Computer Configuration Best Practices
Although, you may find many posts related to registry tweaks on this blog, it is always recommended to perform the same adjustments using the GUI (Graphical User Interface), Group Policy or other tools if these are available! Registry hacks on www.Windows7library.com are generally intended for computer geeks who would normally dig deeper into systems for personal pride. An interesting article series by Mitch Tulloch on Windowsnetworking.com explains the best practices for configuring Windows systems. Mitch reminds us that the registry is not an authoritative source for policy adjustments, but it is simply where the results of applying policies to a computer or user are stored. Editing the registry may make your computer unreliable or even unusable!
Read more here – http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/How-wreck-your-Windows-network-Part1.html
Categories: Management Tags: Group Policy, MItch Tulloch, registry, tweak
Hiding Drives in Windows 7
This simple registry hack allows you to hide drives from appearing in the Windows Explorer shell. Users will not be able to select or see the drive in the applications’ open and save dialogs, My Computer and Windows Explorer but it remains visible from other shells such as, the command prompt. Therefore, applications can still access the hidden drive, even though it is invisible to end users! A hidden drive may be useful when backing files to a network or local drive and you would like to restrict that drive just for backup purposes. The risk of filling up that drive with unrelated data is limited by making it invisible to users including you, while it remains available to the backup application. Obviously, first set the backup destination drive from the backup application and then hide the drive as explained below.
Categories: Admin, Tweaks Tags: backup, binary, drives, hack, hide, NoDrives, registry, shell, tweak, windows explorer
Display Network Errors Tweak
If you want to get a quick check of network problems on your computer then you can check the status of packets in error. By default, only the numbers of bytes received and sent are displayed in the Local Area Connection Status window but you can have the number of errors displayed as well. With this registry tweak you can display an errors counter below the sent and received numbers.
Categories: Admin, Tweaks Tags: connections, errors, LAN, network, Network Errors, packets, registry, tweak, tweaks
Taskbar Thumbnail Preview Tweaks
The Aero theme in Windows 7 gives users the ability to preview thumbnails of opened applications when hovering over the respective icons in the taskbar. You can tweak both the size and the loading time of thumbnails by modifying the registry as shown below:
Get more options from Windows Explorer
Most users use Windows Explorer to search for a specific folder in order to perform some tasks related to that particular folder or files within that folder. Additionally, you may need to copy the folder’s path or even open a command prompt at that particular location. In previous versions of Windows you could enable this functionality by tweaking the registry but now Windows Explorer allows you to access these additional options by a simple click as you can see below:
Categories: Admin, Tweaks Tags: command prompt, copy path, process, Shift key, tweak, tweaks, windows explorer
Enabling Recent Items in the Start Menu
By default, the Recent Items option in the Start Menu is disabled in Windows 7. This feature is quite useful and at times helps ends users be more productive. It can be enabled as follows:
Categories: GUI, Tweaks Tags: Recent Items, start, Start Menu, tweak
