Set Processes Priority
If we are running a lot of programs, there may be some programs that we would want them to run faster than others. This could be done in XP by prioritizing your process.
Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc -> Click on Processes Tab -> Right Click on any active process -> Set the priority
Easy enough huh. This is one of my favorite tips as I may want my CD writing program to have the most priority as I don’t want to risk losing my CDs for data corruption.
Keyboard Shortcuts
If you want to use your computer faster, it is important that you know keyboard shortcuts. It will change the way you view computers. Trust me.
General Keyboard-Only Commands
F1: Starts Windows Help
F10: Activates menu bar options
SHIFT + F10: Opens a shortcut menu for the selected item (this is the same as right-clicking an object
CTRL + ESC: Opens the Start menu (use the ARROW keys to select an item)
CTRL + ESC or ESC: Selects the Start button (press TAB to select the taskbar, or press SHIFT+F10 for a context menu)
ALT + DOWN ARROW: Opens a drop-down list box
ALT + TAB: Switch to another running program (hold down the ALT key and then press the TAB key to view the task-switching window)
SHIFT: Press and hold down the SHIFT key while you insert a CD-ROM to bypass the automatic-run feature
ALT + SPACE: Displays the main window’s System menu (from the System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the window)
ALT +- (ALT + hyphen): Displays the Multiple Document Interface (MDI)child window’s System menu (from the MDI child window’s System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the child window)
CTRL + TAB: Switch to the next child window of a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) program
ALT + underlined letter in menu: Opens the menu
ALT + F4: Closes the current window
CTRL + F4: Closes the current Multiple Document Interface (MDI) window
ALT + F6: Switch between multiple windows in the same program (for example, when the Notepad Find dialog box is displayed
ALT + F6: switches between the Find dialog box and the main Notepad window)
Shell Objects and General Folder/Windows Explorer Shortcuts For a selected object
F2: Rename object
F3: Find all files
CTRL + X: Cut
CTRL + C: Copy
CTRL + V: Paste
SHIFT + DELETE: Delete selection immediately, without moving the item to the Recycle Bin
ALT + ENTER: Open the properties for the selected object
To Copy a File: Press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the file to another folder.
To Create a Shortcut: Press and hold down CTRL+SHIFT while you drag a file to the desktop or a folder.
General Folder/Shortcut Control
F4: Selects the Go To A Different Folder box and moves down the entries in the box (if the toolbar is active in Windows Explorer)
F5: Refreshes the current window.
F6: Moves among panes in Windows Explorer
CTRL + G: Opens the Go To Folder tool (in Windows 95 Windows Explorer only)
CTRL + Z: Undo the last command
CTRL + A: Select all the items in the current window
BACKSPACE: Switch to the parent folder
SHIFT + click + Close button: For folders, close the current folder plus all parent folders
Windows Explorer Tree Control
Numeric Keypad *: Expands everything under the current selection
Numeric Keypad +: Expands the current selection
Numeric Keypad -: Collapses the current selection.
RIGHT ARROW: Expands the current selection if it is not expanded, otherwise goes to the first child
LEFT ARROW: Collapses the current selection if it is expanded, otherwise goes to the parent
Properties Control
CTRL + TAB/CTRL + SHIFT + TAB: Move through the property tabs
Accessibility Shortcuts
Press SHIFT five times: Toggles StickyKeys on and off
Press down and hold the right SHIFT key for eight seconds: Toggles FilterKeys on and off
Press down and hold the NUM LOCK key for five seconds: Toggles ToggleKeys on and off
Left ALT + left SHIFT+NUM LOCK: Toggles MouseKeys on and off
Left ALT + left SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN: Toggles high contrast on and off
Microsoft Natural Keyboard Keys
Windows Logo: Start menu
Windows Logo + R: Run dialog box
Windows Logo + M: Minimize all
SHIFT + Windows Logo+M: Undo minimize all
Windows Logo + F1: Help
Windows Logo + E: Windows Explorer
Windows Logo + F: Find files or folders
Windows Logo + D: Minimizes all open windows and displays the desktop
CTRL + Windows Logo + F: Find computer
CTRL + Windows Logo + TAB: Moves focus from Start, to the Quick Launch toolbar, to the system tray (use RIGHT ARROW or LEFT ARROW to move focus to items on the Quick Launch toolbar and the system tray)
Windows Logo + TAB: Cycle through taskbar buttons
Windows Logo + Break: System Properties dialog box
Application key: Displays a shortcut menu for the selected item
Dialog Box Keyboard Commands
TAB: Move to the next control in the dialog box
SHIFT + TAB: Move to the previous control in the dialog box
SPACEBAR: If the current control is a button, this clicks the button. If the current control is a check box, this toggles the check box. If the current control is an option, this selects the option.
ENTER: Equivalent to clicking the selected button (the button with the outline)
ESC: Equivalent to clicking the Cancel button
ALT + underlined letter in dialog box item: Move to the corresponding item
Print Text Only on Webpages
Suppose you want to print an article on a webpage but it has too many accompanying images which is not needed for you. This is how you print without images.
1. Highlight the text that you would like to print by left clicking once and while holding the click down, drag your mouse over the chosen text.
2. Once the text is highlighted, right click the highlighted area and select Print.
3. In the resulting Print window, tick the “Selection” entry under the Page Range option.
4. Click Print.
These are my tips for now. Most of the tips are not original, either I have told about it or I may have read about it. But certainly my stint at Dell has taught me a lot about computers and I hope to share it here. In the coming few weeks/months, I will be delving deeper into specific parts of the windows that will impact the performance of your system significantly.
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April 3rd, 2006 at 11:43 am
That doesn’t uninstall Internet Explorer, it just removes it from the start menu/desktop.
April 3rd, 2006 at 2:34 pm
the “Rename a Series of Files” instruction does not work on my XPsp2.
April 3rd, 2006 at 3:19 pm
I think you may be mistaken about uninstalling IE… the truth is, you can’t completely remove it, you can only roll back the usable version to what it was when the operating system was installed. IE is integrated directly into the Windows OS, and no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of it.
April 3rd, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Quote{ I am not very keen on sending the error reports to Microsoft as I don’t see any improvements even after I sent a million of those (exhaggerated). }
Which is a pity, because there are top-class programmers in Redmond whose job it is to look at these error reports. Sure, they won’t come and fix your problem — not for the $99/$199 you paid for Windows (a support contract would be another story though…) but they do use this info for service packs, subsequent OS releases, etc.
Another thing: Firefox has talkback enabled on beta-channel releases by default. How has that ever helped you? Ffox 1.5 still leaks memory and crashes (though less than 1.0x). OTOH Talkback has helped improve Firefox quality consistently across major releases.
If you expect your crash reports to automagically qualify you for a fix from the developers, you obviously misunderstand shrinkwrap product development. Go use a browser with 10 users or something, or pay someone to write or maintain a custom codebase for you.
April 3rd, 2006 at 4:30 pm
I have Windows XP with SP2. I tried to rename a batch of files again and it worked fine with ascending numbers.
With IE, I am sorry for the wrong information that I provided regarding uninstallation. IE is a parasite in my book.
Here is an advanced procedure to negate the ill effects caused by IE. Please back up your registry before you attempt this.
Hit Start -> Run -> Regedit
Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4383}
Modify/Create the Value Data Type(s) and Value Name(s) as detailed below.
Data Type: DWORD // Value Name: IsInstalled
Setting for Value Data: [Change the Value from 1 to 0]
Exit Registry
Let me know if you have any other questions…
April 3rd, 2006 at 5:54 pm
“Set Processes Priority
If we are running a lot of programs, there may be some programs that we would want them to run faster than others. This could be done in XP by prioritizing your process.
Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc -> Click on Processes Tab -> Right Click on any active process -> Set the priority ”
Note that changing certain hard-drive thrashing programs to “realtime” mode or “high” priority can make your computer appear to hang. (Try moving-with-sort 60,000 names in Excel after cranking Excel’s priority up, for instance. This can make slower PCs totally unresponsive for up to 15 minutes, in my experience.)
In addition to speeding up, this can also prevent strange errors in smaller programs. MW-Snap 3.0 is an excellent screenshot program, but occasionally will display “init:0″ error messages if you take screenshots rapidly. Crank the priority to high, and MWSnap gets slightly more of XP’s resources… the error messages stop, and MWSnap still uses only a tiny fraction of available memory.
Moving programs to high priority can also solve port buffer errors in terminal emulator-type programs.
April 4th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
“IE is integrated directly into the Windows OS, and no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of it.”
Ever heard of nLite? Can do 1000x more than you think is possible, and it makes your OS run like a Ferrari.
April 12th, 2006 at 2:53 am
Yes sorry once again there’s errors. When you are batch renaming. It will do
Photo1.jpg
Photo1(1).jpg
Photo1(2).jpg
…
The number inside the ()’s ISN’T a cool number system it thinks Photo1(1) and Photo1(2) are just copies of Photo1.
June 6th, 2006 at 10:39 am
yeah, IE cant be removed, Microsoft made sure of that :P Microsoft is pretty good though, have you seen the funny fake macintosh comercial someone made on http://www.thepeon.com? search for mac sucks there, and you’ll see it :) i prefer windows cuz it is tailored to be able to use easily, but the problem with that is that since it is so easy even a complete idiot can use it, when it crashes, said idiot has no clue what to do. good tip about the onscreen keyboard i knew it was on here because i used to use it a lot, i just couldnt remember how to get to it :-/
July 5th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
you cannot remove IE from windows
if dont believe me try this first do whatever it is that you believe to remove IE, Then open the icon my documents. In the address bar type an http address say like http://www.google.com if you have an internet connection i bet you go there. Windows explorer and Internet Explorer are the same program and you cant delete windows explorer. if manage to do it you will cripple your file system cause you will be unable to navigate it unless you want to go back to using DOS
August 14th, 2007 at 8:24 am
I am using windows xp with ser.,pack 2,whenever I wil right click on ant file or folder ,system will hang,again I havt restart manually