Essential Windows 7 Tips, Tweaks, and Secrets

Make the new Windows work for you with our mega-guide of essential shortcuts and secrets.

By John A. Burek

Here at ComputerShopper.com, we’ve been pinching and prodding Windows 7 since it was a baby in beta. And now that the new operating system (OS) has officially hit the street, we’re confident that Microsoft has a winner on its hands. Based on countless hours of installs and test-driving—actually, we’ve been using Windows 7 to produce the stories on ComputerShopper.com for some time now—the consensus of our editorial team can be reduced to an analogy familiar to anyone who’s ever taken a standardized test:

Windows 7 is to Windows Vista as Windows XP is to Windows Me

In simple terms, 7 smoothes out the bumps of its predecessor, and it has the potential to be Microsoft’s new “keeper” version of Windows, a laurel earned only by Windows XP and, to an extent, Windows 2000. Although we think Vista is still somewhat unfairly maligned because of its early troubles with drivers and hardware support, Windows 7 has already bested Vista in that regard. In our experiences with the beta, Release Candidate (RC), and Release to Manufacturing (RTM) versions, hardware support was largely transparent across a variety of desktops and laptops. (In fairness to Vista, that’s because Windows 7 works partly off the compatibility infrastructure Vista has painstakingly built since 2007.)

On the surface, Windows 7 may not seem a radical departure from Vista. The most obvious changes are a redesigned and rethought taskbar, the suppression of Vista’s default Windows Sidebar, a much more conservative (and tweakable) User Account Control warning scheme (the bane of Vista, for many), and a much slicker, graphical Devices and Printers panel for configuring your hardware. But Microsoft incorporated a tremendous number of subtle improvements and under-the-hood tweaks. None is jaw-dropping by itself, but the critical mass of all these smart changes adds up to an OS that feels more polished, tighter, and more mature than any Windows that has come before.

In our Windows 7 journey, we’ve been keeping a running list of the shortcuts, tips, “ah-ha!” moments, and lesser-known features we’ve run across. Some have been well-documented elsewhere; some you’ll find new. But all are worth checking out as you wind your way through the new Windows, or even if you’re just considering making the leap. (And if you’re on the fence and running Vista, check out our detailed step-by-step guide to dual-booting Vista and 7. You don’t have to drop Vista until you’re good and ready.) Either way, these tips will help you get your money’s worth in saved time and efficiency.

Show the Windows Desktop with a new shortcut

If you’re anything like us, once you’ve installed a new operating system or bought a new PC, you start out organizing files and documents with the best of intentions. But before long your Windows Desktop becomes your de facto filing cabinet, peppered with shortcuts, frequently used spreadsheets, random photos, and abandoned detritus. The easy way to access that debris field to find something—the Windows key + D combination, which minimizes all Windows for a clear view of the desktop—is a helper that most of us know.

Windows 7, though, lets you bring up the desktop without taking your hand off your mouse or pointing device—but it’s not obvious how until you stumble upon it. In the extreme lower right portion of the screen, at the far-right edge of the taskbar, you’ll see a little vertical rectangle with a “glossy” finish. Hover the mouse pointer over it, and the Windows Desktop appears, letting you inspect it. (You’ll still see ghostly outlines of the windows you have open.) Move the mouse off the rectangle, and your windows reappear. You can also activate this via a keyboard shortcut:Windows key + spacebar.

Click on the rectangle, though (as opposed to hovering), and you’ll minimize all windows, allowing you to interact with the desktop, open folders, and the like. If you don’t open or maximize any new windows manually, clicking the rectangle a second time restores the view to the state it was in before you clicked.

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