Windows Tools, Help & Guides

Part 1 of this guide will show you how to change the background in Windows Media Player 12 (WMP12) using ‘7’ backgrounds provided by MS.

It’s a simple procedure that involves editing the registry, however, see here before proceeding.

For those that aren’t keen on editing the registry, you can download this zip file which includes all the entries from background ‘0’ to ‘6’.  Just double-click the one you want to try, restart WMP12 and see the changes!

For those that like to do things the manual way, we’ll start with;

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Microsoft Office 2010 really is starting to look a very good upgrade from the 2007 version.

One particular feature I’ve found extremely handy is the ability to save documents straight to Windows Live SkyDrive.

You’ll of course need a Windows Live account.  Go here for an account if you haven’t already got one.  Also see here for another guide involving Windows Live SkyDrive.

You can currently do this with new Word, Powerpoint & Excel documents that haven’t been saved yet or you can upload a previously saved document.

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Aero Peek is a cool new feature in Windows 7 that gives you X-Ray vision! By hovering the mouse over the small bar on the right hand side of the taskbar, you can temporarily see behind any open windows, to the desktop. Aero Peek is also used when the Alt+Tab combination on the keyboard is used & also when you hover your mouse over a Taskbar preview. By default, the delay from hovering the mouse on the bar on the Taskbar to showing the desktop is 1 second. This guide will show you how to speed things up (or slow it down).

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By default in Windows 7, there’s a 400ms delay between you hovering your mouse over an open program’s Taskbar icon, and a preview of the open program being shown.

This guide will show you how to shorten that delay.

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If you spend a lot of time in Gmail, Google Reader or Hotmail reading email and feeds, or if you have a Facebook addiction.

Then Prism is a great app for you!

Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.

I only came across this last week and find it invaluable already!

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This guide will show you how to change the start orb in Windows 7, for the sake of simplicity and article length, i’ll only be showing how to change the orb with the taskbar along the bottom. (Start Orb bottom left).

If you have Photoshop or GIMP, then you can go ahead and even make your own.

Note: You need to have access to the admin account in order to complete this guide.

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