Windows Tips: Customize Taskbar, Add Passwords to Folders, Zip Files

If you've lately made the make a motion from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7, one big change you've believably detected is the way the operating system displays icons in its taskbar (the row along the bottom of the screen).

Specifically, it shows icons only, without any text labels characteristic what they are. This screenshot is what you typically check:

Although some icons are bad person-explanatory (like those for Internet IE, Microsoft Word, etc.), I like to have the accompanying labels–at least for programs that are currently spurting. Fortunately, information technology's an easy matter to pinch this option in Windows 7. Here's how:

Right-get through an open area of the taskbar, then select Properties.
In the Taskbar tab, find the Taskbar buttons pull-down menu.
Choose Combine when taskbar is full operating theater Never meld, then click OK.

The 1st selection, which is what I use, keeps the text labels visible until the taskbar gets so jam-packed as to make that impractical, at which point Windows bequeath ditch the labels and merge multiple instances of running program (like, say, a bunch of Firefox Windows) onto a single taskbar image.

Hera's an "after" shot so you can see the taskbar with text labels:

Watchword-Protect a Folder in Windows 7

Reader Ash wants to know if there's a room to countersign-protect individual folders in Windows 7:

"I experience a PC and I am the main drug user of it 95 percent of the time. As such, I don't deliver it request a password from me when IT boots, and seaport't apparatus any user accounts. On occasion, other people will use this PC, just there are a couple of documents and ain files I'd like-minded to keep hidden with a password."

Seems logical to me. Regrettably, Windows lacks any kind of file in- or folder-specific protections. You same you wanted to accomplish this without third-party software, but I'm afraid that's the only real pick. (With multiple user accounts, IT's realizable to prevent hand-picked users from accessing designated folders–simply that's a hassle to put up. Besides, you said yourself you don't have triple accounts.)

If you assume't want to spend any money, consider going the zip route. Most zip managers, including popular freebie 7-ZIP, give you the option to password-protect any zipped files and folders. Yes, you have to jump finished the hoops of compression and decompression folders, just perhaps that's non a big enchilada for stuff you access infrequently.

No good? Then drop a few bucks on a utility like Leaflet Whorl, which is fashioned solely for the purpose of, easily, locking folders. Information technology's a little pricey at $40, so you might also want to cheque Iobit's similar Invulnerable Pamphlet, which costs half as much.

Of course, entirely these options overlook incomparable of my deary methods: misdirection. You could create a folder with the world's most boring name–Widget Sales Projections 2007, for object lesson–and snuggle it a few folders bass where no unrivalled would ever find it. For somebody in your office, with a computer that's used by you 95 percent of the metre, that might be the simplest and most effective solution.

Pack together Files in Windows

Need to send someone a big batch of files? Don't attach one after another after other to your electronic mail. Instead, compress the files into extraordinary littler, easier-to-manage file. In other actor's line, zip them.

The Zip charge format has long been used to compress and archive information. Suppose you have, say, 50 Intelligence documents that sustain a combined size of 5MB. By zipping them, you fetch up with a single file that's much littler–maybe 1MB or even 500KB. Imagine stuffing totally your clothes into a small, lightweight grip–that's what densification does. Fifty-fifty healthier, when you open the bag, everything comes out purse-free.

If you'Ra already using a utility like PKZip or WinZip to compress and decompress files, there's fiddling point in changing. Simply did you know Windows has zip capabilities improved right in? Hither's how to apply them connected the fly, using the aforementioned e-chain armour as an example:

Compose your e-mail subject matter, then click Attach File (or whatever is your get off customer's equivalent).
Using the file picker that appears, find the files you want to attach. (They all necessitate to be in the same folder.)
Select all the files you want to zilch. (To prize multiple files at a clip, arrest out the Ctrl central while clicking each one in turn.)
Right-click any of the selected files, then choose Send to, Compressed (zipped) folder.
Windows volition quickly compress the files and make over a new, zipped Indian file that's immediately ready to be renamed (if necessary–if not, just press Embark).
Attach your new created Zip lodge to the e-mail.

That's altogether there is to it!

If you've got a fuss that needs solving, send information technology my way. I can't promise a reaction, but I'll definitely read every e-mail I bugger off–and do my best to address at least some of them in the PCWorld Hassle-Free PC web log . My 411: hasslefree@pcworld.com . You force out as wel silicongn up to rich person the Hassle-Free Microcomputer newsletter e-mailed to you apiece week .

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/481179/hasslefreepc-2.html

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