Willus.com Home   |   Archive   |   About  

Willus.com's Windows 7 (and 10) Tips
Windows 7 (and 10) fixes that I've found useful

  
  HP Photosmart P1000 Compatible Driver
HP Deskjet 970CSE. You have to do a manual driver install.

Cleaning up your C: Drive
Start button -> Then type Disk Cleanup into the search box.

Removing Shutdown / Sleep Buttons From Start Menu
This is important for me when I'm running a job that I don't want interrupted by other people that might use the same computer:
1. How-to Geek version (run gpedit.msc, go to Local Computer Policy, User Config, Admin Templates, Start Menu and Taskbar and double-click "Remove and prevent access to the Shut Down...").
2. MintyWhite.com version.

Disabling AutoPlay
From ComputerPerformance.co.uk.

Upgrading to AHCI
When I first configured my PC, the BIOS defaulted to legacy SATA mode, which is more compatible with older software, but doesn't take advantage of the newer AHCI SATA interface. Here's the Microsoft link on how to configure Windows 7 so you can switch your BIOS to AHCI mode. Switching to AHCI improved my HDD Windows Experience Index from 7.3 to 7.7.

Internal Drives Mis-labeled as Removable/Ejectable Drives
After switching to AHCI, all of my SATA internal drives showed up as ejectable drives, like you get when you plug in an external USB drive. I didn't like seeing the drive disconnect icon in my tray area when I had no USB drives connected. Here is the fix for Windows 7.
Windows 8/Windows 10 fix: The above doesn't work in Windows 10, but try this fix. A bit more involved, but it works.

Hiding Card Reader Drives with No Media
See this SevenForums.com tutorial, though I think the registry editing is mistaken. In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, make a DWORD named HideDrivesWithNoMedia and set to one, not zero.

Which Disk is \Device\Harddisk2\DR2 (for example)?
The block device \Device\Harddisk2\DR2, based on my experience with Windows 7, shows up as "Disk 2" in the Disk Management program (Right-click "Computer", Manage, Disk Management). There is also a program, dd.exe, which will list the Windows block devices when run with the --list option.

Setting the Firefox Cache Folder
Yeah, I know it's not a Win 7 tip, but I needed to know how to get Firefox to use a specified folder (e.g. a RAM drive) for all of its cache files. Answer:
     1. Type about:config into the location bar.
     2. Type browser.cache.disk into the filter box.
     3. If it doesn't exist, enter a new preference string (right-click in the blank area on the page and go to "New", then "string").
         3a. Preference name: browser.cache.disk.parent_directory
         3b. String value: (name of desired cache folder)

Resetting your Searches
Are your Windows or MS Outlook searches incomplete or messed up? Try resetting your search database and re-indexing your data.

Turning off Aero Snap
Aero snap is where the windows snap to the edges of the screen, which I hate, because I often like to push my windows so that they are only partially showing on the screen.
hkey_current_user\control panel\desktop\WindowArrangementActive (set to 0)

Taskbar Preview Delay Time
This adjusts how long it takes before previews of the icons on the task bar pop up.
hkey_current_user\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\explore\advanced\ExtendedUIHoverTime (DWORD value in ms)

Getting Outlook 2007's "Out-of-Office auto-replies are on" Reminder to be More Persistent
If you have turned on your out-of-office auto-response in Outlook 2007, the only warning it gives you when you return is a little pop-up balloon that quickly disappears and often gets missed. There is a registry setting that will make this balloon stay up as long as you want-- effectively until you manually close it, making it much more effective at getting you to turn off your out-of-office response:
Set HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\OOF\OOFBalloonTimeout as a REG_DWORD to the stay-up time in milliseconds. E.g. 86,400,000 will keep it up for one day (or until you close it manually).

Prevent Windows 10 from allowing apps to block shutdown
   These are effective answers I've found:
   1. From muchtall.com:
      Summary: Run the Group Policy editor gpedit.msc and check under Computer Configuration -> Adiminstrative Templtes -> System -> Shutdown Options -> Turn off automatic termination of applications that block or cancel shutdown.
   2. Use regedit to change this:
      [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System]
      "AllowBlockingAppsAtShutdown"=dword:00000001
   3. Create a batch file that runs "shutdown /f".


 

This page last modified
Sunday, 06-Jun-2021 17:18:21 MDT