Give It a Facelift
We like Windows 7's look already, but for those of you who don't, the following 11 utilities give Windows 7 an aesthetic boost, and, in most cases, enhance productivity as well. Almost all of these utilities are free, and the rest are pretty darn cheap. All of these programs are compatible with 32- and 64-bit Windows 7, and many of them will also work with older versions of Windows, too.
(http://i53.tinypic.com/uy9me.jpg) (http://i54.tinypic.com/2nvywbb.jpg)
Aquasnap
21. Work with tiled windows. Windows 7's handy Aero Snap feature lets you work with two tiled windows side by side by dragging them to the left and right edges of the screen. And AquaSnap, a free download, takes things a step further, snapping windows to all four edges of the screen—left, right, top, and bottom—as well as to all four corners for up to eight tiles in all. Better yet, it works within applications, so you can use it to snap child windows (those that are confined within another "parent" window, like in Paint.NET). Another neat feature is AquaGlass, which makes an entire window transparent (not simply the title bar) when you drag it across the screen.
(http://i55.tinypic.com/2is9ut3.jpg) (http://i54.tinypic.com/1zpmnps.jpg)
Battery Info
22. Beef up your battery status gauge. Windows 7's standard notification area battery gauge is pretty "meh," and it requires a mouseover to get any information out of it. BatteryBar makes battery status standout on your taskbar (or anywhere on the desktop), and it provides useful bonus info, such as the charge/discharge rate in milliwatts. When your laptop is plugged in, BatteryBar indicates how many minutes to go until fully charged. You even get a battery-wear indicator, which can give you a heads up when your battery may be nearing the end of its useful life. BatteryBar is free. The Pro version ($3 for one year, up to $10 for a lifetime) adds low/critical battery warnings and 20 customizable settings.
(http://i55.tinypic.com/2v9vvuq.jpg) (http://i54.tinypic.com/2agnfv6.jpg)
Bluetooth Radar 2.2
23. Make Bluetooth connections easier. The Bluetooth configuration utility built into Windows 7 gets the job done, but it isn't much to look at. Bluetooth Radar 2.2 (free download), on the other hand, is attractive as well as functional. It plots Bluetooth devices (both paired and unpaired) within range of your PC on a faux radar screen, where you can view and change device settings.
(http://i52.tinypic.com/4hf3og.jpg) (http://i54.tinypic.com/2wgfbco.jpg)
Taskbar Wheel
24. Give your taskbar a makeover. Windows 7's Taskbar makes a decent application launcher, but each app button you add leaves a bit less room for running programs. With Circle Dock 1.5.6 (free), you fill up a cool-looking circular menu with your favorite programs, files, and folders. Then you customize it by adjusting its size, shape (you can stretch it into an ellipse), and level of transparency, just to start. You can even use the mouse wheel to scroll through your items rotary-style.
25. Create multiple virtual desktops. It doesn't take much to clutter up the Windows desktop with lots of running programs and overlapping windows, even if you're using a large display or multiple monitors. Dexpot 1.5 (free) lets you spread out, organizing your stuff across four virtual desktops, each with its own screen wallpaper, sound effects, and so forth. Switching between virtual desktops is easy (a preview mode shows all of them at once), and you can move open windows between them.
(http://i51.tinypic.com/s4z1qv.jpg) (http://i53.tinypic.com/2vlkxsk.jpg)
Icon Madness
26. Clean up your desktop icons. Trying to find a specific item amid a sea of desktop icons can be daunting. Fences can bring a bit of order to your chaos by organizing related icons into groups, each in its own fenced in pen. Display or hide them all with a mouse double-click. As Frost said, "Good fences make good neighbors." Fences is free, but a $19.95 Pro version adds features, such as a sorting option, adjustable transparency, and the ability to take snapshots of your desktop layout.
(http://i54.tinypic.com/30vdkdk.jpg)
27. Change your desktop theme with Windows 7 Personalization Gallery. Desktop themes are a great way to change the ambiance of Windows 7 in just a couple of clicks. Typically, they include a set of automatically rotating wallpapers, a color scheme, and sound effects. There's no reason to settle for the familiar default theme (the Windows logo on a blue background) and the halfdozen others (e.g. architecture, landscape, nature, etc.) that Windows 7 provides. There are plenty of free themes available from Microsoft's Windows 7 Personalization Gallery. Among the scores of themes are some based on countries and geographical settings, animals and nature, holidays, and even (shudder) product brands including automobiles, soda pop, movies, and video games (Gears of War, anyone?).
(http://i52.tinypic.com/2njin3c.jpg) (http://i54.tinypic.com/2ic8eww.jpg)
Create Skins
28. Create your own skins. If you want Windows 7 to tell you things, some gadgets might do the trick, but that's so 2008. Rainmeter 1.1 fills your desktop with many different applets called "skins" (similar to Windows Gadgets but much slicker) that can do things like launch programs, monitor system resources, and pull in data from the Internet via RSS feeds. Creating your own homegrown Rainmeter skins takes considerable effort to master, but a new Raininstaller feature (available in version 1.2 or later) can save a lot of grunt work by installing Rainmeter skins that have been created and distributed by others.
29. Use a simplified version of Task Manager. You can bring up Task Manager to get CPU and RAM usage info, but that's like work. TaskbarMeters (free) puts minimalist CPU and memory gauges right onto the Windows 7 taskbar that you can configure to turn yellow or red once a certain usage threshold is met.
30. Give your Start button a more interesting look. The Start button "Orb" is kinda cool (better than a start menu) but that static logo gets dull. Windows 7 Start Button Changer gives the "Orb" a more interesting look. It includes 10 alternative Start button images. You can find more Start buttons (which are ordinary BMP files) online, including DeviantArt, and then use this utility to place it on your taskbar.
(http://i51.tinypic.com/2urm1w7.jpg) (http://i55.tinypic.com/149az2t.jpg)
GUI Makeover
31. Give the user interface a complete overhaul. The Windows desktop looks better than ever, but that's not always saying much if you like personalization. Stardock's WindowBlinds gives the interface a complete overhaul. This utility tweaks the visuals of virtually every aspect of the Windows user interface, from the Start menu and Taskbar to window title bars, borders, and buttons via countless downloadable "skins." You can even make Windows look like the Linux or Mac OS, if you're into that sort of thing. WindowBlinds costs $19.95; the free version is a demo that expires after 30 days.
Tweak the Registry
For geeks who are really looking to change the way Windows 7 looks and behaves, we suggest digging deep—into the registry. Here you can go for more thorough personalization— like changing the look of the log-in screen, the Taskbar, or even Internet Explorer 8's title bar. Most of these hacks require spending only a few minutes in Regedit. But be warned: This type of activity can be potentially dangerous to your computer. Don't dive in unless you feel confident in the Registry. The easiest way to start Regedit is to hit the Window key on your keyboard, type regedit, and then hit Enter. (You can also do this by clicking on the Start button.) Before you make any changes it's probably smart to back up the key or subkey you're planning on tinkering with. Once you've navigated to the key you're planning to change, right-click on it and select "Export" from the pop-up menu. Pick a location to save the resulting REG file, and you're protected. In this story, Registry entries are frequently represented with quotation marks around them; you shouldn't type those in when you're making your changes. And once you've changed a key, it won't take effect right away—you must exit Windows and restart first.
32. Change Your Log-in Screen Background Changing the wallpaper on your desktop is one of the easiest things to do in Windows. But if you can have that display any image you want, why not do the same with your log-in screen?
1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Authentication | LogonUI | Background.
2. Find the OEMBackground key; or right-click in the right pane and select New, then DWORD (32-bit) Value to create it (and then give it that name).
3. Double-click on OEMBackground to open it.
4. Change the value in the Value data field to 1.
5. Click OK.
6. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to your Windows directory, then System32\ oobe. If there's a folder in here called "info," go into it; if there's a folder inside of that one called "backgrounds," go into that. If neither exists, you'll need to create them both first.
7. Copy the image (it must be a JPEG, and smaller than 256KB in size) you want to use as your log-in screen background into the info\backgrounds folder.
8. Rename the image background-Default.jpg. (Note: If you choose an image that's sized differently than your desktop and you change your resolution, it will be adjusted to fit—with a possible loss in quality. The info\background folder also supports 12 other files of specific resolutions. The files should be named backgroundXXXXX. jpg, where the XXXXX is one of the following: 900x1440, 960x1280, 1024x1280, 1280x1024, 1024x768, 1280x960, 1600x1200, 1440x900, 1920x1200, 1280x768, or 1360x768. For example, background1920x1200.jpg will be used at 1,920-by-1,200 resolution, and so on.)
The next time you restart your computer, or log out, you'll see this image as the new log-in screen. If you chose an image that prevents the buttons and text from looking their best on the log-in screen, you can adjust their appearance as well.
1. Navigate back to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Authentication | LogonUI (you're not going into Background this time).
2. Add a DWORD value called "Button- Set."
3. Change its value to either 1 (darker text shadows and lighter buttons) or 2 (no text shadows and opaque buttons, for darker backgrounds); 0 is the Windows default.
33. Personalize the IE8 Title Bar. If you use Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7, you're probably familiar with the browser's title bar, which appends "Windows Internet Explorer" to the end of every page name. Why not change it to something a little more... you?
1. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Internet Explorer | Main.
2. Right-click in the right panel, click New, and then select String Value.
3. Name the string value you just created Window Title (space included).
4. Double-click on Window Title.
5. Type your personalized title in the "Value data" field, then click OK.
34. Turn Off Aero Snap. Implemented as an easier way to arrange windows on your desktop, Aero Snap will automatically maximize a window if you drag it to the top of the screen, or resize a window to use exactly half your display's width if you drag it all the way to the left or the right. If you don't find this feature convenient, you can disable it.
1. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Control Panel | Desktop.
2. Scroll down to WindowArrangementActive in the right-hand pane, and double-click it to open it.
3. Change the number in the Value data field from 1 (Aero Snap is enabled) to 0.
4. Click OK
35. Change Taskbar Button. Stacked Window Behavior By default, the Taskbar groups together multiple windows of a single app, then displays all of them as thumbnails when you click on the program's Taskbar icon. If you think it would be more handy to have Windows automatically open the last window when you click the icon, you can make that happen.
1. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Explorer | Advanced.
2. Right-click in the right pane, and select New then DWORD (32-bit) Value.
3. Rename the new DWORD value Last-ActiveClick.
4. Double-click on LastActiveClick to open it.
5. Change the value in the Value data field to 1.
6. Click OK.
36. Change the Width of Taskbar Buttons Windows 7 is set up to always combine Taskbar buttons from the same program and never display their labels. If, however, you've changed the setting to either not combine the windows at all or to only combine them when the Taskbar is full, you can change the icons' width to hide the labels there, too. Here's how.
1. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Control Panel | Desktop | WindowMetrics
2. Scroll to find the MinWidth entry. If it's not there, you'll have to create it yourself. Right-click in the right pane, select New, then Select String Value, and name the object MinWidth.
3. Double-click MinWidth to open it.
4. Change the number in the Value Data field to the width you want to allot to the icons. With the default small buttons, 38 is sufficient; with the larger icons, you'll want about 52.
5. Click OK.
37. Change the Delay Time of Taskbar Previews Among the cooler features in Windows 7 are Taskbar previews, which appear when you hover the mouse cursor over the Taskbar icon of a currently running program. But when you do this, the preview doesn't appear immediately. Fortunately, you can easily speed it up or, for whatever reason, slow it down.
1. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows| CurrentVersion | Explore | Advanced
2. Right-click in the right pane, click New, and click DWORD Value or DWORD (32-bit) Value.
3. Name the new DWORD ExtendedUIHoverTime.
4. Double click on ExtendedUIHover-Time to open it.
5. Click the Decimal radio button in the Base section. In the Value data field, enter the delay time (in milliseconds) for the preview to appear. (The Windows standard is 400 ms.)
6. Click OK to commit the change. When you hover the mouse cursor over one of the previews, all your other windows will disappear and show just that window. There's a delay associated with this, too. To change this, add a new DWORD in the same location called ThumbnailLivePreviewHoverTime, and edit it the same way as above, setting its value to whatever you want (in ms).
38. Change the Delay Time of Aero Peek Aero Peek is Windows 7's sleeker replacement for the old Show Desktop button. Just move your mouse cursor over the icon at the right end of the taskbar to turn all your Windows invisible. But this, too, has a delay time associated with it, so if you find yourself accidentally activating it too often, you may want to increase the delay time. Here's how.
1. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Explorer | Advanced
2. Right-click in the right pane, click New, and click DWORD Value or DWORD (32-bit) Value.
3. Name the new DWORD Desktop LivePreviewHoverTime.
4. Double click on DesktopLivePreviewHoverTime to open it.
5. Click the Decimal radio button in the Base section. In the Value data field, enter the delay time (in milliseconds) for the preview to appear. (The Windows standard is 1,000 ms.)
6. Click OK to commit the change.