Ask Leo!: Windows User Interface

How do I disable live taskbar previews in Windows 7?

leo@pugetsoundsoftware (Leo A. Notenboom) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:27:51 -08:00

My question is about the annoying (in my opinion) pop-ups that come up whenever you hover your mouse over any open icon on the task bar (they show a thumbnail of the open page). I would really like to know how to safely disable this feature. I have searched Google, but the solutions given seem a bit scary. From my searches, I know that this is a problem for many users.

]]> I did some looking around (as you did) and I found that you're definitely not alone.

Personally, I find it handy and appreciate it.

But as we've seen time and time again, one person's feature is another person's annoyance.

Unfortunately for this particular feature, there's no simple switch to throw to turn it on or off (Which I can also understand, because there's no way that Microsoft could possibly introduce a UI setting for every possible feature or tweak).

So, we have to improvise.

What is a clipboard?

leo@pugetsoundsoftware (Leo A. Notenboom) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:00:00 -08:00

In your advice about reattaching broken email URLs, you mentioned "copying to the clipboard." WHAT and/or WHERE is this mysterious clipboard? Many times as I have closed a program, the screen will pop up telling me I "have a lot of information on the clipboard" and do I "want to save it?" I haven't a clue where to look to find out what/where it is.

]]> The clipboard is another one of the small, but powerful little items that we often take for granted.

It's such a simple thing and yet we never talk about exactly what it is or why one would care.

We just use it. Constantly. Every single day.

Let's look at the clipboard.

Where did my volume icon go?

leo@pugetsoundsoftware (Leo A. Notenboom) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 17:18:02 -08:00

On my taskbar, I had a volume icon, which disappeared when I clicked on it. How do I get it back? The volume is at 100.

]]> Actually, taskbar icons - or more correctly, notification area icons - are by default managed by Windows in such a way that what it thinks are less frequently used icons are sometimes hidden.

We'll look both at how to get at the icons, how to take control of the icons, and perhaps most important of all, tell Windows to stop messing with the icons.

How do I set a custom icon for a desktop URL shortcut?

leo@pugetsoundsoftware (Leo A. Notenboom) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:41:00 -08:00

I recently purchased a new PC - HP with Windows 7. I would like my shortcuts (ex. Google) to show the Google square as red, white, and green, as opposed to the IE world. I ran Windows XP previously, and they had a place to change icons with several from which to pick. It's the same with files; it shows just an open manilla folder on the desktop, which I would like to change. Any info on this would be appreciated. I love your newsletter - I read it from top to bottom and could not find this anywhere.

]]> That functionality's still there, but Windows 7 has thrown a curveball into the mix; this makes one of the most common ways to create desktop shortcuts result in a shortcut that's much harder to customize.

I'll show you what changed.

Then, I'll show you how you can still create a desktop shortcut with an icon that can be customized.

How do I sign in to Windows 7 automatically?

leo@pugetsoundsoftware (Leo A. Notenboom) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:01:53 -08:00

I used to be able to set up my computer to sign me in automatically when I reboot. My new computer doesn't do that and I have to type in my password each time. How do I make it stop needing that?

]]> It turns out that it's not that difficult to set up at all.

I'll walk you through the steps and I'll show you in a short video exactly how to do what you want.

But I do need to ask you a very important question first:

Are you really sure that you want to do this?