The most useful keyboard shortcuts

Here are some of my favorite multi-keystroke time-savers.

Keystrokes for Working in Windows
I wish I had a nickel for every time I clicked the little folder icon in the Quick Launch toolbar to open the My Documents folder in Windows Explorer. Even worse, since I don't store my documents in My Documents (too obvious), I had to navigate manually to whatever folder I was aiming for. The icon is gathering dust since I found out you can open Explorer to My Computer (Computer in Vista) by pressing the Windows key and E.

Another frequently clicked Quick Launch icon is the one that shows your desktop. Get there without any clicks by pressing the Windows key and D. Then press the Tab key to move to the Start button (which you can also open simply by pressing the Windows key alone). Tab again to highlight the first shortcut in the Quick Launch toolbar (hit the right-arrow key to move to the next shortcuts in succession), press it once more to highlight your first open app in the toolbar, and on and on, all the way to your system-tray icons. And here's an even-shorter shortcut: Get to the system tray in a jiffy by pressing the Windows key and B. (Sorry, XP users, this one appears to work only in Vista.)

Gotcha Alert
I found a glitch with this method of tooling around your desktop: I like an unobstructed view, so I got rid of the icons cluttering up my desktop by right-clicking it, choosing View, and unchecking Show Desktop Icons. Then I right-clicked in the toolbar and chose Toolbars*Desktop) to put the shortcuts there. To make room on the toolbar for my open-app shortcuts, I slid the Desktop toolbar to the right until only the word "Desktop" and the double-chevron show. This is a great way to maximize use of the toolbar, but when you tab to this shortcut, it pops up the list of desktop items automatically, requiring you to press Esc to close the menu before you can tab again to your system-tray icons.

Vista's Best New Feature: The Start Search Box
I am no fan of Microsoft's new operating system, but I have to admit I've come to rely on the Start Search text box to open programs, Windows utilities, even my oft-accessed files. Just press the Windows key and start typing the name of whatever it is you're looking for: Word to open that app, Device Manager to get a look at the status of your hardware, even the names of your IE shortcuts or Firefox bookmarks. You may have to press Tab and then the down arrow a couple of times to select the file or resource you want, but it's still faster than navigating in Explorer or the Start menu to open an application or file.

Okay, one more trick with the Windows key: Press it along with L to lock down your PC.

More Not-So-Stupid Keyboard Tricks
I don't have to tell you about Ctrl-X (cuts the selection), Ctrl-C (copies the selection), Ctrl-V (pastes the selection),Ctrl-A (selects the entire document), Ctrl-Z (undoes the last action), or Ctrl-S (saves the file currently open), but I just did anyway. Here are some other key-combination chestnuts that you may have forgotten, or missed hearing about:

Alt-F4 (or Alt-spacebar and then C) closes the open window.

Alt-Enter opens the Properties dialog box of the item selected.

Press Shift as you insert a CD or DVD to keep it from playing automatically.

And last but not least, Shift-F10 opens the right-click menu of the item selected.

For a more extensive list of keyboard shortcuts for Windows and applications, just visit your favorite search engine and enter keyboard shortcuts.

Tomorrow: A freebie that's guaranteed to clear the cobwebs out of any version of Windows.

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Defrag Windows from Command Prompt

If it were up to me, I'd never defragment my PC's drives. I'm one of those people who prefers to have Windows' maintenance operations done in the background, without my direct intervention.

So it comes as no surprise that I'm a big fan of Vista's automatic-defrag setting. But I also know better than to put all my faith in Microsoft's ability to keep my system healthy. Last year, I started using Auslogics' free Disk Defragutility, which works with Windows 2000 and up.

If you prefer to use Windows' defragger, you can open it by pressing the Windows key (or Ctrl-Esc), pressing R (in XP), typing defrag in Vista or dfrg.msc in XP, and pressing Enter. The interface of Vista's Disk Defragmenter is nonexistent; the utility is clearly designed for behind-the-scenes operation. Your only options are to set the defrag schedule, select the volumes to defrag, and run the defragger.

Vista's Disk Defragmenter utility is a no-frills affair.

(Credit: Microsoft)

XP's version of the Disk Defragmenter isn't much more functional, although it does give you a little more graphical feedback about the state of your drives.

You get more control over your disk defrags by running Windows' defragger utility from a command prompt and entering command switches that modify its actions. Start by opening a command-prompt window. One way is by pressing the Windows key (or Ctrl-Esc), pressing R (in XP), typing cmd, and pressing Enter. Or click Start > All Programs > Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as administrator.

At the command prompt, type defrag ? to see a list of available command switches. In both XP and Vista, you can add -a to the "defrag" command to analyze the drive only, -f to force a defrag with less than 15 percent free space, -b to defrag only boot files, and -v to show a "verbose" report of the defrag.

Vista adds a couple of other switches: -i defrags even when the PC isn't idle, -c works on all drives, and -wprocesses chunks of files smaller than 64MB; without this switch, Vista's defragger ignores all file fragments smaller than 64MB.

Type defrag ? at a command prompt and press Enter to see a list of available command switches.

(Credit: Microsoft)

For example, to defrag all your Vista volumes regardless of fragment size and when there's less than 15 percent free space, enter this line at the command prompt and then press Enter:

defrag -c -w -f

The utility will display a report on the selected volumes prior to beginning the defragmentation.

Windows defrag utility will show a report on the selected volumes prior to defragmenting the drives.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Unfortunately, defrags run from a command prompt aren't any faster than those conducted via the graphical interface. That's the biggest advantage of specialty defrag programs such as Auslogics' Disk Defrag, which is much speedier than the defragger in Windows.

The fact is, Vista's automated defrags were doing a great job of keeping my disk space nice and compact. I didn't notice much of a performance improvement after I manually defragged my Vista PC, but the defrag did wonders for my ancient XP box, which I admit I had neglected to defrag for many months.

The other day, I was talking to a guy who wanted a PC but didn't want Vista. He asked me how long he would have to wait for new PCs running Windows 7. When I told him that such systems were still several months away, he indicated that he'd buy a machine from a company that let you "downgrade" Vista to XP.

I didn't say anything, but part of me thought he was crazy. I'll take Vista over XP any day of the week. Not having to run a disk-defrag utility is only one of the reasons why. (Yes, I know you can automate disk defrags in XP via Scheduled Tasks, as Microsoft explains in this Knowledge Base article, but doing so is too much hassle for the average Windows user.)

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Five quick Windows Vista speedup tips

I split my work time about evenly between Windows XP and Vista. Let me tell you, I'll take Vista 99 days out of 100. Vista's safer than XP, it looks better than its predecessor, and it runs at least as fast as XP.

Performance has been a knock on Vista since the operating system was released, but there are some relatively simple ways to give Vista a little goose so it performs some common operations a tad faster. These five tips should shorten your workday:

Put an encrypt/decrypt option on your context menu
If you frequently encrypt files or folders to protect your privacy, you can access this function via the right-click menu by changing a Registry key. Editing the Registry is always risky, so back it up first by creating a restore point. To do so, press the Windows key, type systempropertiesprotection.exe, and press Enter. Click Create, give the restore point a name, and choose Create again.

With your Registry backup in place, press the Windows key, type regedit, and press enter. Navigate to and select this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Right-click in the right pane, choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value, and name it EncryptionContextMenu. Double-click the new entry, give it a value of 1, and click OK. After you restart your system, you'll see an Encrypt/Decrypt option when you right-click a file or folder.

Disable DOS-era 8.3 file-name compatibility
Most hard drives on Vista systems are partitioned using NTFS rather than the older FAT32 format. But Vista still supports the old 8.3 file-name convention of DOS and early versions of Windows. This is handy if you still run DOS-era 16-bit programs, but most of us have no need to retain this backward-compatibility. You can speed up your file accesses a bit by disabling this feature.

To do so, open the Registry Editor as described in the previous tip and navigate to and select this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

Double-click the key named NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation, change its value from 0 to 1, and click OK.

Do without last-access file updating
Whenever you open a file on an NTFS partition, it gets a date stamp that's separate from its "last modified on" date and time. If you can do without this information, you can disable it and open your files a skosh faster.

Start by opening the Registry Editor as described above. Navigate to and select this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

Double-click NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate, change the DWORD value from 0 to 1, and click OK.

Change this Registry key to disable the last-file-access feature to open files faster.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Access Vista's report on your start-up and shutdown speeds
Among the interesting performance-measuring tools in Vista is the Event Viewer's log of your system's start-up and shutdown performance. To view these reports, press the Windows key, type event, and press Enter. Navigate in the left pane to this entry:

Applications and Service Log\Microsoft\Windows\Diagnostics-Performance

Double-click Operational in the middle pane to view the most recent events. Look for entries numbered from 100 to 199 to indicate start-up items, and ones numbered from 200 to 299 for shutdown items. Click the Details tab below the event log and make sure Friendly View is selected.

Vista's Event Viewer records your boot times and other performance information about your start-ups and shutdowns.

(Credit: Microsoft)

You'll see the boot and shutdown times in milliseconds and other information about your start-ups and shutdowns. Compare the numbers for each system start and shutdown to determine whether your machine's slowing down. If it is, try paring your list of start-up applications using the tips in this post from last October. And use the tips in this post from March 2008 to put Windows to bed in a jiffy.

Let Vista tell you how it's doing
A little-known addition to Vista is the System Health Report Generator, which gives you an inside look at how well your PC is running. To access the tool, press the Windows key, type perform info, and press Enter. ClickAdvanced tools in the left pane and choose Generate a system health report.

About a minute later, you'll see the test results in various categories. For help deciphering the information and on using other components of the Performance and Reliability Monitor, check out this guide on Microsoft's TechNet site.

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Browser security and privacy tips

Microsoft has made great strides in educating Windows users about the need to keep their systems secure by downloading and installing the most recent updates. (I still recommend that you set Windows' Automatic Updates to download but don't install, as I described in a blog post from last July.)

The irony of the heightened awareness of Windows updates is that malware is less likely to target vulnerabilities in Windows--or other PC operating systems, for that matter. These days, most viruses and Trojans use holes in your browsers, media players, or Web applications to breach your system's security. That's why it's imperative to keep these programs up-to-date, which is a subject I covered in a post from last April.

Google pushes updates to its Chrome browser automatically--without bothering to let you know about it (the current version is 2.0.172.30). You may think I'm a hypocrite for preventing Microsoft from loading its updates automatically and applauding Google for doing the same thing with its browser. Here's the difference: if a Chrome update causes the program to malfunction, I can simply use another browser, but if a Windows update screws up, my entire system's hosed until I fix it.

If you want to use Chrome to browse without leaving any tracks on your system, press Ctrl-Shift-N to open a new browser window in Chrome's incognito mode. The sites you visit subsequently will not appear in your browser history nor will terms you search for stay in your search history. You won't pick up any new cookies, either.

You'll find plenty of add-ons in the Privacy & Security section of the Firefox Add-ons page that give Firefox a similar stealth mode. You can also choose Tools > Clear Private Data to wipe your tracks in Firefox, but this setting erases all your history in the various categories. Chrome's incognito mode lets you retain the history you want and delete the history you don't want.

Google's Chrome browser lets you surf without leaving tracks on your system via its incognito mode.

(Credit: Google)

I've been spending a lot more time browsing with Chrome lately, and not just because of its incognito mode. Chrome seems faster to me than Firefox or Internet Explorer, and I'm getting used to Chrome's streamlined interface. Firefox remains my default browser, however. The one Firefox security add-on I won't browse without is InformAction's NoScript (donationware), which lets you block JavaScript, Flash, and other scripts on a site-by-site and source-by-source basis.

The best way to enhance your privacy while using Firefox is to set the browser to delete cookies each time you close the program. To do so, click Tools > Options > Privacy, select "Always clear my private data when I close Firefox," and click OK.

Check "Always clear my private data when I close Firefox" in the browser's Privacy settings to maintain your Web privacy.

(Credit: Mozilla Foundation)

So what about Internet Explorer? IE 8 is said to be more secure than IE 7, which in turn was said to be more secure than IE 6. Two facts remain: Internet Explorer uses ActiveX, which in my opinion is inherently insecure; and IE 8's security options are way too complicated. What do those slider controls mean, really? (Press Alt, click Tools > Internet Options, and choose either the Security or Privacy tab to see what I mean.)

Bonus tip: Encrypt Gmail
I've been using Gmail as my primary e-mail service for several years, but it wasn't until a couple of months ago that I started encrypting my Gmail correspondences. (In fact, encryption wasn't available in Gmail until a couple of months ago.) To use encryption in Gmail, click Settings in the top-right corner of the main window, scroll to the bottom of the General tab, select "Always use https," and click Save Changes. Note that this setting prevents the iGoogle Gmail widget from working, but that's a small price to pay for the added security.

Web privacy resources
For more information on the privacy options in Google services, visit the Google Privacy Center. Along with an FAQ and overview, you'll find privacy videos and specific privacy options for YouTube, Orkut, Blogger, Docs, and other Google services.

The SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center offers a daily Internet threat level (green, the last time I checked) as well as information on the sources of recent Internet-based attacks and extensive links to other Internet security sources.

For a soup-to-nuts look at browser security, read the United States Computer Emergency Response Team's article Securing Your Web Browser. The information was last updated more than a year ago but remains relevant. Some of US-CERT's browser-setting recommendations are overkill for regular, everyday browsing, so take the advice with the proverbial grain of salt.

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Restore a lost administrator account in Vista

A reader named Eric found himself locked out of his Vista administrator accounts:

"Somehow, my account and my son's accounts were downgraded to standard user on his new computer using Vista Home 32-bit. I cannot seem to log in to make any changes to the accounts now. It prompts me to enter a password but no password box is available to type it in. How can I log in to change my account back to administrator?"

In a post last year, I described how to enable Vista's hidden administrator account and password-protect XP's default administrator account. Of course, this tip works only if you use it before you actually need it because it requires administrator privileges.

I found another approach described by Microsoft MVP Ronnie Vernon on the Soft32 forum. Here it is in a nutshell:

• Restart your PC and press F8 repeatedly before Windows loads to open Vista's Advanced Boot Options screen.
• Use the arrow keys to select Safe Mode and press Enter.
• On the low-res Windows Welcome screen, choose the Administrator account, which by default has no password.
• click Start > Control Panel > User Accounts and either change your standard account to an administrator one or create a new administrator account.

Choose Safe Mode on the Vista Advanced Boot Options menu to restore or create an administrator account.

(Credit: Bert Kinney)

When you restart the machine normally, you'll have access to the administrator account you just restored or created. (Note that I wasn't able to verify this tip because I'm not willing to risk losing the administrator accounts on my Vista PC just to test it.)

Gmail encrypts transmissions, not messages
Another reader named Ian contacted me about some misinformation in a post from last month entitled "Five simple PC security tips":

"In this article, you refer to 'encrypting Gmail' where you urge people to turn on the https: feature when using Gmail. Technically, while any e-mail read/written is encrypted in transit between your browser and Gmail's server, the e-mail is nevertheless still stored in the clear.

"Perhaps you could clarify the wording somewhat so people might potentially avoid interpreting your remarks so as to conclude that their stored e-mail is somehow encrypted on Gmail's servers."

Right you are, Ian, which is why you want to think twice about storing confidential information on Google's servers or any other Web servers that don't support encryption. Google is reportedly considering changing Gmail to default to encrypted sign-ins, as explained by Brian Krebs on his security blog earlier this week.

This doesn't affect your stored messages, however, nor the files you share via Google Docs & Spreadsheets, nor any of your other personal data accessible through Google free services. That's the best reason I know not to keep any sensitive information in Gmail or any other Google app.

In a future post, I'll describe secure online services. You can bet none of them will have "Google" in their name.

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