7 Interesting Quick-Tips for Windows Vista

In this post, I will be showing you 7 interesting and quick things that you can do with your Windows Vista. Hope you like them. The 7 things that you can learn from this video are: i) How to make checkbox selections in windows explorer, ii) How to quick-search through a folder, iii) Learn to resize Desktop Icons, iv) How to use shortcut hotkeys for accessing various programs, v) The easier way to access comand prompt, vi) How to activate the ‘RUN’ command in Start Menu and vii) How to do a Vista cleanup after installing SP1.


i) How to make check box selections in windows explorer - This will allow you to select all the items you want from a folder without having to hold the Ctrl or Shift keys.

• Go to Control Panel in Classic View -> Folder Options -> View Tab -> Select ‘Use check boxes to select Items’ OR
• Go to Start -> Computer -> Press Alt -> Tools -> Folder Options -> View Tab -> Select ‘Use check boxes to select Items’

ii) How to quick-search through a folder - Tired of clicking folder after folder searching for a particular file ? Well this tip can help you do a quick search on the folder you are on in order to get that file.

• Go to Control Panel in Classic View -> Folder Options -> View Tab -> Select ‘Automatically type into the search box’ under ‘When typing into list view’ OR
• Go to Start -> Computer -> Press Alt -> Tools -> Folder Options -> View Tab -> Select ‘Automatically type into the search box’ under ‘When typing into list view’

iii) Learn to resize Desktop Icons - Lots of people have asked me how to either increase or decrease the size of desktop icons easily to bypass the windows default. Its very easy actually. In order to resize the icons to the 3 default sizes that windows vista provides, just right click on the desktop, go to View and you will see Large Icons, Medium Icons and Classic Icons. If you want to resize the icons more than or less than these defaults, all you have to do is hold the Ctrl button and scroll up/down untill you are happy with the size of the icons.

iv) How to use shortcut hotkeys for accessing various programs - You want to click a predifined set of keys to open up a program ? Very simple… All you have to do is right click on the shortcut icon to that program wich is on your desktop and go to Properties. You have to now go to the Shortcut Tab and you will see an option which says Shortcut Key. Just enter whatever set of keys you want to press to activate that program and apply. Voila, now when you click that combination of keys, the program starts.

v) The easier way to access comand prompt - I always get tired of 1st going to the ‘Run’ command, entering ‘cmd’ and then going to the folder whichever i wanted to go to on the command prompt. But I found out that there is a much easier way to do this. All you have to do is go to the folder you want your command prompt to show up as, hold Shift and right click. You will now get an option saying ‘Open Command Window Here’.

vi) How to activate the ‘RUN’ command in Start Menu - Tired of clicking the ‘Windows key and R’ to get to the Run Command ? Well, there is a very simple way to get that command on your Start Menu along with the Control Panel and My Computer etc. All you have to do is:

• Start -> Right Click on any empty portion of the start menu to get the properties -> Customize -> Select ‘Run Command’ -> Ok -> Apply

vii) How to do a Vista cleanup after installing SP1 - Once you have installed Vista SP1 and you are certain that you wont uninstall it or downgrade back to Vista, you can do a cleanup of Windows Vista. All you have to do is go to Run command (’Windows Button + R’ or ‘Start -> Run’ after following Tip 6), and enter vsp1cln.exe

- God's Hacker