You’re a smart guy, figure it out!

Mike Grushin’s thoughts on everything tech-related and more…

Archive for the ‘Windows 7’ Category

Remapping Caps Lock to Context Menu lock (Windows)

Posted by mikeg on March 29, 2013

When was the last time you’ve used the Caps Lock key? I use it all the time but not for the original purpose – I remapped it to the very useful Context Menu key (same as right click). If you are not using Context Menu key yet, you should – saves quite a bit of time. Below are the instructions on how to accomplish this. While this tip is useful for everyone, it is more useful specifically for some of the newer laptop models, including Lenovo T430 and X1, which eliminated the Context Key.

Approach 1

Like most things in Windows, key mapping can be overridden in registry. I created the following reg update which will map Caps Lock key to Context Menu. Due to limitations of wordpress.com hosting I had to give it .pdf extension:

  • download Remap CAPS to Context Menu Key
  • change extension from .pdf to .reg
  • Double click on the file and allow merge into registry
  • Restart your computer

Approach 2

  • Open notepad
  • Copy-paste the following

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]

“Scancode Map”=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,5d,e0,3a,00,00,00,00,00

  • Save as “remap.reg” on Desktop
  • Double click on the file and allow merge into registry
  • Restart your computer

Approach 2

keytweak1 keytweak2

Posted in Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8 | Tagged: , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Windows 7: bring back old Alt+Tab behavior, turn off Aero Peek

Posted by mikeg on December 4, 2009

Update 2011-10-26: I started using VistaSwitcher and I am very happy with it. There are a number of options that you can play with – i prefer “Window” style preview vs default Desktop style with Item Height of 22 and Number of Items 30. Definitely try Alt+` shortcut which cycles windows of current application only

There are a lot of things I like about Window 7, but the new Aero Peek enhancement to Alt+Tab made this shortcut a lot less productive.

You can read the background here and even watch a video here, but essentially it comes down to the following: As you Alt+Tab, if you pause on any of the items, Alt+Tab switcher window hides and now you are seeing Aero Peek preview of selected window. Along with a number of people I found this confusing – while Alt+Tab was a straight forward and productive experience on XP, on Windows 7 I was having major issues finding the window I wanted on the first try

The easiest way to deal with this is to disable Aero Peek:

1) Go to System Properties (right click “Computer” in an explorer window and choose properties)
2) Click “Advanced System Settings” in the left panel
3) You should be on the Advanced Tab, in the performance section, click “Settings…”
4) Uncheck “Enable Aero Peek”
5) While here consider what other items you can live without – every item you uncheck will lead to better performance. Consider choosing “adjust for best performance” if running on netbook or slower pc – that will remove all the fanciness.

This page goes into detail about options that you should consider unchecking

image

Additionally Windows tries to be smart in how it orders items: supposedly with less frequently used apps showing up towards the bottom, but that either doesn’t work or not intuitive enough. Using the following setting you can completely bring back Win XP behavior. The downside is that it looks exactly like Win XP

To restore the XP Alt-Tab functionality simply, lauch regedit, add a DWORD named AltTabSettings to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer and set its value to 1.

From: http://superuser.com/questions/114001/getting-back-the-old-alt-tab-windows-switching-behavior-in-windows-7

Posted in Windows 7 | Tagged: , , | 10 Comments »

Installing Windows 7, first impressions

Posted by mikeg on September 9, 2009

My setup is a 2 year old custom built system with recently purchased drives: Quad 2.4, 4GB Ram, 64GB SSD (super talent) system drive, 2TB data drive

Installation:

  • Was installing on the clean disk (just bought SSD specifically for reinstall)
  • I was able to browse Internet 22 minutes after seeing “starting setup” screen — very impressive
  • Over impression: installation is “pretty” and requires a lot less user involvement — i think you only need to select the following: time zone, home or work network, configure automatic updates
  • Devices/Drivers — no warning flags in device manager. It even includes ATI Radeon X1950 GT support — looks like it is MS’s driver. ATI’s support page that Windows 7 is not supported yet, but users are welcome to install Vista drivers — I decided against it for now as my resolution is recognized and everything looks great.

First Impressions

  • Feels snappy, very different from first impression of Vista
  • I use Paint quite a bit for screen captures and Windows 7 Pain is significantly improved. There is also “snipping tool”, but it lacks rectangle tool to be useful
  • Ships with Sync Center — looks like it is based on PowerToy Sync
  • Screen saver is not enabled by default and selection is pretty much the same from Windows 95 times
  • Backup allows Image Backup as well as “windows chooses which files should be backed up” and “you choose”

Next steps is to install all the soft that I normally use at home. Let’s see how that goes.

Posted in Windows 7 | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 180 other followers