Windows 7

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Tips

Miscellaneous

Windows Explorer
  • Press shift then right click, to get more options in context menu / SendTo folder
  • Enter shell:sendto to configure SendTo menu
Change location of special shell folders (desktop, favorites, my documents)
  • Method 1 — Right click on the folder → properties... → Location pane → change location
  • Method 2 — Edit registry locations HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders ([1]).
  • Note there is also HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders. I also update that one, but the tips does not say so.
Map network drives for ALL accounts, including administrators
  • With UAC enabled, network drives mounted by a user are not available to administrators, nor apps running with elevated privileges
  • [2], [3] recommends setting a registry key to bypass that, but it does not work in my Windows 7
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"EnableLinkedConnections"=dword:00000001
  • Best solution, use this script to remount shares for admin at startup [4]. Copy following file at C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\remount-admin.vbs

Share bluetooth device between dual boot Linux and Windows

Reference: [5]

The trick is to copy the bluetooth link keys from Windows into Linux:

  • Pair the device with Linux first
  • Then pair the device with Windows
  • Boot back in Linux, and extract the bluetooth keys using chntpw. Edit the registry file C:\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM.
aa1111111111 is the bluetooth device id of the device to pair as given in Windows control panel → bluetoot devices, or in Linux Bluemanager.
chntpw -e SYSTEM

> ls
> cd ControlSet001\Services\BTHPORT\Parameters\Keys
> ls
> cd aa1111111111
> ls
> hex bb2222222222
Note that it does not work from Windows because the keys are either denied access or hidden.
  • Copy the key value (remove the spaces) into file /var/lib/bluetooth/AA:11:11:11:11:11/linkkeys

Repair Laptop brightness not working or stuck

Easiest
  • Close the lid and open it again (make sure the laptop does not go to sleep).
From [6]
  • Go to control panel, devices management, then go to monitors and open properties for "Generic PnP Monitors".
  • In "details" pane, open property Hardware Ids, and copy the value field (something like MONITOR\LGD02F1)
  • To re-enable brightness control, run:
devcon.exe -remove =MONITOR *LGD02F1*
devcon.exe -rescan
  • To disable it:
devcon.exe -remove =MONITOR *LGD02F1*

Use Caps Lock as another Escape key

See Map caps lock to escape in Windows. Import the registry file (Win7/Win8):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,3a,00,46,00,01,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00

Open Windows Command anywhere

  • Open Windows File Explorer at any folder.
  • Press Shift, and right click anywhere on the white space in folder files area.
  • Select Open command window here.

Windows script

Opening file with default application in CMD shell

Recommended solution is to use START (see SO and ss64.com):

START "Title" my_document.doc
Access denied

However when the file is on an mapped drive, we get access denied. The solution is then to call explorer directly:

explorer my_document.doc

Cleaning up Windows 7

Windows 7, as any Microsoft product, comes with a lot of bloat and crap. Unfortunately design is so bad that there is no way to clean it up. Here some links to help a bit.

Best Guides

dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded      # To run in admin, and in sys32

Disable hibernation

  • Disable it as follows
powercfg.exe -h off

winsxs

ctts.exe C:\Windows        # Get real size of windows folders (handle soft links / hard links)

DriverStore


Other links for general information:

Upgrading to Windows 7 SP 1 on dual boot system

Upgrading to Win 7 SP1 fails on dual boot system because Windows does not find the boot disk (error code XXXX).

To fix the issue, Grub must be removed.

  • Boot on Windows 7 Recovery disk, and start a command prompt.
  • First restore the MBR: bootsect /nt60 all /mbr.
  • Then update BCD: bcdboot C:\Windows
  • If getting error Failure when Attempting to Copy Boot Files, this is because the boot partition is not marked Active. To fix [7]:
diskpart
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 1
active
  • Now retry again: bcdboot C:\Windows

Note: maybe the three usual commands would have worked:

bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /rebuildbcd

Keyboard shortcuts

Aero shortcuts [8]:

  • Win-Up — Maximize active window.
  • Shift-Win-Up — Maximize active window vertically.
  • Win-Down — Restore / minimize window.
  • Win-Left/Right — Dock the window left/right, possibly to the display on the left/right, or restore
  • Shift-Win-Left/Right — Move the window to the display on the left or right.
  • Win-Home — Clear all but active window.
  • Win-Space — Make all windows transparent.