The Public folder. There’s a Public folder on every PC. It’s free for anyone on the
network to access, like a grocery store bulletin board. Super-convenient, super-easy.
Downsides: First, you have to move or copy files into the Public folder before
anyone else can see them. Depending on how many files you wish to share, this
can get tedious.
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Three Ways to
Share Files
Second, this method isn’t especially secure. If you worry about people rummaging
through the files and deleting or vandalizing them, or if bad things could happen
if the wrong person in your building gets a look at them, well, then, don’t use this
method (although you can still give the Public folder a password).
•Any folder. At the far end of the security/convenience spectrum, you have the “any
folder” method. In this scheme, you can make any ordinary folder available for
inspection by other people on the network.
This method means you don’t have to move files into the Public folder. It also gives
you elaborate control over who’s allowed to do what to your files. You might want
to permit your company’s executives to see and edit your documents but allow the
peons in accounting only to see them. And Andy, that unreliable goofball in sales?
You don’t want him even seeing what’s in your shared folder.
Downsides: More complex and inconvenient than the other methods.
The following pages walk you through all three kinds of file sharing.
Tip: These networking types can coexist. So you can have a homegroup for the benefit of the other Win-
dows 7 computers in your house, but still share with Windows Vista or XP machines using the other methods.
Nobody said this was going to be simple.
Homegroups
All Versions
Let’s suppose there are two PCs in your house. Setting up a homegroup is incredibly
easy—especially compared to the complications of setting up “real” file sharing, as
described later in this chapter. In fact, it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
1. On the first PC, open the HomeGroup program.
It doesn’t matter which PC you start with, as long as it’s running Windows 7 Home
Premium, Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate. (Other versions can join your
homegroup—just can’t create one.)
The quickest way is to open the Start menu, then start typing homegroup until
you see “HomeGroup” in the results list; click it. You see the dialog box shown in
Figure 26-1, top.
2. Click “Create a homegroup.”
Now the middle dialog box shown in Figure 26-1 appears.
3. Turn on the checkboxes for the stuff you want to share.
Windows proposes making your Photos, Music, and Videos libraries available for
the other PCs in your house to use. If you like, you can also turn on the Documents
library. (Microsoft starts out with that one turned off in case you keep private
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776 windows 7: the missing manual
stuff in there.) And you can share whatever printer is connected to your PC—an
inkjet, for example.
Tip: You can always change these settings later, as described below.
Figure 26-1:
Top: Welcome to
the homegroups—
a feature so cool,
Microsoft gave
it its own setup
wizard.
Middle: Specify
which libraries you
want other people
on the network to
be able to see.
Bottom: Microsoft
is telling you the
password that
will let all your
Windows 7 PCs
join this little
file-sharing cluster.
It’s the only setup
you’ll need.
Homegroups
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chapter 26: sharing files on the network 777
4. Click Next.
Now Windows displays a ridiculously unmemorable password, like E6fQ9UX3uR.
Fortunately, you’ll never have to memorize it.
Tip: Even more fortunately, you can change the password. When you see the dialog box shown in Figure 26-1,
bottom, click Finish. You arrive at the “Change homegroup settings” page (Figure 26-3). Here, you can click
“Change the password,” authenticate if necessary, and make up any new password you like (eight characters
or longer). (“Bluefish” is much easier to remember than E6fQ9UX3uR.)
5. Walk over to the second PC. Open the HomeGroup program on this one.
This time, the wording of the dialog box is slightly different. It sees the first PC
already on the network, already with a homegroup initiative under way.
6. Click “Join now.” On the next screen (Figure 26-1, middle), choose which folders
you’d like to share. Click Next.
Now you’re invited to type that password into this PC’s box.
7. Type the password from step 4. Click Next, and then Finish.
If you have a third PC, or a fourth or a fifth, repeat steps 5–7. If you buy another
PC a year from now, repeat steps 5–7.
And that’s all there is to it. Your computers are now joined in blissful network harmony.
Note: Only your stuff is shared at the outset—only your pictures, music, video, and documents. Other ac-
count holders have to turn on sharing for their own stuff; Microsoft didn’t think they’d appreciate having all
their stuff shared on the network unawares.
Suppose you’re one of the other family members. Log in and open the HomeGroup program. A message
says “[Name of other person] has joined your computer to a homegroup. You haven’t shared any libraries.”
You see a screen like the one shown in Figure 26-1, middle; turn on the libraries you want to share, and
then click “Save changes.”
How to Use Your Homegroup
Once a homegroup is set up, using it is a piece of cake.
•Root through other people’s libraries. On PC #2, click Homegroup at the left side
of any Explorer window. Voila! There are the icons for every PC—in fact, every
account on every PC (Figure 26-2).
And if you open one of them, you can see the pictures, music, videos, documents,
and whatever else they’ve made available for sharing. See Figure 26-2. (You can
click the HomeGroup heading and see icons for each account holder/PC, or you
can open the flippy triangles in the Navigation pane.)
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•Share each other’s printers. When you go to print, you’ll see that all the printers
in the house are now available to all the PCs in the house. For example, if there’s
a color inkjet plugged into the USB jack of Computer #1, you can send printouts
to it from the Print dialog box of Computer #2. (The other computers’ shared
printers even have their own icons in the Devices and Printers folder, as described
in Chapter 24.)
Note: If the printer is a relatively recent, brand-name model, it should “just work”; Windows installs the
printer automatically. If not, the HomeGroup feature notifies you that a printer is available, but you have to
click Install to OK the driver installation.
•Play each other’s music and video. When you’re in Windows Media Player or
Media Center, same thing: You’ll see the names of all the other computers listed
for your browsing pleasure, and inside, all their music, photos, and videos, ready
to play. (The other machines are listed in the Navigation pane at left, in a category
called “Other libraries.”)
Tip: For quicker access to your homegroup, list it in your Start menu. To do that, right-click the Start button;
from the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Click Customize; in the long scrolling list, turn on Homegroup,
and then click OK twice. Now Homegroup appears in the right side of the shortcut Start menu.
Figure 26-2:
Sitting at PC #1, any
Explorer window lets
you work with the
contents of all the
other PCs’ libraries.
Just expand the
Homegroup triangle
at the left side of any
Explorer window.
There they are:
individual listings
for each account
on each PC. You’re
free to edit or even
delete what’s in
Public folders and
libraries; you can
see and open, but
not change, what’s
in other folders.
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chapter 26: sharing files on the network 779
How to Share More Folders
Microsoft starts you off by sharing your main libraries, and anything you put in them
becomes available immediately.
But that doesn’t mean you’re limited to sharing those folders. You can share any folder
you like, making it available for ransacking by everyone else in the homegroup.
To do that, right-click the folder; from the shortcut menu, choose “Share with.” (If
the folder is already open, click “Share with” on the toolbar.)
The submenu offers you three choices:
•Nobody. This folder is invisible to other people on the network.
•Homegroup (Read). Other people on the network can see and read what’s in this
folder, but can’t edit, add, or delete anything.
•Homegroup (Read/Write). Other people on the network can do anything to the
stuff in this folder: edit, delete, whatever.
•Specific people. Here, you can assign privileges to manipulate this folder’s contents
individually to each account holder. See Figure 26-6, later in this chapter.
Leaving a Homegroup
If you’re feeling a little private, you can remove your PC from the big happy network
family, either temporarily or permanently.
Open the HomeGroup program (type homegroup into the Start menu), and click
“Leave the homegroup.” Confirm by clicking “Leave the homegroup.” That wasn’t
so hard, was it?
You can rejoin at any time—you’ll see a Join button in the HomeGroup program—but
you’ll need the password. (You can find out the password by opening the HomeGroup
program on any other PC and clicking “View or print the homegroup password.”)
Tip: If you’re not using the HomeGroup feature at all, you can also disable it completely. The advantage is
that the Homegroup heading won’t take up space in your Navigation bar anymore.
To do that, switch your network to the Work type (instead of Home). Click the n or N icon in your system
tray; click Open Network and Sharing Center. Under the name of your network, click “Home network.” The
Set Network Location dialog box opens; click “Work network.” The next time you start the PC, Homegroup
will have vanished from your Explorer windows.
Editing the Shared Homegroup Libraries
As you can see in Figure 26-1, Microsoft suggests starting you off by sharing your
Music, Pictures, and Videos libraries, plus any USB printer you’re connected to; one
more click shares your Documents library as well.
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780 windows 7: the missing manual
If you ever decide to adjust that setup—to turn off your Music, turn on your Docu-
ments, or whatever—no biggie. Open the HomeGroup program (type homegroup
into the Start menu). You find yourself at the “Change homegroup settings” screen
shown in Figure 26-3.
Sharing the Public Folders
Homegroups are incredibly easy to set up and easy to use. But they’re limited to
Windows 7 computers.
If you have older versions of Windows on hand, Microsoft’s previous attempt at quick-
setup, low-security file sharing is also available: the Public-folders method.
Inside each of your Windows 7 libraries, you’ll see a Public folder. You know: Inside
the Pictures library is a folder called Public Pictures; inside Music is the Public Music
folder; and so on. (See Figure 26-4.) They start out empty, except for some sample
files in the Music, Pictures, and Videos folders.
Note: Behind the scenes, these folders are all inside the master Public folder (there’s one per PC). It sits in
the Local Disk (C:)ÆUsers folder.
Figure 26-3:
Here, you can decide
which libraries you
want to share
with your network
colleagues. Here’s
also where you turn
printer sharing on
or off, and Windows
Media Player sharing
(playback streaming)
on or off. You can
also remind yourself
of the password,
change the password,
leave the homegroup,
or view the master
sharing control panel
for your computer
(“Advanced sharing
settings.”)
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chapter 26: sharing files on the network 781
When you want to share some of your own stuff with fellow network denizens, Job
One is to drag your files and folders into one of these Public folders.
Before you go live with your Public folder, though, you have a few more options to
look over:
•Set up accounts. Ordinarily, each person who wants to get into your PC from the
network requires an account (Chapter 23). They already have accounts on their own
machines, of course, but you need to create corresponding ones on your machine.
So if, on your own Dell, your name is Casey and your password is fishsandwich,
then you should see to it that the Toshiba downstairs also has a user account called
Casey with the same password.
Tip: When you try to access a shared folder, you can enter any account name and password on that com-
puter. But the beauty of having an account of your own on that machine (with exactly the same name and
password) is that you’ll breeze right in. You’ll connect instantly, without having to encounter the “Connect
to” login box every time you connect.
•Turn off the password requirement (optional). Anyone who doesn’t have an ac-
count will still be able to see the files that are in the Public folders, open them, and
Figure 26-4:
Each Public folder is
like a central public
square, a shared meet-
ing point for all PCs on
the network. Anything
in one of these folders
is available to anyone
on the network—free
and clear. You can find
the Public folders listed
inside each of your
standard libraries.
Sharing the
Public Folders
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782 windows 7: the missing manual
make their own copies of them—but not make changes to them. Such people can’t
add files, delete anything, or edit anything. (Technically, they’ll be using the Guest
account feature of every Windows PC.)
To set up password-free access, open the Start menu and type sharing; in the results
menu, click “Manage advanced sharing settings.”
As shown in Figure 26-5, “Public folder sharing” comes turned on. Out of the box,
it requires your guests to type their names and passwords when connecting. But
Figure 26-5:
Here’s how to turn off
the requirement for
an account password.
(Note that in this
gigantic, scrolling
dialog box, you
can set up two sets
of options: one for
networks you’ve des-
ignated as Home and
Work and another
for networks you’ve
declared as Public.)
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Public Folders
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chapter 26: sharing files on the network 783
if you also click “Turn off password protected sharing,” then anyone will be able
to see what’s in your Public folder, even without an account on your machine.
To make your changes stick, click “Save changes,” and then authenticate yourself
if necessary.
•Turn off Public folder sharing altogether (definitely optional). Proceed as described
above, but click “Turn off Public folder sharing” (shown in Figure 26-5). Now your
Public folder is completely invisible on the network.
So now that you’ve set up Public folder sharing, how are other people supposed to
access your Public folder? See page 789.
Sharing Any Folder
If the Public folder method seems too simple, restrictive, and insecure to you, then
you can graduate to what Microsoft cleverly calls the “share any folder” method. In
this scheme, you can make any folder available to other people on the network.
This time, you don’t have to move your files anywhere; they sit right where you left
them. And this time, you can set up elaborate sharing permissions that grant individu-
als different amount of access over your files.
Better yet, files you share this way are available to other people on the network and
other account holders on the same computer.
Here’s how to share a file or folder disk on your PC:
1. In an Explorer window, highlight the files or folders you want to share. On the
toolbar, choose “Share with”Æ“Specific people.”
The “Choose people to share with” dialog box appears (Figure 26-6). You wanted
individual control over each account holder’s access? You got it.
Note: The steps for sharing a disk are different. See the box below.
Sharing Disks
You can share files and folders, of course, but also disks.
Sharing an entire disk means that every folder on it, and
therefore every file, is available to everyone on the network.
If security isn’t a big deal at your place (because it’s just you
and a couple of family members, for example), this feature
can be a timesaving convenience that spares you the trouble
of sharing every new folder you create.
On the other hand, people with privacy concerns generally
prefer to share individual folders. By sharing only a folder
or two, you can keep most of the stuff on your hard drive
private, out of view of curious network comrades. For that
matter, sharing only a folder or two does them a favor, too,
by making it easier for them to find the files you’ve made
available. This way, they don’t have to root through your
entire drive looking for the folder they actually need.
gem in the rough
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Public Folders
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784 windows 7: the missing manual
2. Choose a person’s name from the upper pop-up menu, and then click Add.
This is the list of account holders (Chapter 23)—or account-holder groups, if
someone has created them (page 730).
If the person who’ll be connecting across the network doesn’t yet have an account
on your machine, choose “Create a new user” from this pop-up menu. (This option
is available if the PC is not part of a homegroup. Also, “Create a new user” isn’t
some kind of sci-fi breakthrough. You are not, in fact, going to create a human
being—only an account for an existing person.)
The name appears in the list.
Now your job is to work through this list of people, specify how much control each
person has over the file or folder you’re sharing.
Figure 26-6:
Use the pop-up menu at
the top to choose an ac-
count holder’s name. Click
Add. Then use the Permis-
sion Level pop-up menu to
specify either Read (“look
but don’t touch”) or Read/
Write (“you can edit and
even delete stuff”) permis-
sions. Click Share when
you’re finished.
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chapter 26: sharing files on the network 785
3. Click a name in the list. Click the ≥ in the Permission Level column and choose
Read or Read/Write.
Read is that “look, but don’t touch” business. This person can see what’s in the
folder (or file) and can copy it, but can’t delete or change the original.
Contributors (available for folders only—not files) have much broader access. These
people can add, change, or delete files in the shared folder—but only files that they
put there. Stuff placed there by other people (Owners or Co-owners) appears as
“look, but don’t touch” to a Contributor.
Read/Write means that this person, like you, can add, change, or delete any file in
the shared folder.
Note: Your name shows up here as Owner. You have the most power of all—after all, it’s your stuff.
This stuff may sound technical and confusing, but you have no idea how much
simpler it is than it was before Windows 7 came along.
4. Click Share.
The “Your folder [or file] is shared” dialog box appears. This is more than a simple
message, however; it contains the network address of the files or folders you shared.
Without this address, your colleagues won’t know that you’ve shared stuff and will
have a tough time finding it.
Figure 26-7:
Windows wants to
make absolutely sure
that you know what
you’ve done. Wouldn’t
want the wrong people
sniffing around the
wrong personal files,
now.
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Note: If you’ve shared some files, you may see an interim message that appears before the “Your files are
shared” box, warning you that Windows is about to adjust the access permissions to the folder that encloses
them. That’s normal.
5. Click “e-mail” or “copy” (Figure 26-7).
The “e-mail” link opens a new, outgoing message in your email program, letting
the gang know that you’ve shared something and offering them a link to it. The
“copy” link copies the address to the Clipboard so you can paste it into another
program—which is your best bet if Mail isn’t your email program of choice.
Tip: To stop sharing a folder or file, click it. Then, from the toolbar of whatever window contains it, choose
“Share with”ÆNobody.
Accessing Macs Across the Network
When it comes to networking, Macs are people, too.
Windows is perfectly capable of letting you rifle through a
Mac’s contents from across the network. Here’s how to set
that up (these instructions
cover Mac OS X 10.6, called
Snow Leopard.)
On the Mac, choose aÆ
System Preferences. Click
Sharing, and then turn on File
Sharing. Click Options.
Now you see the dialog box
shown here. Turn on “Share
files and folders using SMB
(Windows).” Then specify
which Mac user accounts
you want to be able to ac-
cess; enter their passwords
as necessary, and then click Done.
(Before you close System Preferences, you might notice
that the line in the middle of the dialog box says: “Windows
users can access your computer at smb://192.168.1.203.”
Those numbers are the Mac’s IP address. You’d need it
only if you decided to access the Mac by typing its UNC
code [page 792] into your Windows address bar, like this:
\\102.168.1.203.)
On the PC, proceed exactly
as though you were trying to
connect to another Windows
PC. The Mac’s name shows up
in the Network section of the
Navigation pane (left side of
any Explorer window).
When you click the Mac’s
name, you see the dialog
box shown in Figure 26-9.
Enter your Mac account name
and password, and turn on
“Remember my credentials”
(so you won’t be bothered for
a name or password the next
time you perform this amazing act of détente). Click OK.
Now your Mac home folder opens on the screen before you.
Feel free to work with those files exactly as though they were
in a folder on your PC. Détente has never been so easy.
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Advanced Folder Sharing—and Disk Sharing
Microsoft made a noble step forward in simplicity with the “share any folder” wizard
described in the previous pages. But the older, more complicated—yet more flex-
ible—method is still available. Here’s a quick review of this alternate route (which is,
by the way, the only route for sharing entire disks):
1. Right-click the folder or disk you want to share. If it’s a folder, choose Properties
from the shortcut menu; if it’s a disk, choose “Share with”Æ“Advanced sharing.”
In the dialog box, click the Sharing tab.
At this point, you could click the Share button (if you’re operating on a folder,
anyway). You’d arrive at the dialog box shown in Figure 26-6, where you could
specify the account holders and permission levels, just as described earlier. But don’t.
2. Click Advanced Sharing. Authenticate, if necessary (page 726).
The Advanced Sharing dialog box appears.
3. Turn on “Share this folder.” (See Figure 26-8, top.) Next, set up the power-user
sharing options.
Figure 26-8:
Top: Much finer-tuned sharing
features are available in this more
advanced box.
Bottom: For example, you can
specify personalized permissions for
different individuals.
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For example, you can limit the number of people who are browsing this folder at
once. You can click Permissions to fine-tune who can do what (Figure 26-8, bot-
tom). And you can edit the “Share name”—in fact, you can create more than one
name for the same shared folder—to make it more recognizable on the network
when people are browsing your PC.
Tip: For more on Allow, Deny, and other sharing privileges, see page 740.
Notes on File Sharing
And now, the fine print on sharing files:
• Sharing a folder also shares all the folders inside it, including new ones you create
later.
On the other hand, it’s OK to change the sharing settings of a subfolder. For example,
if you’ve shared a folder called America, you can make the Minnesota folder inside
it off-limits by making it private.
To do this, right-click the inner folder, choose PropertiesÆSharing, click Advanced
Sharing, and use the dialog box shown in Figure 26-8.
• Be careful with nested folders. Suppose, for example, that you share your Docu-
ments folder, and you permit other people to change the files inside it. Now sup-
pose that you share a folder that’s inside Documents—called Spreadsheets, for
example—but you turn off the ability for other people to change its files.
You wind up with a strange situation. Both folders—Documents and Spread-
sheets—show up in other people’s Network windows, as described below. If they
double-click the Spreadsheets folder directly, they won’t be able to change any-
thing inside it. But if they double-click the Documents folder and then open the
Spreadsheets folder inside it, they can modify the files.
Unhiding Hidden Folders
As sneaky and delightful as the hidden-folder trick is, it has
a distinct drawback—you can’t see your hidden folder from
across the network, either. Suppose you want to use another
computer on the network—the one in the upstairs office, for
example—to open something in your hidden My Novel folder
(which is downstairs in the kitchen). Fortunately, you can do
so—if you know the secret.
On the office computer, choose StartÆRun. In the Run
dialog box, type the path of the hidden folder, using the
format \\Computer Name\Folder Name.
For example, enter \\kitchen\my novel$ to get to the hid-
den folder called “My Novel$” on the PC called “Kitchen.”
(Capitalization doesn’t matter, but don’t forget the $ sign.)
Then click OK to open a window showing the contents of
your hidden folder. (See page 792 for more on the Universal
Naming Convention system.)
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Hiding Folders
If a certain folder on your hard drive is really private, you can hide the folder so that
other people on the network can’t even see it. The secret is to type a $ symbol at the
end of the share name (see step 3 on page 787).
For example, if you name a certain folder My Novel, anyone else on the network can
see it (even if they can’t read the contents). But if you name the folder My Novel$, it
won’t show up in anybody’s Network window. They won’t even know it exists.
Accessing Shared Folders
All Versions
Now suppose you’re not you. You’re your coworker, spouse, or employee. You’re us-
ing your laptop downstairs, and you want access to the stuff that’s in a shared folder
on the Beefy Main Dell computer upstairs. Here’s what to do (the steps are the same
whether the Public folder or any folder was shared):
1. Open any Explorer window.
The Navigation pane at left shows a Network heading. Click its flippy triangle,
if necessary, to see icons for all the computers on the network (Figure 26-9, bot-
tom). The same Navigation pane is available in the Save and Open dialog boxes
of your programs, too, making the entire network available to you for opening
and saving files.
Tip: Alternatively, type network into the Start menu; click Network in the results list.
If you don’t see a certain computer’s icon here, it might be turned off, or off the
network. It also might have network discovery turned off; that’s the feature that
lets a PC announce its presence to the network. (Its on/off switch is one of the
buttons shown in Figure 26-5.)
And if you don’t see any computers at all in the Network window, then network
discovery might be turned off on your computer.
2. Double-click the computer whose files you want to open.
If you’re on a corporate domain, you may first have to double-click your way
through some other icons, representing the networks in other buildings or floors,
before you get to the actual PC icons.
If you don’t have an account on the PC you’re invading—an account with the same
name and password as you have on your own PC—then the Connect To box now
appears (Figure 26-9, top).
Obviously, you have to fill the name and password of an account on the other
computer. This, of course, is a real drag, especially if you access other people’s
files frequently. Fortunately, you have two timesaving tricks available to you here.
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First, if you turn on “Remember my credentials,” then you’ll never see this box
again. The next time you want to visit the other PC, you’ll be able to double-click
its icon for instant access.
Finally, if you’re trying to get to someone’s Public folder, and you don’t need to
modify the files, but just read or copy them, you don’t need a password, ever. Just
type guest into the “User name” box and click OK. You’ll have full read-only ac-
cess. And here again, next time, you won’t be bothered for a name or password.
Figure 26-9:
Top: Supply your account
name and password as it
exists on the distant PC, the
one you’re trying to access.
Bottom: The computers on
your network are arrayed
before you! Double-click the
one you want to visit.
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Tip: In the unlikely event that you want Windows to stop memorizing your password, open the Start menu;
start typing Credential Manager until you can click its name in the results. You see a list of every name/
password Windows has memorized for you. You can use the options here to add a new memorized name/
password, or expand one of the existing items in the list to remove it (“Remove from vault”) or edit it.
3. Click OK.
If all went well, the other computer’s window opens, presenting you with the icons
of its shared folders and disks.
Accessing Windows 7 from XP, Vista, Mac…
How do I access my Windows 7 PC from my non-Win7
machines?
Piece of cake. Turns out all versions of Windows use the same
networking scheme, so you can share files freely among PCs
using different Windows versions.
Once some files are shared (on
any PC), here’s how to find them:
In Windows Vista: Choose
StartÆNetwork.
In Windows XP or Windows
Me: Choose StartÆMy Network
Places.
In earlier versions: Double-click
the desktop icon called Network
Neighborhood or My Network
Places.
On the Mac: Just look in the
Sidebar of any Finder window in
the Shared category. Open the
Workgroup icon, if you see it, and then double-click the
name of the computer you want. Enter your PC account’s
name and password. (You’ll probably have trouble if your
PC account doesn’t have a password.) The whole thing looks
exactly like Figure 26-9.
Now you see icons that correspond to the computers on
your network (including your own machine), much as
shown in Figure 26-9.
If you don’t see the Windows 7 computers, it may because
all the machines don’t have the same workgroup name.
(A workgroup is a cluster of networked machines. See
Chapter 24 for details.) To change
your Windows XP computer’s
workgroup name to match, choose
StartÆControl Panel, click “Per-
formance and Maintenance,”
and then open System. Click the
Computer Name tab, and then
select Change.
To change a Vista PC’s workgroup
name, choose StartÆControl
Panel; click System and Mainte-
nance; open System. Under the
“Computer Name, Domain, and
Workgroup Settings” heading, click
Change Settings.
To change a Mac’s workgroup
name, open aÆSystem PreferencesÆNetwork. Click
AdvancedÆWINS, and type right into the Workgroup box.
And to change your Windows 7 machine’s name, type re-
name into the Start menu; click “Change workgroup name.”
Authenticate if necessary, and enjoy the box shown here.
frequently asked question
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Tip: Working with the same shared folders often? Save yourself a lot of time and burrowing—make a desktop
shortcut of it right now!
Once you’ve opened the window that contains the shared folder, grab your mouse. Right-click the shared item
and drag it to the desktop. When you release the mouse, choose “Create shortcuts here” from the shortcut
menu. From now on, you can double-click that shortcut to open the shared item directly.
Once you’ve brought a networked folder onto your screen, you can double-click icons
to open them, drag them to the Recycle Bin, make copies of them, and otherwise
manipulate them exactly as though they were icons on your own hard drive. (Of
course, if you weren’t given permission to change the contents of the shared folder,
you have less freedom.)
Tip: There’s one significant difference between working with “local” icons and working with those that sit
elsewhere on the network. When you delete a file from another computer on the network (if you’re allowed
to do so), either by pressing the Delete key or by dragging it to the Recycle Bin, it disappears instantly and
permanently, without ever appearing in the Recycle Bin.
You can even use Windows’s Search feature to find files elsewhere on the network.
This kind of searching can be very slow, however; see page 133 for details on how
Search handles networked disks.
Extra Credit: Universal Naming Convention (UNC)
For hard-core nerds, that business of double-clicking icons in the Network folder
is for sissies. When they want to call up a shared folder from the network, or even a
particular document in a shared folder, they just type a special address into the ad-
dress bar of any folder window, or even Internet Explorer—and then press the Enter
key. You can also type such addresses into the StartÆRun dialog box.
It might look like this: \\laptop\shared documents\salaries 2012.doc.
Tip: Actually, you don’t have to type nearly that much. The AutoComplete feature may propose the full
expression as soon as you type just a few letters of it.
This path format (including the double-backslash before the PC name and a single
backslash before a folder name) is called the Universal Naming Convention (UNC).
It was devised to create a method of denoting the exact location of a particular file
or folder on a network. It also lets network geeks open various folders and files on
networked machines without having to use the Network window.
You can use this system in all kinds of interesting ways:
• Open a particular folder like this: \\computer name\folder name.
• You can also substitute the IP address for the computer instead of using its name,
like this: \\192.1681.44\my documents.
• You can even substitute the name of a shared printer for the folder name.
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• As described later in this chapter, Windows can even access shared folders that
sit elsewhere on the Internet (offline backup services, for example). You can call
these items onto your screen (once you’re online) just by adding http: before the
UNC code and using regular forward slashes instead of backward slashes, like this:
http://Computer Name/Folder Name.
Tip: A great place to type UNC addresses is in the address bar at the top of any desktop window.
Mapping Shares to Drive Letters
All Versions
If you access network shares on a regular basis, you may want to consider another
access technique, called mapping shares. Using this trick, you can assign a letter to a
particular shared disk or folder on the network. Just as your hard drive is called C:
and your floppy drive is A:, you can give your Family Stuff folder the letter F: and the
backup drive in the kitchen the letter J:.
Doing so confers several benefits. First, these disks and folders now appear directly
in the Computer window. Getting to them this way can be faster than navigating to
the Network window.
Second, when you choose FileÆOpen from within one of your applications, you’ll be
able to jump directly to a particular shared folder instead of having to double-click, ever
deeper, through the icons in the Open File dialog box. You can also use the mapped
drive letter in pathnames anywhere you would use a path on a local drive, such as the
Run dialog box, a FileÆSave As dialog box, or the Command Line.
Automatic Reconnections Can Be Tricky
If you select “Reconnect at logon” when mapping a shared
disk or folder to a letter, the order in which you start your
computers becomes important. The PC containing the
shared disk or folder should start up before the computer
that refers to it as, say, drive K:. That way, when the second
computer searches for “drive K:” on the network, its quest
will be successful.
On the other hand, this guideline presents a seemingly
insurmountable problem if you have two computers on
the network and each of them maps drive letters to folders
or disks on the other.
In that situation, you get an error message to the effect that
the permanent connection is not available. It asks if you want
to reconnect the next time you start the computer. Click Yes.
Then, after all the computers have started up, open your
Computer window or an Explorer window. You can see the
mapped drive, but there’s a red X under the icon. Ignore the
X. Just double-click the icon. The shared folder or disk opens
normally (because the other machine is now available), and
the red X goes away.
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To map a drive letter to a disk or folder, open any folder or disk window. Then:
1. In any Explorer window, press Alt (or F10) to make the old menu bar appear.
Choose ToolsÆ“Map network drive.”
The Map Network Drive dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 26-10.
2. Using the drop-down list, choose a drive letter.
You can select any unused letter you like (except B, which is still reserved for the
second floppy disk drive that PCs don’t have anymore).
3. Indicate which folder or disk you want this letter to represent.
You can type its UNC code into the Folder box, choose from the drop-down list
of recently accessed folders, or click Browse.
FTP Sites and Other Online Disks
How do I bring an FTP server, or one of those Web-based
backup drives, onto my PC?
The trick to bringing these servers online is the “Add a
network place” link—but you won’t find it in the task pane
of the Network window, as it was in Windows XP.
The trick is to right-click a blank spot in the Computer
window. From the shortcut menu, choose “Add a network
location.”
When the wizard appears, click Next. Then, on the second
screen, click “Choose a custom network location.” Click Next.
Finally you arrive at the critical screen, where you can type
in the address of the Web site, FTP site, or other network
location that you want your new shortcut to open.
Into the first text box, you can type any of these network
addresses:
The UNC code. As described earlier in this chapter, a UNC
code pinpoints a particular shared folder on the network.
For example, if you want to open the shared folder named
FamilyBiz on the computer named Dad, enter \\dad\family-
biz. Capitalization doesn’t matter. Or, to open a specific file,
you could enter something like \\dad\finances\budget.xls.
http://website/folder. To see what’s in a folder called
Customers on a company Web site called BigBiz.com, enter
http://bigbiz.com/customers. (You can’t just type in any old
Web address. It has to be a Web site that’s been specifically
designed to serve as a “folder” containing files.)
ftp://ftp.website/folder. This is the address format for FTP
sites. For example, if you want to use a file in a folder named
Bids on a company site named WeBuyStuff.com, enter ftp://
ftp.webuystuff.com/bids.
What happens when you click Next depends on the kind of
address you specified. If it was an FTP site, you’re offered
the chance to specify your user name. (Access to every FTP
site requires a user name and password. You won’t be asked
for the password until you actually try to open the newly
created folder shortcut.)
Click Finish to complete the creation of your network short-
cut, which now appears in the Network Location area in the
Computer window. To save you a step, the wizard also offers
to connect to and open the corresponding folder.
You can work with these remote folders exactly as though
they were sitting on your own hard drive. The only difference
is that because you’re actually communicating with a hard
drive via the Internet, the slower speed may make it feel as
if your PC has been drugged.
frequently asked question
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Tip: Most people use the mapping function for disks and drives elsewhere on the network, but there’s
nothing to stop you from mapping a folder that’s sitting right there on your own PC.
4. To make this letter assignment stick, turn on “Reconnect at logon.”
If you don’t use this option, Windows forgets this assignment the next time you
turn on the computer. (Use the “Connect using different credentials” option if your
account name on the shared folder’s machine isn’t the same as it is on this one.)
Figure 26-10:
Top: Choose a letter, any
letter. Then choose a
folder, any folder.
Bottom: You’ve just
turned a folder into a
drive, complete with its
own drive letter—and
instant access to the
Navigation pane.
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5. Click Finish.
A window opens to display the contents of the folder or disk. If you don’t want to
work with any files at the moment, just close the window.
From now on (depending on your setting in step 4), that shared disk or folder shows
up in your Navigation pane along with the disks that are actually in your PC, as shown
at bottom in Figure 26-9.
Tip: If you see a red X on one of these mapped icons, it means that the PC on which one of the shared
folders or disks resides is either off the network or is turned off completely.
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27
chapter 27: windows by remote control 797
Windows by
Remote Control
Windows provides many avenues for accessing one PC from another across
the Internet. If you’re a road warrior armed with a laptop, you may be
delighted by these features. If you’re a corporate employee who used to
think you could escape the office by going home, you may not.
In any case, each of these remote access features requires a good deal of setup and some
scavenging through the technical underbrush, and each offers slightly different ben-
efits and drawbacks. But when you’re in Tulsa and a spreadsheet you need is on your
PC in Tallahassee, you may be grateful to have at least one of these systems in place.
And besides—if you’re connecting to PCs at your corporate office, your corporate
IT people have probably already done all the hard work of getting the computers at
work set up for you to connect to them from home or the road.
Remote Access Basics
All Versions
The two most common scenarios for using these remote access features are: (a) control-
ling your home PC remotely using a laptop, and (b) connecting to your office network
from your PC at home. To help you keep the roles of these various computers straight,
the computer industry has done you the favor of introducing specialized terminology:
• The host computer is the home-base computer—the unattended one that’s waiting
for you to connect.
• The remote computer is the one you’ll be using: your laptop on the road, for ex-
ample, or your home machine (or laptop) when you tap into the office network.
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Remote Access
Basics
This chapter covers three systems of connecting:
•Dialing direct. The remote computer can dial the host PC directly, modem to
modem, becoming part of the network at the host location. At that point, you can
access shared folders exactly as described in the previous chapter.
The downside? The host PC must have its own phone line that only it answers.
Otherwise, its modem answers every incoming phone call, occasionally blasting
the ears of hapless human callers. No wonder this is becoming a less common
connection method.
•Virtual private networking (VPN). Using this system, you don’t have to make a
direct connection from the remote PC to the host. Instead, you use the Internet
as an intermediary. You avoid long-distance charges, and the host PC doesn’t have
to have its own phone line. Once again, the remote computer behaves exactly as
though it has joined the network of the system you’re dialing into.
•Remote Desktop. This feature doesn’t just make the remote PC join the network
of the host; it actually turns your computer into the faraway host PC, filling your
screen with its screen image. When you touch the trackpad on your laptop, you’re
actually moving the cursor on the home-base PC’s screen, and so forth.
Tip: For added protection against snoopers, you should use Remote Desktop with a VPN connection.
To make Remote Desktop work, you have to connect to a computer running
Windows 7 (Professional and above), Vista (Business and above), XP Pro, or Win-
dows Server. But the machine you’re connecting from can be any relatively recent
Windows PC, a Macintosh (to get a free copy of Remote Desktop Connection for
Mac, visit www.microsoft.com/mac/), or even a computer running Linux (you’ll
need the free rdesktop client, available from www.rdesktop.org).
Tip: The world is filled with more powerful, more flexible products that let you accomplish the same things
as these Windows features, from software programs like LapLink, Carbon Copy, and PC Anywhere to Web
sites like www.gotomypc.com.
On the other hand, Remote Desktop is free.
Note, by the way, that these are all methods of connecting to an unattended machine.
If somebody is sitting at the PC back home, you might find it far more convenient
to connect using Remote Assistance, described in Chapter 5. It’s easier to set up and
offers the same kind of “screen sharing” as Remote Desktop.
Dialing Direct
All Versions
Here, then, is Method 1, dialing in from the road, modem to modem. To set up the
host to make it ready for access from afar, you first must prepare it to answer calls.
Then you need to set up the remote computer to dial in.
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Dialing Direct
Setting Up the Host PC
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate
If your host PC has its own private phone line—the lucky thing—here’s how to
prepare it for remote access:
1. Choose StartÆControl PanelÆNetwork and InternetÆNetwork and Sharing
Center.
The Network and Sharing Center appears.
2. Click the “Change adapter settings” link on the left side.
The Network Connections window appears. Icons now appear, representing your
various network connections. (See Chapter 9.)
3. Press the Alt or F10 key to make the menu bar appear. Choose FileÆNew Incom-
ing Connection.
The Allow Connections to this Computer wizard appears (Figure 27-1, top). You’re
now looking at a list of every account holder on your PC (Chapter 23).
4. Choose the names of the users who are allowed to dial in.
If you highlight a name, turn on its checkbox, and then click Account Properties,
you can turn on the callback feature—a security feature that, after you’ve dialed in,
makes your host PC hang up and call you back at a specific number. You can either
(a) specify a callback number at the host machine in advance, so that outsiders won’t
be able to connect, or (b) let the remote user specify the callback number, which
puts most of the telephone charges on the host computer’s bill (so that you can
bypass obscene hotel long-distance surcharges). Click OK to close the dialog box.
5. Click Next.
Now you can choose how remote users will connect (Figure 27-1, bottom).
6. Select “Through a dial-up modem.” Select your modem in the list, and then click
Next.
Now you’re prompted to choose which networking capabilities to offer over the
dial-up connection. Ensure that the “Internet Protocol Version 4” and “File and
Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks” options are selected.
7. Click “Allow access.”
The final screen says, “The people you chose can now connect to this computer.
To connect, they will need the following information:”—and then you see your
computer’s official name.
Truth is, though, if you plan to dial in, you don’t even need to know that; all you
need is your phone number!
A new icon in your Network Connections window, called Incoming Connections,
is born.
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Your home-base PC is ready for connections. When the phone rings, the modem
answers it. (Of course, you shouldn’t use this feature with the same phone line as
your answering machine or your fax machine.)
You might want to make a few changes to the configuration now. Right-click on the
incoming connection’s icon; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties.
In the Incoming Connections Properties dialog box, you can open your modem’s
Properties to turn on “Disconnect a call if idle for more than __ minutes.” Doing so
makes sure that your home-base PC won’t tie up the line after your laptop in the hotel
room is finished going about its business.
Setting Up the Remote PC
All Versions
Next, go to the remote computer and get it ready to phone home. Here’s what to do:
Figure 27-1:
The New Incoming
Connection Wizard is
the key to setting up
two of Windows’s three
remote access features:
direct dialing and vir-
tual private networking
(VPN). To set it up, you
answer its questions
once on the host
computer and again on
the laptop (or whatever
machine you’ll use to
dial in).
Top: The “Who may
connect to this com-
puter?” screen (where
you indicate which
account holders are
allowed to dial in).
Bottom: The all-impor-
tant “How will people
connect?” screen
(which is what makes
your PC answer the
phone).
Dialing Direct
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1. Choose StartÆControl PanelÆNetwork and InternetÆNetwork and Sharing
Center. In the Tasks pane on the left, click “Set up a new connection or network.”
The “Set up a connection or network” wizard appears.
2. Scroll down, if necessary, and double-click “Connect to a workplace.”
If you already have a dial-up connection, Windows asks if you want to use the
connection you already have. “No, create a new connection” is already selected.
3. Click Next.
Now Windows wants to know if you’ll be connecting via modem (“Dial directly”)
or via Internet (“Use my Internet connection (VPN)”).
4. Click “Dial directly.”
Now you’re asked to type in the phone number you’ll want your laptop to call.
5. Type in the phone number and a name for your connection (like “Phone home”).
Click “Don’t connect now; just set it up so I can connect later” and then click Next.
Another screen, another form to fill out.
6. Type in your user name and password, and if a network administrator so dictates,
specify a domain name. Then click Create.
Windows tells you, “The connection is ready to use.”
7. Click Close.
You’re now ready to establish a connection between the two computers.
Making the Call
Once you’ve configured both computers, make sure both the host and remote systems
are running. To connect from the remote system to the host, follow these steps on
your laptop:
1. Click the Network icon in the notification area of the taskbar.
A list of connections appears.
2. Click the connection you created; click Connect.
The Connect dialog box shown in Figure 27-2 appears.
Note: If you’re using a laptop while traveling, you might have to tell Windows where you are before you
attempt to connect. If you’re in a different area code, for example, open Control PanelÆHardware and
SoundÆPhone and Modem Options. Make sure you’ve specified your current location, complete with
whatever fancy dialing numbers it requires. Click the current location and then click OK. Now Windows
knows what area code and prefixes to use.
3. Check your name, password, and phone number.
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802 windows 7: the missing manual
This is the same name and password you’d use to log in at the Welcome screen if
you were sitting in front of the host PC (Chapter 23).
Don’t blow off this step. Typing the wrong name and password is the number-one
source of problems.
4. Click Dial.
Windows dials into your home or office PC, makes the connection, and—if the
phone number, name, and password are all correct—puts an icon for this connec-
tion into the list of connections you see when you click the network icon in the
notification area (Figure 27-3, top).
You’re free to open up any shared folders, even use shared printers, on your network
back home. And although it may make your brain hurt to contemplate it, you can
even surf the Internet if your home PC has, say, a cable modem.
Note: Don’t try to run any programs that reside on your host PC, however; you’ll be old and gray by the
time they even finish opening.
Figure 27-2:
You’re ready to phone home. If you click the Properties
button, you can invoke a dialing rule, if you created
one, which can save you a bit of fiddling with area
codes and access numbers.
To set that up, download the free PDF appendix called
“Details on Dial-Up.” You’ll find it on this book’s “Miss-
ing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.
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chapter 27: windows by remote control 803
When you’re finished with your email check, address lookup, document transfer, or
whatever, click the little network icon in your notification area, choose “Connect or
disconnect” and choose Disconnect from the dialog that appears (Figure 27-3, bottom).
Virtual Private Networking
All Versions
If you’re a frequent traveler who regularly connects to a distant home or office by
dialing direct, you must be the toast of your long-distance phone company.
Fortunately, there’s a more economical solution. Virtual private networking (VPN) is
a fancy way of saying, “Your remote computer can become part of your host network
by using the Internet instead of a long-distance phone connection.”
It’s a lot like the direct-dialing feature described above—except this time, you don’t
pay any long-distance bills, your host PC doesn’t require its own phone line, and (if
the computers on both ends have fast connections) you’re not limited to the sluglike
speeds of dial-up modems.
With a VPN connection, both the host and the remote computers connect to the
Internet the usual way: WiFi, DSL, cable modem, or good old dial-up. If you travel
with a laptop, that’s a good argument for signing up with a cellular data plan (see
“Cellular Modems” in Chapter 9) or using a national or international dial-up ISP that
has local access numbers wherever you plan to be.
Figure 27-3:
Congratulations—you’re in. Disconnect by clicking the notifica-
tion area icon and choosing “Connect or disconnect.”
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804 windows 7: the missing manual
Note: To make VPN work, both computers require Internet connections; that much is obvious.
The one at home (or at the office) is probably all set. You should, however, put some thought into getting
the laptop online. You’ll have to find wireless hot spots, for example, or, if you do this a lot, you can sign up
for a cellular modem plan (page 351) or even a dial-up account.
Not only can VPN save the frequent traveler quite a bit of money in phone calls, but
it’s also extremely secure. When you connect using VPN, the information traveling
between the two connected computers is encoded (encrypted) using a technology
called tunneling. Your connection is like a reinforced steel pipe wending its way through
the Internet to connect the two computers.
To create a VPN connection, the host computer has two important requirements. If
you’re VPNing into a corporation or school, it’s probably all set already. Otherwise:
• It must be on the Internet at the moment you try to connect. Usually, that means it
needs a full-time Internet connection, like cable modem or DSL. But in a pinch—if
it has only a dial-up modem, for example—you could phone a family member
or coworker just before you need to connect and beg her to go online with your
home PC.
• It needs a fixed IP address. (See the Note below.)
On the other hand, the remote computer—your laptop—doesn’t have any such re-
quirements. It just needs an Internet connection.
Note: Several of the remote-connection methods described in this chapter require that your home-base PC
have a fixed, public IP address. (An IP address is a unique number that identifies a particular computer on
the Internet. It’s made up of four numbers separated by periods.)
If you’re not immediately nodding in understanding, murmuring, “Aaaaah, right,” then download the bonus
document available on this book’s “Missing CD” at www.missingmanuals.com. The free PDF supplement
you’ll find there is called “Getting a Fixed, Public IP Address.”
Setting Up the Host Machine
To set up the host PC for the VPN connection, do exactly as you would for direct-
dial connections (page 801)—but in step 5, choose “Through the Internet” instead of
“Through a dial-up modem.” When the wizard finishes its work, the host machine is
ready for action. Instead of setting up the modem to answer incoming calls, Windows
now listens for incoming VPN connection requests from the Internet.
Making the Connection
Now move to the laptop, or whatever machine you’ll be using when you’re away from
the main office. These steps, too, should seem familiar—they start out just like those
that began on page 801. But in step 4, instead of clicking “Dial directly,” you should
choose “Use my Internet connection (VPN).”
Now you arrive at a screen that says, “Type the Internet address to connect to.” Pro-
ceed like this:
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chapter 27: windows by remote control 805
1. Type the host name or registered IP address of the VPN host—that is, the com-
puter you’ll be tunneling into. Click “Don’t connect now; just set it up so I can
connect later,” and then click Next.
If you’re connecting to a server at work or school, your system administrator can
tell you what to type here. If you’re connecting to a computer you set up yourself,
specify its public IP address. (See the Note above.)
This is not the private IP address on your home network, and definitely not its
computer name (despite the fact that the New Incoming Connection Wizard told
you that you would need to use that name); neither of these work when you’re
logged into another network.
2. Type your user name, password, and, if required by the network administrator,
the domain name. Then click Create.
Windows tells you, “The connection is ready to use.”
3. Click Connect Now or, if you plan to connect later, Close.
The result is a new entry in the “Connect to a network” dialog box shown in Figure
27-3; click the network icon in the taskbar’s notification area to see it.
When you make the VPN connection, you’ve once again joined your home or office
network. Exactly as with the direct-dial connection described earlier, you should feel
free to transfer files, make printouts, and so on. Unless both computers are using
high-speed Internet connections, avoid actually running programs on the distant PC.
When you want to disconnect, click the n icon in your notification area, click the
VPN Connection from the list that pops up, and then choose Disconnect.
(You can also disconnect using the Network and Sharing Center.)
Remote Desktop
Professional • Enterprise • Ultimate • (Home Premium and Starter are limited)
The third remote-access option, Remote Desktop, offers some spectacular advantages.
When you use Remote Desktop, you’re not just tapping into your home computer’s
network—you’re actually bringing its screen onto your screen. You can run its pro-
grams, print on its printers, “type” on its keyboard, move its cursor, manage its files,
and so on, all by remote control.
Remote Desktop isn’t useful only when you’re trying to connect to the office or reach
your home computer from the road; it even works over an office network. You can
actually take control of another computer in the office—to troubleshoot a novice’s PC
without having to run up or down a flight of stairs, perhaps, or just to run a program
that isn’t on your own machine.
If you do decide to use Remote Desktop over the Internet, consider setting up a VPN
connection first; using Remote Desktop over a VPN connection adds a nice layer of
security to the connection. It also means that you become part of your home or office
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806 windows 7: the missing manual
network—and you can therefore connect to the distant computer using its private
network address or even its computer name.
Tip: The computers on the receiving end of the connections require the Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate
editions of Windows 7. The laptop you’re using can be running any edition.
In fact, it can be running any version of Windows all the way back to 95, and even Mac OS X or Linux. To
install the Remote Desktop Connection client on Mac OS X or an older version of Windows, visit the Microsoft
Download Center (www.microsoft.com/downloads/) and search for “Remote Desktop Connection.” For
Linux, get the free rdesktop program at www.rdesktop.org.
Setting Up the Host Machine
To get a PC ready for invasion—that is, to turn it into a host—proceed like this:
1. Choose StartÆControl PanelÆSystem and SecurityÆSystem. Click the “Remote
settings” link.
Authenticate yourself if needed (page 726). The System Properties dialog opens
to the Remote tab, as shown in Figure 27-4.
Figure 27-4:
Turning on the “Allow connections” check-
box makes Windows listen to the network
for Remote Desktop connections. Now
you can specify who, exactly, is allowed
to log in.
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chapter 27: windows by remote control 807
2. Turn on “Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with
Network Level Authentication (more secure).”
You’ve just turned on the master switch that lets outsiders connect to your machine
and take it over.
Tip: If this “more secure” option doesn’t work, you can return here and try the “less secure” option. That
should be necessary only when you’re connecting from a much older version of Windows.
3. Click Select Users.
The Remote Desktop Users dialog box appears. You certainly don’t want teenage
hackers to visit your precious PC from across the Internet, playing your games
and reading your personal info. Fortunately, the Remote Desktop feature requires
you to specify precisely who is allowed to connect.
4. (Optional) Click Add. In the resulting dialog box, type the names of the people
who are allowed to access your PC using Remote Desktop.
This dialog box might seem familiar—it’s exactly the same idea as the Select Users,
Computers, or Groups dialog box shown on page 740.
By default, local users with administrative privileges are automatically given access.
Choose your comrades carefully; remember that they’ll be able to do anything
to your system, by remote control, that you could do while sitting in front of it.
(To ensure security, Windows insists that the accounts you’re selecting here have
passwords. Although you can add them to this list, password-free accounts can’t
connect.) Click OK.
5. Click OK twice to close the dialog boxes you opened.
The host computer is now ready for invasion. It’s listening to the network for
incoming connections from Remote Desktop clients.
Making the Connection
When you’re ready to try Remote Desktop, fire up your laptop, or whatever computer
will be doing the remote connecting. Then:
1. Connect to the VPN of the distant host computer (page 803).
If the host computer is elsewhere on your local network—in the same building,
that is—you can skip this step.
2. Choose StartÆAll ProgramsÆAccessoriesÆRemote Desktop Connection.
The Remote Desktop Connection dialog box appears.
3. Click Options to expand the dialog box (if necessary). Fill it out as shown in
Figure 27-5.
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808 windows 7: the missing manual
The idea is to specify the IP address or DNS name of the computer you’re trying
to reach. If it’s on the same network, or if you’re connected via a VPN, you can
use its computer name instead.
4. Click Connect.
Now a freaky thing happens: After a moment of pitch-blackness, the host com-
puter’s screen fills your own (Figure 27-6). Don’t be confused by the fact that all
the open windows on the computer you’re using have now disappeared. (Actually,
Figure 27-5:
Type in the IP address, registered DNS
name, or local computer name of your
host computer. When prompted, fill in
your name and password (and domain, if
necessary), exactly the way you would if
you were logging onto it in person.
Figure 27-6:
The strange
little bar at the
top of your
screen lets
you minimize
the distant
computer’s
screen or turn it
into a floating
window. To
hide this title
bar, click the
pushpin icon
so that it turns
horizontal.
It slides into
the top of the
screen, out of
your way, until
you move the
cursor to the
top edge of the
screen.
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chapter 27: windows by remote control 809
they won’t if you click the Display tab and choose a smaller-than-full-screen remote
desktop size before you connect.)
You can now operate the distant PC as though you were there in the flesh, using
your own keyboard (or trackpad) and mouse. You can answer your email, make
long-distance printouts, and so on. All the action—running programs, changing
settings, and so on—is actually taking place on the faraway host computer.
Tip: You can even shut down or restart the faraway machine by remote control. Open a Command Prompt
and run the command shutdown /s. The computer will shut down in less than a minute.
Keep in mind a few other points:
• You don’t need to feel completely blocked out of your own machine. The little title
bar at the top of the screen offers you the chance to put the remote computer’s
screen into a floating window of its own, permitting you to see both your own
screen and the home-base computer’s screen simultaneously (Figure 27-7). You
can return to full-screen mode by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Break.
• You can copy and paste highlighted text or graphics between the two machines
(using regular Copy and Paste), and even transfer entire documents back and
forth (using Copy and Paste on the desktop icons). Of course, if you’ve made
both desktops visible simultaneously (Figure 27-7), you can move more quickly
between local and remote.
Figure 27-7:
By putting the
other computer’s
screen into a
window of its
own, you save
yourself a little
bit of confusion.
You can even
minimize the re-
mote computer’s
screen entirely,
reducing it to
a tab on your
taskbar until you
need it again.
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810 windows 7: the missing manual
• Even Windows can’t keep its mind focused on two people at once. If somebody
is trying to use the host machine in person, you’ll see a message to the effect that
you’re about to bump that person off the PC.
Similarly, if somebody tries to log on at the host computer while you’re connected
from the remote, you get unceremoniously dumped off. (You just get a message
that tells you “Another user connected to the remote computer.”) Fortunately, you
don’t lose work this way—your account remains logged on behind the scenes, just
as in fast user switching. When you connect again later (after the interloper has
signed off), you’ll find all your programs and documents open exactly as you (or
your interloper) left them.
• Back at the host computer, nobody can see what you’re doing. The standard Wel-
come screen appears on the remote PC, masking your activities.
Keyboard Shortcuts for the Hopelessly Confused
When the Remote Desktop Connection window is maximized (that is, it fills your
entire screen), all the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts operate on the host
computer, not the one you’re actually using. When you press the w key, for example,
you see the host computer’s Start menu.
Note: There’s one exception. When you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, your computer processes the keystroke.
But when you turn the Remote Desktop Connection into a floating window that
doesn’t fill your entire screen, it’s a different story. Now your current computer “hears”
your keystrokes. Now, pressing w opens your Start menu. So how, with the remote
PC’s screen in a window, are you supposed to operate it by remote control?
For the Paranoid
If you see an error message indicating that “the identity of
the remote computer cannot be verified,” it means that you
(or your network administrator) haven’t obtained a security
certificate from a trusted authority. This means you can’t be
absolutely, positively, 100 percent certain you’re connecting
to the computer you think you’re connecting to.
But if you’re super paranoid, you can click View Certificate,
click the Details tab, and scroll down to look at the thumb-
print.
Then, go over to the host machine, click Start, type mmc
into the Search box, and click the icon that appears in the
results. This brings up the Microsoft Management Console.
Click FileÆAdd/Remove Snap-In and add the Certificates
snap-in (choose Computer Account when prompted); click
Finish, and then click OK.
Now, double-click the Remote Desktop folder on the left
pane of the Console window, and then click Certificates.
You should see one certificate appear in the middle pane.
Double-click it, and examine the details to make sure they’re
identical to what you’re seeing on the remote machine you’re
connecting from. When you close the Console, click No when
it asks you if you want to save changes.
Now you’re 100 percent certain, and can confidently click
the box labeled “Don’t ask me again for connections to this
computer” when you make a Remote Desktop Connection
to the host!
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chapter 27: windows by remote control 811
Microsoft has thought of everything. It’s even given you alternatives for the key
combinations you’re accustomed to using. For example, suppose you’ve connected to
your office PC using your laptop. When the Remote Desktop window isn’t full-screen,
pressing Alt+Tab switches to the next open program on the laptop—but pressing
Alt+Page Up switches to the next program on the host computer.
Here’s a summary of the special keys that operate the distant host computer—a table
that can be useful if you’re either an extreme power user or somebody who likes to
win bar bets:
Standard Windows Remote Desktop Function
Key Combination Key Combination
Alt+Tab Alt+Page Up Switches to the next open program
Alt+Shift+Tab Alt+Page Down Switches to the previous open
program
Alt+Esc Alt+Insert Cycles through programs in the
order in which you open them
Ctrl+Esc (or w) Alt+Home Opens the Start menu
Ctrl+Alt+Delete Ctrl+Alt+End Displays the Windows Security
dialog box.
(Actually, you should use the alternative key combination for the Security dialog box
whether the Remote Desktop window is maximized or not, because Ctrl+Alt+Delete
is always interpreted by the computer you’re currently using.)
Disconnecting
To get out of Remote Desktop full-screen mode, click the Close box in the strange
little title bar at the top of your screen, as shown in Figure 27-6 (if you’re using the
floating window, you can click the usual X in the upper-right of the window). Or,
from the Start menu, choose X. (Yes, X. This special button means “Disconnect,” and
when you’re using Remote Desktop, it replaces the π symbol at the bottom of the
Start menu.)
Note, however, that this method leaves all your programs running and your documents
open on the distant machine, exactly as though you had used fast user switching. If
you log on again, either from the road or in person, you’ll find all those programs
and documents still on the screen, just as you left them.
If you’d rather log off in a more permanent way, closing all your distant documents and
programs, choose StartÆLog Off (from the other computer’s Start menu, not yours).
Fine-tuning Remote Desktop Connections
Windows offers all kinds of settings for tailoring the way this bizarre, schizophrenic
connection method works. The trick is, however, that you have to change them before
you connect, using the tabs on the dialog box shown in Figure 27-8.
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812 windows 7: the missing manual
Here’s what you find:
•General tab. Here’s where you can tell Windows to edit or delete credentials (user
name and password) from your last login, or to save all the current settings as a
shortcut icon, which makes it faster to reconnect later. (If you connect to a number
of different distant computers, saving a setup for each one in this way can be a
huge timesaver.)
•Display tab. Use these options to specify the size (resolution) of the host computer’s
display (see Figure 27-8).
Figure 27-8:
Click the Options
button if you don’t
see these tabs.
Once you’ve made
them appear, a few
useful (and a lot of
rarely useful) settings
become available.
On the Display tab
(left), for example,
you can effectively
reduce the size of
the other computer’s
screen so that it fits
within your laptop’s.
On the Experience
tab (right), you can
turn off special-effect
animations to speed
up the connection.
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•Local Resources tab. Using these controls, you can set up local peripherals and
add-ons so they behave as though they were connected to the computer you’re
using. This is also where you tell Windows which PC should “hear” keystrokes
like Alt+Tab, and whether or not you want to hear sound effects played by the
distant machine.
•Programs tab. You can set up a certain program to run automatically as soon as
you connect to the host machine.
•Experience tab. Tell Windows the speed of your connection, so it can limit fancy
visual effects like menu animation, the desktop wallpaper, and so on, to avoid
slowing down the connection. The Desktop Composition option controls whether
Remote Desktop uses Windows’s Aero glass effects (if, in fact, your computer has
the horsepower).
•Advanced. You can control whether Remote Desktop Connection warns you if
it can’t verify the identity of a computer, and also whether to connect through a
special gateway server (if you need to use one of these, your system administrator
will tell you.)
Remote Networking vs. Remote Control
When you connect to a PC using direct dial or virtual private
networking (VPN), you’re simply joining the host’s network
from far away. When you try to open a Word document that’s
actually sitting on the distant PC, your laptop’s copy of Word
opens and loads the file. Your laptop is doing the actual word
processing; the host just sends and receives files as needed.
Windows’s Remote Desktop feature is a different animal.
In this case, you’re using your laptop to control the host
computer. If you double-click that Word file on the host
computer, you open the copy of Word on the host computer.
All the word processing takes place on the distant machine;
all that passes over the connection between the two comput-
ers is a series of keystrokes, mouse movements, and screen
displays. The host is doing all the work. Your laptop is just
peeking at the results.
Once you understand the differences between these tech-
nologies, you can make a more informed decision about
which to use when. For example, suppose your PC at the
office has a folder containing 100 megabytes of images you
need to incorporate into a PowerPoint document. Using a
remote networking connection means you’ll have to wait
for the files to be transmitted to your laptop before you
can begin working—and if you’ve connected to the office
machine using a dial-up modem, you’ll be waiting, literally,
for several days.
If you use a Remote Desktop connection, on the other
hand, the files remain right where they are: on the host
computer, which does all the processing. You see on your
screen exactly what you would see if you were sitting at the
office. When you drag and drop one of those images into
your PowerPoint document, all the action is taking place on
the PC at the other end.
Of course, if the computer doing the dialing is a brand-new
Pentium 7 zillion-megahertz screamer, and the host system
is a 5-year-old rustbucket on its last legs, you might actually
prefer a remote network connection, so the faster machine
can do most of the heavy work.
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a
appendix a: installing & upgrading to windows 7 817
Installing & Upgrading to
Windows 7
If your computer came with Windows 7 already installed on it, you can skip this
appendix—for now. But if you’re running an earlier version of Windows and
want to savor the Win7 experience, this appendix describes how to install the
new operating system on your computer.
Before You Begin
Believe it or not, most of the work involved in installing Windows 7 takes place well
before the installation DVD even approaches your computer. You have a lot of research
and planning to do, especially if you want to avoid spending a five-day weekend in
Upgrade Hell.
For example, you must ensure that your PC is beefy enough to handle Windows 7—not
a sure thing at all. You also have to decide which of two types of installation you want
to perform: an upgrade or a clean install. (More on this in a moment.)
If you opt for the clean install (a process that begins with erasing your hard drive
completely), you must back up your data. Finally, you have to gather all the software
bits and pieces you need in order to perform the installation.
Hardware Requirements
Before you even buy a copy of Windows, your first order of business should be to check
your computer against the list of hardware requirements for Windows, as published
by Microsoft. Windows 7, as it turns out, requires some fairly decent memory, speed,
disk space, and, above all, graphics-card horsepower. Most 2004-era computers (and
earlier ones) aren’t up to the challenge.
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818 windows 7: the missing manual
Before You Begin A lower-powered computer can run Windows 7. It may feel slow, and you don’t see
the Aero Glass look (transparent window edges, taskbar thumbnails, and so on; see
Chapter 1). It does, however, offer all the other security and feature enhancements.
Here’s what such a computer requires:
•Processor: 1 gigahertz or faster.
•Memory: 1 gigabyte or more.
•Hard-disk space: At least 16 gigabytes free.
•Graphics card: DirectX 9 support with WDDM 1.0 driver (check the packaging
or, for laptops, the manufacturer’s Web site).
Tip: A DVD drive is a good idea, but it’s not essential. Most netbooks don’t have one. If you want to install
Windows 7 on such a computer, you can either buy an external USB DVD drive ($50 or less) or use Microsoft’s
Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to install Windows 7 from a USB memory stick. For more information,
see http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool.
The tool requires access to a computer with a DVD drive that’s running Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later.
If your computer doesn’t meet these requirements, then consider a hardware up-
grade—especially a memory upgrade. With memory prices what they are today (read:
dirt cheap), you’ll thank yourself later for adding as much RAM as you can afford.
Adding more hard-disk space is also a reasonably easy and inexpensive upgrade, and
there are inexpensive graphics adapters that will handle Windows’s visual effects (that
Aero business described in Chapter 1).
The one place where you may be stuck, though, is on the processor issue. The state
of the art in processor speeds seems to advance almost weekly, but it’s safe to say that
a PC running at 1 GHz or less is certifiably geriatric. It may be time to think about
passing the old girl on to the kids or donating it to a worthy cause and getting your-
self a newer, faster computer. As a bonus, it will come with Windows 7 preinstalled.
The Compatibility Issue
Once you’ve had a conversation with yourself about your equipment, it’s time to inves-
tigate the suitability of your existing software and add-on gear for use with Windows.
•Hardware. In general, products released since October 2006 are Windows 7–
compatible, but you should still proceed with caution before using them with
Windows 7. You should by all means check the Web sites of these components’
manufacturers in hopes of finding updated driver software.
•Software. Most programs and drivers that work with Windows XP work fine in
Windows 7, but not all. And programs designed for Windows 95, 98, and Me may
well cause you problems.
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appendix a: installing & upgrading to windows 7 819
Before You Begin
Unless you’re that lucky individual who’s starting fresh with a brand new PC and
software suite, you’d be wise to run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor program before
you move into Windows 7 World.
If you haven’t yet bought Windows 7, you can download this important program
from Microsoft’s Web site at windows.microsoft.com/upgradeadvisor. It runs only on
Windows XP and Vista (and, pointlessly, Windows 7), and it scans your system to
produce a report on the Windows 7 compatibility of your hardware and software.
If you have a Windows 7 DVD, insert it. On its welcome screen (Figure A-2, top), click
“Check compatibility online,” and then download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.
Tip: A compatibility checker also runs automatically during the installation process itself.
The Upgrade Advisor first offers to download updates from Microsoft’s Web site. If
you can get online, it’s an excellent idea to take it up on this offer. You’ll get all the
patches, updates, and bug fixes Microsoft has released since the debut of Windows 7.
Next, the advisor shows you a report that identifies potential problems. Almost ev-
erybody finds some incompatibilities reported here, because Microsoft is particularly
conservative about which programs will work with Windows 7.
But if the report lists a serious incompatibility, it’s not worth proceeding with the
installation until you’ve updated or uninstalled the offending program.
Note: Utilities like hard-drive formatting software, virus checkers, firewall programs, and so on are especially
troublesome. Do not use them in Windows 7 unless they’re specifically advertised for Windows 7 compatibility.
Upgrade vs. Clean Install
If your PC currently runs Vista, the next big question is whether or not you should
upgrade it to Windows 7, or erase it and perform a clean install of Windows 7. (If if
you have Windows XP now, you have no choice; you must perform a clean install.)
Upgrading the operating system retains all your existing settings and data files. Your
Favorites list and the files in your Documents folder will all be there after the upgrade.
Sounds great, right? Who wouldn’t want to avoid having to redo all those settings?
Unfortunately, in past version of Windows, upgrading from an older copy of Windows
often brought along unwelcome baggage: outdated drivers, fragmented disk drives,
and a clutter of unneeded registry settings. If all this artery-clogging gunk had already
begun to slow down your computer, upgrading to a newer version of Windows only
made things worse.
Microsoft says it’s drastically improved the upgrade process. Rather than merging the
old operating system in with the new, Windows 7’s Setup program pushes all the old
stuff (programs, settings, and documents) aside, and then wipes the old OS clean.
After that, Setup installs the new OS and then brings over your settings, documents,
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820 windows 7: the missing manual
and programs. All of this leads to a cleaner upgrade that should be more stable than
previous Windows upgrades.
Even so, some caution is still justified. The upgrade of the operating system itself may
go smoothly, but there’s no telling what glitches this procedure may introduce in your
non-Microsoft programs. In general, such programs prefer to be installed fresh on
the new operating system.
Your Windows 7 upgrade options depend on which version of Vista you have now:
•Home Basic or Home Premium. You can upgrade to the Home Premium or Ul-
timate versions of Windows 7.
•Business. You can upgrade only to Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate.
•Ultimate. You can upgrade only to Windows 7 Ultimate.
What’s more, you can’t upgrade a 32-bit version to a 64-bit version or vice versa.
However, if you’ve got 4 GB or more of RAM in your computer, you need a 64-bit
version of Windows 7 to use all of it. So if you think you’ve got an abundance of RAM
in your future but you’re running a 32-bit version of Vista, you may want to do a clean
install of a 64-bit version of Windows 7.
Note: The Enterprise edition of Windows 7 isn’t for sale to mere mortals. It’s available only to corporations,
whose system administrators will handle all the upgrading hassles without your involvement.
Buying Windows 7
If you do decide to upgrade from Windows Vista, you’ll save some money, because
the Upgrade version of Windows is less expensive than a Full version.
If you’re not sure whether the Upgrade version will work on your machine, check this
Microsoft Web page: http://bit.ly/3YKvs.
And remember: If your computer is currently running anything but Windows Vista,
you have to buy the Full version of Windows 7 and perform a clean install.
Tip: As you shop, remember, too, that you can start now with one of the less expensive editions—and later,
if you find your style cramped, upgrade your installed copy to a more powerful edition quickly and easily.
Read about the Anytime Upgrade on page 268.
About the Clean Install
The alternative to an upgrade is the clean install of Windows 7. During a clean install,
you reformat your hard disk, wiping out everything on it. The overwhelming advan-
tage of a clean install is that you wind up with a fresh system, 100 percent free of all
those creepy little glitches and inconsistencies that have been building up over the
years. Ask any Windows veteran: The best way to boost the speed of a system that has
grown sluggish is to perform a clean install of the operating system and start afresh.
Upgrade vs.
Clean Install
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appendix a: installing & upgrading to windows 7 821
Backing up
The drawback of a clean install, however, is the work it will take you to back up all your
files and settings before you begin. If your computer has a tape drive, DVD burner,
or external hard drive, that’s not much of a problem. Just perform a full backup (or
simply drag and drop every last file that’s important to you), test it to make sure that
everything you need has been copied and is restorable, and you’re ready to install
Windows 7.
Tip: One of the most convenient solutions is to install a new hard drive before you upgrade and put your
current hard drive in an external enclosure that you’ve bought off the Web. You can put it on a shelf for safe
keeping, and plug it in every time you need to grab a file from your old installation.
You can even do this with some laptops whose hard drives are user-replaceable: inexpensive USB or FireWire
enclosures are available in both 2.5” (laptop hard drive) and 3.5” (desktop hard drive) size, and installation
takes only a few minutes. Just be sure you know what kind of hard drive you have (Serial ATA or Parallel ATA,
and in some cases, SCSI) before you choose either your new internal hard drive or your enclosure, because
both of these must be compatible with whatever you’re currently using.
If you have a second computer, you can also consider backing up your stuff onto it, via
a network (Chapter 26). In any of these cases, you’ll probably want to use Windows
Easy Transfer to perform the backup (page 830).
Even having a full backup, however, doesn’t mean a clean install will be a walk in the
park. After the installation, you still have to reinstall all your programs, reconfigure
all your personalized settings, recreate your network connections, and so on.
Tip: It’s a good idea to spend a few days writing down the information you need as you’re working on your
computer. For example, if you’re using dial-up Internet, copy down the phone number, user name, and
password you use to connect to your Internet service provider (ISP), and the user names and passwords
you need for various Web sites you frequent.
Performing a clean install also means buying the Full version of Windows 7. It’s more
expensive than the Upgrade version, but at least you can install it on a blank hard disk
without having to install an old Windows version first or have your original installa-
tion CDs available. Each of the sold-in-stores Windows 7 editions (Home Premium,
Professional, Ultimate) is available in Full or Upgrade versions.
Overall, a clean install is preferable to an upgrade. But if you don’t have the time or
the heart to back up your hard drive, wipe it clean, and re-establish all your settings,
the upgrade option is always there for you.
Dual Booting
Here’s yet another decision you have to make before you install Windows 7: whether
or not you’ll want to be able to dual boot.
Upgrade vs.
Clean Install
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822 windows 7: the missing manual
In this advanced scenario, you install Windows 7 onto the same PC that contains an
older version of Windows, maintaining both of them side by side. Then, each time
you turn on the PC, it asks you which operating system you want to run for this
computing session (see Figure A-1).
Dual booting comes in handy when you have some program or hardware gadget that
works with one operating system but not the other. For example, if you have a scanner
with software that runs on Windows XP but not Windows 7, you can start up in XP
only when you want to use the scanner.
If you intend to dual boot, keep this in mind: You can’t install both operating systems
onto the same hard drive partition. If you did, your programs would become horribly
confused.
Instead, keep your two Windows versions separate using one of these avenues:
• Buy a second hard drive. Use it for one of the two operating systems.
• Back up your hard drive, erase it completely, and then partition it, which means
dividing it so that each chunk shows up in the Disk Management window (Chapter
21) with its own icon, name, and drive letter. Then install each operating system
on a separate disk partition.
• If you’re less technically inclined, you might prefer to buy a program like Partition-
Magic (www.partitionmagic.com). Not only does it let you create a new partition
on your hard drive without erasing it first, but it’s flexible and easy.
Figure A-1:
When you dual
boot, this menu
appears each time
you turn on your
PC, offering you
a choice of OS. (If
you don’t choose in
30 seconds, the PC
chooses for you.)
Dual Booting
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appendix a: installing & upgrading to windows 7 823
There’s just one wrinkle with dual booting. If you install Windows 7 onto a separate
partition (or a different drive), as you must, you won’t find any of your existing pro-
grams listed in the Start menu, and your desktop won’t be configured the way it is
in your original operating system. You’ll generally wind up having to reinstall every
program into your new Windows 7 world, and to re-establish all your settings, exactly
as though the Windows 7 “side” were a brand-new PC.
Installing Windows 7
Once you’ve decided to take the plunge and install Windows, you can begin the
countdown.
Preparing for the Installation
If you’ve made all the plans and done all the thinking described so far in this chapter,
you have only a short checklist left to follow:
• Update your virus program and scan for viruses. Then, if you’re updating an exist-
ing copy of Windows, turn off your virus checker, along with other auto-loading
programs like non-Microsoft firewall software and Web ad blockers.
• Confirm that your computer’s BIOS—its basic startup circuitry—is compatible
with Windows 7. To find out, contact the manufacturer of the computer or the
BIOS.
Don’t skip this step. You may well need to upgrade your BIOS if the computer was
made before mid-2006.
• Gather updated, Windows 7–compatible drivers for all your computer’s compo-
nents. Graphics and audio cards are particularly likely to need updates, so be sure
to check the manufacturers’ Web sites—and driver-information sites like www.
windrivers.com and www.driverguide.com—and download any new drivers you
find there.
• Disconnect any gear that’s not absolutely necessary for using your computer.
You’ll have better luck if you reconnect devices after Windows 7 is in place. This
includes scanners, game controllers, printers, and even that USB-powered lava
lamp you like so much.
If you’ve gone to all this trouble and preparation, the Windows installation process
can be surprisingly smooth. The Windows 7 installer is much less painful than the
ones for previous versions of Windows. You won’t see the old DOS-style startup
screens, the installation requires fewer restarts, and if you’re doing a clean install, it’s
amazingly fast (often 15 minutes or less).
Performing an Upgrade Installation
Here’s how you upgrade your existing version of Windows to full Windows 7 status.
(If you prefer to perform a clean install, skip these instructions.)
Dual Booting
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824 windows 7: the missing manual
1. Start your computer and log in. Insert the Windows 7 DVD into the drive.
The Setup program generally opens automatically (Figure A-2, top). If it doesn’t,
open Computer, double-click the DVD-ROM icon, and double-click the Setup.exe
program in the DVD’s root folder.
2. Click Install Now.
The “Get important updates for installation” screen appears. Clearly, Microsoft
thinks it’s a good idea to download any software updates that have appeared since
you bought your copy of Windows 7.
3. Click “Go online to get the latest updates for installation.”
Figure A-2:
Top: The Setup
program is
ready for
action. Close
the doors, take
the phone off
the hook, and
cancel your
appointments.
The installer
will take at
least an hour
to go about its
business—not
including the
time it will take
you to iron out
any post-instal-
lation glitches.
Bottom: Use
the buttons
on this screen
to indicate
whether you
want a clean
installation or
an upgrade
installation.
Installing
Windows 7
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appendix a: installing & upgrading to windows 7 825
The installer searches the Web for updates and then downloads them for you. Then
the “Type your product key” screen presents itself.
4. Click Next.
A screen full of legalese appears.
5. Review the work of Microsoft’s lawyers, and then click “I accept the license terms.”
Click Next.
Now you’re asked to choose between an upgrade and a clean install (Figure A-2,
bottom).
6. Click Upgrade.
Now the installer checks to see if any of your PC’s components are incompatible
with Windows 7. If so, the Compatibility Report screen appears, shown in Figure
A-3. There’s not much you can do about it at this point, of course, other than to
make a note of it and vow to investigate Windows 7–compatible updates later.
7. Click Next.
The installation program begins copying files and restarting the computer several
times.
Unfortunately, this part can take a lot longer than 15 minutes.
Figure A-3:
This screen lists
any programs
and drivers that
Microsoft considers
incompatible with
Windows 7.
Installing
Windows 7
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826 windows 7: the missing manual
8. Type in your 25-character serial number (product key).
The product key comes in the Windows 7 box or on the DVD case. If you bought
Windows 7 from Microsoft and chose the download delivery method, you should
have received it online.
If you turn on “Automatically activate Windows when I’m online,” then Windows
will try to activate itself after three days.
Note: You can leave the product key blank for now. You’ll be offered the chance to enter it when you
activate Windows 7.
After you type in your product key and press Enter, you’re almost there. Before you
can log in for the first time, you’re asked to choose how to configure Windows’s
protection features. Select “Use recommended settings.” After that, you’re asked to
confirm your date and time settings and, finally, tell Windows whether your network
is at home, work, or a public location. (For more information on the implications of
these choices, see page 348.)
After you log in, the Windows desktop appears at last.
Performing a Clean Install (or Dual-Boot Install)
To perform a clean installation of Windows 7, or to install it onto an empty partition
for the purpose of dual booting, the steps are slightly different.
Tip: If you’re upgrading a Windows XP machine to Windows 7, take advantage of the tips, tricks, and video
tutorials on Microsoft’s Web site here: http://bit.ly/RyeCI.
1. Start up your PC from your Windows 7 DVD.
Every Windows 7–compatible computer can start up from a DVD instead of from
its hard drive. Sometimes, if you start up the computer with a DVD in the drive,
instructions for booting from it appear right on the screen (you may be directed
to hold down a certain key, or any key at all). If you don’t see such an instruction,
you might have to check with the computer’s maker for instructions on this point.
At the beginning of the setup process, you just wait for a moment while the in-
staller loads ups.
2. When the Install Windows screen appears, click Next to bypass the Regional and
Language Options screen.
Bypass it, that is, unless you don’t speak English or don’t live in the United States.
3. At the next screen, click Install Now.
The usual legal notice pops up.
Installing
Windows 7
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appendix a: installing & upgrading to windows 7 827
4. Review the licensing agreement if you like, click “I accept the license terms,” and
then click Next to continue.
Since you booted from the DVD, you don’t have the option of performing an
upgrade installation.
5. Click “Custom (advanced)” to proceed with a clean install.
Now Windows shows you a list of the partitions on your hard drive. Unless you’ve
set up your hard drive for dual booting as described on page 821, you probably
have only one.
6. Click to highlight the name of the partition (or choose some unallocated space)
on which you want to install Windows 7, and then click Next.
Use the Drive Options at the bottom of this window to delete, create, or format
partitions.
After the formatting process is complete, the Setup program begins copying files
to the partition you selected and eventually restarts the computer a time or two.
7. Choose a name for your main account and a computer name.
Either accept the proposed computer name (your name followed by “-PC”), or
type one that’s short and punctuation-free (hyphens are OK).
You can always change the computer name later; see page 336.)
8. Choose a password and password hint.
You can read more about accounts in Chapter 23. This very first account, the one
you’re creating here, is very important; it’s going to be an Administrator account
(page 716). Once you log in using this account, you can create accounts for other
people.
Tip: If it’s just you and your laptop, you can leave the password blank; you’ll be able to log in, wake the
computer from sleep, and otherwise get to your stuff that much faster. Note, however, that if your account
password is blank, some Windows features won’t work (including Remote Desktop, described in Chapter 27).
9. On the “Type your Windows product key” screen, enter the 25-character product
key and click Next.
The product key is the serial number that came with your Windows 7 DVD. If
you turn on “Automatically activate Windows when I’m online,” then Windows
will try to activate itself in the next three days.
10. Click Next.
Now you can choose how to configure Windows’s protection features.
11. Select “Use recommended settings.”
The date and time settings screen appears.
Installing
Windows 7
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828 windows 7: the missing manual
12. Set the date, time, and time zone, and then click Next.
Now Windows tries to connect to your network, if you have one. If it succeeds, it
asks whether your network is at home, at work, or in a public location. (For more
information on the implications of these choices, see page 348.)
When it’s all over, the Windows desktop appears. If you need a little help getting
oriented, click StartÆGetting Started, which is described next.
Getting Started
From this program, you can perform a number of post-installation tasks, including
these:
• Transfer files from your old computer (see “Windows Easy Transfer”).
• Find out what’s new, learn about the basics of Windows, and see some demos.
• Add users to Windows. That means adding accounts to a PC that will be used by
more than one person, as described in Chapter 23.
• Install Windows Live Essentials (page 265), which includes a lot of the applica-
tions that used to come with Windows, including an email program, an instant
messenger, and a photo gallery.
Tip: While you’re thinking about it, you may as well go download Microsoft’s free—yes, free—antivirus and
antispyware programs, called Microsoft Security Essentials. Google it; it’ll come right up.
If you ever want to visit Getting Started when you haven’t just started up, you can
find it in StartÆAll ProgramsÆAccessories.
Activation
After 30 days, Windows will insist that you activate it, as shown in Figure A-4. You’ll see
several reminders that grow increasingly stern before Windows forces you to activate.
Activation is copy protection. In some countries, a huge percentage of all copies of
Windows are illegal duplicates; activation, introduced in Windows XP, is designed to
stop such piracy in its tracks. Unfortunately, it also prevents you from installing one
copy of Windows on even two computers. That’s right: If you have a desktop PC as
well as a laptop, you have to buy Windows twice.
How does it know you’re being naughty? When you install Windows, the operating
system inspects 10 crucial components inside your PC: the hard drive, motherboard,
video card, memory, and so on. All this information is transmitted, along with the
25-character serial number that came with Windows (the product key), to Microsoft’s
database via your Internet account. The process takes about 2 seconds and involves
little more than clicking an OK button. You have just activated Windows 7.
Installing
Windows 7
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appendix a: installing & upgrading to windows 7 829
Note: If you don’t have an Internet connection, activation is a much more grueling procedure. You have to
call a toll-free number, read a 50-digit identification number to the Microsoft agent, and then type a 42-digit
confirmation number into your software. Do whatever it takes to avoid having to endure this fingertip-
numbing ritual.
Later, if you try to install the same copy of Windows onto a different computer, it will
check in with Microsoft and discover that the new machine’s components aren’t the
same. It will conclude that you have tried to install the same copy of the operating
system onto a different machine—and it will lock you out.
This aspect of Windows 7 has frightened or enraged many a computer fan. In truth,
though, it isn’t quite as bad as it seems. Here’s why:
Figure A-4:
Top: Let’s acti-
vate Windows!
During activa-
tion, your PC
sends Microsoft
a list of several
internal compo-
nents of your PC.
This, ladies and
gentleman, is
copy protection.
If you ever try
to install Win-
dows 7 onto a
second machine,
it will notice that
the components
aren’t identical,
and activation
on that second
machine will fail.
Bottom: If you
don’t have an
Internet connec-
tion, you can
do this process
by telephone,
although it’s
less convenient
and takes a lot
longer.
Activation
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830 windows 7: the missing manual
• If you buy a new PC with Windows 7 already installed, you don’t have to activate
anything; it’s already been done.
• Copies of Windows that are distributed within corporations don’t require this
activation business, either.
• No information about you is transferred to Microsoft during this activation pro-
cess—only a list of the components in your PC make the trip.
• Don’t believe the Internet Chicken Littles who claim that activation will shut
down your PC if you try to upgrade the memory or another component. In fact,
you would have to replace four of the 10 key components within a period of
four months—your basic hardware-upgrade frenzy—before Windows stopped
recognizing your computer. And even then, you can just call Microsoft and ex-
plain what happened; in most cases, the company will cheerfully provide a new
activation number.
If, during installation, you turned on “Automatically activate Windows when I’m
online” (on the same screen where you enter your product key), Windows tries to
activate itself for the first three days of installation by sending signals back to Microsoft.
If you don’t activate it in time, Windows 7 switches into what’s tactfully called Reduced
Functionality Mode, in which many features become time-limited or stop working.
Windows Easy Transfer
Windows Easy Transfer is a program available for download from Microsoft. It’s de-
signed to round up the files and preference settings from one computer—and copy
them into the proper places on a new one. For millions of upgrading Windows fans,
this little piece of software is worth its weight in gold.
You can use Windows Easy Transfer in several ways:
• If you have two computers, you can run Windows Easy Transfer on the old com-
puter, package its files and settings, and then transfer them to the new computer.
You can make the transfer over a network connection, a direct cable connection,
or via a flash drive or hard drive
• If you have only one computer, you can run Windows Easy Transfer before you
install, saving the files and settings to a flash drive or a second hard drive. Then,
after performing a clean install of Windows 7, you can run the wizard again, neatly
importing and reinstating your saved files and settings.
Note: Easy Transfer doesn’t bring over your programs—just your files and settings.
Phase 1: Backing up the Files
To save the files and settings on your old computer (or your old operating system),
download Windows Easy Transfer from Microsoft’s Web site at http://bit.ly/9rt8eg,
and then proceed like this:
Activation
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appendix a: installing & upgrading to windows 7 831
1. Double-click the file you downloaded.
It has a name like “wet7xp_x86.exe.” The Setup program opens. Install Windows
Easy Transfer.
2. Open the Start Menu, click All Programs, and choose Windows Easy Transfer for
Windows 7.
Windows Easy Transfer opens up (Figure A-5, top).
Figure A-5:
Top: Windows
Easy Transfer can
be a sanity-saving
convenience.
Middle: It lets you
transfer all your
files and settings
across a network
or transfer cable,
or onto a disk.
(The Easy Transfer
Cable mentioned
here is a modified
USB cable sold
online for $40,
or one may even
have come with
your new PC.)
Bottom: After
you’ve installed
Windows 7 or
bought a new
Windows 7
computer, you
can reinstate all
your old files and
settings using the
same wizard. Just
locate the folder it
saved originally.
Windows
Easy Transfer
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832 windows 7: the missing manual
3. Click Next. On the “What Do You Want to Use” screen, specify how you want to
transfer the files and settings (Figure A-5, middle).
You can choose from a link to another computer using a direct cable or network
connection, or to a flash drive or external hard disk. The last option also lets you
use a network location, which could be a file server or another computer on your
network.
4. Click the option you want to use, and click Next.
The “Which computer are you using now?” screen appears (Figure A-5, bottom).
5. Click “This is my old computer.”
The “What do you want to transfer?” screen appears. If you’re transferring across
the network or a transfer cable, go over to your new computer and run Windows
Easy Transfer there. If you’re using the network method, you also have to provide
the key that appears on this screen.
6. Specify which information you want to transfer to the other computer.
You can elect to transfer all the user accounts on the computer, complete with
their files and settings, or just your account, files, and settings. (See Chapter 23 for
details on accounts.) You can also transfer Shared Items.
You can also use the Customize button (under each user name and under Shared
Items) to build a customized list of the specific files and settings you want to transfer.
7. Click Next.
If you’re saving to a disk, the “Save your files and settings for transfer” screen ap-
pears. If you want to password-protect your saved files and settings, type a password
twice. Click Save, and then choose a location to save your files and settings (a hard
disk, a flash drive, or even a network location).
8. Click Next.
The progress screen appears. The wizard proceeds to search your drives for the
necessary information and send it to the location you specified. If you saved your
files and settings to an external disk, flash drive, or network location, Windows
Easy Transfer tells you where it saved it; click Next.
9. Click Close.
Phase 2: Restoring the Files
To transfer the settings and files, use the following procedure.
If you’re doing a clean install, make sure you’ve put the Windows Easy Transfer
file somewhere safe. For maximum peace of mind, you should also have a separate
backup of all your files somewhere, because the clean install deletes everything on
your computer before installing Windows.
Windows
Easy Transfer
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appendix a: installing & upgrading to windows 7 833
If you’re moving files to a second computer and are using the transfer cable or network
method, you’ll have been instructed to start this procedure on your new computer
in step 5 of Phase 1.
1. Click StartÆAll ProgramsÆAccessoriesÆSystem ToolsÆWindows Easy Transfer.
Windows Easy Transfer appears.
2. Click Next. On the “What Do You Want to Use” screen, specify how you want to
transfer the files and settings.
You can choose from a link to another computer using a direct cable or network
connection, or to a flash drive or external hard disk (or network location).
3. Click the option you want to use, and click Next.
The “Which computer are you using now?” screen appears.
4. Click “This is my new computer.”
If you’re using the network method or transfer cable, the “Do you need to install
Windows Easy Transfer” screen appears. Click “I already installed it on my old
computer.” Click Next and (if you’re using the network) enter the key from step 5
of Phase 1.
If you’re using a flash drive, external disk, or network location, you’re asked whether
Windows Easy Transfer has already saved your old files. Click Yes and choose the
location where you saved the files. The location you specify could be a path to a
hard drive or flash driver folder, or a network location. (See page 58 for details on
paths.) Click Open.
When No Windows DVD Comes With Your PC
It’s becoming increasingly common for computer manufac-
turers to sell you a new PC without including an operating
system CD-ROM. (Every 11 cents counts, right?) The machine
has Windows installed on it—but if there’s no installation CD
or DVD, what are you supposed to do in case of emergency?
Instead of a physical Windows disc, the manufacturer
provides something called a restore image—a CD-ROM or
DVD (or more than one) containing a complete copy of the
operating system and other software that was installed on
the computer at the factory. If the contents of the computer’s
hard disk are ever lost or damaged, you can, in theory,
restore the computer to its factory configuration by running
a program on the restore image.
Of course, this image is a bit-by-bit facsimile of the com-
puter’s hard disk drive, and therefore, restoring it to your
computer completely erases whatever files are already on
the drive. You can’t restore your computer from an image
disk without losing all the data you saved since you got the
computer from the manufacturer. (Talk about a good argu-
ment for keeping regular backups!)
Furthermore, some manufacturers install a copy of these
installation files right on the hard drive, so you won’t even
have to hunt for your CDs.
workaround workshop
Windows
Easy Transfer
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834 windows 7: the missing manual
5. Click Next.
Now verify the names of the accounts you’re transferring to the new computer. You
can either transfer the files and settings into existing people’s accounts, or create
new accounts (click Advanced Options to change the defaults). If you let it transfer
the settings into existing accounts, you’ll replace their current files and settings.
Of course, if this is a fresh install of Windows, those people probably don’t have
many settings or files yet.
6. Click Transfer.
The wizard copies the files and applies the saved settings on the new computer.
7. Click Finish to close the wizard.
Windows Easy Transfer now reports how the transfer went. If Windows 7 couldn’t
restore some of your settings, you’ll have to recreate these settings manually. You
can also see a list of what was transferred and a list of suggested programs you
might want to install. Depending on the settings you saved, you may have to log
off and log on again before the transferred settings take effect.
Windows
Easy Transfer
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appendix
b
appendix b: fun with the registry 835
Fun with the Registry
Occasionally, in books, articles, and conversations, you’ll hear hushed refer-
ences to something called the Windows Registry—usually accompanied by
either knowing or bewildered glances.
The Registry is your PC’s master database of preference settings. For example, most
of the programs in the Control Panel are nothing more than graphic front ends that,
behind the scenes, modify settings in the Registry.
The Registry also keeps track of almost every program you install, every peripheral
device you add, every account you create, your networking configuration, and much
more. If you’ve noticed that shortcut menus and Properties dialog boxes look differ-
ent depending on what you’re clicking, you have the Registry to thank. It knows what
you’re clicking and what options should appear as a result. In all, there are thousands
and thousands of individual settings in your Registry.
As you can well imagine, therefore, the Registry is an extremely important cog in the
Windows machine. That’s why Windows marks most of your Registry files as hidden
and non-deletable, and why it makes a Registry backup every single time you shut
down the PC. If the Registry gets randomly edited, a grisly plague of problems may
descend upon your machine. Granted, the System Restore feature (described in this
appendix) can extract you from such a mess, but now you know why the Registry is
rarely even mentioned to novices.
In fact, Microsoft would just as soon you not even know about the Registry. There’s
not a word about it in the basic user guides, and about the only information you’ll
find about it in the Help and Support center is a page that says, “Ordinarily, you
do not need to make changes to the registry. The registry contains complex system
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836 windows 7: the missing manual
Meet Regedit information that is vital to your computer, and an incorrect change to your registry
could render your computer inoperable.”
Still, the Registry is worth learning about. You shouldn’t edit it arbitrarily, but if you
follow a step-by-step “recipe” from a book, magazine, Web site, or technical-help
agent, you shouldn’t fear opening the Registry to make a few changes.
Why would you want to? Because there are lots of Windows settings that you can’t
change in any other way, as you’ll see in the following pages.
Meet Regedit
Windows comes with a built-in program for editing Registry entries, a little something
called (what else?) the Registry editor. (There are dozens of other Registry-editing,
Registry-fixing, and Registry-maintenance programs, too—both commercial and
shareware—but this one is already on your PC.)
As an advanced tool that Microsoft doesn’t want falling into the wrong hands, the
Registry editor has no Start-menu icon. You must fire it up by typing its name into the
Start menu’s search box. Type regedit to find the program; select it in the results list.
Authenticate yourself if necessary. After a moment, you see a window like Figure B-1.
The Big Five Categories
It turns out that Microsoft has arranged all those software settings into five broad
categories. Microsoft calls them root keys, but they look and act like folders in a
Windows Explorer window. You expand one of these folders (root keys) just as you
would in Explorer, too, by clicking the little flippy triangle button beside its name.
Figure B-1:
The Registry’s settings are
organized hierarchically;
in fact, the Registry editor
looks a lot like Windows
Explorer. But there’s no
easy way to figure out
which part of the Registry
holds a particular setting
or performs a particular
function. It’s like flying
a plane that has no
windows
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appendix b: fun with the registry 837
Meet Regedit
The names of these five categories are not especially user-friendly:
•HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. This root key stores all kinds of information about files:
filename extensions, file types, shortcut menus, and so on.
Note: A number of Registry entries appear in more than one place, as live mirrors of each other, for con-
venience and clarity. Edit one, and you make a change in both places.
This root key, for example, is a pointer to the key at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes. (More
on this slash notation below.)
•HKEY_CURRENT_USER. As you’d guess, here’s where you’ll find the settings
pertaining to your account: your desktop arrangement, your wallpaper setting, and
so on, plus information about connections to printers, cameras, and so on. (This
key, too, is a live mirror—of the identical one in HKEY_USERS, described below.)
•HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. All about your PC and its copy of Windows. Drivers,
security settings, hardware info, the works.
•HKEY_USERS. Here’s where Windows stores the information about all the ac-
count holders (user profiles) on your PC, including the “Current_User’s.” You’ll
rarely be asked to edit this root key, since the good stuff—what applies to your
own account—is in the CURRENT_USER key.
•HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG. Most of this root key is made up of pointers to
other places in the Registry. You’ll rarely be asked to edit this one.
Keys and Values
If you expand one of these categories by clicking its flippy triangle, you see a long list
of inner “folders,” called keys. These are the actual settings that the Registry tracks,
and that you can edit.
Some keys contain other keys, in fact. Keep clicking the flippy triangles until you find
the subkey you’re looking for.
In books, magazines, and tutorials on the Web, you’ll often encounter references to
particular Registry subkeys written out as a Registry path, like this:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERÆControl PanelÆMouse
(You may see backslashes used instead of the arrows.) That instruction tells
you to expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER root key, expand Control Panel
within it, and finally click the Mouse “folder.” It works just like a folder path, like
C:ÆUsersÆChrisÆDesktop.
If you actually try this maneuver, you’ll find, in the right half of the window, a bunch
of keys named DoubleClickSpeed, MouseSpeed, MouseTrails, and so on. These should
sound familiar, as they correspond to the options in the Mouse program of your
Control Panel. (Figure B-2 clarifies this relationship.)
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838 windows 7: the missing manual
Each value usually contains either a number or a block of text. DoubleClickSpeed, for
example, comes set at 500. In this case, that means 500 milliseconds between clicks,
but each Registry value may refer to a different kind of unit.
Tip: Many of the Windows Explorer keyboard shortcuts also work in regedit. For example, once you’ve clicked
a key, you can press the right or left arrow to reveal and hide its subkeys. You can also type the first letter
of a subkey’s name to highlight it in the left pane—same with a value’s name in the right pane. And you can
press the Backspace key to jump to the “parent” key, the one that contains the subkey.
Backing Up Key Values
In general, you won’t go into the Registry unless you truly want to make a change.
That’s why the program is called regedit, not regviewer.
As you know, though, making the wrong change can botch up your copy of Windows—
and regedit has no Undo command and no “Save change before closing?” message.
That’s why it’s essential to back up a Registry key—or even its entire root key—before
you change it. Later, if the change you made doesn’t work the way you’d hoped, you
can restore the original.
To back up a key (including all its values and subkeys), just select it and then choose
FileÆExport. Save the resulting key somewhere safe, like your desktop. Later, you
Figure B-2:
A Control Panel
program (like Mouse
Properties, shown at
left) is nothing more
than a user-friendlier
front end for a bunch
of underlying Registry
keys (right).
Meet Regedit
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appendix b: fun with the registry 839
can reinstate the key by double-clicking the .reg file you exported. (Or, if you’re paid
by the hour, open regedit, choose FileÆImport, and manually open the .reg file.)
Note: Importing a .reg file merges it with the data already in the Registry. Any values you edited will go back
to their original versions, provided you haven’t renamed them.
This means, for instance, that if you export a key, rename one of the values in that key, and then reimport
the .reg file, the value you renamed will still be there, along with the value by its original name. In other
words, a .reg file is a very good idea, but it’s not a “get out of jail free card“ that undoes all types of changes.
The only way to get a true Registry backup is to back up the Registry files themselves. Only the Backup and
Restore program described on page 688 can do this for you. System Restore, described on page 695, can
also restore your registry to a previous time.
Regedit Examples
Here are three typical regedit tweaks, spelled out for you step by step.
Encrypt/Decrypt from the Shortcut Menu
As you know from page 679, one of the perks of using Windows 7 (Professional, En-
terprise, or Ultimate) is that you can encrypt files and folders, protecting them from
people who try to open them from across the network or using a different account.
If you use this feature quite a bit, however, you’ll quickly grow tired of opening the
Properties box every time you want to encrypt something. Wouldn’t it be much more
convenient if the Encrypt and Decrypt commands were right there in the shortcut
menu that appears when you right-click an icon?
Of course it would. To make it so, do this:
•Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USERÆSoftwareÆMicrosoftÆWindowsÆ
CurrentVersionÆExplorerÆAdvanced.
Now, for this trick, you’re going to need a key that doesn’t actually exist yet. Fortu-
nately, it’s very easy to create a new key. In this case, just right-click the Advanced
“folder,” and then, from the shortcut menu, choose NewÆDWORD (32-bit)
Value. You see “New Value #1” appear in the right side of the window, ready to be
renamed; type EncryptionContextMenu, and then press Enter.
Tip: The birth of a new Registry entry is a good opportunity to name it, but you can rename any value or
key at any time, just the way you’d rename a file icon. That is, you can open the renaming rectangle by
right-clicking or by pressing F2.
•Double-click this value on the right side: EncryptionContextMenu.
•Make this change: In the “Value data” box, type 1.
Meet Regedit
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840 windows 7: the missing manual
•Wrap up: Click OK and quit regedit. When you right-click any file or folder icon,
you’ll see the new Encrypt command in the shortcut menu. (Or, if it’s already
encrypted, you’ll see a Decrypt command.)
A Really, Really Clean Desktop
Windows XP used to nag you every now and then to get unused icons off your desktop.
(Mercifully, the Desktop Cleanup Wizard isn’t part of Windows 7.)
But why stop there? If you’ve got the world’s most beautiful desktop wallpaper set up,
you might not want any icons marring its majesty.
If you think about it, you can get by just fine without a single icon on the desktop.
The Computer and similar icons are waiting in your Start menu. You can put things
into the Recycle Bin without dragging them to its icon. (Just highlight icons and then
press the Delete key, for instance.)
The following regedit hack doesn’t actually remove anything from your desktop. It
just hides them. You can still work with the icons on your desktop by using Windows
Explorer to view the contents of your Desktop folder, for example.
•Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USERÆSoftwareÆMicrosoftÆWindowsÆCur-
rentVersionÆPolicies.
•Right-click the Policies folder: From the shortcut menu, choose NewÆKey, and
rename it to Explorer.
•Right-click the Explorer folder: Choose NewÆBinary Value, and name the new
value NoDesktop. Double-click this value.
•Make this change: In the “Value data” box, type 01 00 00 00. (Regedit puts the
spaces in automatically.) Click OK.
•Wrap up: Click OK, quit regedit, and then log out and log in. (To reverse the pro-
cedure, just delete the NoDesktop value you created, and then log out and log in.)
Tip: If you find your pulse racing with the illicit thrill of making tweaks to your system, why stop here? You
can find hundreds more regedit “recipes” in books, computer magazines, and Web sites. A quick search of
“regedit hacks” in Google will unearth plenty of them.
Slow Down the Animations
Windows 7’s window animations and other eye candy are very cool. But they happen
fast; Microsoft didn’t want them to get in your way. That’s a shame if you want to
study the visual-FX majesty of these animations in more detail.
If you make this regedit tweak, though, you can make the window animation slow
down on command—specifically, whenever you’re pressing the Shift key.
•Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USERÆSoftwareÆMicrosoftÆWindowsÆ
DWM.
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appendix b: fun with the registry 841
•Right-click the DWM folder. From the shortcut menu, choose NewÆDWORD
(32-bit) Value. Name the new value AnimationsShiftKey.
•Double-click this value on the right side: In the “Value data” box for the Anima-
tionsShiftKey entry you just made, type 1. Click OK.
•Wrap up: Quit regedit and then log out and log in. (To reverse the procedure, just
delete the AnimationsShiftKey value you created, and then log out and log in.)
To see the effects in slow motion, press the Shift key just before they start to occur. For
example, Shift-click a window’s Close box—and watch in amazement as it slowwwwly
fades into total transparency, like a ghost returning to the world beyond.
Or summon the Flip 3D effect (page 70) by pressing w+Tab. Then, once the “deck
of cards” window effect appears, hold down Shift as you tap your arrow keys, or click
windows, to shuffle through them.
Regedit Examples
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c
appendix c: where’d it go? 843
Where’d It Go?
As the saying goes, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
And on the road to Windows 7, Microsoft broke enough eggs to make a Texan
soufflé. Features got moved, renamed, and ripped out completely.
If you’re fresh from Windows Vista, Windows XP, or even earlier versions of Windows,
you might spend your first few days with Windows 7 wondering where things went.
Here’s a handy cheat sheet: features that aren’t in Windows 7 (or aren’t where you
think they should be).
•“Add or Remove Programs” control panel. The Control Panel applet called Pro-
grams and Features performs the software-removal function (StartÆControl
PanelÆProgramsÆPrograms and Features). No Control Panel applet remains to
add software, because all software these days comes with its own installer.
•Calendar. Windows Calendar, part of Vista, is gone now. The only calendars now
are the one built into Windows Live Mail (Chapter 12) and the online Windows
Live Calendar site (Chapter 13).
•CDF protocol. Gone.
•Classic Start menu is gone. You can make the Start menu look like the ugly old
squared-off one, but a lot of the old features of it are gone for good (expanding
folders by pointing without clicking, opening folders by double-clicking, and
opening multiple programs by Shift-clicking, for example).
•Clipbook Viewer. This handy multi-Clipboard feature is no longer in Win7.
•Complete PC Backups (from Vista) have been renamed “system images,” and
they’re alive and well in Windows 7.
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844 windows 7: the missing manual
Where’d It Go? •Contacts. This Vista address-book entity is gone. Now the only address book is
the one in Windows Live Mail (Chapter 12).
•Contacts gadget. This one’s gone, too.
•Desktop cleanup wizard has gone away. You can’t actually pretend that you’ll
miss it, can you?
•DirectAnimation. This technology has been removed from Windows 7.
•Discuss pane. This Windows XP panel did nothing unless some technically
proficient administrator set up something called a SharePoint Portal Server—a
corporate software kit that permits chat sessions among employees. Anyway, it’s
no longer in Windows.
•Documents & Settings folder. Now called Users.
•DVD Maker. Its full name is Windows Live DVD Maker, and it’s now part of the
downloadable Windows Live Essentials (Chapter 7).
•Explorer bar. Gone.
•Favorites folder. Favorites are still around, in the sense of bookmarks from In-
ternet Explorer. But the Favorites toolbar at the desktop is gone. But no grieving
is necessary; you can create exactly the same effect with the Links toolbar or one
you create yourself (page 116).
•File types. In Windows XP, you could define new file types and associate them
with programs yourself, using the File Types tab in the Folder Options dialog box.
In Windows 7, the File Types tab is gone. There’s a similar dialog box now (page
243), but it doesn’t let you make up your own file types and associations. It doesn’t
let you define custom secondary actions, either, or ask Explorer to reveal filename
extensions only for specific file types.
•Files & Settings Transfer Wizard. Renamed Windows Easy Transfer (Appendix A).
•Filmstrip view (Explorer windows). Replaced by the any-size-you-like icon view
feature.
•Find Target. This function, in a file shortcut’s Properties dialog box, has been
renamed Open File Location.
•Gopher. Removed.
•Hardware profiles. Removed. Nobody uses laptop docking stations anymore!
•High performance power plan, for laptops, is no longer listed in the Power icon
on the taskbar. It’s available, though, if you open the Power control panel.
•HyperTerminal. This old-time, text-only terminal program is gone, along with
the BBS systems that were once its raison d’être.
•Image toolbar (Internet Explorer). Removed. Most of the commands that were
on this auto-appearing IE 6 toolbar, though—Save Picture, E-mail Picture, Set as
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appendix c: where’d it go? 845
Where’d It Go?
Background, and so on—are now in the shortcut menu that appears when you
right-click any picture on the Web.
•Indexing Service. This technical, generally ignored search option has been reborn
in the glorious form of Windows Search (Chapter 3).
•Inkball. There are some good Windows 7 games, but Inkball is gone.
•IP over FireWire. Removed.
•Macintosh services. The software that offered file and print sharing via the Apple-
Talk protocol (which even Apple has abandoned) is gone.
•Media toolbar. The Windows Media Player toolbar is the same idea: It lets you
control your music playback right from the taskbar.
•Meeting Space. This was Vista’s replacement for NetMeeting, but now Meeting
Space is gone, too. If you want to share someone’s screen, use Remote Assistance
or Remote Desktop. If you want to have audio or video calls, use Windows Live
Messenger.
•Movie Maker. Its full name is Windows Live Movie Maker, and it’s now part of the
downloadable Windows Live Essentials (page 265).
• My Network Places. You no longer have to open a special window to see the
other computers on your network in Windows 7. They’re listed right there in the
Navigation pane at the left side of every Explorer window.
•NetMeeting. Removed. Well, there’s always Skype.
•Notes gadget has been reborn as the Sticky Notes program.
•Offline browsing/Offline favorites (Internet Explorer). In Windows XP, you could
right-click a Web page’s name in your Favorites menu and store it for later perusal
when you were no longer online—complete with whatever pages were linked to
it. Internet Explorer would even update such pages automatically each time you
got back online. This feature is gone from Internet Explorer 8.
•Outlook Express. Now called Windows Live Mail, and described in Chapter 12.
•“Parent folder” button. In Windows XP, you could click this button to go up one
folder (that is, to see the folder that enclosed the current one). It’s gone in Win-
dows 7, although you can perform the same function by pressing Alt+, (or by
clicking one of the folder names in the Address bar’s “bread-crumb trail”).
•Parental controls. There are some, but the Web filtering and activity reporting
are no longer built into Windows. They’re now part of a Windows Live Essentials
service called Windows Live Family Safety (page 393).
•Password protecting a .zip archive. Removed. In the window of any open .zip file,
there’s still a column that indicates whether or not each file is password-protected—
but there’s no way to add such a password yourself.
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846 windows 7: the missing manual
•Phishing filter, the Internet Explorer feature that shields you from phony banking
sites, has been renamed SmartScreen filter.
•Photo Gallery. Its full name is Windows Live Photo Gallery. It doesn’t come built
into Windows 7, but it’s an easy download as part of Windows Live Essentials
(page 265).
•Pinball. Gone, although there are several good new games that come with Win-
dows 7.
•Pointer themes. You can make your cursor bigger or smaller in Windows 7, but
the fun cursor designs like 3D-Bronze, 3D-White, Conductor, Dinosaur, Hands 1,
Hands 2, Variations, and Windows Animated have been killed off by the No-Fun
Committee.
•PowerToys. Microsoft seems to have lost its enthusiasm for these freebie software
goody-bag items; they disappeared back in Windows Vista.
•Quick Launch toolbar. Since the entire taskbar is pretty much a giant Quick Launch
toolbar now, Microsoft took out all visible evidence of the Quick Launch toolbar.
But you can resurrect it with a quick hack. See page 118.
•Reversi. No longer part of the Windows game suite.
•Run command. It may seem to be missing from the Start menu, but you can put
it right back (page 43). Or you can just press w+R to call it up.
•Search assistant (Internet Explorer). Replaced by the new Search bar at the upper-
right corner of the Internet Explorer window.
•Search pane. Gone. But the new Start menu Search box (Chapter 3) is infinitely
superior.
•SerialKeys. This feature for specialized gadgets for the disabled is no longer sup-
ported.
•Sidebar. In Vista, the small, floating, single-purpose apps known as gadgets hung
out in a panel called the Sidebar. Well, the Sidebar is gone, but the gadgets live on
(right-click the desktop; choose Gadgets).
•Sortable column headings in Explorer windows have gone away, except for Details
view. That is, there’s no longer a row of column headings (Name, Date, Size, Kind…)
across the top of every window that you can click to sort the window—except, as
noted, in Details view.
•Spades. This XP card game is gone—but Hearts is here. Close enough, right?
•Stacking, as an activity for organizing similar files in any Explorer window, arrived
in Vista and then departed in Windows 7. (You can clump the contents of library
windows only, and only by a few criteria.)
•Startup Hardware Profiles. Removed.
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appendix c: where’d it go? 847
•Stocks gadget. Removed, although plenty of similar gadgets are available in the
Gadgets gallery online.
•Taskbar dragging. You can no longer drag the taskbar’s top edge off the screen to
hide it manually. You can’t drag the taskbar to the middle of screen anymore, either.
And you can’t drag a folder to edge of screen to turn it into a toolbar. (One guess:
Too many people were doing this stuff accidentally and then getting frustrated.)
•Telnet. Removed—or so it seems. Fortunately, you can restore it using the “Turn
Windows Features on and Off ” feature described on page 253; select Telnet Client.
•Tip of the Day. No longer part of Windows. Microsoft must expect you to get your
tips from computer books now.
•TweakUI. Not available for Windows 7. But there are several billion freeware and
shareware programs available to take on the task of making tweaky little changes
to the look of Windows.
•Wallpaper. Now called Desktop Background. (Right-click the desktop; from the
shortcut menu, choose Personalize.)
•Web Publishing Wizard. Gone.
•What’s This? button in dialog boxes. This little link is gone from Windows dialog
boxes, probably because it didn’t work in most of them. Now, if help is available
in a dialog box, it lurks behind the ? button.
•Windows Address Book. Gone. The only address book left in Windows now is
the one that’s built into Windows Live Mail—and even that doesn’t come with
Windows. It’s a free download, though (Chapter 12).
•Windows Calendar. This Vista program is gone now. The only calendars now are
the one built into Windows Live Mail (Chapter 12) and the online Windows Live
Calendar site (Chapter 13).
•Windows Components Wizard. Now called the Windows Features dialog box
(page 253).
•Windows DVD Maker. Its full name is Windows Live DVD Maker, and it’s now
part of the downloadable Windows Live Essentials (page 265).
•Windows Mail. Reborn as Windows Live Mail (Chapter 12).
•Windows Media Player toolbar is gone. Now Media Player’s taskbar icon sprouts
basic commands (although it lacks the old volume slider).
•Windows Messenger. Microsoft’s chat program no longer comes preinstalled in
Windows, thanks to antitrust legal trouble the company encountered. It’s an easy
download, though, as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite described at the
beginning of Chapter 7.
•Windows Movie Maker. Its full name is Windows Live Movie Maker, and it’s now
part of the downloadable Windows Live Essentials (page 265).
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848 windows 7: the missing manual
•Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. This old program’s functions have been split.
Now you view pictures in Windows Photo Viewer (or, better yet, the free Windows
Live Photo Gallery), and faxes in Windows Fax and Scan.
•Windows Ultimate Extras. You no longer get special bonus apps as Ultimate-
edition exclusives.
•XBM images. Gone.
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appendix
d
appendix d: the master keyboard shortcut list 849
The Master Keyboard
Shortcut List
Here it is, by popular, frustrated demand: The master list of every secret (or
not-so-secret) keystroke in Windows 7. Clip and post to your monitor (un-
less, of course, you got this book from the library).
Windows Explorer keyboard shortcuts
To do this Press this key
Open a new window Ctrl+N
Close the current window Ctrl+W
Create a new folder Ctrl+Shift+N
Display the bottom/top of the active window End/Home
Maximize or minimize the active window F11
Rotate a picture clockwise Ctrl+period (.)
Rotate a picture counterclockwise Ctrl+comma (,)
Display all subfolders under the selected folder Num Lock+* on numeric keypad
Display the contents of the selected folder Num Lock+plus (+) on
numeric keypad
Collapse the selected folder Num Lock+minus (-) on
numeric keypad
Collapse the current selection (if expanded),
or select parent folder <
Open the Properties dialog box for selected item Alt+Enter
Display the preview pane Alt+P
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850 windows 7: the missing manual
Windows Explorer
keyboard shortcuts
Back to the previous folder Alt+< or Backspace
Display the current selection (if it’s collapsed),
or select the first subfolder >
Next folder Alt+>
Open the parent folder Alt+,
Display all folders above the selected folder Ctrl+Shift+E
Enlarge/shrink file and folder icons Ctrl+mouse scroll wheel
Select the address bar Alt+D
Select the Search box Ctrl+E, Ctrl+F
General keyboard shortcuts
Open the Start menu w or Ctrl+Esc
Help F1
Copy the selected item Ctrl+C (or Ctrl+Insert)
Cut the selected item Ctrl+X
Paste the selected item Ctrl+V (or Shift+Insert)
Undo an action Ctrl+Z
Redo an action Ctrl+Y
Delete the selected item and move it to
the Recycle Bin Delete (or Ctrl+D)
Delete the selected item without moving it to
the Recycle Bin first Shift+Delete
Rename the selected item F2
Move the cursor to the beginning of
the next word Ctrl+>
Move the cursor to the beginning of
the previous word Ctrl+<
Move the cursor to the beginning of
the next paragraph Ctrl+.
Move the cursor to the beginning of
the previous paragraph Ctrl+,
Select a block of text Ctrl+Shift with an arrow key
Select more than one item in a window, or
select text within a document Shift+any arrow key
Select multiple individual items in a window or
on the desktop Ctrl + any arrow key + space bar
Select all items in a document or window Ctrl+A
Search for a file or folder F3
Display properties for the selected item Alt+Enter
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appendix d: the master keyboard shortcut list 851
General keyboard
shortcuts
Open a menu Alt+underlined letter
“Click” a menu command
(or other underlined command) Alt+underlined letter
Make the menu bar appear F10
Open the next menu to the right, or
open a submenu >
Open the next menu to the left, or
close a submenu <
View the folder one level up in Windows Explorer Alt+,
Cancel the current task Esc
Open Task Manager Ctrl+Shift+Esc
Prevent the CD from automatically playing Shift when you insert a CD
Switch the input language when multiple
input languages are enabled Left Alt+Shift
Switch the keyboard layout when multiple
keyboard layouts are enabled Ctrl+Shift
Change the reading direction of text in
right-to-left reading languages Ctrl+right Shift or Ctrl+left Shift
Window and Program-Switching Keyboard Shortcuts
Close the window Alt+F4
Open the shortcut menu for the active window Alt+space bar
Close the document (in apps that let you
have multiple documents open) Ctrl+F4
Switch between open programs Alt+Tab
Use the arrow keys to switch between
open programs Ctrl+Alt+Tab
Cycle through programs on the taskbar
by using Flip 3D w+Tab
Use the arrow keys to cycle through
programs by using Flip 3D Ctrl+w+Tab
Cycle through programs in the order in
which they were opened Alt+Esc
Cycle through screen elements in a
window or on the desktop F6
Display the address bar list in Windows Explorer F4
Display the shortcut menu for the selected item Shift+F10
Refresh the active window F5 (or Ctrl+R)
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852 windows 7: the missing manual
w-Key Shortcuts
Open or close the Start menu w
Open System Properties dialog box w+Pause
Display the desktop w+D
Minimize all windows w+M
Restore minimized windows to the desktop w+Shift+M
Open Computer window w+E
Search for a file or folder w+F
Search for computers (if you’re on a network) Ctrl+w+F
Lock your computer or switch users w+L
Open the Run dialog box w+R
Cycle through programs on the taskbar w+T
Open the first, second (etc.) program pinned
to the taskbar w+1, w+2, etc.
Open another window in the first, second (etc.)
pinned taskbar program Shift+w+1, Shift+w+2, etc.
Switch to the last window in first, second (etc.)
program pinned to the taskbar Ctrl+w+1, Ctrl+w+2, etc.
Open a jump list for the first, second (etc.)
program pinned to the taskbar Alt+w+1, Alt+w+2, etc.
Cycle through open programs using Flip 3D w+Tab
Use arrow keys to cycle through open
programs using Flip 3D Ctrl+w+Tab
Switch to the program that displayed a
message in the notification area Ctrl+w+B
Preview the desktop w+space bar
Maximize the window w+,
Maximize the window to the left side of the screen w+<
Maximize the window to the right side of the screen w+>
Minimize the window w+
Minimize all but the active window w+Home
Stretch the window to the top and bottom
of the screen w+Shift+,
Move a window from one monitor to another w+Shift+< or >
Choose an external-monitor/projector mode
(like mirroring) w+P
Cycle through gadgets w+G
w-Key Shortcuts
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appendix d: the master keyboard shortcut list 853
Open Ease of Access Center w+U
Open Windows Mobility Center w+X
Taskbar keyboard shortcuts
Open a program or another window in a program Shift+click a taskbar button
Open a program as an administrator Ctrl+Shift+click a taskbar button
Show the window menu for the program Shift+right-click a taskbar button
Show the window menu for the group Shift+right-click a grouped
taskbar button
Cycle through the windows of the group Ctrl+click a grouped
taskbar button
Ease of Access keyboard shortcuts
Turn Filter Keys on and off Right Shift for 8 seconds
Turn High Contrast on or off Left Alt+Left Shift+PrtScn
(or PrtScn)
Turn Mouse Keys on or off Left Alt+Left Shift+Num Lock
Turn Sticky Keys on or off Shift five times
Turn Toggle Keys on or off Num Lock for 5 seconds
Open the Ease of Access Center w+U
Dialog Box keyboard shortcuts
Move forward through tabs Ctrl+Tab
Move back through tabs Ctrl+Shift+Tab
Move forward through options Tab
Move back through options Shift+Tab
Perform the command (or select the option)
that goes with that letter Alt+underlined letter
Replaces clicking the mouse for many
selected commands Enter
Magnifier keyboard shortcuts
Zoom in or out w+plus (+) or minus (-)
Preview the desktop in full-screen mode Ctrl+Alt+space bar
Switch to full-screen mode Ctrl+Alt+F
Switch to lens mode Ctrl+Alt+L
Switch to docked mode Ctrl+Alt+D
Invert colors Ctrl+Alt+I
Pan in the direction of the arrow keys Ctrl+Alt+arrow keys
Resize the lens Ctrl+Alt+R
Exit Magnifier w+Esc
w-Key Shortcuts
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854 windows 7: the missing manual
Remote Desktop Connection keyboard shortcuts
Move between programs, left to right Alt+Page Up
Move between programs, right to left Alt+Page Down
Cycle through programs in the order they
were started in Alt+Insert
Open Start menu Alt+Home
Switch between a window and full screen Ctrl+Alt+Break
Display the Windows Security dialog box Ctrl+Alt+End
Display the system menu Alt+Delete
Place a copy of the active window,
within the client, on the Terminal server clipboard Ctrl+Alt+minus (-) on the
(same as pressing Alt+PrtScn on a local computer) numeric keypad
Place a copy of the entire client window area
on the Terminal server clipboard (same as pressing Ctrl+Alt+plus (+) on the numeric
PrtScn on a local computer) keypad
“Tab” out of the Remote Desktop controls
to a control in the host program (for example,
a button or a text box) Ctrl+Alt+> or <
Remote Desktop
keyboard shortcuts
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index 857
index
Æ notation in this book, 8-9
(c:) drive, 141-142
PerfLogs, 141
Program Files, 141
Program Files (x86), 141
Users, 142
Windows, 142
Windows folder, 142
32-bit vs. 64-bit, 6, 263
802.11 see WiFi
w key, 16, 852-853 see also keyboard shortcuts
A
accelerators, 420-422
adding, 422
defined, 420
how to use, 421
turning off, 422
accessibility see Ease of Access Center
Accessories folder, 270-294 see also names of
individual accessory apps
defined, 270
accounts, 713-746
adding, 718-719
Administrator vs. Standard, 716-718
authentication, 726-728
automatic login, 726
basics, 713-715
built-in groups, 734
creating, 718-719
creating groups, 733-734
creating on a domain, 730
Default user profile, 739-740
deleting, 723-724
disabling, 725
disabling on a domain, 732
editing, 719-721
emergency Administrator account, 725
Fast User Switching, 736-737
groups see Local Users and Groups
Guest, 725-726
local accounts on a domain, 729-730
local accounts on a workgroup, 715-726
Local Users and Groups, 730-735
logging in, 737-738
modifying groups, 735
NTFS, 713-746
NTFS permissions, 740-746
passwords, 719-721
profiles, 738-740
Public profile, 738-739
search, 129
sharing programs, 251
user accounts, 338
User Accounts and Family Safety control
panel, 715-716
Action Center, 111, 315, 361-363, 643
defined, 361
taskbar icon, 361
turning off messages, 363
activating Windows 7, 828-830
troubleshooting, 830
Active Directory, 763-764
ActiveX controls, 379
ad hoc networks, 753
adapter cards
installing, 609-611
Add Hardware wizard, 610
Add-On Manager
erasing, 379
Index
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858 windows 7: the missing manual
adding
accounts, 718-721
fonts, 594
hardware, 603-617
icons to Start menu, 46-49
address bar, 2, 60, 71-75, 401-403
AutoComplete, 402
autofill, 402
back and forward buttons, 72
components of, 72-73
contents list, 73
defined, 72
Internet Explorer, 401-403
navigating from, 73-74
recent folders list, 73
recent pages list, 73
refresh button, 73
searching from, 73-74
slash notation, 73
triangle notation, 72-73
Web addresses, 74
Windows Media Player, 523
address book see contacts (address book)
Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR),
358
address toolbar, 116
Administrative Tools, 315
Administrator accounts see also accounts
authentication, 718
basics, 716
defined, 716
security problems, 717
useful controls, 724
Administrator group, 733
Advanced Boot Options, 702
Advanced Indexing Options, 136-138
adware
vs. spyware, 369
Aero, 2, 23-26, 173-176
defined, 24-25
improving speed by disabling, 174-176
Peek, 103
Shake, 65-67
Snap, 64
taskbar, 102-103
taskbar thumbnails, 103
themes, 178
turning off animations, 174-175
turning off Snapping and Shaking, 65, 174
turning off the taskbar, 174
turning off transparent window edges, 174
Windows Experience Index score needed, 25
AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port), 610
alarms
Windows Live calendar, 458, 476
presentation mode, 622-623
All Programs menu, 27-28, 30-33
alphabetizing program names, 45
colored highlighting on new items, 44
sorting, 47
source folders, 48-49
Alt+click, 14
Alt+Tab, 69-70
animations
Internet Explorer 8, 423-424
slow down, 840-841
turning off, 661-662
antivirus programs see Microsoft Security
Essentials
Anytime Upgrade, 268
AppData folder, 144
appearance see also themes, 173-183
screen savers, 184-187
wallpaper, 179-187
window color, 182-183
application isolation, 358
applications see programs
arrow notation, 8-9
attachments
email, 437-438
opening, 443-444
authentication, 726-728
defined, 718
auto adjust
photos, 506-507
AutoComplete, 402
address bar, 74
handwriting recognition, 628
Internet Explorer, 402
Run command, 57
AutoFill, 402
Automatic Error Reporting, 705
automatic login, 726
Automatic Solution Reporting, 705
AutoPlay, 315-317
flash drives, 659-660
settings for, 315-317
turning off, 317
cameras, 483-484
DVD movies, 542
CDs and DVDs, 168
installing software, 252
AutoRun
no longer available, 315
adding
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index 859
B
Back touchscreen gesture, 633
Back button, 403
address bar, 72
Backgammon, 296
background see wallpaper
backslashes
in file paths, 58
Backup and Restore Center, 317
backups, 10
automatic, 687-694
hardware needed, 688
restoring files, 692-694
Shadow Copy, 700-701
step by step, 688-692
System Restore, 695-700
via library, 689
with flash drives, 689
basics of Windows, 9-17
batteries
notification area, 111
power plans, 620
status, 621
battery meter, 111, 620
Bing, 401
BIOS startup messages, 702
bit rates, 531
BitLocker drive encryption, 6, 317, 682-685
need for, 683
requirements, 683
setting up, 684-685
turning on, 685
blocking cookies, 378
blogging
adding photos, 517-518
Windows Live Writer, 301-303
Blu-ray, 542
Bluetooth adapters, 606
Bluetooth File Transfer, 270
BMP format, 488
bookmarks see Favorites
Boolean searches, 127-128
boot logging, 703
boxes around faces in photos, 502
Briefcase, 638
brightness (photos), 621
broadband connections, 343-353
routers, 754
burning CDs and DVDs, 166-167
blank disc formats, 170
closing the session, 170
commercial programs, 171
erasing a rewritable disc, 171
from Media Center, 558, 565-567
from Windows Live Photo Gallery, 516
from Windows Media Player, 534-535
ISO format, 167
Live File System, 167
mastered, 167
saving TV shows, 565-567
specifying default drive, 166
steps, 168-169
UDF, 167
bus
defined, 609
ISA, 610-611
PCI, 610-611
C
c:> prompt, 57
cable TV
Media Center, 548
cable modems, 345-346
cache files, 379
defined, 658
deleting, 380
cached TV shows (Media Center), 570
Calculator, 271-272
calendar (Windows Live Mail), 453-461 see also
Windows Live Calendar
appointment details, 456-458
appointment reminders, 458
categories, 459
changing events, 453-454
deleting events, 459
editing appointments, 458
filtering icons/files, 96
gadget, 237
importing from Vista, 453
making appointments, 454-458
Month view, 455
opening, 453
printing events, 459
publishing, 460-461
syncing with Windows Live calendar, 454, 460
views, 454
Week view, 455
cameras see photos; Windows Live Photo
Gallery
CardSpace see Windows Cardspace
CDs see also burning CDs and DVDs
adding track names, 529
blank disc formats, 170
burning, 534
burning in Media Center, 558
data vs. audio, 535
Password Reset Disk, 721-723
CDs
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860 windows 7: the missing manual
playing in Windows Media Player, 529-530
restore image discs, 833
ripping, 530-532
ripping in Media Center, 560-561
silence between songs, 535
cellphones
Windows Mobile, 635
changes in Windows 7
finding features from previous versions, 843-
848
Character Map, 291-292
character recognition, 601
chats (Windows Live Messenger)
audio, 307-309
text, 305-307
video, 308-309
checkbox selection mode, 151
checkboxes, 151-152
Checkers, 296
Chess Titans, 295
clean install see installing Windows 7
ClearType, 195
ClickLock, 324-325
Clipboard Viewer, 272
clocks see date and time
Close button, 25, 60-61
keyboard shortcut, 60-61
closing
documents, 221
gadgets, 235
laptops, 39-40
programs, 214
tabs, 406
windows, 60, 63
Code Integrity Checking, 358
color depth, 195-196
Color Management, 317
printing, 592
color management system (CMS), 592
colors
color depth settings, 195-196
managing between devices, 592
on monitor, 195-196
themes, 183
columns
adding or removing, 91
column widths, 91
rearranging, 91
Command Prompt, 272-273
commands, 273
in Safe Mode, 703
opening files, 273
compact privacy statement, 376-377
compatibility
Compatibility mode, 258-260
fixing manually, 259-260
hardware, 603, 614
of programs, 257-264
preinstallation check, 818-819
Web sites in Internet Explorer, 413
with 32-bit versions, 263
with 64-bit versions, 263
with Windows XP, 260-264
wizard, 258-259
Compatibility mode, 258-260
Compatibility View, 413
compressing
audio files, 531
data, 675
defined, 675
files and folders, 675-679
files, 163-166
folders, 163-166
NTFS compression, 163, 676
zipped folders, 164
computer name, 147, 765
changing, 336
VPN, 808
when installing Windows, 827
Computer window, 34-35, 140-141
display as menu, 43-44
empty drives, 99
hiding devices, 141
icon properties, 147
Connect To command
adding to Start menu, 30
Connect to a Network Projector, 273-274
Connect to a Projector, 274
connecting hardware, 606-607
contacts (address book)
Windows Contacts, 267
Windows Live Mail, 437
Contacts folder, 142
Content view, 91-92
Search, 92
Control menu, 60-61
Control Panel, 35, 311-339
Action Center, 315
Administrative Tools, 315
AutoPlay, 315-317
Backup and Restore Center, 317
BitLocker Drive Encryption, 317
Category view, 313
Classic view, 313
Color Management, 317
Credential Manager, 317
Date and Time, 317-319
CDs
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index 861
Default Programs, 319
Desktop Gadgets, 320
Device Manager, 320
Devices and Printers, 320
Display, 320
display as menu, 43-44
drilling down, 311-313
Ease of Access Center, 320
finding what you need, 311-314
Folder Options, 320
Fonts, 320
Getting Started, 320
God Mode, 327
HomeGroup, 321
Indexing Options, 321
Internet Options, 321
iSCSI Initiator, 321-322
Keyboard, 322
Location and Other Sensors, 323
Mouse, 323-325
Network and Sharing Center, 325
Notification Area Icons, 325
Parental Controls, 326
Pen and Input Devices, 326
Performance Information and Tools, 326
Personalization, 177
Personalization , 326
Phone and Modem, 326
Power Options, 326-330
Programs and Features, 330
Recovery, 330
Region and Language, 330-333
RemoteApp and Desktop Connections, 334
shortcuts to, 314
Sound, 335
Sync Center, 335
System, 335-337
Taskbar and Start Menu, 338
terminology confusion, 312
Troubleshooting, 338
User Accounts, 338
via Search, 313-314
Windows CardSpace, 338-339
Windows Defender, 339
Windows Firewall, 339
Windows Mobility Center, 339
Windows Update, 339
cookies, 375-379
backing up, 378
block or allow, 378
compact privacy statement, 376-377
defined, 375-376
deleting, 379-380
explicit consent, 377
find in folders, 376
first-party, 376
implicit consent, 377
settings, 377-379
third-party, 376
Copy and Paste
between documents, 222-223
for copying files, 155-156
preserving format, 224
copying
by dragging icons, 153
files, 153-156
folders, 153-156
with the Navigation pane, 153
with the right mouse button, 153
cover page (faxing), 599
CPU Meter gadget, 238
Credential Manager, 317, 791
cropping photos
in Media Center, 557
in Photo Gallery, 507-508
crossover cables, 753
Ctrl key
to select nonconsecutive items, 151
Ctrl+clicking, 14
Ctrl+Alt+Delete
logging in, 766-767, 771
Windows Security dialog box, 216, 811
Currency gadget, 238-239
cursors see also pointers
blink rate, 323
changing scheme, 190-191
customizing
appearance see themes
date formats, 331
Media Center, 572-574
power options, 329-330
Start menu, 40-51
Windows Live Messenger, 309-310
Windows Media Player, 523
Cut and Paste
between documents, 222-223
preserving format, 224
D
Data Execution Prevention, 372
date and time, 317-319
additional clocks, 317
clock gadget, 238
date formats, 331
Internet Time, 318
photos, 500
Debugging mode, 704
Debugging mode
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862 windows 7: the missing manual
Default Programs, 35-36
add to Start menu, 30
adding to Start menu, 30
defined, 319
Microsoft vs. Non-Microsoft, 319-320
settings, 319
Defender see Windows Defender
defragmenting disks, 645-647
non-Windows programs, 645
schedule, 645
deleting see also Recycle Bin
accounts, 723-724
Calendar events, 459
cookies, 379-380
email messages, 440
files, 156-160
folders, 156-160
fonts, 594
from removable drives, 157
gadgets, 235
jump list items, 54
metadata, 89
personalized theme, 191
photos, 497
printer icons, 582
shortcut icons, 161
Sticky Notes, 283
Desktop, 23-26
background see wallpaper
changing icons, 149
Desktop icons, 186-188
keyboard shortcut, 68
printing from, 585-586
remove all icons, 840
restoring icons, 24
themes, 176-178
toolbar, 117-118
wallpaper, 179-182
Desktop folder, 142-143
Desktop Gadgets, 320
Desktop icons, 186-188
align to grid, 186
change grid size, 186
consolidate, 186
hide, 186
restoring, 24
size, 186
sort, 186
spacing, 186
Desktop toolbar, 117-118
Details pane, 75-76
metadata, 86
Properties, 88
Details view, 91
filtering calendar, 96
organizing columns, 91
sorting files, 93-94
Device Manager, 320, 613-617
defined, 336
opening, 613
removing duplicate devices, 615
resolving conflicts, 614
resolving resource conflicts, 615
rolling back drivers, 617
turning components off, 615-616
updating drivers, 616
Device Stage, 607-609, 612
defined, 607
taskbar icon, 608
Devices and Printers window, 35, 320
printers, 580-582
dial-up connections, 345-356
for remote access, 798-803
dialog boxes
basics, 219-220
defined, 219
Favorites, 410
presentation mode, 622-623
Print, 583
setting language, 333
dictation, 229-234 see also Speech Recognition
digital cameras see cameras
directories see folders
Directory Services Restore Mode, 704
disabling
accounts, 725
hardware, 615-616
Disk Cleanup, 644-645
Disk Defragmenter, 645-647
settings, 645-647
disk drives see also drives
installing, 609-611
Disk Management, 649-654
console, 671-672
disks see also hard disks
icon properties, 147
quotas, 680
Display Control Panel, 177 see also Personal-
ization
displays see monitors
DNS addresses, 355-356
documents see also printing, print queue
faxing, 595-601
icon properties, 147
moving data between, 222-224
Open dialog box, 221-222
opening and closing, 221-222
Default Programs
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index 863
printing, 582-593
privacy, 89
read-only, 147
scanning, 601-602
Documents folder, 34
add to Start menu, 30
display as menu, 43-44
domains, 761-771
Active Directory, 763-764
advantages of, 762-763
assigning permissions, 771
browsing, 767
defined, 761
domain controller, 762
joining, 764-766
logging on, 766-768
searching, 768-771
security, 764
double-click speed, 324
downloading
gadgets, 241
programs, 252-253
Downloads folder, 143
display as menu, 43-44
drag and drop
between documents, 223-224
in WordPad, 287
drive letters
hiding/showing, 100
Driver Rollback, 617
drivers, 15
defined, 15, 604
Device Manager, 616-617
Driver Rollback, 617
printers, 579-580
rollback, 617
signing, 612-613
Update Device Driver wizard, 616
updating, 616
DSL, 346
dual booting, 669
step by step, 826-828
Windows 7, 821-823
duplicate devices
removing, 615
DVD Maker see Windows Live DVD Maker
DVDs see also burning CDs and DVDs
blank disc formats, 170
chapter list, 543
data vs. audio, 535
keyboard controls, 544
main menu, 543
no windows DVD, 833
playback controls, 543
playing in Windows Media Player, 542-544
window modes, 543
DVI ports, 606
Dvorak keyboard, 332
dynamic disks, 667-675
creating a striped volume, 674-675
dual booting, 669
extending a volume, 670
extending basic disks, 672
extending to a spanned volume, 671-673
extending to another disk, 669-671
how they work, 668-669
spanned volume, 669
spanning vs. striping, 671
volumes, 668
E
Ease of Access Center, 287-289, 320
High Contrast mode, 288
keyboard options, 286
Magnifier, 289-290
Mouse Keys, Sticky Keys, Toggle Keys, 286
mouse options, 286
Narrator, 290-291
On-Screen Keyboard, 291
Speech Recognition, 291
using computer without keyboard, 288
using computer without monitor, 287-288
using computer without mouse, 288
using computer without sound, 289
Easy Connect, 203-207
from a non-Windows 7 PC, 205-207
Easy Transfer see Windows Easy Transfer
editing
photos, 504-513
editing metadata, 86-87
email see also Windows Live Mail
as an “answering machine”, 445-447
attachments, 437-438
filtering with message rules, 444-447
Hotmail, 470
opening attachments, 443-444
photos, 514-516
signatures, 436-437
types, 429
empty drives, 99
emptying the Recycle Bin, 158-159
encrypted files
BitLocker drive encryption, 682-685
files and folders, 679-682
from a shortcut menu, 839-840
show in color, 100
recovering encrypted data, 682
troubleshooting, 682
encrypted files
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864 windows 7: the missing manual
Encrypting File System (EFS), 679-682
rules, 682
using, 679-681
encryption (WiFi networks)
WEP encryption, 389
wireless, 389
WPA encryption, 389
energy savings
power options, 326-330
enlarging type and graphics, 193-194
Enterprise edition, 6
Environmental variables, 337
error reporting, 215
Automatic Error Reporting, 705
turning off, 705
Ethernet, 345-346, 748-751
cables, 750
crossover cable, 753
equipment, 748-751
speed variation, 750
EXIF data, 498
exiting
crashed programs, 215-217
programs, 214
expansion slots, 609-611
Explorer windows, 59-81 see also windows
address bar, 60, 71-75
applying changes to all folders, 97
column headings, 93
Content view, 91-92
controls, 71-75
Details pane, 75-76
Details view, 91
filtering, 95-96
Folder Options, 97-101
grouping, 94-95
hiding and showing columns, 91
icon views, 88-92
keyboard shortcuts, 79
List view, 90
making menu bar appear, 74
metadata, 86-87
Navigation pane, 77-81
new features, 2
opening, 60
optional window panes, 75-81
organizing, 96-97
Preview pane, 76-77
Properties, 88
searching in, 130-132
showing menu bar, 12
similarities to Internet Explorer, 152
sorting, 92-94
tags, 86-87
task toolbar, 75
Tiles view, 91
toolbars, 60
uni-window vs. multi-window, 96-97
views, 88-92
Views menu, 89-90
exporting data, 224
ExpressCard slots, 606
extensions see filename extensions
F
faces in photos, 502
Family Safety, 393-397
activity reporting, 397
contact management, 397
customizing, 395-397
overriding blocked sites, 397
Windows Live Essentials, 393-397
Fast User Switching, 736-737
Favorites, 409-412
adding to Start menu, 42
creating, 409
desktop shortcuts, 411
dialog box, 410
importing or exporting lists, 410
links bar, 411
Media Center, 555, 559
organizing, 410
pinning sites to jump list, 409
saving a set of tabs, 406
toolbar, 411-412
Favorites folder, 143
Fax and Scan, 269
faxing, 595-601
automatically answer, 599
cover page information, 599
Internet services, 601
manually answer, 599
print copy to, 599
receiving, 599-601
save copy to, 600
sending, 595-599
viewing, 601
features
Turn Windows Features On and Off, 253-255
Feed Headlines gadget, 239
file associations, 242-250 see also filename
extensions
file paths, 58
file sharing see sharing files and folders
file transfer protocol (FTP), 794
file transfers
with Windows Live Messenger, 303-304
Encrypting File
System (EFS)
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index 865
filename extensions, 242-250
defined, 242
displaying, 242-243
hidden, 145
hiding/showing, 99
Open With command, 244-250
opening with different program, 243-248
unknown file types, 243
files
attachments, 437-438
backup files, 693-694
compressing, 163-166
compression, 675-679
copying, 153-156
deleting, 156-160
encrypted, 100
encrypting, 679-682
filtering, 95-96
grouping, 94-95
hidden, 99
hiding extensions for known file types, 99-100
jump lists, 108-110
moving, 153-156
NTFS, 100
offline files feature, 635-640
overwriting, 220
printer files, 590-591
properties, 88
read-only, 147
restoring, 693-694
sharing, 773-796
Sharing Wizard, 101
SkyDrive, 472-475
sorting, 92-94
tags and metadata, 86-87
transferring to new Windows 7 installation,
830-834
views, 88-92
Filter Keys, 286
filtering files, 95-96
by date, 96
email, 444-447
Library window, 82-83
searches, 130-132
spam, 445-447
find and replace
in WordPad, 285
firewall see Windows Firewall
FireWire ports, 606
flagging email messages, 443
flash drives
auto-run installers don’t work, 315
Password Reset Disk, 721-723
ReadyBoost, 658-660
flicks (touchscreens), 630-632
settings, 632
vs. gestures, 631
folder icons
changing appearance, 150
personalizing, 150
Properties, 148-149
Folder Options, 97-101, 320
checkbox selection, 98-101
Search, 134-138
folder paths, 34, 58, 145 see also Universal
Naming Convention (UNC)
folders, 140-144
adding to a Library, 84-85
address bar, 74
checkbox selection, 98-101
compressing, 163-166
compression, 675-679
Computer window, 140-141
copying, 153-156
creating new, 121
deleting, 156-160
encrypting, 679-682
file size info, 99
Fonts Folder, 594
hidden, 99
icons, 98 jump lists, 108-110
Junk E-Mail, 432
moving, 153-156
nested folders, 788
mapping to drive letters, 793-796
opening with Run command, 57-58
read-only, 147
removing from a Library, 85
saving into, 218-220
sharing, 773-796
Sharing Wizard, 101
SkyDrive, 473
Start Menu, 30-33
templates, 149
zipped, 164, 677-679
fonts, 320
adding, 594
Fonts Folder, 594
in Media Center, 552
Internet Explorer 8 text size, 419
managing, 595
previewing, 594
printers, 594-595
Private Character Editor, 292-293
removing, 594
Windows Live Mail, 452
fonts
www.it-ebooks.info
866 windows 7: the missing manual
formatting
email, 435-436
Sticky Notes, 283
WordPad, 284-285
Forward
button, 72, 403
touchscreen gesture, 633
frames
emailing photos, 515
printing, 585
Freecell, 295-296
frozen programs, 215
F
gadgets, 234-242, 320
Calendar, 237
changes from Vista, 234
changing opacity, 237
clock, 238
closing, 235
CPU Meter, 238
Currency, 238-239
defined, 234
deleting, 235
downloading, 241
Feed Headlines, 239
hiding, 235-236
installing, 242
losing data, 237
Media Center, 563
moving, 235
opening, 234, 236-237
opening multiple copies, 236
Picture Puzzle, 239
preinstalled, 237
searching, 236
Slide Show, 240
tips, 235-236
uninstalling, 242
Weather, 240
game port, 606
Games, 34, 294-300
add to Start menu, 30
Chess Titans, 295
display as menu, 43-44
Freecell, 295-296
Games Explorer, 296
Hearts, 296
Internet Backgammon, 296
Internet Checkers, 296
Internet Spades, 296
limiting by ratings, 392
Mahjong Titans, 297
Mimesweeper, 297
Minesweeper, 297-298
new options for Windows 7, 294
Purble Place, 298-299
ratings, 34, 392
Solitaire, 299
Spider Solitaire, 299-300
Games Explorer, 296
gestures (touchscreens), 633-634 see also hand-
writing recognition
flicking, 633
panning, 633
right-clicking, 633
rotating, 633
vs. flicks, 631
zooming, 633
Getting Started screen, 21-23, 274, 320, 828
GIF format, 488
God Mode, 327
Google for Web search, 401
graphics
in Internet Explorer 8, 423-424
group policies, 684
grouping files, 94-95
groups see Local Users and Groups
Guest accounts, 725-726
H
handwriting recognition, 623-630
AutoComplete, 628
back-of-pen erase, 628
converting to text, 631
dictionary, 629
fixing mistakes, 627-628
flicks, 631
numbers and symbols, 629
pen calibration, 629
scratch-out gestures, 628
teaching Windows, 624
using gestures, 627
using the Input panel, 625-627
Web quick keys, 628
Windows Journal, 623-630
hard drives see also backup; maintenance
changing a drive letter, 650-651
Disk Management, 649-654
disk quotas, 680
dynamic disks, 667-675
line conditioner, 648
management, 649-654
mapping folders to drive letters, 793-796
mechanical problems, 648
partitioning, 651-652
ScanDisk, 647-649
surge suppressor, 648
formatting
www.it-ebooks.info
index 867
turning a drive into a folder, 652-654
Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), 648
voltage problems, 648
hardware, 603-607
Add Hardware wizard, 610
compatibility issues, 603, 614, 818-819
connecting new, 606-607
Device Manager, 613-617
Device Stage, 607-609
drivers, 15
Media Center, 548
printers, 577-582
requirements for upgrade, 817-819
troubleshooting, 611
Windows Experience Index, 25
Hardware Compatibility List, 603
Hearts, 296
Help, 199-210
adding to Start menu, 30
dialog boxes, 202
Help and Support Center, 36
Microsoft Support, 209-210
Remote Assistance, 202-209
Search, 199-201
searching through Table of Contents, 201-202
Hibernate, 39
vs. Sleep, 39
hidden files and folders, 112-113, 788-789
unhiding, 788
hiding gadgets, 235-236
hiding Libraries, 86
High Contrast mode, 288
highlighting see selecting
histogram, 510
History, 412-413
defined, 412
erasing, 379-380
settings, 413
viewing, 412-413
what Internet Explorer saves, 379-380
Home Basic edition, 5
Home button, 405
Home networks (security category), 348-349
home page
Internet Explorer 8, 418-419
Home Premium edition, 5
homegroups, 775-780
adding to Start menu, 42
control panel, 321
editing shared libraries, 779-780
leaving, 779
setting up, 775-777
sharing files and folders, 775-780
sharing more folders, 779
sharing music, 537, 778
sharing printers, 778
using, 775-778
hot spots see WiFi
Hotmail, 470
HTML formatting
email, 435-436
hubs, 748
Hulu.com, 563
I
icon properties
Computer, 147
creating custom, 148
Disks, 147
documents, 147
program files, 149
Icon view, 90
resizing icons, 90
icons, 144-152
basics, 144-150
changing illustrations, 149
checkboxes, 100
creating custom properties, 148
Desktop, 149
Desktop icons, 186-188
Device Stage icon, 608
disappearing, 95
dragging onto Start Menu, 44, 46-47
filtering, 95-96
grouping, 94-95
hidden, 112-113, 148
opening with one click, 152
personalizing, 149
printer icons, 581-582
Properties, 145-149
renaming, 145
resizing, 90
selecting, 150-152
shortcut icons, 150
sorting, 92-94
tagging, 87
IMAP email, 429
importing
data, 224
music, 524
photos, 483-487
Inbox, 432
index see search index
Indexing Options, 136, 321
Advanced, 136-138
infrared printers, 578
InPrivate Browsing, 383
InPrivate Browsing
www.it-ebooks.info
868 windows 7: the missing manual
InPrivate Filtering, 383-385
settings, 385
turning on, 385
input panel (Tablet PC), 117, 623-629
insertion point see cursors
installing
adapter cards, 609-611
disk drives, 609-611
downloaded programs, 252-253
from disc, 252
gadgets, 242
hardware, 603-617
Microsoft Installshield, 252
modems, 609-611
network cables, 609-611
printers, 577-582
software, 250-254
to expansion slots, 609-611
Windows components, 253-254
installing Windows 7, 817-834
activation, 828-830
backing up computer, 821
before you begin, 817-819
clean install from Vista, 820-821
compatibility issues, 818-819
dual booting, 821-823
hardware requirements, 817-818
preparing for the installation, 823
step by step, 826-828
system requirements, 817-819
vs. upgrading, 819-820
Windows Easy Transfer, 830-834
InstallShield, 252
international see also Region and Language
email, 449
Internet see also dial-up connections; net-
working; security; WiFi
cellular modem, 351-352
dial-up modem, 352-354
Ethernet connections, 345-346
fax services, 601
getting connected, 343-356
Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), 754-755
Internet Explorer 8, 399-426
music stores, 541
Network Connections window, 345-356
radio, 541
security, 357-397
security zones, 386-387
sharing, 753-755
switching between modem types, 354
TV, 563-564
WiFi connections, 346-351
Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), 754-755
Internet Explorer (No Add-ons), 292
Internet Explorer 8, 399-426
accelerators, 420-422
ActiveX controls, 379
Add-On Manager, 379
address bar, 401-403
AutoComplete, 402
AutoFill, 402
Back button, 403
basic controls, 401-405
basics, 400-405
bookmarks, 409-412
Compatibility View, 413
cookies, 375-379
Favorites, 409-412
Forward button, 403
full-screen browsing, 417
History list, 379-380, 412-413
Home button, 405
home page, 418-419
improvements, 399
Internet Options, 321
Internet security zones, 386-387
keyboard shortcut master list, 424-426
Links toolbar, 441
Options dialog box, 424
Parental Controls, 390-397
phishing, 373-375
photos online, 419-420
pop-up blocker, 380-383
printing pages, 422-423
Protected Mode, 358
quick tabs (thumbnails), 407
Refresh button, 403
RSS feeds, 414-416
saving pages, 420
scroll bars, 405
Search bar, 403-405
search engines, 401
sending pages, 420
status bar, 405
Stop button, 403
suggested sites, 401
tab settings, 407-409
tab shortcuts, 406
tabs, 405-409
text size, 419
tips for Web surfing, 417-424
touchscreens, 634
turning off animations, 423-424
turning off sounds, 424
viewing History, 402-403
Web Slices, 416
without graphics, 423-424
InPrivate Filtering
www.it-ebooks.info
index 869
zooming in and out, 419
Internet Options, 321
Internet radio, 541-542
Internet security zones, 386-387
classifying sites, 387
defined, 386
settings, 387
Internet service providers (ISPs), 352
Internet Time, 318
Internet TV, 563-568
IP addresses, 353, 804
ipconfig command, 273
ISA, 610-611
iSCSI Initiator, 321-322
ISO format, 167
iTunes, 319
J
Java, 387
JPEG format, 487
jump lists, 51-55
activating, 52-53
change number of items, 54-55
clearing, 54
deleting items, 54
number of items displayed, 45
pinning items to, 53-54
privacy concerns, 54
settings, 54-55
taskbar, 107-110
turning off, 54
junk email see spam
K
K edition, 6
keyboard, 322
accessibility options, 286
cursor blink rate, 323
Filter Keys, 286
language layouts, 332
setting repeat delay, 322
setting repeat rate, 322
Sticky keys, 286
Toggle keys, 286
keyboard shortcuts, 16, 849-854
w key, 16, 852-853
address bar, 72
Alt+Tab, 69
closing windows, 63
Ctrl+Alt+Delete (logging in), 771
DVD playback, 544
Explorer windows, 79
hiding the taskbar, 114
Internet Explorer 8, 424-426
master list, 849-854
minimize, maximize, restore, 61-62
navigating Start menu, 28-30
Remote Desktop, 810-811
reveal Desktop, 68
Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), 216, 724
taskbar, 109
Windows Flip 3D, 71
Windows Security screen (Ctrl+Alt+Delete),
216
L
language kits, 330
Language toolbar, 332
languages see Region and Language
laptops, 620-623
battery meter, 111, 620
brightness, 621
closing lid, 39-40
Mobility Center, 621-623
notification area, 111
offline files feature, 635-640
power plans, 620
Presentation mode, 623
running Windows 7, 619-623
screen orientation, 621
scrolling, 13
speaker volume, 621
Last Known Good Configuration, 704
launching programs
taskbar, 106-107
using Run command, 56-58
layering windows, 63-64
left-handed
mouse, 324
switching mouse buttons, 10
Tablet PC, 626
Libraries, 81-86
adding folders, 84-85
advantages, 81
“Arrange by:” pop-up menu, 82
creating, 85-86
defined, 81
filtering, 82-83
for system backup, 689
hiding and showing, 86
removing a folder, 85
saving locations, 82
working with contents, 81
line conditioners, 648
link
defined, 401
Link-Layer Topology Discovery
troubleshooting, 756
Link-Layer
Topology Discovery
www.it-ebooks.info
870 windows 7: the missing manual
links toolbar, 116-117
Favorites, 411
folder, 143
List view, 90
Live File System (UDF) format, 167
Live Mail see Windows Live Mail
Live Messenger see Windows Live Messenger
Live Sync, 474
Live Writer see Windows Live Writer
local intranet zone, 387
Local Users and Groups, 730-735
built-in groups, 734
creating a new account, 731-732
creating groups, 733-734
disabling an account, 732
groups and permissions, 743
modifying groups, 735
opening, 730
Location and Other Sensors, 323
location-aware printing, 588
Lock, 37
log files, 276
Log off, 37
logging in, 737-738
automatically, 726
to a corporate domain, 766-767, 771
long distance calling
with Windows Live Messenger, 303
M
MAC address filtering, 389
Macintosh
Remote Desktop, 798
sharing files and folders, 786, 791
SkyDrive, 472
Windows Live Sync, 474
magnifier, 195, 289-290
Mahjong Titans, 297
mail see email; Windows Live Mail
maintenance
Action Center, 643
Disk Cleanup, 644-645
Disk Defragmenter, 645-647
hard drives problems, 648
Resource Monitor, 666
ScanDisk, 647-649
Task Scheduler, 654-657
Windows Update, 662-666
Maintenance folder, 300
mapping folders to drive letters, 793-796
Math Input Panel, 274-275
Maximize button, 25, 60-62
Media Center see Windows Media Center
Media Center Extender, 549
Media Guide, 541
Media Player see Windows Media Player
Meeting Space, 269
memory
CPU Meter, 238
SuperFetch, 658
virtual memory, 665
Windows Memory Diagnostic, 709
menu bar
bringing back, 74
Windows Media Player, 523
metadata, 86-87
defined, 123
editing, 86-87
privacy, 89
removing, 89
Microsoft
sending and error report, 215
Microsoft Anna, 232 see also Narrator
settings, 291
Microsoft InstallShield, 252
Microsoft Security Essentials, 359-361
settings, 361
virus scanning, 359-360
Microsoft SpyNet, 371
Microsoft Support, 209-210
Customer Support, 209
TechNet, 210
Windows Answers, 209
Windows Web site, 210
Microsoft XPS format, 370
Minesweeper, 297-298
Minimize button, 25, 60-62
MissingManuals.com, 17
mobile computing, 635 see also laptops
Sync Center, 635
Mobility Center, 2, 339
battery status, 621
brightness, 621
connection monitors, 622
defined, 283
opening, 621
presentation mode, 622-623
screen orientation, 622
Sync Center, 622
volume, 621
WiFi, 622
modems
cable, 345-346
cellular, 351-352
connection settings, 345-356
dial-up, 352-354
installing, 609-611
types, 343
links toolbar
www.it-ebooks.info
index 871
monitors
Advanced settings, 197
brightness, 621
changing resolution, 192-193
ClearType, 195
color, 195
connecting to laptops, 622
enlarging, 192-195
enlarging type and graphics, 193-194
fixing blurry text, 194
full-screen browsing, 417
laptop screen orientation, 622
magnify screen, 192-195
multiple, 196-197
orientation, 193
refresh rate, 197
resolution, 193
screen savers, 184-187
settings, 192-197
using computer without monitor, 287-288
Windows Magnifier, 195
mounted drives, 652
mouse, 188-189, 323-325
accessibility options, 286
change pointer shape, 188-189
ClickLock, 324-325
configuring buttons, 324
double-click speed, 324
left-handed, 324
pointer trails, 190
right-clicking, 10
scroll wheel, 13
settings, 323-325
Snap To option, 190
speed, 189-190
switching right and left buttons, 10
wheel settings, 352
Mouse Keys, 286
Mousegrid, 229
Movie library, 562
Movie Maker, 266, 269, 846
movies see also Media Center; videos; Windows
Media Player
Blu-ray, 542
Netflix, 562
playing in Windows Media Player, 542-544
moving
files, 153-156
files with “Send to” command, 155
folders, 153-156
gadgets, 235
windows, 61-62
MP3 files, 530-531
tags and metadata, 86-87
multiple document interface, 63
multitouch screens, 90, 633-634
Music, 34
add to Start menu, 30
display as menu, 43-44
listen across a network, 536-541
Media Center vs. Windows Media Player, 558
online music stores, 541
Play to” feature, 538-539
playing, 525-532
playing music over the Internet, 540-541
ripping CDs, 530-532
search, 525-526
music see also Media Center
music see also Windows Media Player
surround sound, 558
tags and metadata, 86-87
Music library, 524, 558-559
music players, 535-536
My Computer
restoring desktop icons, 24
My Documents, 144
moving to a removable drive, 144
restoring desktop icons, 24
My Music, 144
My Network
restoring desktop icons, 24
My Network Places
restoring desktop icons, 24
My Pictures, 144
My Videos, 144
“My” prefix on folders, 28, 143
N
N edition, 6
Narrator, 290-291
settings, 291
Navigation pane, 77-81
Computer, 80
dragging icons to, 153
Favorite Links list, 77-79
flippy triangles, 80-81
Homegroup, 80
Libraries, 79
Network, 80
Windows Media Player, 526
netbooks, 620 see also laptops
Netflix, 562
Network
add to Start menu, 30
adding to Start menu, 40
notification area, 111
printing, 588-590
Network Access Protection, 358
Network Access
Protection
www.it-ebooks.info
872 windows 7: the missing manual
network adaptors, 757
Network and Sharing Center, 111, 325, 344-345,
755-760
changing adapter settings, 757
changing advanced sharing settings, 758
connecting to a network, 759
homegroup options, 759
managing wireless networks, 756-757
setting up a new network, 758-759
troubleshooting, 759-760
Network Connections window, 345-356
network domains see domains
Network icon, 344
network printers
adding, 588-590
installing, 577-578
setting up, 588-590
networking, 3-4, 747-760 see also domains;
workgroup networks
accessing shared files and folders, 789-793
ad hoc, 753
and accounts, 715
cables, 609-611
domain, 715
Ethernet, 748-751
PC-to-PC, 753
security, 387-389
setting up a network, 747-760
sharing files and folders, 775-789
types of (Home, Work, Public), 348-349
WiFi, 348-349
workgroup, 715
newsgroups
composing, 464-465
defined, 462
etiquette, 465
forwarding, 464-465
news server address, 463
reading, 464
replying, 464-465
subscribing to Microsoft newsgroups, 462
subscribing to other newsgroups, 462-463
Notepad, 275-276
basics, 276
defined, 275
log files, 276
Word Wrap, 276
notification area (system tray), 110-114
Action Center, 111
battery meter, 620
clock, 111
Control Panel, 325
hidden status icons, 112
Network, 111
Power, 111
reinstating hidden status icons, 112-113
turning system icons on/off, 113
volume, 111
NTFS compression, 163, 676-677
NTFS files
show in color, 100
NTFS permissions, 740-746
and groups, 743-744
permissions rules, 744-745
setting up, 741-743
viewing effective permissions, 745-746
O
offline files, 635-640
reconnecting to the network, 638-639
setting up, 635-636
Sync Center, 637
troubleshooting, 636
vs. Briefcase, 638
working offline, 636-638
On-Screen Keyboard, 291
online help, 210
online music stores, 541
Open With command, 244-250
opening
Calendar, 453
documents, 221-222
files with Command Prompt, 273
files with differing programs, 243-248
gadgets, 236-237
programs, 213-214 see also launching pro-
grams
setting defaults, 243-248
Sticky Notes, 282
Task Manager, 216
operating system
defined, 9-10
optical character recognition, 601
organizing folders, 97-101
Outbox, 432
overwriting
files, 220
P
Page Up and Page Down keys, 13
Paint, 277-278
file formats, 278
panning gesture (touchscreen), 633
parallel printers
installing, 578
Parental Controls, 326, 390-397
activity reporting, 397
contact management, 397
network adaptors
www.it-ebooks.info
index 873
game limits, 392-393
overriding blocked sites, 397
software restrictions, 393
time limits, 390-392
partitioning drives, 651-652
Password Reset Disk, 721-723
passwords
expiring, 732
password hints, 720-721
Password Reset Disk, 721-723
primary and secondary, 724
tips, 720-721
patches, 662-665
defined, 662
PatchGuard, 358
path names, 74 see also Universal Naming
Convention (UNC)
PC cards, 606
PCI slots, 610-611
Pen and Input Devices, 326
pen flicks see flicks
performance
ReadyBoost, 658-660
speed tricks, 657-662
SuperFetch, 658
turning off visual effects, 661-662
Performance Information and Tools, 326
permissions
NTFS, 740-746
Personal folder, 33, 142-144
AppData folder, 144
Contacts folder, 142
defined, 142
Desktop folder, 142-143
display as menu, 43-44
Downloads folder, 143
Favorites folder, 143
Links folder, 143
My Documents, 144
My Music, 144
My Pictures, 144
My Videos, 144
restoring desktop icons, 24
Saved Games folder, 144
Searches Folder, 144
personalization see appearance; themes;
wallpaper
Personalization control panel, 177
phishing, 373-375
defined, 373
filter options, 375
Sherlock Explorer, 373
SmartScreen Filter, 373-375
Windows Live Mail, 449
Phone and Modem, 326
photo ratings, 500-504
uses for, 503
photo tags, 500-504
adding or editing, 500-502
searching, 503-504
tips, 503
uses for, 503
photos see also Windows Live Photo Gallery;
Windows Live Photos
as Desktop backgrounds, 179
cropping, 507-508
cropping in Media Center, 557
editing in Media Center, 557
emailing, 514-516
improving, 510-512
in Internet Explorer 8, 419-420
in Media Center, 554-555
in Windows Media Player, 544-545
Media Center, 557-558
online, 419-420, 470-472
printing, 513-514
prints, 513-514
rating, 500-504
red eye, 507-508, 557
scanning , 488
sharing, 513-519
sizing for wallpaper, 181
tags, 500-504
adding photos, 471
commenting, 472
creating an album, 471
downloading photos, 472
tagging people, 472
viewing a slideshow, 472
Windows Live Photos, 470-472
Photoshop format, 488
Picasa, 481
Picture Puzzle gadget, 239
Pictures folder, 34
display as menu, 43-44
Pictures library
Media Center, 554
pin to taskbar, 106
ping command, 273
plain text formatting
email, 435-436
“Play to” command, 538-539
playlists, 532-533
auto playlists, 533
deleting from, 533
in Media Center, 561
saving, 533
playlists
www.it-ebooks.info
874 windows 7: the missing manual
pointers see also cursor; mouse
changing, 189
changing speed, 189-190
hide while typing, 190
Pointer Options, 189-190
pointer trails, 190
Pointers dialog box, 188-190
schemes, 189
show location, 190
Snap To option, 190
POP email, 429
pop-up blocker, 380-383
logic, 382
overriding, 382
settings, 383
portable media devices, 635
power
battery, 620-621
hard drives, 648
laptops, 620-621
Power Options control panel, 111, 326-330
Balanced plan, 328
create your own plan, 329-330
High performance plan, Power saver
plan, 328
power plans, 328-330
Power Users group, 734
PowerPoint presentation mode, 622-623
PPPoE, 346
presentation mode, 622-623
Preview pane, 76-77
print queue (spooler)
add new document, 586
cancel all documents, 586
cancel one document, 586
defined, 586
pause all documents, 586
pause one document, 586
reorder documents, 587
Print Screen key, 278
printer files
creating, 590
printing from, 590-591
printers see also print queue; printing
Add Printer wizard, 579-580
adding network printer, 588-590
adding to Start menu, 30
deleting icons, 582
Devices and Printers window, 580-582
drivers, 579-580
installing, 577-582
installing multiple icons, 581
limiting access hours, 591
model not listed, 580
paper trays, 581
printer emulation, 580
sharing, 588-590
troubleshooting, 593-594
printing, 582-593
adding separator page, 592-593
background, 584-585
bypassing Print dialog box, 585-586
Calendar events, 459
color management, 592
creating a spool file, 587-588
email messages, 441
fax, 599
frames, 585
from programs, 582-585
from the Desktop, 585-586
individual pages, 583
location-aware printing, 588
number of copies, 584
on a network, 588-590
options, 584
photos, 513-514
Print dialog box, 583
print queue window, 585-586
to a file, 590
Web pages, 422-423
privacy see also security
blocking music sharing, 538
cookies, 375-379
jump lists, 54
“Removing Properties and Personal Informa-
tion,” 89
Private Character Editor, 292-293
problem reports and solutions, 706-707
Automatic Solution Reporting, 705
processor power setting, 329
product key, 336
Professional edition, 5
profiles see accounts
program files
icon properties, 149
programs, 213-217 see also names of individual
programs
Accessories, 270-294
closing, 214
compatibility modes, 257-260
exiting, 214
exiting crashed, 215-217
frozen, 215
installing, 250-254
installing downloads, 252-253
installing from disc, 252
launching with Run command, 56-58
not responding, 216
pointers
www.it-ebooks.info
index 875
opening, 213-214
opening from taskbar, 106-107
preinstallation checklist, 259
preinstalled, 265-310
printing from, 582-585
sharing between accounts, 251
Task Manager, 215-217
uninstalling, 255-257
Windows 7 compatibility, 257-264
Programs and Features, 330
projectors
external-display mode, 196
network projectors, 273-274
Presentation mode, 522
Properties, 14, 88
folder icons, 148-149
Protected Mode, 358
Public folders, 142
Public networks (security category), 348-349
Purble Place, 298-299
Q
Quick Launch toolbar, 118
R
radio
Internet radio, 541-542
Media Center (tuner card), 559
ratings
auto-playlist by, 533
games, 34, 392
movies, 563
music, 75, 82, 87,
photos, 82, 87, 500-504
searching by, 95, 125-126
wallpaper, 179
RAW format, 489-490
read-only permissions, 147
reading
text to speech, 232
ReadyBoost, 658-660
Recent Items
adding to Start menu, 40, 43
recent folders list, 73
recent pages list, 73
Recorded TV folder, 43, 524, 565-567
display as menu, 43-44
managing, 565
recording audio
with Sound Recorder, 281-282
Recovery icon, 330
Recycle Bin, 156-160
auto-emptying, 159
changing icons, 149
customizing, 149
eliminating warning windows, 157-158
emptying, 158-159
restoring deleted items, 158
redeye
fixing in Media Center, 557
fixing in Windows Live Photo Gallery, 507-508
Refresh button, 403
address bar, 73
refresh rate, 197
regedit see Registry
Region and Language, 330-333
date formats, 331
location, 332
Registry, 835-841
defined, 835
editor (regedit), 836-841
functions, 835-836
keys and values, 837-839
regedit examples, 839-841
root keys, 836-837
Reliability Manager, 707
remote access, 797-813
basics, 797-798
dial-up connections, 789-803
modem to modem, 798-803
Remote Desktop, 789, 805-813
virtual private networking (VPN), 803-805
vs. remote control, 813
Remote Assistance, 202-209
Chat, 208
defined, 202
disabling, 203
Easy Connect, 203-207
end a session, 209
finding an expert, 204
starting a session, 203-207
taking control, 208-209
remote control see Media Center; remote
access; Remote Assistance; Remote
Desktop
Remote Desktop
connecting, 807-810
disconnecting, 811
fine-tuning connections, 811-813
keyboard shortcuts, 810-811
making the connection, 278
setting up host, 806-807
Remote Desktop Connection, 278
RemoteApp and Desktop Connections, 334
removing see deleting
renaming
icons, 145
Start menu items, 49
renaming
www.it-ebooks.info
876 windows 7: the missing manual
workgroup, 336, 791
your PC, 336
resizing windows, 61-62
Resource Monitor, 666
Restart, 37-38
restore image discs, 833
restore points, 697
restoring see also System Restore
folder windows on logon, 100
backup files, 693-694 see also backups
icons to the desktop, 24
rewritable discs
erasing, 171
right-clicking, 10
Properties, 14
touchscreen gesture, 633
right-dragging, 153-155
ripping CDs, 530-532, 560-561
rotation gesture (touchscrens), 633
routers
broadband, 754
defined, 748
setting up, 749
wireless, 748, 751
RSS feeds, 414-416
defined, 414
gadget, 416
subscribing, 415-416
viewing, 414
Windows Live Mail, 460-461
Run command, 43, 55-58
adding to Start menu, 30, 43
launching programs, 56-58
open Web pages, 58
opening drive windows, 57
opening folder windows, 57-58
S
Safe Mode, 703
Save As box
file format drop-down menu, 221
keyboard controls, 220
navigating, 220
overwriting files, 220
Saved Games folder, 144
saved searches, 138-139
defined, 138
uses of, 139
saving files
change default location, 220
file formats, 221
into a library, 82
into Documents folder, 218
into other folders, 219-220
overwriting files, 220
personalized theme, 190-191
playlists, 533
Save dialog box, 217
tabs, 406
Web pages, 420
ScanDisk, 647-649
scanning, 601-602
exporting a scan, 602
faxing or emailing a scan, 602
new scan, 601
optical character recognition, 601
photos, 488
resolution, 602
Scientific Calculator, 271-272
screen savers, 184-187
choosing, 185-186
creating in Windows Live Photo Gallery, 516-
517
need for, 184-185
password protecting, 185
presentation mode, 622-623
settings, 185-186
screens see monitors
scrolling, 13
scroll bars, 13, 61, 405
using touchscreen, 633
with keyboard, 13
tricks, 13
search, 121-140
adding new file types, 138
Advanced Indexing Options, 136-138
Boolean, 127-128
Content view, 92
customizing, 134-138
deleting old searches, 140
diacritical marks, 136
filters, 130-132
Folder Options, 134-138
for gadgets, 236
in Explorer windows, 130-132
index, 132-138
Indexing Options, 136
limiting by criteria, 125-127
Media Center, 569
More results window, 124-125
music, 525-526
natural language, 128
options, 35
other accounts, 129
photo tags, 503-504
quotes, 127
saved searches, 138-139
selecting results, 129
renaming
www.it-ebooks.info
index 877
special codes, 127-128
Start menu, 122-130
tags, 127
tips, 128-130
troubleshooting, 137
turning off categories, 138
wildcards, 126
Search bar, 403-405
Search box, 29, 101, 122-124
enlarging, 130-132
settings, 45
search index, 132-138
adding new file types, 138
adding places, 133
including encrypted files, 136
including or excluding folders, 136
rebuilding, 137
turning off categories, 138
what’s indexed, 132
where it looks, 132-133
Searches folder, 144
security, 2, 357-397
Action Center, 361-363
Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR),
358
application isolation, 358
BitLocker drive encryption, 682-685
Code Integrity Checking, 358
cookies, 375-379
Data Execution Prevention, 372
disk quotas, 680
domains, 764
Encrypting File System (EFS), 679-682
Family Safety, 393-397
group permissions, 743-744
home wireless network, 389
improvements in Window 7, 357-359
InPrivate Browsing, 383
InPrivate Filtering, 383-385
Internet, 357-397
Internet security zones, 386-387
limiting printer access, 591
Network Access Protection, 358
NTFS permissions, 740-746
Parental Controls, 390
PatchGuard, 358
permissions rules, 744-745
phishing, 373-375
pop-up blocker, 380-383
problems with Administrator accounts, 717-
718
Protected Mode, 358
public spaces, 388
recovering encrypted data, 682
Remote Desktop, 810
router placement, 389
router settings, 389
service hardening, 358
Sherlock Explorer, 373
SmartScreen Filter, 373
spyware vs. adware, 369
User Account Control, 22
User Account Control (UAC), 727-728
virtual private network (VPN), 388
WiFi hot spots, 387-388
Windows Defender, 367-373
Windows Firewall, 363-367
Windows Live Mail, 430
Windows Update, 662-666
wireless encryption, 389
wireless security, 387-389
selecting
by dragging, 151
email messages, 439
icons, 150-152
nonconsecutive items, 151
photos, 495-497
text, 284
with checkboxes, 151-152
with the Ctrl key, 151
with the keyboard, 151
with the mouse, 151
“Send to” command, 155
sending
an error report, 215
email, 431
faxing, 595-599
files, 437-438
Web pages, 420
serial printers, 578
service hardening, 358
service packs, 16
Set Program Access And Computer Defaults
setting defaults, 249
setting
dialog box language, 333
keyboard layouts, 332
language, 332
location, 332
Shadow Copy, 700-701
defined, 700
dual-booting warning, 701
making, 700
recovering, 700-701
sharing
Internet connection, 753-755
music, 536-541
photos, 513-519
sharing
www.it-ebooks.info
878 windows 7: the missing manual
printers, 588-590
programs between accounts, 251
sharing files and folders, 773-796
accessing shared files and folders, 789-793
across Windows versions, 791
any folder, 783-789
file transfer protocol (FTP), 794
from a Mac, 786, 791
mapping folders to drive letters, 793-796
nested folders, 788
Public folder, 780-783
Universal Naming Convention (UNC), 792
Sharing Wizard, 101
via homegroups, 775-780
Sherlock Explorer, 373
shield icon, 311
Shift-clicking, 14
shortcut icons, 160-162
changing appearance, 150
creating, 161
defined, 160
deleting, 161
finding original icon, 161
personalizing, 150
setting keyboard triggers, 161
shortcut menus, 10
encrypting from, 839-840
Properties, 14
touchscreen gesture, 633
Show Desktop Button, 67-68
“Show hidden files, folders, and drives,” 99
showing Libraries, 86
Shut down, 36-40
triggers, 39-40
Sidebar see also gadgets
removed from Windows 7, 4
SideShow, 639
signatures
driver signing, 612-613
email, 436-437
single click, 152
skins
Windows Media Player, 528
SkyDrive, 472-476 see also Windows Live Sync
adding files, 472-474
adding to Desktop, 474
creating folders, 473
defined, 472
Mac compatible, 472
retrieving files, 475
uses of, 475-476
with Windows Live Sync, 474
Sleep, 38-40
vs. Hibernate, 39
slideshows
adding music, 556
creating in Windows Live Photo Gallery, 490-
491, 516
gadget, 240
in Windows Live, 472
Media Center, 556-557
themes, 491
SmartScreen Filter, 373-375
SnagIt, 279
snap to OK button, 190
Snipping Tool, 2, 279-281
capturing menus, 279
Free-form Snip, 279
Rectangular Snip, 279
Window Snip, 279
software see programs
Solitaire, 299
sorting
All Programs menu, 47
desktop icons, 186
email, 430
Favorites area (Nav pane), 78
files and icons, 93-94
History list, 412
music, 525-526
photos, 491-492
playlists, 532
Start menu, 49-51
sound
changing schemes, 184
Control Panel, 335
Internet Explorer 8, 424
Sound Recorder, 281-282
speaker volume, 111, 621
surround sound, 558
Sound Recorder, 281-282
making a recording, 281-282
using sounds, 282
Spaces, 469-470 see also Windows Live
adding a blog entry, 470
adding a list, 470
choosing Web address, 469
defined, 469
inviting friends, 470
sharing photos, 470
Spades, 296
spam
avoiding, 447
avoiding “false positives,” 448
blocking international email, 449
blocking senders, 449
filtering, 445-447
filters, 447-450
sharing
www.it-ebooks.info
index 879
phishing filter, 449
Safety Options, 448
troubleshooting, 450
spanned volumes see also dynamic disks
creating new, 674
defined, 671
speakers
configuring, 335
volume, 111, 621
Speech Recognition, 2, 225-234
commands, 226-229
controlling Windows, 227-229
correcting errors, 230-231
dictation, 229-234
dictation commands, 231-232
Mousegrid, 229
numbering screen elements, 228-229
settings, 291
text to speech, 232
tips, 232-234
tutorial, 225-226
speed see performance
Spider Solitaire, 299-300
spooling (background printing), 584-585,
587-588
sports
Media Center, 571
SpyNet, 371
spyware see also security
defined, 367-368
vs. adware, 369
Windows Defender, 367-373
stacking
removed from Windows 7, 4
Standard accounts, 716 see also User Account
Control (UAC)
Standby see Sleep
star ratings see ratings
Start menu, 26-51
adding icons, 46-49
All Programs, 30
alphabetizing program names, 45
anatomy of, 27-28
colored highlighting on new items, 44
Computer window, 34-35
Connect To, 30
Control Panel, 35, 338
customizing, 40-51
Default Programs, 35-36
Devices and Printers, 35
Documents, 34
dragging icons onto, 44, 46-47
dragging items into, 44
folders, 30-33
frequently used items, 27-28
Games, 34
Help and Support, 36
Hibernate, 39
Lock, 37
Log off, 37
Music, 34
navigating with keyboard, 28-29
Network, 24
number of programs displayed, 45
old commands, 40
Personal folder, 33
Pictures, 34
pinned items, 27
removing items from, 48-49
renaming items, 49
reorganizing, 49-51
Restart, 37-38
restoring classic look, 32
restoring traditional folder listings, 30
Run command, 43
Search, 122-130
Search box, 29, 122-124
Search box settings, 45
settings, 41-45
Shut down, 36-40
Sleep, 38-40
sorting, 45
Startup folder, 31-33
submenu arrow, 28
submenus, 44
Switch user, 37
Windows logo button, 26
Starter edition, 5
Aero not available, 5
changing the look, 178
no Personalize command, 177
Startup folder, 300
Start menu, 31-33
Startup menu, 702-704
Advanced Boot Options, 702
BIOS startup messages, 702
Safe Mode, 703
troubleshooting options, 704
startup repair, 707-709
status bar, 405
Sticky Keys, 286
Sticky Notes, 282-283
deleting, 283
formatting, 283
opening, 282
Stop button, 403
streaming music and video, 536-541
streaming music
and video
www.it-ebooks.info
880 windows 7: the missing manual
striped volumes see also dynamic disks
defined, 674
subject line, 435
submenus
adding to Start menu, 44
subtitles, 289
SuperFetch, 658
surge suppressor, 648
surround sound, 558
switch
defined, 748
Switch User command, 37
Sync Center, 283, 335
offline files feature, 637
timing, 639-640
Sync command, 431
syncing
Briefcase, 638
offline files feature, 635-640
photo collections, 493
Sync Center, 622
timing, 639-640
Windows Live Sync, 474
Windows Media Player, 535-536
System administrative tools
add to Start menu, 30
adding to Start menu, 43
display as menu, 43-44
system files
hiding/showing, 100
system images, 694-695
creating, 694
restoring, 695
System Protection, 336
system requirements
for Windows 7, 817-819
System Restore, 695-700
how it works, 696
limiting space on hard drive, 696
performing a restore, 697-699
restore points, 697
Shadow Copy, 700-701
turning off, 699-700
with low drive space, 697
System settings, 335-338
advanced, 337
Environmental variables, 337
system tray see notification area
T
Tablet PCs, 293, 623-632
failure to take off, 623
handwriting recognition, 623-629
input panel, 117, 623-629
left-handed settings, 629
pen calibration, 629
pen flicks, 630-632
Windows Journal, 629-630
saving a set to Favorites, 406
tabbed browsing, 405-409
closing tabs, 406
color coding, 405
creating tabs, 406
defined, 507
Quick Tabs, 408
saving a tab group, 406
settings, 407-409
switching tabs, 406
tab groups, 408
thumbnails, 407
tags, 86-87
defined, 500
icons, 87
photos, 500-504
searching (files), 127
searching (photos), 503-504
Task Manager, 215-217
exiting crashed programs, 217
keystroke for (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), 216, 724
opening, 216
Task Scheduler
adding a task, 655-656
editing scheduled tasks, 656-657
library, 657
maintenance, 654-657
task toolbar
Explorer windows, 75
taskbar, 101-120
Action Center icon, 361
Aero, 102-103
Aero Peek, 103
auto-hiding, 114
button groups, 104-106
Control Panel, 338
customizing, 118-119
defined, 101
Device Stage icon, 608
functions, 101-102
jump lists, 107-110
keyboard shortcuts, 109
launching programs, 106-107
moving, 115
notification area, 110-114
pinning, 106
resizing, 114-115
restoring classic look, 105
thumbnails, 103
toolbars, 115-120
striped volumes
www.it-ebooks.info
index 881
Taskbar and Start Menu, 338
television see Media Center
text
adjusting size of, 23
ClearType, 195
enlarging on monitor, 192-195
Internet Explorer 8, 419
selecting, 284
text to speech, 232
Narrator, 290-291
themes, 176-178
Aero, 178
basic, 178
changing window colors, 183
elements of, 176-177
high contrast, 178
saving personalization, 190-191
Starter edition, 178
thumbnails
albums, 522
files, 88-92
photos, 491, 545
tabs (browser), 408
taskbar, 103
TIFF format, 488
Tiles view, 91
time see Date and Time
title bar, 59-60
folder path in, 99
TiVo
Media Center as, 563-567
Toggle keys, 286
toolbars
address toolbar, 116
building your own, 120
Desktop toolbar, 117-118
Favorites, 411-412
Language, 330, 332
Links toolbar, 116-117
Quick Launch toolbar, 118
redesigning, 118-119
Tablet PC input panel, 117
taskbar, 115-120
Windows Media Player, 523
tooltips, 26
hiding/showing, 100
touchscreens, 619, 633-634
changes in Windows 7, 634
Internet Explorer 8, 634
transferring files to Windows 7, 830-834
triangles (˘) in address bar, 58
Trojan horses see security
troubleshooting, 704-707
Advanced Boot Options, 702
Automatic Error Reporting, 705
automatic reconnections, 793
Automatic Solution Reporting, 705
Control Panel list, 338
Debugging mode, 704
Driver Rollback, 617
dual-boot systems, 669
emergency Administrator account, 725
fixing blurry text, 194
in Device Manager, 614
Media Center, 570
memory diagnostic, 709
Microsoft Customer Support, 209
Microsoft TechNet, 210
Network and Sharing Center, 759-760
new hardware, 611
offline files feature, 636
printer installation, 580
printers, 593-594
problem reports, 706-707
recovering encrypted data, 682
Registry, 835-841
Reliability Manager, 707
Remote Assistance, 203-207
Remote Desktop, 810
Resource Monitor, 666
Safe Mode, 703
Search, 137
Shadow Copy, 700-701
spam filter, 450
Startup menu, 702-704
startup repair, 707-709
System Image Recovery, 709
System Restore, 695-700, 708
This file is in use, 256
version compatibility, 258-260
VGA mode, 704
WiFi connections, 349-350
Windows 7 activation, 830
Windows Recovery Environment, 707-709
Windows Web site, 210
Turn Windows Features On and Off, 253-255
turning off Snapping and Shaking, 65
TV see Windows Media Center
U
UAC see User Account Control (UAC)
UDF format, 167
Ultimate edition, 6
ultra-mobile PCs, 635
UNC codes see Universal Naming Convention
(UNC)
uninstalling
gadgets, 242
uninstalling
www.it-ebooks.info
882 windows 7: the missing manual
programs, 255-257
troubleshooting, 256-257
Windows components, 254
Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPSes), 648
universal access see Ease of Access Center
Universal Naming Convention (UNC), 58, 792,
794
Upgrade Advisor, 819
upgrading to Windows 7, 817-834
32-bit vs. 64-bit, 820
activation, 828-830
differences between Vista versions, 820
hardware requirements, 817-819
potential problems, 819
step by step, 823-826
Upgrade Advisor, 819
vs. clean install, 819-820
Windows Easy Transfer, 830-834
usability assistance see Ease of Access Center
USB, 604-606
hubs, 604
printers, 577
User Account Control (UAC), 22, 727-728
turning off, 727-728
User Accounts see accounts
V
vCards, 453
versions of Windows 7, 5-6
VGA mode, 704
VGA ports, 606
video conferencing, 303
Video library, 556
videos see also movies; Windows Media Player
display as menu, 43-44
playing in Media Center, 554
Windows Media Player, 544-545
views (Explorer windows), 88-92
Content view, 91-92
Details view, 91
Icon view, 90
List view, 90
sorting files, 93-94
Tiles view, 91
Views menu, 89-90
virtual memory, 665
virtual private networking (VPN), 388, 803-805
and Internet connection sharing, 754
Connect To command, 41, 759
connecting, 804-805
defined, 803
for remote access, 803-805
setting up, 804
viruses see also security
Microsoft Security Essentials, 359-Vista
differences from, 3
visualizations
defined, 527
in Windows Media Player, 527
Media Center, 559
volume, 111, 621
volumes (disks) see also disks; hard drives
defined, 668
spanned, 669, 671
striped, 674
W
wallpaper (desktop backgrounds), 179-182
changing photos, 180-181
free international photos, 179
selecting photos, 181
sizing photos, 181
solid colors, 179
tiling photos, 181
using your own photos, 179
Windows Desktop Backgrounds, 179
Weather gadget, 240
Web see Internet; Internet Explorer 8; security
Web pages
opening with Run command, 58
Parental Controls, 390-397
printing, 422-423
saving, 420
sending, 420
Web Slices, 416
defined, 416
Web-based email, 429
WEP encryption, 389
what’s new in Windows 7, 3-4, 64, 81
Action Center, 643
Aero Peek, Shake, and Snap, 64-67, 103
Device Stage, 607-609
finding features from previous versions, 843-
848
game options, 294
homegroups, 775-780
jump lists, 51-55
laptop features, 619-623
libraries, 81-86
Microsoft Security Essentials, 357-397
presentation mode, 622-623
security improvements, 357-397
streaming music and video, 536-541
taskbar reborn, 101-120
touchscreen features, 634
Windows Live Photo Gallery, 481-519
Windows Live Writer, 301-303
uninstalling
www.it-ebooks.info
index 883
WiFi
ad hoc networks, 753
changing network type, 349
commercial hot spots, 351
connecting to, 346-351
downsides, 751
Home networks, 348-349
hot spot security, 387-388
MAC address filtering, 389
memorizing hot spots, 352
national listing of hot spots, 387
network types (Home, Work, Public), 348-349
networking equipment, 752
networks, 751-752
password-protected hotspots, 347
Protected Setup (WPS), 348
Public networks, 348-349
secret hot spots, 350
security, 389
setting up, 346-350
troubleshooting, 349-350
turning on and off, 622
WEP encryption, 389
wireless security, 387-389
Work networks, 348-349
WPA encryption, 389
WiFi Protected Setup (WPS), 348
wildcards in Search, 126
windows
address bar, 60, 71-75
Aero Shake, 65-67
Aero Snap, 64-65
Alt+Tab, 69-70
button groups, 104-106
cascading, 104
Close button, 60
closing, 60-61, 63
Control menu, 60-61
defined, 9-10
double-click options, 96-97
edges, 60
elements of, 59-61
layering, 63-64
maximizing, 60-62
minimize and maximize, 60
minimizing, 60, 62
moving, 61-62
multiple document interface, 63
resizing, 60-62
restored, 62
scroll bars, 61
Show Desktop Button, 67-68
taskbar, 101-120
title bar, 59-60
tricks, 64-68
turning off Snapping and Shaking, 65
Windows Flip 3D, 69-70
Windows 7
Aero, 173-176
appearance, 173-183
basics of, 9-17
compatibility issues, 257
cosmetic overhaul, 2
desktop, 23-26
differences from Vista, -3
Folder Options, 97-101
folders, 140-144
games, 294-300
getting started, 21-23
installing and upgrading to, 817-834
Internet security enhancements, 357-397
maintenance, 643-666
Media Center, 547-574
on a laptop, 619-623
on a netbook, 620
patches, 662-665
popularity of, -1
Search, 121-122
security, 2, 357-397
similarity to Mac OS X, 33
Speech Recognition, 227-229
switching from XP, 2
taskbar, 101-120
taskbar thumbnails, 101
themes, 176-178
versions of, 5-6
what’s new, 3-4, 64 see also what’s new
without a DVD, 833
WordPad, 283-284
Windows Aero see Aero
Windows Answers, 209
Windows AntiSpyware see Windows Defender
Windows Anytime Upgrade, 268
Windows Calendar
no longer available, 267
Windows Cardspace, 339-340
Windows components
installing and uninstalling, 253-254
Windows Contacts
no longer available, 267
Windows Defender, 339, 367-373
allowed items, 372
History tab, 371
Microsoft SpyNet, 371
quarantined items, 372
scanning, 369-371
setting protection levels, 369
Tools tab, 371
Windows Defender
www.it-ebooks.info
884 windows 7: the missing manual
Web site, 372
Windows Live DVD Maker, 269, 516, 847
Windows Easy Transfer, 23, 830-834
backing up files, 830-832
restoring files, 832-834
step by step, 830-834
Windows Experience Index, 25
Windows Explorer see Explorer windows
Windows Fax and Scan, 269
Windows Features Wizard, 253-255
Windows Firewall, 339, 363-367
allowing programs through, 365-366
defined, 363
how it works, 363-364
inbound vs. outbound blocking, 363
settings, 365
use with other firewalls, 364
with Advanced Security, 365-366
Windows Flip 3D, 70-71
windows, 69-70
without keys, 71
Windows Journal, 629-630
changing the “pen”, 631
converting to text, 631
emailing notes, 629
exporting notes, 630
Windows-logo key (w), 16, 852-853
Windows Live services, 300-310, 467-478
Calendar, 476-478
home screen, 468
Mail, 470
overview, 467-468
Photos, 470-472
Profile page, 468
SkyDrive, 472-476
Spaces, 469-470
Windows Live Calendar, 476-478
importing a calendar, 478
making a calendar public, 478
publishing a calendar, 476-478
subscribing to a calendar, 478
Windows Live Essentials, 23, 265-267
downloading, 266
Family Safety, 393-397
programs included, 266
why not included with Windows 7, 265
Windows Live Mail, 427-465 see also Calendar
adding a return receipt, 451
adding a signature, 436-437
attaching files, 437-438
avoiding spam, 447
blind carbon copy (Bcc:), 435
blocking international email, 449
blocking senders, 449
Calendar, 453-461
Cc: field, 433-434
checking a specific account, 432
composing messages, 433-436
Contacts list, 437
delaying sending messages, 451
Deleted Items, 432
deleting messages, 440
designing a signature, 452-453
Drafts, 432
filing messages, 442-443
filtering spam with message rules, 445-447
filtering with message rules, 444-447
flagging messages, 443
fonts, 452
formatting messages, 435-436
forwarding messages, 441
Inbox, 432
Junk E-Mail folder, 432
mailing lists, 441
mark message as read or unread, 438
new features, 427-428
new name, 427-428
newsgroups, 462-465
opening attachments, 443-444
Outbox, 432
phishing filter, 449
POP, IMAP, and Web-based, 429
printing messages, 441
processing messages, 440
reading messages, 438-447
rearranging layout, 433
replying, 440-441
RSS feeds, 460-461
rules, 444-447
security settings, 430
selecting messages, 439
sending messages, 431
sending secure messages, 449-450
Sent Items, 432
setting up, 428-431
setting up message rules, 444-446
settings, 450-453
showing the menu bar, 428
spam filter, 447-450
spell check, 453
Subject: field, 435
Sync command, 431
To: field, 434
troubleshooting spam filter, 450
vCards, 453
viewing blocked images, 438-439
viewing Outbox, 452
Windows Defender
www.it-ebooks.info
index 885
Windows Live Messenger, 303-307
audio chats, 307-309
buddy lists, 304
customizing, 309-310
file transfers, 303-304
free long distance, 303
free videoconferencing, 303
messaging, 303
status messages, 303
text chats, 305-307
Windows Live Movie Maker, 266, 269, 846
Windows Live Photo Gallery, 481-519
adding photos to a blog, 517-518
all photo and videos icon, 492
auto adjust, 506-507
browsing photos, 492-493
burning to a disc, 516
category groupings, 494-495
color balance, 511-512
color temperature, 512
cropping photos, 507-508
deleting photos, 497
digital shoebox, 491-500
downloading, 481
duplicating photos, 497-498
editing captions, 500
editing dates, 500
editing photos, 504-513
editing titles, 499
emailing photos, 514-516
EXIF data, 498
exposure, 511
file formats, 487-488
formatting photos for email, 515
getting started, 482-483
grouping by events, 484-485
histogram, 510
importing from a digital camera, 484-486
importing from a USB card reader, 486-487
importing photos, 483-487
improving photos, 510-512
Info pane, 498-500
making a photo screen saver, 516-517
making a slideshow movie, 516
month and year icons, 493
movies, 488-489
Navigation tree, 492
ordering prints, 513-514
panorama, 517
printing photos, 513-514
publishing, 519
publishing a gallery, 519
ratings, 500-504
red eye, 507-508
rotating photos, 509-510
saturation, 512
scanning photos, 488
selecting photos, 495-497
sharing photos, 513-519
slideshow, 490-491
slideshow themes, 491
sorting photos, 491-492
syncing photo collections, 493
tags, 500-504
tint, 512
turning off auto card erase, 487
undo, 506
undoing changes, 512-513
viewing photos, 491-492
zooming into photos, 505-506
Windows Live Photos, 470-472
Windows Live Sync, 474
Macintosh, 474
Windows Live Writer, 301-303
Windows Mail see Windows Live Mail
Windows Media Center, 269, 547-574
adding music to slideshows, 556
adjusting photo contrast, 557
as a complete entertainment system, 574
as TiVo, 563-567
basics, 553
burning a video or photo CD, 558
commands, 571-572
compatibility with Windows Media Player, 558
cropping photos, 557
custom setup, 550
customizing, 572-574
displaying photos, 554-555
editing photos, 557
express setup, 549
Extender, 549
extras, 553-554
Favorites, 555, 559
hardware needed, 548
Internet TV, 563-564
live TV, 569
main menu, 552-553
managing recorded TV, 565
media libraries, 574
Movie library, 562
music, 558-561
Music Library, 558-559
Netflix, 562
Now Playing, 562
optional setup, 550-552
pausing and rewinding live TV, 569-570
Pictures library, 554
Pictures+Videos, 554-558
Windows Media
Center
www.it-ebooks.info
886 windows 7: the missing manual
playing movies, 562
playing video, 554
playlists, 561
radio, 559
recorded TV, 564-565
remote, 548-549, 553-554, 556-557, 568
required setup, 550
ripping CDs, 560-561
saving TV shows, 565-567
search, 569
setting up, 549-552
settings, 572-574
slideshow settings, 557
slideshows, 556-557
Sports, 571
troubleshooting, 570
TV, 563-570
TV guide, 564, 567-569
using a dedicated PC, 548
Video library, 556
visualizations, 559
Windows 7 versions, 574
wireless with Extender, 549
Windows Media Player, 4, 521-545
adding track names, 529
address bar, 523
adjusting playback, 528-529
audio quality, 531
auto playlists, 533
automatic sync, 535
blocking music sharing, 538
burning CDs, 534-535
changing screen design, 526-528
compression, 531
copying music to a portable player, 535-536
copying video to a portable player, 535-536
customizing, 523
DVD movies, 542-544
expanding, 527
importing music, 524
Internet radio, 541
Internet streaming, 540
manual sync, 536
Media Guide, 541
menu bar, 523
minimizing, 527
MP3 format, 530-531
Music library, 524
Navigation pane, 526
Navigation tree, 522
Now Playing view replaced, 523
online music stores, 541
other programs, 521
overview, 522-523
photos, 544-545
“Play to” feature, 538-539
playback speed, 528
playing CDs, 529-530
playing music, 525-532
playing music over the Internet, 540-541
playlists, 532-533
ripping CDs, 530-532
searching music, 525-526
settings, 523
sharing music, 536-541
sharing music in a homegroup, 536-541
shuffle mode, 536
skins, 528
streaming music and video, 536-541
toolbar, 523
updates, 522
videos, 544-545
visualizations, 527
vs. Windows Photo Gallery, 544-545
WMA format, 530
Windows Meeting Space, 269
Windows Mobility Center, 111
Windows Mobility Center see Mobility Center
Windows PowerShell, 294
Windows Recovery Environment, 707-709
Command Prompt, 709
from the hard drive, 707
from the Windows DVD, 708
startup repair, 708
System Image Recovery, 709
System Restore, 708
Windows Memory Diagnostic, 709
Windows Security screen, 216, 738
during remote connections, 811
keystroke for (Ctrl+Alt+Delete), 216
Windows SideShow, 639
Windows Touch, 90, 633-634
Windows Update, 111, 269, 339, 662-666
hidden updates, 665-666
patches, 662-665
removing updates, 666
settings, 663-665
sites, 662
Windows XP
changes from, 2
running on top of Windows 7, 261-263
switching from, 2
Windows XP mode, 260-264
wireless networks see WiFi
wireless security, 387-389
wizards, 11
Add Hardware, 610
add printer, 579-580
Windows Media
Center
www.it-ebooks.info
index 887
compatibility, 258-259
Extend Volume, 673
RemoteApp and Desktop Connections, 334
Update Device Driver, 616
Windows Easy Transfer, 832-834
.wma files, 530
Sound Recorder, 282
word processing
WordPad, 283-287
WordPad, 283-287
bullets, 286
changes in Windows 7, 283-284
defined, 283-287
find and replace, 285
formatting text, 284-285
indents, 286
insert, 286
tabs, 286
Work networks (security category), 348-349
workgroup networks, 747-760
changing name of, 336, 791
defined, 747
Ethernet, 748-751
Ethernet cables, 750
hooking up, 750-751
Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), 754-755
kinds, 748-753
Link-Layer Topology Discovery, 756
micronetworks, 753
Network and Sharing Center, 755-760
phone line networks, 752-753
power outlet networks, 753
sharing an Internet connection, 753-755
WiFi (wireless), 751-752
WPA encryption, 389
WPD format, 488
X
XBox, 467
XP see Windows XP
XPS format, 370
Z
Zip format
history, 678
zipped folders, 164, 677-679
creating, 165, 678
working with, 166, 379
Zip archive, 678
zooming
Internet Explorer 8, 419
photos, 505-506
touchscreen gesture, 633
Zune, 521
Zune
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Colophon
The book was written and edited in Microsoft Word, whose revision-tracking feature
made life far easier as drafts were circulated from author to technical and copy editors.
The steps in thie book were tested on machines from Dell, HP, Toshiba, and Apple.
(Yes, Apple: Windows 7 runs amazingly fast under Boot Camp, or even Parallels, on
a Mac laptop.)
SnagIt (www.techsmith.com) captured the illustrations; Adobe Photoshop CS4 and
Macromedia Freehand MX were called in as required for touching them up.
The book was designed and laid out in Adobe InDesign CS4 on a MacBook Pro, and
Mac Pro. The fonts used include Formata (as the sans-serif family) and Minion (as
the serif body face). To provide symbols like w and π, custom fonts were created
using Macromedia Fontographer.
The book was generated as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file for proofreading and indexing,
and final transmission to the printing plant.
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