Windows 7 TIPS

Restoring Gadgets After Disabling User Account Control

If you have changed your User Account Control settings to Never notify, by default Gadgets will not be displayed on the desktop.

Fortunately a simple registry change will solve the problem

1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Sidebar \ Settings
3. Right-click on the right panel and create a new DWORD (32-Bit) Value named AllowElevatedProcess.
4. Double click on this and give it a value of 1

New Calculator Functionality

The new Windows Calculator, while it has a much nicer interface, also has greater functionality.

There are now 4 options for:

• Standard
• Scientific
• Programmer
• Statistics
• Unit Conversions
• Date Calculation
• Mortgage
• Vehicle Leasing
• Fuel Economy 

Hide Empty Drives

If you want to have empty drives (like empty multiple-card reader drives), show up grayed out in the Windows Explorer

1. Go Tools / Folder Options / View tab
2. Check Hide empty drives in the Computer folder

Now you  can more easily determine which drives actually have something on them.

Sticky Notes

You can now leave sticky notes as reminders directly on your desktop.

1. Click on the Start logo
2. Start typing in stick and you will likely see Sticky Notes showing.
3. When it is highlighted, press the Enter key
4. You will now have a sticky note on the desktop and you can type in whatever you like
5. Right click and you can change the color
6. Click on the + to create a new note
7. Click on the X to delete the note (this won't show again when the program is restarted)
8. Press Alt-F4 to close a note you want to keep
9. There is no need to save the note. Even after you close it, when you open the program again, the same note will be there.