Windows Tweaks

Sorry for our not so short absence from the cyberspace, The authors got tied up with a little too many things!Hopefully you will forgive us for this!!Any ways our first post for this summer is for all those tired Windows users who are not happy with the way windows 7 is working?We've got plenty of tips, hacks and secrets to keep you busy for a long time, including automatically opening Windows Explorer to a folder of your choice, speeding up taskbar thumbnails, finding hidden desktop themes, forcing User Account Control to act the way you'd like, keeping your Explorer searches secret from others, and more.

Use hidden international wallpapers and themes

You  probably remember that when you open Windows 7 for the very first time, you chose a language and your time zone. According to those choices ,Windows installed custom themes for your particular area.To open up more themes that can be installed...just follow the following steps..: 

1. In the search box in the Start menu, typeC:\Windows\Globalization\MCT and press Enter. (Note: If Windows 7 is installed in a drive other than C:, use that letter instead.)
2. Under this folder, you will find a 5 folders , namely : 

• MCT-AU: Australia 
• MCT-CA: Canada
• MCT-GB: Great Britain
• MCT-US: United States
• MCT-ZA: South Africa

    3.Doube click on the theme file, and enjoy! 

Set a new Windows Explorer launch folder

When you run Windows Explorer, it always opens to the Libraries folder. Dont want to access your Computer via Libraries. Well You have 2 options.....1. Get rid of Library( Watch out for tutorial) OR  you can easily change the target path of the Windows Explorer taskbutton.Just follow the following steps:

1. Right Click on the Windows explorer button on the task bar.
2. Right Click on Windows Explorer..and Click on Properties.
3. Here , in the Target field copy and paste the following , And YOUR DONE!:  

• Computer: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
• My Documents:%windir%\explorer.exe ::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}
• Network: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}

Turn Off Unwanted Applications

Tired of Microsoft applications clouding your options? Well here is the tweak to turn off such unwanted applications and options , provided by Microsoft and trumped up by other third party softwares!

Things like

►Windows Media Player

►Windows DVD maker

►Windows Media Player

►Windows Media Center

►Internet Explorer 8( Which was a relief to me!! ) 

►Windows Search

►Handwriting Recognition (through the Tablet PC Components option)

►Windows Gadget Platform

►Fax and Scan

►XPS Viewer and Services (including the Virtual Print Driver)

Well you can do much more by following these simple enough steps

1. Go to Control Panel → Windows Update

2. On the left side, click on Turn Windows features ON & Off.

3.There Uncheck the options you dont want...Something like this should take place! 

4. And Now you are done!

Set up an Administrative Account

Windows 7, unlinke previous Windows version, does not enable the administrative account at all times.You need to grant access each time a task which requires Special Access or permissions is run.

Well, This fact is Not completely True. Windows 7 does have a Administrative Account which can be activated a all times, but which is disabled due to security reasons.But if you are sure that everything is fine or you are tweaking your laptop/PC and getting tired of clicking yes every time, Well here is what YOU can Do :)

1. Go to start menu and type cmd.
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter.
3. type the following and You are good to go : 

net user administrator /active:yes

NOTE : ADVISABLE ONLY WHEN YOU ARE DOING SOME SPECIAL WORK AND NEED TO CLOSE THOSE ANNOYING POP-UPS. THIS FEATURE SHOULD BE LEFT DISABLED TO REALLY STAY SAFE( THE PEOPLE AT MICROSOFT ARE NOT COMPLETE IDIOTS YOU KNOW :P ) 

When you are done just repeat the above steps and type 'no' instead of yes to disable the administrative account.

Well tha ends our list for today!..Want more? Let us know! We do have much more!