When you install Windows on a new computer, customizing Windows takes a lot of time and effort. One such thing is the taskbar. You may have to redo the procedure of pinning the applications which you frequently use. If you’re planning to move to a new Windows PC or a new user profile on the … Read more
The Pinned items listing which you see at the top of the Start menu is stored in the registry as a REG_BINARY value, and Windows provides no GUI to backup and restore the Pinned items configuration. In case you want to transfer the Pinned items configuration to another user profile, you need to use the … Read more
Windows 7 doesn’t include an option wherein you can disable auto arrange in folders (icons view). Sometime back I created a magical registry hack (FFlags DWORD 43000001) that disabled the "Full Row Select" functionality in folders in Windows 7. I also posted some interesting observations in article How to Disable Full Row Select in Explorer … Read more
If you have a host application that you don’t want to be pinned to the Windows 7 taskbar, you can do so by adding a registry value in the application registration area. By default Windows prevents the following host processes from being pinned to the taskbar. RUNDLL32.EXE MSHTA.EXE DLLHOST.EXE APPLAUNCH.EXE HH.EXE WINHLP32.EXE MMC.EXE … and … Read more
Windows saves the desktop icon layout when the user logs off, and the setting is read during logon. Recently I came across a case where the desktop icons rearrange to their default positions after a restart or logoff/login cycle. This turned out to be a Permissions issue with a registry key, which kept Windows from … Read more
Windows does not have a GUI option to disable the taskbar thumbnail preview feature. I’ve experimented with the registry setting TaskbarNoThumbnail and its equivalent GPO Turn off taskbar thumbnails. That setting seems to apply only to Windows Vista and has no effect in Windows 7 and higher. You can, however, disable the taskbar thumbnail feature … Read more
Windows Vista included some hidden (a.k.a extended) context menu options which are seen only if you use the SHIFT key when right-clicking on a file or folder. These hidden context menu options are retained in Windows 7 as well, with some other options added.
There are many utilities that can find the lost Product Key of your live Windows installation, but what if the computer is completely dead and unbootable? This post introduces some third-party utilities that can get the product keys offline (for Windows, Office, and other products) by loading the SOFTWARE registry hive on a mounted hard … Read more
Many of our articles contain information about modifying the registry. To quickly open the Registry Editor to a selected key from the web browser, you can browser add-ons available for Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer.
When you right-click one of the Public folders, click Properties and select the Location tab, the buttons Restore Default, Move, and Find Target may be missing. As a result, you’re unable to move Public folders such as Public Desktop, Public Documents, Public Music, Public Pictures and Public Videos.
