Windows 7 Tips and Tricks

Windows 7 Tips and Tricks

Filed under Computer Maintenance, Computer Tips

Dec 14
You can search online as well as on your computer to find useful tips for Windows 7.

Now that Windows 7 is up and running, people are finding out they can do more to keep their pc’s up and running smoother. Some of these tips you might already know about but probably most of them you won’t.

There has been a lot of talk going around about how good Windows 7 is. But they didn’t go into the lessor known but important new and enhanced features that are in Windows 7. Apart they won’t have much effect, but when used with other features will give you more options on how your computer runs.

=============================================

Windows 7 has put in some brand new troubleshooting packs. That will give you more control on how to best fix problems that crop up.

Windows 7 Tricks that Vista Can’t Do

1. Problem Steps Recorder
If you are the one that is elected to fix family and friends computers and the problems that crop up. You will find that these tips will help you get the job done faster and easier. The first is when any application starts acting up in Windows 7.

Click Start:
Type PSR and press Enter:
Click Start Record:

What this does is bring up a little window and it will start recording. Then start the application and work through the application until the problem starts. The recorder will record every keystroke or keypress, take screen shots, then packages it all into a zipped HTML file when they are finished. Then it can be emailed to you. This can help you find the cause of the problem.

Once you have finished capturing the problem.

Click Stop Recording:
Open an mail attachment: Yahoo, Google, Hotmail, or whatever email that you have.
Click start and
Type PSR again, in the menu find the zipped file named PSR and drag and drop into the email as an attachment. Then they can email the attachment to you. This will probably save you hours of troubleshooting.

2. Burn ISO Images
What’s more to this feature it is fairly simple to use. To burn ISO images to CD’s and DVD’s:
Just double click unless you have your computer setup for single click activation. This will highlight the image and will bring up a menu, just choose the drive letter that contains the blank disc in it. Then click burn image. It’s just that simple.

3. Create and Mount VHD files.
A VDH means Virtual Hard Drive: People that have massive hard drives on their computers might want to re-partition them so they have more hard drives to work from.

Click Start:
Type diskmgmt.msc and Press Enter
Click Action:
Attach VHD and choose the file you’d like to mount.
It will then appear as a virtual hard drive in Explorer. Then you can be accessed, copied or written just like an ordinary drive.

Click Action
Create VHD
Now you can create a new virtual drive of our own, (right-click it drive, select Initialize Disk.
After it has been set up right click the unallocated space and select New Simple Volume to set this up.

This will leave you with a Virtual Hard Drive that behaves just like any other drive. You can even drag and drop to this drive.

You can back up your files on your computer to this drive so that if you have a problem with the actual hard drive, you should still be able to access the Virtual Hard drive and save your files.

If you ever decide to remove the Virtual Hard Drive all you have to do is right-click on the drive (whatever you name it). Click Detach and it will be removed. You can also use the command line DISKPART utility that has been upgraded with tools to detach a VHD file, and an EXPAND command to increase a Virtual hard drive maximum capacity.
CAUTION: DO NOT FOOL AROUND WITH THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. You can crash your system real easy.

4. Troubleshoot Problems
An easy way to determine if Windows 7 is acting strangely, just go to the Control Panel and click on Find and Fix problems. You can also click on “troubleshooting” to access new troubleshooting packs. These simple wizards will resolve common problems, or check your settings, and clean up your system and a lot more.

5. Start up Repair
The first thing right out of the box or if Windows 7 came installed on your computer. Is to create a System repair disc. This is in case you have problems booting Windows 7 later on down the road. When you first boot up the computer it will usually ask you if you want to create a system repair disc. But if it doesn’t you can go to:

Click Start
Click on Maintenance
Then click Create System Repair Disc.

Then windows will create a bootable disc, to use in case you OS system will not bootup. This is to be used only if you can’t boot the OS system for some reason.

6. Check out the New Calculator
The calculator in the previous windows gave you just two calculators. A standard and scientific calculator. Well that has changed in Windows 7. You not only have a standard calculator, but a scientific calculator, programmer calculator, statistics calculator, and many more different functions to work with. You can even calculate your fuel mileage, how much fuel you used on a trip. You can calculate length, weight, volume and more. You can even figure out how many days there are between two dates. It would be wise to check out all the options that come with the Windows 7 calculator, it will be worth the time.

7. Using Your Computer as a Projector

You can use your computer as a projector with Windows 7. Just press Win+P or run DisplaySwitch.exe and choose the preferred display. This won’t work if you have only one display connected.

8. Power Efficiency Report
When using a laptop and you are on the battery. With Windows 7 you can generate a bunch of different information about your computers power consumption. Using this function can help you determine how to make the battery last longer so you can get more work or play done. To do this:

9. What is System Restore
When you used system restore in other Windows versions was tricky. Because it could effect not only programs but drivers as well. But with Windows 7 works differently.

Click Start
Right-click on Computer
Select Properties
Select System Protection
Select System Restore
Then choose the restore point you would like to use.
Click the New button
This will scan for affected programs.
Then Windows will tell you which (if any) programs and drivers that will be affected or deleted or recovered by selecting this restore point. Before having to use this function you should read the tutorial on System Restore.

10. Calibrating your Screen
Sometimes the colors you see aren’t the right colors that are to be displayed. This can depend on the graphics card, screen settings, lighting and more. Most people don’t calibrate their screens and just use the default Windows color settings. This can mean that the photos that you took or scanned into your computer might have poor coloring to everyone else. Windows 7 provides the user a way to calibrate your screen so you get the colors that are suppose to be there.

Click Start
Type DCCW and press Enter to give it a try.

Jesse Auburg Online Marketing Entrepreneur

Jesses Gardening Tips

Jesses Carpentry Tips
Be Sociable, Share!
Tagged as: calibrate, emergency boot disc, Projector, system restore, Vista, Windows 7

No Comments