Microsoft Windows 7 Unleashed

Windows Explorer’s view boasts a large number of customization options that you need to
be familiar with. To see these options, you have two choices:

. In Windows Explorer, select Organize, Folder and Search Options (or Tools, Folder
Options if you have the menu bar displayed).

. Click Start, type folder, and then press Enter to select the Folder Options item in
the search results.

Either way, the view options can be found, appropriately enough, on the View tab of the
Folder Options dialog box. The View tab has quite a few options for customizing Windows Explorer.
Here’s a complete list of the various items in the Advanced Settings list:
. Always Show Icons, Never Thumbnails—Activate this check box to prevent
Windows Explorer from displaying file thumbnails. This can speed up the display of
some folders that are heavy on pictures and other “thumbnail-able” file types.

. Always Show Menus—As you saw earlier (see “Returning the Menus to Their
Rightful Place”), you activate this check box to display the menu bar full time in
Windows Explorer.

. Display File Icon on Thumbnails—When this check box is activated, Windows
Explorer superimposes the file type icon on the lower-right corner of each file’s
thumbnail. This is usually a good idea because the extra icon allows you to figure
out the file type at a glance. However, if you find the icon getting in the way of the
thumbnail image, deactivate this setting.

. Display File Size Information in Folder Tips—When this setting is activated and
you hover your mouse pointer over a folder icon, Windows Explorer calculates the
size of the files and subfolders within the folder, and displays the size in a pop-up
banner. This is useful information, but if you find that your system takes too long to
calculate the file size, consider deactivating this setting.

NOTE
If you activate the Display File Size Information in Folder Tips setting, you must also acti-
vate the Show Pop-Up Description for Folder and Desktop Items setting, described later.

. Display the Full Path in the Title Bar—Activate this setting to place the full path-
name of the current folder in the Windows Explorer title bar. The full pathname
includes the drive, the names of the parent folders, and the name of the current
folder. Note that this only applies to Classic folders, which you activate by clicking
the Use Windows Classic Folders option in the General pane.

. Hidden Files and Folders—Windows 7 hides certain types of files by default. This
makes sense for novice users because they could accidentally delete or rename an
important file. However, it’s a pain for more advanced users who might require
access to these files. You can use these options to tell Windows Explorer which files
to display:
Do Not Show Hidden Files, Folders, or Drives—Activate this option to avoid
displaying objects that have the hidden attribute set.
Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives—Activate this option to display the
hidden files.
NOTE
Files are hidden from view by having their Hidden attribute activated. You can work with
this attribute directly by right-clicking a visible file, clicking Properties, and then toggling
the Hidden setting on and off.
Hide Extensions for Known File Types—As you saw earlier (see “Turning On File
Extensions”), you deactivate this setting to display file extensions.
. Hide Protected Operating System Files—This setting is activated by default, and it
tells Windows 7 to hide files that have the System attribute activated. This is not
usually a problem because you rarely have to do anything with the Windows system
files. However, if you do need to see one of these files, deactivate this setting. When
Windows 7 asks whether you’re sure, click Yes.
. Launch Folder Windows in a Separate Process—Activating this setting tells
Windows 7 to create a new thread in memory for each folder you open. This makes
Windows Explorer more stable because a problem with one thread won’t crash the
others. However, this also means that Windows Explorer requires far greater
amounts of system resources and memory. Activate this option only if your system
has plenty of resources and memory.
. Show Drive Letters—If you deactivate this check box, Windows Explorer hides the
drive letters in the Computer folder and in the address bar when you open a drive.
NOTE
If you hide drive letters, Windows Explorer displays drive names such as Local Disk.
This isn’t particularly useful, so consider renaming your drives. Right-click the drive
and then click Rename. Note that you must enter administrator credentials to perform
this operation.
. Show Encrypted or Compressed NTFS Files in Color—When this setting is acti-
vated, Windows Explorer shows the names of encrypted files in a green font and the
names of compressed files in a blue font. This is a useful way to distinguish these
from regular files, but you can deactivate it if you prefer to view all your files in a
single color. Note that this only applies to files on NTFS partitions because only
NTFS supports file encryption and compression.
. Show Pop-Up Description for Folder and Desktop Items—Some icons display a
pop-up banner when you point the mouse at them. For example, the default desktop
icons display a pop-up banner that describes each icon. Use this setting to turn these
pop-ups on and off.
. Show Preview Handlers in Preview Pane—When this check box is activated,
Windows Explorer includes controls for previewing certain types of files in the
Reading pane. For example, when you display a video file in the Reading pane,
Windows Explorer includes playback controls such as Play, Pause, and Stop.
1
. Use Check Boxes to Select Items—Activate this check box to add check boxes beside
each folder and file. You can then select objects by activating their check boxes.
. Use Sharing Wizard—When this check box is activated, Windows 7 uses a simpli-
fied file and folder sharing method called the Sharing Wizard. Power users will want
to disable the Sharing Wizard.

. When Typing into List View—These options determine Windows Explorer’s behav-
ior when you open a folder and begin typing:
Automatically Type into the Search Box—Activate this option to have your typing
appear in the Search box.
Select the Typed Item in the View—Activate this option to jump to the first item
in the folder with a name that begins with the letter you type.

If you want the largest possible screen area for the contents of each folder, you can place Windows Explorer in full-screen mode by pressing F11. (You can also hold down Ctrl and click the Maximize button; if Explorer is already maximized, you first have to click the Restore button.) This mode takes over the entire screen and hides the title bar, menu bar, status bar, address bar, and search bar. To work with the address bar or search bar, move your mouse pointer to the top of the screen. To restore the window, either press F11 again or display the address bar and search bar and then click the Full Screen button (which is to the right of the Search box).

My biggest Windows pet peeves center around tasks that require you to jump through extra hoops that are totally unnecessary. In Windows XP, for example, clicking the Shut Down command on the Start menu doesn’t shut down your computer, at least not right away. Instead, a dialog box shows up and you need to click Shut Down yet again. Dumb!Another unnecessary dialog box that shows up in all versions of Windows is the “Are you sure you want to move this file to the Recycle Bin?” prompt that pops up when you press
Delete. Now you either need to move your hand to the mouse to click Yes, or you can keep your hands on the keyboard by pressing Alt+Y. Either way, it’s an extra step that just slows you down.

One way to avoid this confirmation dialog box is to click and drag the file you want to delete and then drop it on the desktop’s Recycle Bin icon. That’s nice to know, but most of us rarely see our desktops these days, so this method is not very practical.

A much better solution is to configure Recycle Bin to not display the confirmation dialog box at all. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Right-click the desktop’s Recycle Bin icon and then click Properties. Windows 7 displays the Recycle Bin’s property sheet.
2. Click to deactivate the Display Delete Confirmation Dialog check box.
3. Click OK to put the new setting into effect.

Now let’s consider this tweak from the opposite point of view. The reason Windows displays the delete confirmation dialog box by default is to prevent you from accidentally deleting a file. You and I are savvy, knowledgeable users, so we know when we want to delete something, but not everyone falls into this boat. If you have young kids or elderly folks who use Windows, you know that the delete confirmation dialog box is an excellent safeguard for these and other inexperienced users.

In that case, you might be wondering if there’s a way to ensure that a novice user can’t turn off the delete confirmation dialog box. Yes, in fact, there is, although it’s a bit harder to implement because it involves changing a policy setting on the user’s computer. A policy setting is a kind of rule that an administrator applies to a Windows system, and that rule can’t be overridden except by another administrator. To apply a policy setting, you use the Local Group Policy Editor,  “Policing Windows 7 with Group Policies.”

NOTE
The Local Group Policy Editor is available only with Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate versions of Windows 7. If you’re not running one of these versions, I’ll show you how to perform the same tweak using the Registry.

You can use two ways to prevent a user from turning off delete confirmations:

. Disable the Display Delete Confirmation Dialog check box that appears in the
Recycle Bin’s property sheet.

. Disable the Recycle Bin’s Properties command so that the user can’t display the Recycle Bin’s property sheet.

Follow these steps to implement one of these policies:

1. On the other user’s computer, click Start, type gpedit.msc, and then press Enter to select the gpedit program that appears in the search results.

2. Open the User Configuration branch.

3. Open the Administrative Templates branch.

4. Display the property sheet of the policy you want to use, as follows:

. If you want to disable the Display Delete Confirmation Dialog check box, open the Windows Components branch and then click Windows Explorer. Double-click the policy named Display Confirmation Dialog When Deleting Files. If you don’t have access to the Group Policy Editor, open the Registry Editor and create a DWORD setting named ConfirmFileDelete with the value 1 in the following key:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

. If you want to disable the Recycle Bin’s Properties command, click Desktop and then double-click the Remove Properties from the Recycle Bin Context Menu policy. If you don’t have access to the Group Policy Editor, open the Registry Editor and create a DWORD setting named NoPropertiesRecycleBin with the value 1 in the following key:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

NOTE
The Remove Properties from the Recycle Bin Context Menu policy has a misleading name because, when enabled, the policy disables some but, strangely, not all instances of the Recycle Bin’s Properties command. For example, if the user displays the desktop in a folder window and clicks Recycle Bin, the Properties command is disabled in both the Organize menu and the File menu. However, the Properties command is still enabled when you right-click the Recycle Bin icon the desktop, but choosing the command only displays an error message.

5. Click the Enabled option.

6. Click OK to put the policy into effect.