Just working with Windows 7 isn’t enough to find out all the nifty tricks and features that are built into Windows 7. I’ve been working (and playing 🙂 ) with Windows 7 for quite some time now, and I think it’s time to sum up some of the best “secret” features of Windows 7.
1) Quickly switch to dual-display or beamer
Did it always took you 30 minutes to get your video output of your laptop working? Me too. In Windows 7, messing with the multi display settings should be over. Just press WIN+P (and press P again to switch to the next object) to select your desired setup.
2) Change the ClearType setting to get a sharper view
I always hated ClearType, because it was ugly. And in Windows 7…, it’s still ugly. However, they gave us the possibility to make it less ugly! Well, at least that’s some improvement! 🙂
Click Start, type cttune.exe in the search box and press Enter. You will be asked to select the clearest font, and believe me: this will improve your font view!
3) Shake it baby, shake it!
IÂ think this is one of the funniest, AND handiest features of Windows 7. As an system administrator, I use to have multiple windows opened, and sometimes just too many. This annoys me, so here’s the tip:
By selecting the title bar of a specific window, and shaking with it (fastly moving left right up down whatever with your mouse), all other windows will be minimized, so only the selected windows stays on top.
In addition, you can also try to move a window to the left or right side of your screen. It will then maximize to the half of your screen. Moving the window to the top will maximize your screen.
Just play and enjoy! 🙂
4) Speed up loading the browser
Some Internet Explorer add-ons may really slow down your browser performance, especially the time to start your browser. From now on, you can quickly analyze what the nasty addons are and disable them.
In your browser, click Tools, Manage Addons and find out what add-on is eating all your load time.
As you see below, I don’t have any bad add-ons at all 🙂
5) Run a program as an administrator
In certain situations, you may want to run a program as an administrator. Sometimes the application requires to run with an administrator account, other times you may want to install something. In these situations, the easiest way is to press CTRL-SHIFT while clicking. This will enable the administrator mode.
Of course, you can also right-click and select “Run as administrator”, but this will just cost you some extra time 🙂
