Complete Solution

How to Inactive or Turn Off and Enable the Startup Tone/Sound in Windows 7? I have always hated the start up sound on Windows XP and also now on Windows 7, even though on Win 7 isn’t that annoying as is on XP, in general, all the sounds are more subtle and pleasant. But anyway, when sometimes I work at night, I try to be as quiet as I can so I would not disturb anyone’s sleep, so I’m very careful. I turn on on my PC and the start up sound ruins everything. That loud stupid logon sound echoes across the other rooms, disturbing the sleep of my family and making me nervous! So I have disabled the startup sound completely and this is how you do it:



Open Start Menu and go to Control Panel.







Click on Hardware and Sound.







Under Sound Options, click on Change System Sounds.







From the Sounds Settings window, uncheck Play Window Startup sound as shown in the screenshot below and click Apply than OK.







You are done.



If you want to enable it again, follow the same steps. Then check the Windows Startup Sound option.



To get to the sound settings without clicking through the UIa, click Start and type sound options then click Enter.







Then click the Sounds tab and uncheck Play Windows Startup Sound and click OK.

How to Use Taskbar Meters to Monitor CPU, Memory, and Disk IO In Windows Seven? It can be annoying having to launch Task Manager or Resource Monitor every time you just need to monitor the usage of the machine’s CPU or Memory. Today we take a look at a few cool apps that live in the Taskbar and let you easily monitor resource usage.



Taskbar Meters

These handy monitors show up in your Taskbar and show the amount of resources being used. There are three meters for CPU utilization, Memory usage, and Disk IO.







You can configure the Update frequency and percentage of Red and Yellow states for each monitor. The CPU Meter shows the amount of processing power your computing tasks are taking up.







Memory Meter shows the amount of memory that is being used by the apps you’re running.







Disk I/O Meter measures the transfer of data from your hard drive to and from applications.







Right-click on a meter to get fast access to Task Manager and Resource Monitor. That allows you to get more detail on what’s taking up so many resources, and let’s kill the task or process.







Taskbar Meters are simple to use and don’t require installation, so you can carry them around on your flash drive to monitor different computers. The meters come in a zipped file and you can run them individually or together. They worked successfully on 32 & 64-bit versions of Windows 7. If you need a quick and easy way to keep track of these three vital system components, Task Meters will work great.



Download Taskbar Meters from CodePlex

How to Drag Files to the Taskbar for Opening Them in Windows 7? I don’t know about you, but I’ve always dropped files directly on the quick launch buttons to quickly and easily open them in the application the shortcut points to, but now Windows 7 doesn’t let you do that—by default, at least.



When you try and drag a file onto a taskbar button in Windows 7, you’ll be prompted to “Pin to Application”, instead of opening the file.







If you right-click the taskbar button, you’ll see that now that file has been pinned there.







What you need to do instead, is hold down the Shift key while dragging the file to the taskbar button, and it will change to “Open with Application” instead.







It’s one of those simple tips that can seriously save you some time.

How to Hide, Delete, Remove or Destroy the Recycle Bin Icon in Windows 7 or Vista Oparating System? I’ve never found the recycle bin on the desktop very useful, so I almost always disable it as one of the first things that I do. Windows 7 or Vista has an even simpler way to hide the icon than XP does, but why couldn’t they have disabled it by default?



Deleting in Vista

Just right-click on the icon and select delete from the menu. It’s as simple as that.







Deleting from Windows 7

Right-click on the desktop, choose Personalize, then choose Desktop Icon settings on the left-hand side.







Then simply remove the check from the box:







Note that you can also configure this from the Desktop Icon Settings in Personalization.



If you’ve removed or lost system icons on your desktop, you can restore them easily.

How to Create or Make a Restore Point for Windows Seven or Vista System Restore? If you are thinking of installing an application but aren’t quite sure what it’s going to do to your computer, I would absolutely recommend creating a restore point before you install that application, and here are the steps to do so. Note that most application installs automatically create a restore point, but you can do this if you are really worried.



Open up the Start Menu and right-click on “Computer”, and then select “Properties”.







This will take you into the System area of Control Panel. Click on the “System Protection” link on the left hand side.







Now select the “System Protection” tab to get to the System Restore section.







Click the “Create” button to create a new restore point. You’ll be prompted for a name, and you might want to give it a useful name that you’ll be able to easily identify later.







Click the Create button, and then the system will create the restore point.







When it’s all finished, you’ll get a message saying it’s completed successfully.

How Often Change System Restore Creates a Restore Points In Windows Seven Or Vista System?System Restore is one of the better features in Windows 7 and Vista.but it’s like a black box, nobody knows how it really works, or when it’s doing things. So how do you change when it creates snapshots?



Windows 7 or Vista uses the built-in Task Scheduler to kick off most maintenance tasks, instead of requiring something to be running all the time. By going into Task Scheduler we can actually change the schedule of main system tasks, including System Restore.



Change Schedule for Automatic System Restore Points

Type in “Task Scheduler” into the start menu search box, or browse through the start menu’s Administrative Tools section.



Once you’ve got Task Scheduler open, look under Microsoft >> Windows >> SystemRestore on the left-hand pane.







Now you’ll see a single item in the middle pane that says “SR Queued Multiple triggers defined”. Double-click on that item to change the details.







The Triggers tab is the first place you’ll want to look, and you’ll notice that by default System Restore is set to run at startup(more on that below), and at midnight every day.



To change the trigger, click on one of the items and then Edit to change the trigger.







The Edit Trigger dialog allows you to change all sorts of settings, the first one to notice is that the “At startup” task is set to also “Delay task for 30 minutes”, meaning that the system restore task won’t happen during boot.







If you look at the other trigger that is scheduled for midnight, you can choose the time of day that it runs… midnight might not be the best time for you, so you can change it to some other time if you’d like, or even schedule it to run weekly instead of daily.







The Conditions tab allows you to tell the task that even though it’s set to start at a particular time, it still shouldn’t start unless the computer is idle, or not to run on battery power.

Note that this overrides anything set in the Triggers section, so even though by default Vista schedules System Restore for 30 minutes after startup, it won’t kick in if you are using the computer.









One of the more interesting settings here is the option to “Stop if the computer ceases to be idle”, which means that even though System Restore might kick off after 10 minutes of idle time, it will stop if you come back to the computer. It’s also interesting to note that according to these settings, a computer only used on battery power will never have a restore point created… interesting.





The History tab will show every time the task has run in the past, and what the output was.







I wouldn’t recommend changing the default settings too much, because system restore is a very useful tool. You should also keep in mind that installing software usually automatically triggers a restore point, or you can always create a restore point manually.

How to Disable or Inactive All of Annoying Windows Logon Warning Message in Windows Home Server? There’s nothing more annoying to me than getting a new laptop from work and having to click through the logon warning message set by the IT department. It usually goes something like “Warning: You are logging onto our computer system. We own your soul.”



Removing this message isn’t all that difficult, but you will need administrator access to your system.







Manual Registry Method

Open up regedit.exe through the run box, and then browse down to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon







On the right-hand side, find the keys for LegalNoticeCaption and LegalNoticeText and either set both values to blank or just delete them.



Note: If the administrator has set these values through group policy, I believe they will be re-applied automatically by the system at some point. Either way, the group policy key that contains the same values is here:



HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system



I realize there are some irritating legal reasons for having this message, but it really gets old after a while.

How to Disable or Inactive Administrator Logon Warning Message in Windows Home Server?Windows is always trying to save you from yourself and with Windows Home Server it is no exception. Anytime you log on as the administrator, you receive an annoying caution message, but we can disable this annoying message from coming up every time you log on to your server.



Below is an example of the logon warning message which pops up inside Internet Explorer.







To disable it click on Start >> Run >> type in msconfig and press enter or click OK.







In the System Configuration Utility click the Startup tab and uncheck the box next to Logon Warning. Click Apply and OK.







Restart your server and you will no longer see the logon warning!

How to View or Display Start Menu Items in Expanded View in Windows Seven? Rather than opening Control Panel or other locations from the Start Menu and hunting for what you need, you might find it easier to access them in expanded view from the Start Menu. Here we’ll show you a quick tip to get it done.



Expanded View



In this example we’ll show you the steps for Control Panel but this will work with the other items on the Start Menu as well.



To show Control Panel items in Expanded View in Windows 7 right-click the taskbar and select Properties.







Click the Start Menu tab then the Customize button.







From the list under Control Panel select Display as a menu then click OK.







That’s it! Now when you hover the mouse pointer over Control Panel on the Start Menu, all of the items are displayed as a list in expanded view.







Maybe you want to show your pictures in expanded view…just follow the same steps as above by selecting Display as a menu.







Or here is an example of Games in expanded view from the Start Menu.







This will work with Computer, Control Panel, Documents, Downloads, Games, Music, Personal folder, Pictures, Recorded TV, and Videos from the Start Menu. If you’re looking for an easier way to access some of the items on the Start Menu, this tip should help you out.

How to Disable/Inactive "Your computer might be at risk" Popup in Windows XP SP2? Since upgrading to XP SP2 a long time ago, I constantly get nagged by a popup message that tells me my computer might be at risk because I don’t have an antivirus software installed. Here’s how to turn off that annoying message.



Note: You should probably have antivirus software installed.







You will want to open up your control panel, and then open the Security Center icon.



On the left hand side of the security center window, you will see a resources section. Click the bottom link, “Change the way Security Center alerts me”.







You can choose which alert to disable here. Since I don’t have antivirus software, I unchecked the bottom checkbox.







No more annoying popups!

Windows 7 has a great new taskbar but not everyone is a fan of the jump lists. They keep track of what files you open and present links your recent files so you can jump to them. To protect your privacy or just clean up the taskbar you can disable the new jump lists. Here is what the taskbar looks like with jump lists disabled:



1. Right-click on the Taskbar. Select properties.



2. Click on the Start Menu tab and uncheck "Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar".







3. Click Ok and now the jump list will not be visible. The screen shot below shows that Internet Explorer no longer shows the browser history after disabling the Jump List.







You are done.

How to Create a Desktop Shortcut to Lock Your Computer Screen in Windows 7 or Vista? The quickest way to lock your computer screen is to just use the Win+L keyboard shortcut. Some people prefer to use the mouse to lock the workstation, however, or would just like to have both options.



Here’s how to easily create a shortcut to lock Windows 7, Vista, or even Windows XP as well.



Right-click wherever you want to create the shortcut, choose New, and then Shortcut.







Enter the following text into the shortcut textbox. Note that the screen will look different on Windows XP, but the same text should work.



rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation







Enter a name for the shortcut, and then click Finish. That’s about all there is to it.



You have successfully created a shortcut to lock your workstation. Just click on the shortcut whenever you want to lock the computer screen.

How to Hide or Show Desktop Icon Text or Display icons without labels in Windows Seven or Vista? Unfortunately, Windows does not allow deleting the label directly. The operating system rejects empty strings or labels consisting space characters by displaying the message ‘ Enter a file name’ . However, the following trick will help you.



To Hide the Icon Text



1. Right-click on the desired icon and select the context command ‘Rename’ or simply press F2.







2. Keep the key Alt pressed and enter the number combination ’0160′ on the numeric pad of the keyboard.



NOTE: You must use the number keypad to the right. The number keys above the letters will not work for this.





3. Let go of the Alt key and confirm it by pressing Enter. The label now disappears.







4. Your icon will now look like this with no text.







To Show Icon Text Again



1. Right-click on the desired icon and select the context command ‘Rename’ or simply press F2.







2. Type in a name for the icon and press Enter.







3. Your icon should now have the text back.