The Cleverest Geeky Windows Tricks Everyone Should Know
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Anyone can sit down at a Windows PC and get along fine, but with the right tips and tricks, you can get around much faster. Here's a handful of clever tricks to boost your Windows skills (and show off to friends).
You might recognize a few of these tips (we've covered most of them here before), but chances are good there's something new in the list for just about everybody. And if you know all of them already? Pat yourself on the back for your masterful geek skills.
(Note: This list far from exhausts Windows' full slate of shortcuts and tricks; instead, I aimed for lesser-known tips. To round out your Windows 7 master class, be sure to check out ourcomplete guide to Windows 7, the master list of Windows 7 shortcuts, and the power user's guide to Windows 7.)
Use the Secret Send To Menu Items
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When you right-click on any file or folder, you can use the Send To menu to create a zipped version, or send the file to an application, but in Windows 7 there are hidden items on the Send To menu that can't be seen by default.
All you have to do is hold down the Shift key, then right-click on a file and access the Send To folder—you'll see a whole bunch of new items in the list, like special folders, and even an item for each one of your drives. It's a really useful tip for quickly sending a file to the flash drive you just plugged into the PC, without having to do anything else.
Open a Command Prompt from Any Folder
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This is one of those tips that most real geeks already know, but chances are there's somebody reading this that doesn't know about it—if you hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on any folder, including the desktop background, you'll see a new item for "Open command window here", that will open a command prompt with that folder as the default path.
This tip only works in Windows 7 or Vista, for Windows XP you'll need to use a registry hack to accomplish the same thing. We can't mention this tip without telling you how to do the opposite—you can open a file browser from your current command prompt directory as well.
Hide Secret Data Inside Any File
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There's any number of great ways to hide data from prying eyes—TrueCrypt, anyone? But if you want to simply hide some text data inside a secret "compartment", you can abuse the Alternate Data Streams feature in the underlying NTFS file system. All you have to do is open up a command prompt, and then use a command similar to this:
notepad SomeFile.txt:SecretWordHere.txt
The special filename with the colon and second filename tells NTFS to actually store the data in an alternate stream, instead of the regular file. You can put whatever you want into the file, and nobody will be able to access it unless they know the command to retrieve it.
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