Windows 7: The Missing Manual

visit most often; the jump list for Windows Media Player shows songs you’ve played a lot lately. The point, of course, is that you can reopen a file just by clicking its name. Jump lists can save you time when you want to resume work on something you had open recently but you’re not in the mood to burrow through folders to find its icon. Often, jump lists also include shortcut-menu-ish commands, like New Message (for an email program), Play/Pause (for a jukebox program), or Close All Windows (just about any program). As Microsoft puts it, it’s like having a separate Start menu for every single program. Interestingly enough, the same jump lists appear both in the Start menu and in your taskbar (Figure 1-15). Figure 1-15: Jump lists display the most recently opened documents in each program. These submenus show up in the Start menu (left), but they also sprout from the taskbar when you right-click a program’s icon there (right). You have several ways to make jump lists appear: ••In the Start menu. A ˘ button next to a program’s name in the Start menu means a jump list awaits. (In general, a program sprouts a jump list automatically if you’ve used it to open or play files.) To open the jump list, either click the ˘ or just point to the program’s name without clicking. The submenu opens automatically after about half a second.52 windows 7: the missing manual

Note: If no jump lists ever appear, it’s probably because you’ve turned this feature off. To turn it back on,right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Turn on “Store and display recentlyopened items in the Start menu and the taskbar.” (Yes, that’s the on/off switch for jump lists.) Click OK.And if the submenu doesn’t pop open by itself when you point without clicking, you’ve probably turnedthat feature off, too. To turn it back on, right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Proper-ties. Click Customize. Turn on “Open submenus when I pause on them with the mouse pointer.” Click OK. ••On the taskbar. The nearly identical jump list appears when you right-click a program’s icon on your taskbar (page 101). Actually, there’s a second, secret way to make the jump list appear: Swipe upward from the program’s icon. (That is, give the mouse a flick upward while you’re clicking.) This technique isn’t such a huge benefit when you’re using a mouse or trackpad. But if you’re using a touchscreen computer, where right-clicking can be a little hard to figure out, you’ll be glad to have this alternative. Figure 1-16: Suppose there’s a document you refer to a lot, and you don’t want it to van- ish from its program’s jump list. Just point to its name without clicking, and then click the pushpin icon (left). Now there’s a new section in the jump list called Pinned, where that document will remain undisturbed until you unpin it by clicking the pushpin again (right).PinningIn general, jump lists maintain themselves. Windows decides which files you’ve openedor played most recently or most frequently and builds the jump lists accordingly. Newdocument listings appear, older ones vanish, all without your help.

You can, however, pin an item to a program’s jump list so it doesn’t disappear. It’s outof Windows’s clutches, at least until you unpin it. Figure 1-16 shows the technique.Jump List CaveatsJump lists are great and all, but you should be aware of a few things: ••They don’t know when you’ve deleted a document or moved it to another folder or disk; they continue to list the file even after it’s gone. In that event, clicking the document’s listing produces only an error message. And you’re offered the chance to delete the listing (referred to as “this shortcut” in the error message) so you don’t confuse yourself again the next time. ••Some people consider jump lists a privacy risk, since they reveal everything you’ve been up to recently to whatever spouse or buddy happens to wander by. (You know who you are.) In that case, you can turn off jump lists, or just the incriminating items, as de- scribed next.Tip: Of course, even if you turn off jump lists, there’s another easy way to open a document you’ve recentlyworked on—from within the program you used to create it. Many programs maintain a list of recent docu-ments in the File menu.Jump List SettingsThere are all kinds of ways to whip jump lists into submission. For example: ••Turn off jump lists. If the whole idea of Windows (or your boss) tracking what you’ve been working on upsets you, you can turn this feature off entirely. To do that, right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Turn off “Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and taskbar” and click OK. ••Delete one item from a jump list. For privacy, for security, or out of utter embar- rassment, you may not want some file or Web site’s name to show up in a jump list. Just right-click and, from the shortcut menu, choose “Remove from this list.” ••Clear a jump list completely. At other times, you may want to wipe out all your jump lists—and all your tracks. To do that, right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Turn off the checkbox that says “Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and taskbar” (that’s the master on/off switch for jump lists). Click Apply; you’ve just erased all the jump lists. If you didn’t intend to turn off jump lists for good, though, turn the “Store and display” checkbox back on again before clicking OK. Your jump lists are now ready to start memorizing new items. ••Change the number of documents in the list. Ordinarily, jump lists track the 10 most recent (or most frequently used) items, but you can goose that number up

or down. To do that, right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Click Customize. Adjust the“Number of recent items to display in Jump Lists” item at the bottom of the dialog box, and then click OK.Tip: Jump-list items are draggable. For example, suppose you’re composing an email message, and youwant to attach your latest book outline. If it’s in your Start menu, in a jump list, you can drag the document’sicon directly from the jump list into your email message to attach it. Cool.The Run CommandAll VersionsThe Start menu in a fresh installation of Win7 doesn’t include the Run command.But power users and über-geeks may well want to put it back in the Start menu, fol-lowing the instructions on page 30. (Or don’t bother. Whenever you want the Runcommand, you can just press w+R, or type run into the Start menu’s Search box andthen hit Enter.) Figure 1-17: Top: The last Run command you entered appears automatically in the Open text box. You can use the drop-down list to see a list of commands you’ve previously entered. Bottom: The Run command knows the names of all your folders and also remem- bers the last few commands you typed here. As you go, you’re shown the best match for the characters you’re typing. When the name of the folder you’re trying to open appears in the list, click it to prevent having to type the rest of the entry.The Run command gets you to a command line, as shown in Figure 1-17. A commandline is a text-based method of performing a task. You type a command, click OK, andsomething happens as a result.

Note: The command line in the Run dialog box is primarily for opening things. Windows 7 also comeswith a program called Command Prompt that offers a far more complete environment—not just for openingthings, but for controlling and manipulating them. Power users can type long sequences of commands andsymbols in Command Prompt.Working at the command line is becoming a lost art in the world of Windows, becausemost people prefer to issue commands by choosing from menus using the mouse.However, some old-timers still love the command line, and even mouse-lovers en-counter situations when a typed command is the only way to do something.If you’re a PC veteran, your head probably teems with neat Run commands you’vepicked up over the years. If you’re new to this idea, however, the following are a fewof the useful and timesaving functions you can perform with the Run dialog box.Open a ProgramFor example, you can use the Run command as a program launcher. Just type anyprogram’s program filename in the Open text box and then press Enter. For bothpros and novices, it’s frequently faster to launch a program this way than to click theStartÆAll Programs menu with the mouse.Unfortunately, the program filename isn’t the same as its plain-English name; it’s acryptic, abbreviated version. For example, if you want to open Microsoft Word, youmust type winword. That’s the actual name of the Word program icon as it sits inyour ComputerÆLocal Disk (C:)ÆProgram FilesÆMicrosoft OfficeÆOffice folder.Some other common program filenames are here:Program’s real name Program’s familiar nameiexplore Internet Explorerexplorer Windows Explorerwrite WordPadmsworks Microsoft Worksmsimn Mailwmplayer Windows Media Playercontrol Classic Control Panelregedit Registry Editorcleanmgr Disk Cleanupdefrag Disk Defragmentercalc CalculatorTo discover the real filename of a certain program, open ComputerÆLocal Disk (C:)ÆProgram Files. Inspect the folders there; with the window in Details view, you’ll beable to spot the icons whose type is “application.”Note: True, the Start Search box at the bottom of the Start menu offers another way to find and open anyprogram without taking your hands off the keyboard. But the Run method is more precise, and may requireless effort because you’re not typing the entire program name.

In fact, keyboard lovers, get this: You can perform this entire application-launchingstunt without using the mouse at all. Just follow these steps in rapid succession: 1. Press w+R. That’s the keyboard shortcut for the Run command, whose dialog box now opens. 2. Type the program file’s name in the Open box. If you’ve typed the name before, just type a couple of letters; Windows fills in the rest of the name automatically. 3. Press Enter. Windows opens the requested program instantly. Keystrokes: 4; Mouse: 0.Open Any Program or DocumentUsing the Run dialog box is handy for opening favorite applications, because it re-quires so few keystrokes. But you can also use the Run dialog box to open any fileon the computer.The trick here is to type in the entire path of the program or document you want.(See the box on page 58 if you’re new to the idea of file paths.) For example, to openthe family budget spreadsheet that’s in Harold’s Documents folder, you might typeC:\Users\Harold\Documents\familybudget.xls.Of course, you probably wouldn’t actually have to type all that, since the AutoCompletepop-up menu offers to complete each folder name as you start to type it.Tip: Typing the path in this way is also useful for opening applications that don’t appear in the StartÆAllPrograms menu. (If a program doesn’t appear there, you must type its entire pathname—or click Browse tohunt for its icon yourself.)For example, some advanced Windows utilities (including the Registry Editor, an advanced diagnostic program)are accessible only through the command line. You also need to use the Run command to open some oldercommand-line programs that don’t come with a listing in the All Programs menu.Open a Drive WindowWhen you click Computer in your Start menu, you see that Windows assigns a letterof the alphabet to each disk drive attached to your machine—the hard drive, the DVDdrive, the floppy drive, and so on. The floppy drive is A:, the hard drive is usually C:,and so on. (There hasn’t been a B: drive since the demise of the two-floppy computer.)By typing a drive letter followed by a colon (for example, C:) into the Run box andpressing Enter, you make a window pop open, showing what’s on that drive.Open a Folder WindowYou can also use the Run dialog box to open the window for any folder on yourmachine. To do so, type a backslash followed by the name of a folder (Figure 1-17,

bottom of screen). You might type, for example, the first few letters of \Program Filesto see your complete software collection.Note: The Run command assumes you’re opening a folder on Drive C. If you want to open a folder on adifferent drive, add the drive letter and a colon before the name of the folder (for example, D:\data).If you’re on a network, you can even open a folder that’s sitting on another computeron the network. To do so, type two backslashes, the computer’s name, and then theshared folder’s name. For instance, to access a shared folder called Budgets on a com-puter named Admin, enter \\admin\budgets. (See Chapter 26 for more on sharingfolders over the network.)It might make you feel extra proficient to know that you’ve just used the UniversalNaming Convention, or UNC, for the shared folder. The UNC is simply the two-backslash, computer name\folder name format (for example: \\ComputerName\foldername).Tip: In any of these cases, if you don’t remember the precise name of a file or folder you want to open in theRun dialog box, then click the Browse button to display the Browse dialog box, as shown in Figure 1-17, bottom.Connect to a Web PageYou can jump directly to a specific Web page by typing its Web address (URL)—suchas http://www.bigcompany.com—into the Run dialog box and then pressing Enter.Youdon’t even have to open your Web browser first.Once again, you may not have to type very much; the drop-down list in the Run dialogbox lists every URL you’ve previously entered. Simply click one (or press the . key tohighlight the one you want, and then press Enter) to go to that site.up to speedThe Path to Enlightenment about PathsWindows is too busy to think of a particular file as “that family You’ll encounter file paths when using several importantalbum program in the Program Files folder, which is in the Windows features. The Run dialog box described in thisPrograms folder on the C drive.” Instead, it uses shorthand section is one. The address bar at the top of every Explorerto specify each icon’s location on your hard drive—a series window is another, although Microsoft has made addressesof disk and folder names separated by backslashes, like this: easier to read by displaying triangle separators in the addressC:\program files\pbsoftware\beekeeperpro.exe. bar instead of slashes. (That is, you now see Users ™ Casey instead of Users\Casey.)This kind of location code is that icon’s path. (Capitalizationdoesn’t matter, even though you may see capital letters in Try not to be confused by the fact that Web addresses useMicrosoft’s examples.) forward slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\)!

2chapterExplorer, Windows,& the TaskbarWindows got its name from the rectangles on the screen—the windows— 59 where all your computer activity takes place. You look at a Web page in a window, type into a window, read email in a window, and look at lists offiles in a window. But as you create more files, stash them in more folders, and openmore programs, it’s easy to wind up paralyzed before a screen awash with cluttered,overlapping rectangles.Fortunately, Windows has always offered icons, buttons, and other inventions to helpyou keep these windows under control—and Windows 7 positively crawls with them.Universal Window ControlsAll VersionsAs Figure 2-1 shows, a lot has changed in windows since the Windows of a few yearsago. If you’re feeling disoriented, firmly grasp a nearby stationary object and readthe following breakdown.Here are the controls that appear on almost every window, whether in an applicationor in Explorer: ••Title bar. It’s really not much of a title bar anymore, since the window’s title only rarely appears here (Figure 2-1). But this big, fat top strip is still a giant handle you can use to drag a window around. chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar

Tip: The title bar offers two great shortcuts for maximizing a window, making it expand to fill your entire screen exactly as though you had clicked the Maximize button described below. Shortcut 1: Double-click the title bar. (Double-click it again to restore the window to its original size.) Shortcut 2: Drag the title bar up against the top of your monitor. That maximizing shortcut is new in Windows 7.Control menu Address bar Title bar Minimize, Maximize, Close Figure 2-1: Toolbar All windows have the same basic in- Scroll gredients, making it bar easy to become an expert in window manipulation. This figure shows an Explorer (desktop) window—a disk or folder—but you’ll encounter the same elements in ap- plication windows. (To open a new Explorer window, double-click a folder, or click the Explorer icon—looks like a filing folder— on your taskbar, or press w+E.) ••Window edges. You can reshape a window by dragging any edge except the top. Position your cursor over any border until it turns into a double-headed arrow. Then drag inward or outward to make the window smaller or bigger. (To resize a full-screen window, click the “restore down” button first.) Tip: You can resize a window in two dimensions at once by dragging one of its corners. Sometimes a dotted triangle appears at the lower-right corner, sometimes not; in either case, all four corners work the same way. On most computers, window edges are also transparent, revealing a slightly blurry image of what’s underneath. (That’s the Aero effect at work; see page 25.) Truth be told, being able to see what’s underneath the edges of your window (sort of) doesn’t really offer any particular productivity advantage. Sure does look cool, though. ••Minimize, Maximize, [restore down]. These three window-control buttons, at the top of every Windows window, cycle a window among its three modes—minimized, maximized, and restored, as described on page the following pages. ••Close button. Click the X button to close the window. Keyboard shortcut: Press Alt+F4.

Tip: Isn’t it cool how the Minimize, Maximize, and Close buttons “light up” when your cursor passes overthem? (At least they do if you’ve got Aero, as described in Chapter 1.)Actually, that’s not just a gimmick; it’s a cue that lets you know when the button is clickable. You might nototherwise realize, for example, that you can close, minimize, or maximize a background window without firstbringing it forward. But when the background window’s Close box beams bright red, you know. ••Scroll bar. A scroll bar appears on the right side or bottom of the window if the window isn’t large enough to show all its contents. ••Control menu. In Windows XP and earlier versions, there was a tiny icon in the upper-left corner of every Explorer window. It was a menu of commands for siz- ing, moving, and closing the window. In Windows 7, the Control menu is invisible. But if you click where it’s supposed to be, the menu opens. It’s clearly intended for use only by the initiated who pass on the secret from generation to generation. One of the Control menu’s commands is Move. It turns your cursor into a four- headed arrow; at this point, you can move the window by dragging any part of it, even the middle. Why bother, since you can always just drag the top edge of a window to move it? Because sometimes, windows get dragged past the top of your screen.You can hit Alt+space to open the Control menu, type M to trigger the Move command, and then move the window by pressing the arrow keys (or by dragging any visible portion). When the window is where you want it, hit Enter to “let go,” or the Esc key to return the window to its original position.Tip: You can double-click the Control menu spot to close a window.Sizing, Moving, and Closing WindowsA Windows window can cycle among three altered states.MaximizedA maximized window is one that fills the screen, edge to edge, so you can’t see anythingbehind it. It gets that way when you do one of these things: ••Click its Maximize button (identified in Figure 2-1). ••Double-click the title bar. ••Drag the window up against the top of the screen. (That’s a new technique in Windows 7, as described below.) ••Press w+,. (That’s also new in Windows 7, and it’s awesome.) •• Press Alt+space, then X. (That’s the clumsy old key sequence.)

Maximizing the window is an ideal arrangement when you’re surfing the Web orworking on a document for hours at a stretch, since the largest possible windowmeans the least possible scrolling.Once you’ve maximized a window, you can restore it to its usual, free-floating statein any of these ways: ••Drag the window away from the top edge of the screen. ••Double-click the title bar. ••Click the Restore Down button (C). (The Maximize button looks like that only when the window is, in fact, maximized.) ••Press w+.. (New in Windows 7.)Tip: If the window isn’t maximized, this keystroke minimizes it instead. ••Press Alt+space, then R.MinimizedWhen you click a window’s Minimize button (M), the window gets out of your way.It shrinks down into the form of a button on your taskbar, at the bottom of thescreen. Minimizing a window is a great tactic when you want to see what’s behind it.Keyboard shortcut: w+..You can bring the window back, of course (that’d kind of be a bummer otherwise).Point to the taskbar button that represents that window’s program. For example, ifyou minimized an Explorer (desktop) window, point to the Explorer icon.If Aero is working (page 23), the program’s button sprouts handy thumbnail min-iatures of the minimized windows when you point to it without clicking. Click awindow’s thumbnail to restore it to full size. (You can read more about this tricklater in this chapter.)If you’re in a non-Aero mode, the program’s button sprouts the names of the mini-mized windows. Click the window name you want to bring it back again.Tip: In Windows 7, there’s a cool twist on minimizing, described in the following section, called Aero Shake.RestoredA restored window is neither maximized nor minimized; it’s a loose cannon, floatingaround on your screen as an independent rectangle. Because its edges aren’t attachedto the walls of your monitor, you can make it any size you like by dragging its borders.Moving a WindowMoving a window is easy—just drag the big, fat top edge.

Closing a WindowMicrosoft wants to make absolutely sure you’re never without some method of closinga window. It offers at least nine ways to do it: ••Click the Close button (the X in the upper-right corner).Tip: If you’ve managed to open more than one window, Shift-click that button to close all of them. ••Press Alt+F4. (This one’s worth memorizing.You’ll use it everywhere in Windows.) ••Double-click the window’s upper-left corner. ••Click the invisible Control menu in the upper-left corner, and then choose Close from the menu. ••Right-click the window’s taskbar button (see page 105), and then choose Close from the shortcut menu. ••Point to a taskbar button without clicking; if you have Aero working (page 23), thumbnail images of its windows appear. Point to a thumbnail; an X button ap- pears in its upper-right corner. Click it. ••Right-click the window’s title bar (top edge), and choose Close from the shortcut menu. ••In an Explorer window, choose OrganizeÆClose. In many other programs, you can choose FileÆClose. ••Quit the program you’re using, log off, or shut down the PC.Be careful. In many programs, including Internet Explorer, closing the window alsoquits the program entirely.Tip: If you see two X buttons in the upper-right corner of your screen, then you’re probably using a programlike Microsoft Excel. It’s what Microsoft calls an MDI, or multiple document interface program. It gives you awindow within a window. The outer window represents the application itself; the inner one represents theparticular document you’re working on.If you want to close one document before working on another, be careful to click the inner Close button. Ifyou click the outer one, you’ll exit the entire application.Layering WindowsWhen you have multiple windows open on your screen, only one window is active,which affects how it works: ••It’s in the foreground, in front of all other windows. ••It’s the window that “hears” your keystrokes and mouse clicks. ••Its Close button is red. (Background windows’ Close buttons are transparent or window-colored, at least until you point to them.)

As you would assume, clicking a background window brings it to the front.Tip: And pressing Alt+Esc sends an active window to the back. Bet you didn’t know that one!And what if it’s so far back that you can’t even see it? That’s where Windows’s window-management tools come in; read on.Tip: For quick access to the desktop, clear the screen by clicking Show Desktop—the skinny rectangle at thefar right end of the taskbar—or by pressing w+D. Pressing that keystroke again brings all the windows backto the screen exactly as they were.New Window Tricks in Windows 7Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • UltimateThere are a few new shortcuts in Windows 7, expressly designed for managing win-dows. Most of them involve some clever mouse gestures—special dragging techniques.Thanks to those mouse movements and the slick animations you get in response,goofing around with your windows may become the new Solitaire.Aero SnapMicrosoft applies that name—Aero Snap—to a set of expando-window tricks.Note: Despite the word Aero in the name, the Snap features work in the Home Basic and Starter editionsof Windows 7, too.Here’s the rundown: ••Maximize a window by dragging its title bar against the top edge of your monitor. ••Restore a maximized window by dragging its title bar down from the top of the screen. ••Make a full-height, half-width window by dragging it against one side of your screen.Tip: Actually, it’s faster to use the new keyboard shortcuts: w+< to snap the window against the left side,or w+> to snap it against the right. To move the window back again, either hit the same keystroke a couplemore times (it cycles left, right, and original spot, over and over), or use the w key with the opposite arrow key.And if you have more than one monitor, add the Shift key to move the frontmost window to the next moni-tor, left or right. And why would you bother? Well, a full-height, half-width window is ideal for reading an article, for example. You wouldn’t want your eyes to keep scanning the text all the way across the football field of your screen; and you wouldn’t want to

spend a lot of fussy energy trying to make the window tall enough to read withoutscrolling a lot. This gesture sets things up for you with one quick drag.But this half-screen-width trick is even more useful when you apply it to two win-dows, as shown in Figure 2-2. Now it’s simple to compare two windows’ contents,or to move or copy stuff between them.Figure 2-2:Parking two windowsside by side is aconvenient preparationfor copying informationbetween them or com-paring their contents—and it’s super-easy inWindows 7. Just drag thefirst window against theright or left side of yourscreen; then drag thesecond window againstthe opposite side(shown here in progresson the right). Each onegracefully snaps tothe full height of yourmonitor, but only halfits width.••Make a window the full height of the screen. This trick never got much love from Microsoft’s marketing team, probably because it’s a little harder to describe. But it can be very useful.NostalGia cornerTurn Off All the Snapping and ShakingIt’s cool how Windows now makes a window snap against shaking until you see “Turn off automatic window arrange-the top or side of your screen. Right? I mean, it is better ment.” Click it.than before, right? You’ve just opened the “Make the mouse easier to use”It’s perfectly OK to answer, “I don’t think so. It’s driving me control panel. At the bottom, turn on “Prevent windows fromcrazy. I don’t want my operating system manipulating my being automatically arranged when moved to the edge ofwindows on its own.” the screen,” and then click OK.In that case, you can turn off the snapping and shaking From now on, windows move only when and where youfeatures. Open the Start menu. Type enough of the word move them. (Shaking a window’s title bar doesn’t hide other windows now, either.)chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar 65

It’s not the same as the previous trick; this one doesn’t affect the width of the window. It does, however, make the window exactly as tall as your screen, sort of like half-maximizing it; see Figure 2-3.Tip: There’s a new keyboard shortcut for this new feature: Shift+w+, to create the full-height effect, and(of course) Shift+w+. to restore the window’s original height. To restore the window to its original dimensions, drag its top or bottom edge away from the edge of your screen.Note: These new window-morphing tricks make a good complement to the traditional “Cascade windows,”“Show windows stacked,” and “Show windows side by side” commands that appear when you right-clickan empty spot on the taskbar. Figure 2-3: The before-and- after effect of the full-screen-height feature of Aero Snap. To make this work, grab the bottom edge of your window (left) and drag it down to the bottom edge of your screen. The window snaps only vertically, but main- tains its width and horizontal position (right).Aero ShakeIf you’ve become fond of minimizing windows—and why not?—then you’ll love thisone. If you give your window’s title bar a rapid back-and-forth shake, you minimizeall other windows. The one you shook stays right where it was (Figure 2-4).Tip: Aero Shake makes a very snazzy YouTube demo video, but it’s not actually the easiest way to isolate onewindow. If the window you want to focus on is already the frontmost window, you can just press w+Homekey to achieve the same effect. Press that combo a second time to restore all the minimized windows.Handily enough, you can bring all the hidden windows back again, just by giving thehero window another title-bar shake.

Note: Dialog boxes (for example, boxes with OK and Cancel buttons) aren’t affected by this Aero Shakething—only full-blown windows. Figure 2-4: Top: OK, this is the state of your screen. You want to have a look at your desktop—but oy, what a cluttered mess! Bottom: So you give this window’s title bar a little shake—at least a couple of horizontal or vertical back-and-forths—and boom! All other windows are minimized to the task- bar, so you can see what you’re doing. Give the title bar a second shake to bring the hidden windows back again.The Show Desktop ButtonBelieve it or not, that bizarre little reflective-looking stick of Trident in the lower-rightcorner of your screen—at the right end of your taskbar—is actually a button. It’s theold Show Desktop button (Figure 2-5), now moved to a new location.

It has two functions: ••Point to it without clicking to make all windows completely transparent, leaving behind only their outlines. (Holding down w+Space bar does the same thing.) This technique is primarily useful when (a) you want an easier look at your Win- dows gadgets (page 234), or (b) you want to show people how cool Windows 7 is.Note: This point-without-clicking thing works only if your PC can handle Aero (page 23) and if you’veselected an Aero theme (page 178). ••Click it to make all windows and dialog boxes disappear completely, so you can do some work on your desktop. They’re not minimized—they don’t shrink down into the taskbar—they’re just gone. Click the Show Desktop button a second time to bring them back from invisible-land.Tip: Once again, there’s a less flashy, but more efficient keyboard trick that achieves the same effect. Nexttime you want to minimize all windows, revealing your entire desktop, press w+M (which you can think ofas M for “Minimize all”). Add the Shift key (Shift+w+M) to bring them all back. Figure 2-5: There was a Show Desktop button in previ- ous versions of Windows, but it’s never been a vertical column at the right end of the taskbar before (inset). If you find yourself triggering it acci- dentally, you can turn the feature off. Right-click the taskbar; from the shortcut menu, choose Proper- ties; turn off the “Use Aero Peek to preview the desk- top” checkbox, and click OK.

Windows Flip (Alt+Tab) 69All VersionsIn its day, the concept of overlapping windows on the screen was brilliant, innovative,and extremely effective. In that era before digital cameras, MP3 files, and the Web,managing your windows was easy this way; after all, you had only about three of them.These days, however, managing all the open windows in all your programs can belike herding cats. Off you go, burrowing through the microscopic pop-up menus ofyour taskbar buttons, trying to find the window you want. And heaven help you ifyou need to duck back to the desktop—to find a newly downloaded file, for example,or to eject a disk. You have to fight your way through 50,000 other windows on yourway to the bottom of the “deck.”Windows 7 offers the same window-shuffling tricks that were available in previouseditions: ••Use the taskbar. Clicking a button on the taskbar (page 101) makes the correspond- ing program pop to the front, along with any of its floating toolbars, palettes, and so on. ••Click the window. You can also bring any window forward by clicking any visible part of it. ••Alt+Tab. For years, this keyboard shortcut has offered a quick way to bring a dif- ferent window to the front without using the mouse. If you press Tab while holding down the Alt key, a floating palette displays the icons of all running programs, as shown at the top in Figure 2-6. Each time you press Tab again (still keeping the Alt key down), you highlight the next icon; when you release the keys, the highlighted program jumps to the front, as though in a high-tech game of duck-duck-goose. This feature has been gorgeous-ized, as shown in Figure 2-6; if Aero is working, then all windows turn into invisible outlines except the one you’ve currently tabbed Figure 2-6: Alt+Tab highlights successive icons; add Shift to move backward. (Add the Ctrl key to lock the display, so you don’t have to keep Alt down. Tab to the icon you want; then press the space bar or Enter.) chapter 2: explorer, windows, & the taskbar

to (in Figure 2-6, it’s the Sticky Notes program). Alt+Tab has been renamed, too; it’s now called Windows Flip.Tip: If you just tap Alt+Tab without holding down the Alt key, you get an effect that’s often even more use-ful: You jump back and forth between the last two windows you’ve had open. It’s great when, for example,you’re copying sections of a Web page into a Word document.Windows Flip 3DHome Premium • Professional • Enterprise • UltimateIf your PC can run Aero (page 23), Microsoft has something much slicker for thispurpose: Flip 3D, a sort of holographic alternative to the Alt+Tab trick.The concept is delicious. With the press of a keystroke, Windows shrinks all windowsin all programs so that they all fit on the screen (Figure 2-7), stacked like the explodedview of a deck of cards. You flip through them to find the one you want, and you’rethere. It’s fast, efficient, animated, and a lot of fun.Tip: You even see, among the other 3-D “cards,” a picture of the desktop itself. If you choose it, Windowsminimizes all open windows and takes you to the desktop for quick access to whatever is there. Figure 2-7: These window miniatures aren’t snapshots; they’re “live.” That is, if anything is changing inside a window (a movie is playing, for example), you’ll see it right on the 3-D miniature. By the way: Don’t miss the cool slow-motion trick described in Ap- pendix B..Here’s how you use it, in slow motion. First, press w+Tab. If you keep your thumbon the w key, you see something like Figure 2-7.At this point, you can shuffle through the “deck” of windows using either of thesetechniques:

••Tap the Tab key repeatedly. (Add the Shift key to move backward through the stack.) ••Turn your mouse’s scroll wheel toward you. (Roll it away to move backward.)When the window you want is in front, release the key. The 3-D stack vanishes, andthe lucky window appears before you at full size.Flip 3D Without Holding Down KeysThat Flip 3D thing is very cool, but do you really want to exhaust yourself by keepingyour thumb pressed on that w key? Surely you’ll wind up with the painful conditionknown as Nerd’s Thumb.Fortunately, you can also use Flip 3D without holding down keys. You can trigger itusing these methods: ••Add the Ctrl key to the usual keystroke. That is, press w+Ctrl+Tab. This time, you don’t have to keep any keys pressed. ••Press the Flip 3D key on your keyboard, if it has one.Any of these tactics triggers the 3-D floating-windows effect shown in Figure 2-7. Atthis point, you can use the arrow keys or your mouse’s scroll wheel to flip throughthe open windows without having to hold down any keys. When you see the one youwant, press the Esc key to choose it and bring it to the front.Explorer Window ControlsAll VersionsWhen you’re working at the desktop—that is, opening Explorer folder windows—you’ll find a few additional controls dotting the edges. They’re quite a bit differentfrom the controls of Windows XP and its predecessors.Address BarIn a Web browser, the address bar is where you type the addresses of the Web sitesyou want to visit. In an Explorer window, the address bar is more of a “bread-crumbsbar” (a shoutout to Hansel and Gretel fans). That is, it now shows the path you’vetaken—folders you burrowed through—to arrive where you are now (Figure 2-8).There are three especially cool things about this address bar: ••It’s much easier to read. Those ˘ little ˘ triangles are clearer separators of folder names than the older\slash\notation. And instead of drive letters like C:, you see the drive names.Tip: If the succession of nested folders’ names is too long to fit the window, then a tiny H icon appearsat the left end of the address. Click it to reveal a pop-up menu showing, from last to first, the other foldersyou’ve had to burrow through to get here.(Below the divider line, you see, for your convenience, the names of all the folders on your desktop.)

••It’s clickable. You can click any breadcrumb to open the corresponding folder. For example, if you’re viewing the Casey ˘ Pictures ˘ Halloween folder, you can click the word Pictures to backtrack to the Pictures folder. Figure 2-8: Top: The notation in the address bar, Libraries ˘ Pictures ˘ Egypt slideshow, indicates that you, Casey, opened your Personal folder (page 33); then opened the Pictures library inside; and finally opened the “Egypt slideshow” folder inside that. Bottom: If you press Alt+D, the address bar restores the slash notation of Windows versions gone by so that you can type in a different address. ••You can still edit it. The address bar of old was still a powerful tool, because you could type in a folder address directly (using the slash notation). Actually, you still can. You can “open” the address bar for editing in any of four different ways: (1) Press Alt+D. (2) Click the tiny icon to the left of the address. (3) Click any blank spot. (4) Right-click anywhere in the address; from the shortcut menu, choose Edit Address. In each case, the address bar changes to reveal the old-style slash notation, ready for editing (Figure 2-8, bottom).Tip: After you’ve had a good look, press Esc to restore the ˘ notation.Components of the address barOn top of all that, the address bar houses a few additional doodads that make it easyfor you to jump around on your hard drive (Figure 2-9): ••Back (<), Forward (>). Just as in a Web browser, the Back button opens what- ever window you opened just before this one. Once you’ve used the Back button, you can then use the Forward button to return to the window where you started. Keyboard shortcuts: Alt+<, Alt+>.

••Recent pages list. Click the ≥ to the left of the address bar to see a list of folders you’ve had open recently; it’s like a multilevel Back button.••Recent folders list. Click the ≥ at the right end of the address bar to see a pop-up menu listing addresses you’ve recently typed.Figure 2-9: Contents listsThe address bar is crawling withuseful controls and clickablegizmos. It may take you awhileto appreciate the differencebetween the little ≥ to the left ofthe address bar and the one toits right, though. The left-side oneshows a list of folders you’ve hadopen recently; the right-side oneshows addresses you’ve explicitlytyped (and not passed throughby clicking). Recent typed-in addresses list Recent places list ••Contents list. This one takes some explaining, but for efficiency nuts, it’s a gift from the gods. It turns out that the little ˘ next to each bread crumb (folder name) is actually a pop-up menu. Click it to see what’s in the folder name to its left. How is this useful? Suppose you’re viewing the contents of the USA ˘ Florida ˘ Miami folder, but you decide that the file you’re looking for is actually in the USA ˘ California folder. Do you have to click the Back button, retracing your steps to the USA folder, only to then walk back down a different branch of the folder tree? No, you don’t. You just click the ˘ that’s next to the USA folder’s name and choose California from the list. ••Refresh (r). If you suspect that the window contents aren’t up to date (for ex- ample, that maybe somebody has just dropped something new into it from across the network), click this button, or press F5, to make Windows update the display. ••Search box. Type a search phrase into this box to find what you’re looking for within this window. Page 130 has the details.What to type into the address barWhen you click the tiny folder icon at the left end of the address bar (or press Alt+D),the triangle ˘ notation changes to the slash\notation, meaning that you can edit theaddress. At this point, the address bar is like the little opening in the glass divider that

lets you speak to your New York cab driver; you tell it where you want to go. Here’swhat you can type there (press Enter afterward): ••A Web address. You can leave off the http:// portion. Just type the body of the Web address, such as www.sony.com, into this strip. When you press Enter (or click the > button, called the Go button), Internet Explorer opens to the Web page you specified.Tip: If you press Ctrl+Enter instead of just Enter, you can surround whatever you’ve just typed into theaddress bar with http://www. and .com. See Chapter 11 for even more address shortcuts along these lines. ••A search phrase. If you type some text into this strip that isn’t obviously a Web address, Windows assumes you’re telling it,“Go online and search for this phrase.” From here, it works exactly as though you’ve used the Internet search feature described on page 403. ••A folder name. You can also type one of several important folder names into this strip, such as Computer, Documents, Music, and so on. When you press Enter, that particular folder window opens.Tip: This window has AutoComplete. That is, if you type pi and then press Tab, the address bar will completethe word Pictures for you. (If it guesses wrong, press Tab again.) ••A program or path name. In this regard, the address bar works just like the Run command (page 55).In each case, as soon as you begin to type, a pop-up list of recently visited Web sites,files, or folders appears below the address bar. Windows is trying to save you someNostalGia cornerWould You Like to See the Menu Bar?You may have noticed already that there’s something bar appears, right above the task toolbar. There it will staydramatically different about the menu bar (File, Edit, View, forever, in all Explorer windows, at least until you turn it offand so on): It’s gone. Microsoft decided you’d rather have using the same command.a little extra space to see your icons. Permanently, all windows (alternate method). Here’sFortunately, you can bring it back, in three ways. another trick that achieves the same thing. Open Folder Options. (Do that by typing folder op into the Start menu’sTemporarily. Press the Alt key or the F10 key. Presto! The Search box, or by choosing OrganizeÆ“Folder and searchtraditional menu bar reappears. You even get to see the options” in any Explorer window.)classic one-letter underlines that tell you what letter keysyou can type to operate the menus without the mouse. In the resulting dialog box, click the View tab. Turn on “Always show menus,” and then click OK.Permanently, all windows. On the task toolbar, chooseOrganizeÆLayoutÆ“Menu bar.” The traditional menu

typing. If you see what you’re looking for, click it with the mouse, or press the . keyto highlight the one you want and then press Enter.The Task ToolbarSee the colored strip that appears just below the address bar? That’s the task toolbar.It’s something like a menu bar, in that some of the words on it (like Organize) aremenus. But it’s also like the task pane of Windows XP, in that its buttons are differ-ent in different windows. In a folder that contains pictures, you see buttons here like“Slide show” and “Share with”; in a folder that contains music files, the buttons mightsay “Play all” and “Burn.”Later in this chapter, you’ll meet some of the individual commands in this toolbar.Note: You can’t hide the task toolbar.Optional Window PanesAll VersionsMost Explorer windows have some basic informational stuff across the top: the ad-dress bar and the task toolbar, at the very least.But that’s just the beginning. As shown in Figure 2-10, the Organize menu on the tasktoolbar lets you hide or show as many as four other strips of information. Turningthem all on at once may make your windows feel a bit claustrophobic, but at leastyou’ll know absolutely everything there is to know about your files and folders.The trick is to choose a pane name from the OrganizeÆLayout command, as shownin Figure 2-10. Here are the options you’ll find there.Tip: You can adjust the size of any pane by dragging the dividing line that separates it from the main window.(You know you’ve got the right spot when your cursor turns into a double-headed arrow.)Details PaneThis strip appears at the bottom of the window, and it can be extremely useful. Itreveals all kinds of information about whatever icon you’ve clicked in the main partof the window: its size, date, type, and so on. Some examples: ••For a music file, the Details pane reveals the song’s duration, band and album names, genre, the star rating you’ve provided, and so on. ••For a disk icon, you get statistics about its formatting scheme, capacity, and how much of it is full. ••For a Microsoft Office document, you see when it was created and modified, how many pages it has, who wrote it, and so on. ••If nothing is selected, you get information about the open window itself: namely, how many items are in it.

••If you select several icons at once, this pane shows you the sum of their file sizes—a great feature when you’re burning a CD, for example, and don’t want to exceed the 650 MB limit. You also see the range of dates when they were created and modified.What’s especially intriguing is that you can edit many of these details, as describedon page 87. Figure 2-10: Windows has you surrounded—or at least your Explorer windows. Top: Use the Organize menu to summon or dismiss each of the optional panes that can line a window. A subtle outline appears around the icon for each pane you’ve summoned. Choose the name of a pane once to make it ap- pear and a second time to hide it. Bottom: The taller you make the Details pane, the more information you reveal about the selected item.Navigation pane Details pane Preview panePreview PaneThe Preview pane appears at the right side of the window. That’s right: You can nowhave information strips that wrap all four sides of a window.Anyway, the Preview pane can be handy when you’re examining common file typeslike pictures, text files, RTF files, sounds, and movies. As you click each icon, you seea magnified thumbnail version of what’s actually in that document. As Figure 2-11

demonstrates, a controller lets you play sounds and movies right there in the Explorerwindow, without having to fire up Windows Media Player. (Cool.)Tip: You don’t have to fuss with the OrganizeÆLayout command to make the Preview pane appear anddisappear. Instead, you can just click the Preview icon identified in Figure 2-11. That’s new in Windows 7.Figure 2-11: Hide/show Preview paneIn many windows,the Preview panecan get in the way,because it shrinksthe window spacewithout giving youmuch useful infor-mation. But whenyou’re browsingmovies or soundfiles, it’s awesome; itlets you play the mu-sic or the movie rightin place, right in thewindow, withouthaving to open up aplayback program.Now, the Preview pane isn’t omniscient; right out of the box, Windows can’t display thecontents of oddball document types like, say, sheet-music documents or 3-D model-ing files. But as you install new programs, the Preview pane can get smarter. InstallOffice, for example, and it can display Office files’ contents; install Adobe Acrobat,and it can show you PDF files. Whether or not the Preview pane recognizes a certaindocument type depends on the effort expended by the programmers who wrote itsprogram (that is, whether they wrote preview handlers for their document types).Navigation PaneThe Navigation pane is the helpful folder map at the left side of an Explorer window.It’s come a long way, baby, since the folder hierarchy of Windows XP, and even sincethe Navigation pane of Windows Vista. Today, it’s something like a master map ofyour computer, with a special focus on the places and things you might want to visitmost often.Favorite Links listAt the top of the Navigation pane, there’s a collapsible list of Favorites. These aren’tWeb-browser bookmarks, even though Microsoft uses the same term for those. Instead,

these are places to which you want quick access. Mostly, that means folders or disks, butsaved searches and libraries are eligible, too (both are described later in this chapter).Since this pane will be waiting in every Explorer window you open, taking the timeto install your favorite folders here can save you a lot of repetitive folder-burrowing.One click on a folder name opens the corresponding window. For example, clickthe Pictures icon to view the contents of your Pictures folder in the main part of thewindow (Figure 2-12). Figure 2-12: The Navigation pane makes navigation very quick, because you can jump back and forth between distant corners of your PC with a single click. Folder and disk icons here work just like normal ones. You can drag a document onto a folder icon to file it there, for example.Out of the box, this list offers icons for your desktop and your Downloads folder(which is actually inside your Personal folder), plus a Recent Places link that revealsall the folders and Control Panel items you’ve opened recently.Tip: If you click the word Favorites itself, you open the Favorites window, where the shortcuts for all yourFavorites are stored. Now you have a quick way to add, delete, or rename the items in your favorite linksall at once.The beauty of this parking lot for containers is that it’s so easy to set up with yourfavorite places. For example: ••Remove an icon by dragging it out of the window entirely and onto the Recycle Bin icon; it vanishes from the list. Or right-click it and, from the shortcut menu, choose Remove. (Of course, you haven’t actually removed anything from your PC; you’ve just unhitched its alias from the Navigation pane.)Tip: If you delete one of the starter icons (Desktop, Downloads, Recent Places) and later wish you had itback, no big deal. Right-click the word Favorites; from the shortcut menu, choose “Restore favorite links.” ••Rearrange the icons by dragging them up or down in the list. Release the mouse when the thick black horizontal line lies in the desired new location.Tip: You can also sort this list alphabetically. Right-click the word Favorites; from the shortcut menu, choose“Sort by name.”