51. Speedy video access
Want faster access to your Videos folder? Windows 7 now lets you add it to the Start menu. Just
right-click the Start orb, click Properties > Start Menu > Customize, and set the Videos option to
"Display as a link". If you've a TV tuner that works with Windows 7 then you'll appreciate the
new option to display the Recorded TV folder on the Start menu, too.
52. Run web searches
The Windows 7 search tool can now be easily extended to search online resources, just as long as
someone creates an appropriate search connector. To add Flickr support, say, visit I Started
Something, click Download the Connector, choose the Open option and watch as it's downloaded
(the file is tiny, it'll only take a moment). A "Flickr Search" option will be added to your
Searches folder, and you'll be able to search images from your desktop.
A multitude of other ready-made searches, such as Google and YouTube, can be downloaded
from the windowsclub.com website.
53. Schedule Media Centre downloads
You can now tell Windows Media Centre to download data at a specific time, perhaps overnight,
a useful way to prevent it sapping your bandwidth for the rest of the day. Launch Media Centre,
go to Tasks > Settings > General > Automatic Download Options, and set the download start and
stop times that you'd like it to use.
54. Multi-threaded Robocopies
Anyone who's ever used the excellent command-line robocopy tool will appreciate the new
switches introduced with Windows 7. Our favourite, /MT, can improve speed by carrying out
multi-threaded copies with the number of threads you specify (you can have up to 128, though
that might be going a little too far). Enter robocopy /? at a command line for the full details.
55. Load IE faster
Some Internet Explorer add-ons can take a while to start, dragging down the browser's
performance, but at least IE8 can now point a finger at the worst resource hogs. Click Tools >
Manage Add-ons, check the Load Time in the right-hand column, and you'll immediately see
which browser extensions are slowing you down.
56. An Alt+Tab alternative
You want to access one of the five Explorer windows you have open, but there are so many other
programs running that Alt+Tab makes it hard to pick out what you need. The solution? Hold
down the Ctrl key while you click on the Explorer icon. Windows 7 will then cycle through the
Explorer windows only, a much quicker way to locate the right one. And of course this works
with any application that has multiple windows open.
57. Block annoying alerts
Just like Vista, Windows 7 will display a suitably stern warning if it thinks your antivirus,
firewall or other security settings are incorrect.
But unlike Vista, if you disagree then you can now turn off alerts on individual topics. If you no
longer want to see warnings just because you've dared to turn off the Windows firewall, say, then
click Control Panel > System and Security > Action Centre > Change Action Centre settings,
clear the Network Firewall box and click OK.
58. Parallel defrags
The standard Windows 7 defragger offers a little more control than we saw in Vista, and the
command line version also has some interesting new features. The /r switch will defrag multiple
drives in parallel, for instance (they'll obviously need to be physically separate drives for this to
be useful). The /h switch runs the defrag at a higher than normal priority, and the /u switch
provides regular progress reports so you can see exactly what's going on. Enter the command
defrag /c /h /u /r
in a command window to speedily defrag a system with multiple drives, or enter defrag /? to
view the new options for yourself.
59. Fix Explorer
The Windows 7 Explorer has a couple of potential annoyances. Launching Computer will no
longer display system folders like Control Panel or Recycle Bin, for instance. And if you're
drilling down through a complicated folder structure in the right-hand pane of Explorer, the lefthand
tree won't always expand to follow what you're doing, which can make it more difficult to
see exactly where you are. Fortunately there's a quick fix: click Organize > Folder and Search
Options, check "Show all folders" and "Automatically expand to current folder", and click OK.
60. Faster file handing
If you hold down Shift while right-clicking a file in Explorer, then you'll find the Send To file
now includes all your main user folders: Contacts, Documents, Downloads, Music and more.
Choose any of these and your file will be moved there immediately.
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