In windows 7 there are several great shortcuts that can make you day in front of the computer better, and here are some of them than I use often … and some of them I just know of.

Windows + Arrow

You can move the active window around on the screen.

Windows + Left Arrow Will dock the window to the left	Windows + Right Arrow Will dock the window to the right
Windows + Arrow up Will maximize the window to the current screen.	Windows + Arrow Down (do it again and it will minimize)

Windows + Shift + Arrow up

Like the shortcuts above, hitting these keys will stretch the active window vertically. Pressing Windows + Down will restore it to the previously size.

Alt + P

When you are in a explorer and want to preview things. Pressing Alt + P will bring up a preview window in the left part of the Explorer window. It can be used on all types of documents … but there is a startup time for them and depending on the time of document the first preview can take some time show.

Windows + + ( plus key ) and Windows + – ( minus key )

Brings up the magnifier, so if you are showing something on a projector on a daily basis this is great. Consider you are showing how a program works, instead of lowering the resolution to something like 800x600 … you can just quickly zoom in on it.

You can of cause zoom out again using the other shortcut – Windows + – ( minus key )

Windows + P

Will manage multiple monitor setup more easily or if you just connected a projector. Pressing the key P again while holding down the Windows key will loop over the available options.

Windows + [number]

Here in my Taskbar i have:

1. visionapp Remote Desktop 2010
2. Visual Studio 2008
3. Firefox ( of cause )
4. Messenger
5. Total Commander
6. Windows Explorer
7. Photo Viewer

Pressing Windows + 7 and this will bring up the Photo Viewer if there were only one instance. Here i got 2 so it lets to toggle between them. If there are no instance running of the program it will start one for you.

Ctrl + Click

Holding down Ctrl while clicking a program icon in the taskbar will toggle between the instances. For example like in the above, that would toggle between the 2 instances of the Photo viewer. Here used with two instances of the Windows Explorer started.

Ctrl + Shift + Click

This will start the program clicked on with full administrative rights on the system. While not very useful I, it can be used as pinned programs to the Taskbar, would require more clicks, so it saves a little time :-)

Conclusion

These are some of the best shortcuts I have found to date, but there are still more I guess … so in the future I will update this blog post if I find any.

You you got any that you think is missing, please to post them as comments or contact me, and I will add them.

So … my mother was uning a old windows 2000 and had been doing it since it was installed, only a few thing updated in the time and now problems what so ever with it. I keep using “If it aint broken dont update it”.

But the bank she's been using so supporting Windows 2000, the other day, so I kind a have to update the operating system now … :-(

But the computer she got don’t have a DVD drive so what to do …

Boot from a USB media, what the first option I came across, but while not sure the hardware support it, I opened my favorite seach page … google of cause and found Kevin’s blog. For reference there is a copy of Kevin steps below.

Witch looked really simple … so I started with that.

So … now I’m installing from a USB Media … awesome.

Problems I ran into:

Graphics card: Asus 7100 Pro aka GeForce2 MX 400, Windows 7 did not have a driver and I could not find one on nvidia.com so I went to google again and found this: Windows 7 and Geforce2 GTS. The file has been attached to the post. Seems to run great, and now I can run more than: 1024x768, YAHHH. Forceware 71.89 working under Win7.ZIP (18.76 mb)

Kevin’s steps: taken from Kevin’s blog post

Required:

• USB Flash Drive (4GB+)
• Microsoft OS Disk (Vista / Windows 7)
• A computer running Vista / Windows 7

Step 1: Format the Drive
The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility. [Be warned: this will erase everything on your drive. Be careful.]

1. Plug in your USB Flash Drive
2. Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”
3. Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window:
   diskpart
   list disk
   The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step.  I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 1.
4. Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number “1” with the number of your disk below.
   select disk 1
   clean
   create partition primary
   select partition 1
   active
   format fs=NTFS
   assign
   exit
   When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.

Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable 
Next we’ll use the bootsect utility that comes on the Vista or Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable.  In the same command window that you were using in Step 1:

1. Insert your Windows Vista / 7 DVD into your drive.
2. Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives:
   d:
   cd d:\boot
3. Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\ by the computer:
   bootsect /nt60 g:
4. You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.

Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive
The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive.  After you’ve copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.

Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB
This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option.

Forceware 71.89 working under Win7.ZIP (18.76 mb)

So the other day I was using Excel for some work I needed to do. Maximized the window with the mouse, very nice feature in 7. Ups, wrong minotor I docked the window on. So I wanted to move it to the other monitor. But wait, I could not undock it when trying to undock it from maximized with the mouse. So clearly a bug ... wheater its in Wind ows 7 or Office that causes the window to not be undockable from maximized I dont know ... 

Its no problem when its docked to either left or right ... but, not impossible to undock from maximized with the mouse ...

So if anyone know I can report this, please do tell.

Recently I downloaded skype after installing Windows 7. No problem it worked … a few days later Firefox, especially gmail started bugging, run slow, when writing mails keystrokes disappeared  … i thought that it was there servers that had some problems. But it did not stop so after more than 6 hours not being able to browse my email normal as in “fast”. I started looking about what I had installed lately and saw that crappy skype had installed a plugin. Maybe i agreed to it under the installation, maybe not … but it was causing all my freaking problems. Other states very just a little slow, but I also blamed the other end.

How to uninstall it:

• Start firefox ofcause :-)
• goto the menu: Tools –> Add-ons
• Find the Skype addon in the list and either Uninstall or Disable it.
• Restart firefox

Now you gmail runs fast again … thanks for all this skype, and wasting my time debugging this.