tips

In previous versions of Windows, if you wanted to have two documents open side-by-side on the desktop then you had to laboriously resize each window pixel-by-pixel using the mouse. With Windows 7, this can be done much more easily by dragging a window’s title bar to the left or right edge of the screen. (For [...]

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With Windows 7, the operating system now supports burning ISO files natively. The .iso format is used by many developers to distribute software and other content. Simply double-click on an ISO file to launch the Windows Disc Image Burner. If another program has associated itself with the format, you can use the Open With option [...]

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Windows 7 comes with a host of performance settings that you can customise to suit your own particular hardware setup. Visit Control Panel/ System and Security/ System and click the Advanced system settings link. Select the Settings button under Performance and you can change everything from window animations to font smoothing. By default, Windows will [...]

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You can simply drag and drop icons or tabs on the taskbar to change their position, whether they represent programs pinned to the taskbar or active windows. As in previous versions of Windows, you can drag the taskbar to the left or right or top of the screen as well – if you want to [...]

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The way that Windows Explorer displays your files and folders can be tweaked in a variety of ways, from the sorting method to the thumbnails and icons used to represent different file types. Some of the on-screen windows (such as the details pane) can be toggled on and off via the Organise/ Layout menu, while [...]

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To quickly open up a new instance of a program (such as a new Word document or a new Internet Explorer window), simply click on the relevant taskbar entry using your mouse’s scroll wheel. If a program is pinned to the taskbar in the first place, you can launch it using the same method. (For [...]

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Windows 7 includes extensive preview capabilities built into Windows Explorer – open up the Preview pane if it isn’t already visible (via the icon on the right hand side of the toolbar), select a media file, and you’ll be able to listen to it or watch it without launching a third-party application. (For a full [...]

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The new jump lists feature in Windows 7 has received a lot of attention, and can be accessed by right-clicking on an entry in the taskbar. However, you can also open up a jump list by clicking on the program bar or icon and dragging upwards with the left mouse button – this is designed [...]

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New in Windows 7 is a feature that will reduce the volume of your applications when the system detects that you’re receiving or making a phonecall with your PC (via a service such as Skype). To tweak this behaviour, or to disable it completely, open up the Hardware and Sound/ Sound dialog from Control Panel [...]

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