Windows Hints & Tricks

Hardly a day goes by that I do not make use of these "tricks".

Fix the mouse's double-click speed I've yet to find anyone who doesn't prefer working with the longest delay between clicks that Windows allows. Go to My Computer/Control Panel/Mouse/Buttons. Grab that "double-click timing" indicator and move it all the way to slow. The procedure might vary a bit depending on what mouse drivers are installed on the computer. Some drivers don't use a slider. Instead, they show box to be clicked on twice to set the double click speed. Click it once. Order a pizza. When the pizza arrives, click the mouse again. Well, not really, but you get the idea.

Make it easier to identify files Go to My Computer/View/Options: Click on "Show all files". Unclick "Hide MS-DOS file extensions for file types that are registered"

Get to the Desktop quickly There are a bunch of ways to do it.

Press Windows-M, where "Windows" is the Windows key, located between the left Ctrl & Alt keys.
Click on the Show Desktop icon on the Quick Launch bar to the right of the Start button. If your Quick Launch Bar is not being displayed,
- Right-click on the Start button.
- Choose Properties.
- Click on the Taskbar tab.
- Check the box for "Show Quick Launch"
Right-click on any empty part of the Taskbar and then click on "Minimize all Windows".

Move files, copy files, and create shortcuts with less confusion Instead of left-clicking when dragging and dropping a file, try right-clicking instead. When you drop the file, a menu will appear asking whether you want to Move it, Copy it, or Create a Shortcut to it.

Close many Windows at once Pressing the shift key is pressed when a window is closed closes all of its ancestors, too.

Recover from dragging errors If you notice when dragging an item (a file, window frame, or whatever) that you're moving something you didn't intended to move, you can cancel the operation by pressing the escape key before dropping the item.