Yesterday, I posted my first impressions on the Windows 7 Beta. Today, I've bumped into a great informative post by Tim Sneath with his 30 favorite secrets in Windows 7. Much thanks to Tim!
Back From Retirement
I was happy to find among them a way to bring back the old Quick Launch Toolbar! (#13)
I just love the Quick Launch toolbar since it provides easy access the usual programs and folders I use without much clutter on the taskbar. No Shaking Required In my previous post, I also mentioned that the Aero Shake seemed impractical for non-touch/pen input. I guess Microsoft's answer to that is the shortcut: [Win+Home]. (#3) Hide and Go Peek When on keyboard intensive tasks such as writing and coding, I hate to move my right hand and reach for the mouse. Good thing there's [Win+Space] that reveals the Destkop like Aero Peek (#17), and [Win+1], [Win+2], ...[Win+5] for quick access to the first 5 items on the taskbar (#11), and [Win+T] to shift focus to the taskbar (#21). (Note: [Win+T] works on Vista, too) Still More? These are just my favorite "secrets" from what Tim Sneath posted. I can't help but wonder what Microsoft is intentionally hiding from us, especialy after reading this from the Windows 7 Beta 1 review on TechRadar UK:
- Right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars / New Toolbar
- In the folder selection dialog, enter the following string and hit OK: %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
- Turn off the “lock the taskbar” setting, and right-click on the divider. Make sure that “Show text” and “Show title” are disabled and the view is set to “small icons”.
- Use the dividers to rearrange the toolbar ordering to choice, and then lock the taskbar again.
The beta is feature complete; although there are "a couple of things that we're holding back", according to general manager Mike Ybarra. ... "all of the code is in the build, just the discoverability is not." ...Very Interesting...
