41. Customise System Restore
There was very little you could do to configure System Restore in Vista, but Windows 7
improves the situation with a couple of useful setup options.
Click the Start orb, right-click Computer and select Properties > System Protection > Configure,
and set the Max Usage value to a size that suits your needs (larger to hold more restore points,
smaller to save disk space).
And if you don't need System Restore to save Windows settings then choose the "Only restore
previous versions of files" option. Windows 7 won't back up your Registry, which means you'll
squeeze more restore points and file backups into the available disk space. System Restore is
much less likely to get an unbootable PC working again, though, so use this trick at your own
risk.
42. Run As
Hold down Shift, right-click any program shortcut, and you'll see an option to run the program as
a different user, handy if you're logged in to the kids' limited account and need to run something
with higher privileges. This isn't really a new feature - Windows XP had a Run As option that
did the same thing - but Microsoft stripped it out of Vista, so it's good to see it's had a change of
heart.
43. Search privacy
By default Windows 7 will remember your PC search queries, and display the most recent
examples when searching in Windows Explorer. If you're sharing a PC and don't want everyone
to see your searches, then launch GPEDIT.MSC, go to User Configuration > Administrative
Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer, double-click "Turn off display of
recent search entries..." and click Enabled > OK.
44. Tweak PC volume
By default Windows 7 will now automatically reduce the volume of your PC's sounds whenever
it detects you're making or receiving PC-based phone calls. If this proves annoying (or maybe
you'd like it to turn off other sounds altogether) then you can easily change the settings
accordingly. Just right-click the speaker icon in your taskbar, select Sounds > Communications,
and tell Windows what you'd like it to do.
45. Rearrange the system tray
With Windows 7 we finally see system tray icons behave in a similar way to everything else on
the taskbar. So if you want to rearrange them, then go right ahead, just drag and drop them into
the order you like. You can even move important icons outside of the tray, drop them onto the
desktop, then put them back when you no longer need to keep an eye on them.
46. Extend your battery life
Windows 7 includes new power options that will help to improve your notebook's battery life.
To see them, click Start, type Power Options and click the Power Options link, then click
Change Plan Settings for your current plan and select Change Advanced Settings. Expand
Multimedia Settings, for instance, and you'll see a new "playing video" setting that can be set to
optimise power savings rather than performance. Browse through the other settings and ensure
they're set up to suit your needs.
47. Write crash dump files
Windows 7 won't create memory.dmp crash files if you've less than 25GB of free hard drive
space, annoying if you've installed the Windows debugging tools and want to diagnose your
crashes. You can turn this feature off, though: browse to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl, create a new
DWORD value called AlwaysKeepMemoryDump, set it to 1, and the crash dump file will now
always be saved.
48. Find bottlenecks
From what we've seen so far Windows 7 is already performing better than Vista, but if your PC
seems sluggish then it's now much easier to uncover the bottleneck. Click Start, type RESMON
and press Enter to launch the Resource Monitor, then click the CPU, Memory, Disk or Network
tabs. Windows 7 will immediately show which processes are hogging the most system resources.
The CPU view is particularly useful, and provides something like a more powerful version of
Task Manager. If a program has locked up, for example, then right-click its name in the list and
select Analyze Process. Windows will then try to tell you why it's hanging - the program might
be waiting for another process, perhaps - which could give you the information you need to fix
the problem.
FIND BOTTLENECKS: Resource monitor keeps a careful eye on exactly how your PC is
being used
49. Keyboard shortcuts
Windows 7 supports several useful new keyboard shortcuts.
Alt+P
Display/ hide the Explorer preview pane
Windows Logo+G
Display gadgets in front of other windows
Windows Logo++ (plus key)
Zoom in, where appropriate
Windows Logo+- (minus key)
Zoom out, where appropriate
Windows Logo+Up
Maximise the current window
Windows Logo+Down
Minimise the current window
Windows Logo+Left
Snap to the left hand side of the screen
Windows Logo+Right
Snap to the right hand side of the screen
Windows Logo+Home
Minimise/ restore everything except the current window
50. Faster program launches
If you've launched one instance of a program but want to start another, then don't work your way
back through the Start menu. It's much quicker to just hold down Shift and click on the program's
icon (or middle-click it), and Windows 7 will start a new instance for you.
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