How To Fix the 10 Biggest Windows Annoyances

Just thought I'd share this, might be helpful to some ......

Good article from "How-To Geek"(one of my favorite sites) that puts fixes for the most annoying Windows antics on one page. Better than Googling your butt off.


http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/8001/how-to-fix-the-10-biggest-windows-annoyances/



I'll also include this ...... http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/7888/how-to-enable-check-boxes-in-explorer-in-windows-7/

 

Thank you for posting these - I like How to Geek as well.

 

they failed on the last one *smile*. but actually, quite interesting choice of annoyances. not too typical. so, quite nice.

edit: i espencially like the menu cleaners.

 

Yea I agree about the last one ......

What I really didn't know was being able to delete IE8 and so easily on W7. I don't plan on doing so though.

And the second link I posted I had no clue about, nice surprised. I will be using that.

 

yeah the checkbox feature. i know that, as on tablets, it gets enabled by default for easy selecting with a pen. but i was irritated at start, noticing that even a clean os install had those strange checkboxes

 

they don't leave any hints on how to solve the most anoying of them alll .....
the power option jumplist displaying only two power plans .....

 

Now that is the textbook definition of what a tweak page SHOULD be. It clearly explains the how and why and makes it obvious what should be done to reverse the process should the need arise.

Nice stuff.

Gary

 

Aero Snap, Aero Shake, or Aero Peek is something really useful and handy. It's not even annoying. Why would they recommend people to disable it.

 

It can be annoying, especially if your quickly moving multiple windows around.

 

Not that I find any of these to be a problem...
And the checkbox idea (I suppose its not Vista) horrible - I prefer Ctrl + click because it mean I can easily "unselect" too.

 

Nice, that compatibility thing was useful.

 

I also prefer Ctrl on a regular basis. But sometimes when I'm dealing with a huge folder of music, pics, docs, etc .... one slip of forgetting to hold down the Ctrl key or pressing the Shift button by mistake can mess up the good amount of time you spent going though your files. It's happened to me plenty times.


Also you can have it set on check box and still use Ctrl. It's kind of like a hybrid feature. It works like Ctrl if you click the folder and checkbox works when you click on the checkbox to the left. Checkbox doesn't cancel out normal Ctrl usage.

 

I suppose, yes it does happen, but not that often.

 

you can easily unselect with a checkbox, too. and yes, it exists in vista, too (there are not really much win7 features out there ).

and it makes perfect sence in environments where there isn't a ctrl button around. mouse-only environments. touchscreen environments. tablet environments.

and that's why it's enabled there.

 

I suppose you have a point with the touchscreen - but then typing on a touchscreen... horrible... (unless you stab it with a pen... - which is slow...)

 

You can unselect with the check boxes too. After I turned that option on back in Vista, I really like it a lot.

Gary

 

but selecting files is great on a touchscreen.. i want this, and that, and this one, oh no, that one etc...

just don't be that closed-minded. the checkboxes don't take away any normal feature. but they add something: the ability to select/deselect without holding control.

so all they are is usability gain trough having another option (and you can disable and enable it at will).

stop moaning about it.

 

You know, that part of the problem why Vista is so huge over XP. (And yes, the pure install is huge - doesn't mean worse - I like Vista)

They added this feature, and that feature - if we lived with something for more than 10 years and people have grown used to it... keep it.

And yes, then we'd still be using horse drawn carts (hey, look at it this way, politicians couldn't moan about global warming then - no political debate please)

I just don't like change - change what's bad, keep what's good and don't add ballast.

 

well, change whats bad: it's bad that you can't select a collection of random files in a folder just with your mouse.

they changed it for the good. and no, that's not the reason vista is big. the reason it's big is for the biggest part, because of the increased driver pool. and there, mostly printer drivers. they documented what eats how much. drivers are the biggest part.

you are just paranoid about change. it's an added feature that helps some AND DOES NOT TAKE AWAY ANYTHING FOR ANYONE WHO DOESN'T USE IT.

so really, det, stop ing about it. it's a very very bad thing from you. i know you have issues with changes, but this time, you have no reason for it.

 

There's a section about password.
I am using Windows 7 x64 bitlocker (with TPM) and Windows password. Is this safe or I am fooling myself?
Can someone shine some light on this for me?
Thank you much in advance.

 

Safe - against what?

Against someone just trying to use your computer, the average hacker - yes.

The professional - no - they'll always find a way.

 

I don't think there is really anything annoying at all about Windows 7 except UAC, which I disabled. But I liked the article, thanks.

 

Angelic: *sigh*

(see this)

it guarantees that no one can pull out the hdd and mess with the data to f.e. get access to the password file. so it is quite save (offline attacks not possible).

depending on the password, online attacks (with an up and running system) are actually quite hard. so it should be rather save.

 

Just in case if I lose my laptop (or stolen), I don't want anyone accessing my data.
Thanks for your replies.

 

it should help, then. there are other tools you could have (even integrated in the bios as i've had to learn) that could make your laptop talk back home, and be able to kill it remotely if lost or stolen.

 

Sigh. . . If this were only true, then most people would not have a problem with UAC. But, it ISN'T true. Perhaps UAC was not intended to interfere with the most mundane of functions, but it frequently DOES. When, for example, you can't go into Windows Explorer and make changes to your own personal files because UAC does not allow it (which has happened to me often enough), then that is too intrusive and not acceptable.

 

In that case the rights management on your drive has become messed up - most likely a drive coming from XP?

Easy to fix.

 

if that would be true it would happen to me, too. which it doesn't. shows you messed something else up. but it's typical: blame windows for messing up own stuff.



what i'm shocked with is, how many people just turn off uac instead of thinking "uh crap, my system has to be messed up somehow, i want to FIX THE PROBLEM".

it's like "oh, my lamp 'no gas' is glowing in my car. shoot the lamp, shoot the lamp!! else i could run out of gas!!"

 

Actually, that is partially true Dave.

I'm getting UAC warnings on one of my external HDDs... some files on there date back to XP...

And that's where this is a common problem I believe - files coming from XP, now used in Vista throwing up UAC warnings.

 

i know. i'm just saying it's not a fault of the uac technology, but some interaction with something non-standard: old xp stuff.

 

Can you go into detail? There is always a way to get around uac without actually having to turn it off. If you really need to make changes to a file that UAC denies you, there's a "take ownership" registry tweak.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...ership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/

 

that can be done without using that take ownership tweak. and it would be useful for everyone to learn that. it's the root permission system of windows, and ntfs. people (espencially geeks) should know that like it's their own blood. it gives one so much power.

 

I know, but I like having it on the right-click context menu.

 

i don't. as "taking ownership" is often the too-hard fix. fixing the actual structure and hierarchy of the rights-system is better. for example, if you have a hdd formatted on xp, all you need to do is to set, on the root, "all users" to full access (as it would be, in a vista/win7 formatted disk).

no need to take ownership, or something. it's best to leave ownership what ever it was. at least in a corporate environment, you learn that fast

 

No, that is not correct. Besides, I found UAC to be extrememly annoying. So I disabled it. Get over it.

Actually, I'll give the registry tweak a try. I would love to be able to use UAC. Then I would find W7 to be perfect.

 

If UAC is extremely annoying then you are doing something wrong

(And Amy, Dave converted me to UAC it really isn't intrusive)

 

I have a program called Rivatuner that always makes a notification pop up. I would use UAC if there was a way to make it remember programs I have already allowed. THAT is what I hate about UAC. The registry tweak didn't help.

 

Why do you need that all the time?
And this obviously means it interferes with System files.

Next point:
There are ways to disable it for specific programmes Ask Dave about it

 

If I could disable it for certain programs, I would use it in a heartbeat.

 

There are two ways:
One is using a Norton tool

the other is using the OS, and Davepermen can tell you more about that

 

You can through the task scheduler.
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=730
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=616&tag=rbxccnbtr1

 

hy angelic hope by now you found the solution to your problem. else i gladly help with further detail on wlm.

and a happy new year to you, to darth bane, and everyone else reading this message



i'm considering coding a tiny app that creates such tasks for autostarting apps, and for creating shortcuts to normal apps in the startmenu.