Windows 7 tips, tricks and tweaks

Running the Windows 7 beta, and want to bend it to your will? No problem. We've got plenty of tips, hacks and secrets to keep you busy for a long time, including automatically opening Windows Explorer to a folder of your choice, bringing back the Quick Launch toolbar, forcing User Account Control to act the way you'd like, keeping your Explorer searches secret from others, and more.

So check out these tips. If you like them, we'll keep more coming.

Note: A few of these tips involve editing the Windows Registry. If you don't feel comfortable creating a Restore Point, finding your way around the Registry or performing tasks such as creating a DWORD value, see "The tweaker's guide to the Windows Registry."

General tips

We'll start with a few nifty tips that can make it easier to get around and increase your computer's power efficiency.
Shake your desktop free of clutter

If you frequently run multiple programs simultaneously, your desktop can get extremely cluttered. This can get annoying if you're working on one program and want to minimize all the other windows -- you'll have to minimize them individually.

With Windows 7's new "shake" feature, though, you can minimize every window except the one in which you're currently working in a single step. Click and hold the title bar of the window you want to remain on the desktop; while still holding the title bar, shake it quickly back and forth until all of the other windows minimize to the taskbar. Then let go. To make them return, shake the title bar again.

You can accomplish the same thing by pressing the Window key-Home key combination -- although doing that is not nearly as much fun.

Kill the Send Feedback link

The beta of Windows 7 includes a "Send Feedback" link at various places throughout Windows 7, including at the top of Internet Explorer and on top of dialog boxes. Don't like the link? You can easily get rid of it, using a Registry hack.

(Important: Always create a Restore Point before editing the Windows Registry.)

1. Launch the Registry Editor by typing regedit in the Search box and pressing Enter.

2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, and double-click the FeedbackToolEnabled entry.

3. Change the value to 0, exit the Registry and restart your PC. The feedback link will now be gone. To turn the link back on again, change FeedbackToolEnabled to 3 and restart.

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