Monday, January 29, 2001		Article

Tips & Tricks for Windows
Part-3

THE world of computers is vast and what we know about it is just a small part. If you explore more, then you will find that it has much more to offer and actually a person does not even utilise one-fourth of its total capacity. Some of the new tips and tricks are mentioned hereunder.

In the earlier days, when DOS was being used prominently, then searching for files and folders was being done with the help of commands like dir *.*/a/d/w/p. This command used to list page wise, all files saved in any of the folders and sub-folders. However, after the introduction of Windows ’95, the usage of DOS reduced and Windows Explorer gained importance. Now, for searching files and folders, people normally use Windows Explorer in place of DOS commands. But it’s a common practice to open individual folder in the Windows Explorer to access files and folders. If you have to open folders individually, then it might be a cumbersome task to explore the whole hard disk. However, if you know the trick for opening the folders, then this task is as simple as pressing a key.

Yes! You can explore the hard disk fully by just pressing a single key. All you have to do is open Windows Explorer, and single click on the drive you would like to explore. Now, on the numeric keyboard, which is on the right side of computer, press the * asterisk key. You will find that all folders and sub-folders in that particular drive will be opened in Explorer. You can simply scroll down and access the folder, which you wish to access. However, if you wish to close these folders and sub-folders, simply double click on the disk drive icon.

This will close all open folders and you will be back to the point where you had started. This is indeed a important tip for accessing folders as we all use Windows Explorer commonly. If you want to browse folders and wish to see their contents, then in this case you will need the next tip. Open Windows Explorer, and then click on the hard disk icon you wish to explore.

On the right side of the Explorer window, you will find all main folder of the harddisk. Hold down the Ctrl key and click on all folders you wish to explore. Now, leave the Ctrl key. You will find that all main folders present in the right side of the Explorer window are selected. Now press Enter. This will open separate Explorer windows for all folders and sub-folders and each such window will display full contents of that folder or subfolder.

Similarly, if you wish to open the files, then you can select files by clicking and dragging a box around them with your mouse. When you release the mouse button, Windows Explorer will select all files in the box. Now again press Enter and all files, which are associated with executable programs, will be opened under their respective software.

This technique is also effective in opening files in specific programs. For example if you wish to open multiple files in MS Word, then the common way of doing is to open them individually, which can prove to be cumbersome, if there are many files. By using a simple trick it becomes a simple task.

Thus to open multiple files, simply click Ctrl + O or click on File > Open. In the open file Window, hold down the Ctrl key and click on as many files you want to open. Now release the Ctrl button and click Open. This will open multiple files in MS Word. Similarly, you can apply this trick in other programs like Excel etc.

Normally, everyone has some data or programs, which he/she would not like to share with others. Even if you work on your own personal computer, there may be situations, when other persons may get to see your work, data or program. Though many people would press Alt + Tab and switch on the other window, in order to protect their work, this will not be able to stop the curiosity of the onlookers. Thus as perfect solution to this problem, you can turn on the screen-saver protected by password. Turning on the screen-saver is normally possible, from the Desktop properties, which would take a long time to activate, taking into considerations the procedure involved in it.

However, if you wish to immediately turn on the screen-saver, select the .SCR file (screen saver file) in the Windows\ System or Windows folder that corresponds to your saver, right-click and drag it to the desktop to create a shortcut. Then double-click the new shortcut to turn on the saver! Here you can also add password protection in order to make it more secure. If anyone comes and disturbs you unwantedly, you can simply double-click on the screen saver shortcut and hide your work by password-protected screen saver.

With the computers getting faster, we the users have also become restless and do not want our computer to take any time in the process of booting or rebooting. It is especially true, when a new program is being installed on the computer. Here, you can use a tip and reduce the rebooting time. You can speed up the process by restarting Windows instead of Complete System. Simply select the option: Restart computer? And hold down the shift key while you click on Yes. This will reduce the reboot time.

Nowadays, computers have become a part of our lives and it’s a matter of fact that an average PC-user spends a lot of time working in front of the computer. Since, the desktop of the computers remains the same all the time, it becomes monotonous and causes fatigue. Though people change their wallpaper quite often, but mostly they are the repetition of old wallpapers.

Since these wallpapers are in the form of still images, thus it adds further to the monotony. Now you can break the monotony and make you desktop come alive as you can add seamless videos to desktop as wallpaper. All you need for making a video as your desktop wallpaper is MS Word with the Internet Assistant add-on installed on computer and a *.AVI (video file), which you would like to use as a desk-top video.

Simply open the MS Word and save the normal word file as an HTML file by using the save as HTML option. Now click on Insert and then click on video from the drop-down menu. Use the browse button to select .avi file, which you would like to save as desktop. After selecting the file, click OK and save the file again. Now you can come out of the MS Word. Now simply right click on the desktop, select Properties and the "Desktop" tab. Now Click on New >Web site and click OK. Browse the file you had created in the MS Word. Now click OK. This will put the video that you created on the desktop. Also, you can change desktop and put other videos on the desktop. If you like films, then you can download the trailers of favourite movies and can use them as your desktop.

— Roli