Keyboard Shortcuts For Windows

Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

Having started working with computers in the early DOS years using the keyboard to control a machine seems the natural thing to me.

A mouse is a necessary, fast and efficient way to control a graphical environment but the keyboard is still king!

The most commonly used shortcuts in Windows

<Key to use>	Result
<Ctrl> + <c>	Copy selected item (file or text)
<Ctrl> + <v>	Paste copied item
<Ctrl> + <x>	Cut selected item (file or text)
<Ctrl> + <a>	Select all
<Ctrl> + <z>	Undo last action

In Microsoft Office and now most other programs

<Key to use>	Result
<Ctrl> + <s>	Save
<Ctrl> + <p>	Print
<Ctrl> + <b>	Bold
<Ctrl> + <i>	Italic
<Ctrl> + <u>	Underline
<Ctrl> + <f>	Find
<F7>	Spell check
<Ctrl> + <z>	Undo

Some less well known but useful Windows shortcuts

<Key to use>	Result
<Alt> + <F4>	Close current window or program
<F5>	Refresh current window
<Ctrl> + <shift> + <esc>	Open Taskmanager
<Alt> + <tab>	Switch between running programs
<F2>	Rename selected item
<F3>  (also <Ctrl> + <f>)	Find

Windows Key Symbol

The ‘Windows Key’  adds some useful shortcuts

<Key to use>	Result
<Win> + <r>	Show Run dialog box
<Win> + <m>	Minimise all open windows
<shift> + <Win> + <m>	Undo Minimise all
<Win> + <e>	Launch Windows Explorer
<Win> + <f>	Launch Windows search
<Win> + <l>	Locks the desktop

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Pagefile Defrag

Defragging  Windows system files.

Something I didn’t cover in my last blog when discussing defragging Windows, was Windows system files such as the pagefile and registry hives.

The pagefile could be fragmented if its size is not fixed by Windows or if its size had been changed manually. The pagefile and the registry are not defragmented by most defraggers because they are in use when Windows is running.

A good tool for defragmenting the pagefile is PageDefrag from Sysinternals www.sysinternals.com . 

Sysinternals PageDefrag

  PageDefrag when it is run shows you how much fragmentation there is in the files that make up your registry hives and in the pagefile. You can choose to have PageDefrag defragment these files at next system boot by selecting the radio button ‘Defrag at next boot’ . When the PC is next started and before Windows loads PageDefrag will attempt to defragment the Windows system files and will report on the results.

It’s a great little tool that can be scripted or configured from its GUI. Sysinternals produce a great suite of free tools, often called as Pstools, that have been used for many years by computer support professionals. Contig is another defragemnting tool they produce. It's easy to use and is designed to defragment individual files but can be used to defrag whole disks. It also has the ability to defragement NTFS metadata files such as the Master File Table. 

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Windows Defrag

Defragmenting the Windows hard drive

 Defragmenting the hard drive. Before we go into defragmenting the hard drive it will be useful to explain what fragmentation is and how it occurs. On a hard disk information is stored in segments called sectors, each sector is 512 bytes in length. The Windows operating system stores files in units of multiple sectors called clusters or allocation units. Typically a cluster will be 4 kilo bytes. Files are placed on a Windows disk in the first available space and are allocated complete clusters. So if we have a file that is 1kb long it will occupy one cluster, a 5kb file would occupy two clusters a 21kb file will occupy six clusters. In a perfect world files would occupy consecutive clusters making ready and writing the files faster. As we use a computer we are continually adding and removing files. Consider what would happen in a simple system or three 3Kb files on a disk that had four clusters numbered one to four. Each file would occupy one cluster, file on occupying cluster one and file two occupying cluster two and so on. If we deleted the second file, cluster two would become empty, if we later added a fourth file that was 7Kb long. The fourth file would need to occupy two clusters. When we write the file the operating system will see cluster two as empty and write part of the file there. As the fourth file needs two clusters the second bit of file four would go into cluster four. The two parts of file four and not next to each other. We call this fragmentation. So now we know what fragmentation is and that it slows down the system, how do we get rid of it?

 Defragmenting a drive

 There are many freely available tools to defragment a drive, indeed Windows comes with the graphical Disk Defragmenter dfrgui.exe and the command line Defrag.exe. Both are good, free and already on your Windows PC!

Defraggler options

However I prefer a third party tool called df.exe for scripting and defraggler as a gui tool. Both have more options than Windows built in defragmenters and both come from Piriform www.piriform.com. With Defraggler you can select to defrag file, folders or the entire drive. There are many options available. Defraggler is also portable. If a drive has not been defragmented previously, especially one that is heavily fragmented, say 20%, it will benefit from several consecutive runs of the defragger. What happens when you run a defragger is that the program woks out how best to shuffle the files around to achieve least fragmentation. It never does a perfect job, but each attempt will take it a step closer to that goal. Once you get down to say 5% fragmentation you are at the limits of practicability and will get diminishing returns for each re run.


So how often should you run a defrag, well that depends and really may be just a mater of opinion. I would suggest that once a drive is reasonably defragmented then keeping it that way can be achieved by defragging once every month or two.

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Temp File Cleanup

Removing temporary files from a Windows PC

Temporary files are usually thought of as just files with a .tmp extension but there are other ‘temporary’ file to be found in a Windows installation. Browsers ‘temporarily’ keep copies of  files pulled from web site when we view them, your mail client may keep ‘temporary’ copies of email attachments that you opened from within the client. And of course the Recycle bin will hold deleted files until it is emptied. Not all of the ‘temporary’ files have the .tmp extension!

 

So how do we get rid of the temporary files filling up our systems? The obvious way is to use Windows Search to look for ‘ .tmp ‘ and delete everything that Search finds. There are two problems with this. The first is that when you select all the .tmp files Search finds and try to delete them some will actually still be in use but Windows or programs on your PC and will be locked. Windows will, helpfully, prevent this from happening and not delete the remaining files. If you identify the file that just stopped the delete process and try to delete the remainder you will quickly find another locked file. And so it will go on. So the second problem with this method should now be clear, it’s slow and frustrating. But it will work.

A better approach is to use a program designed to remove temp files. These will work faster than the manual method and will also remove other ‘temporary’ file such as you browser cache and a whole raft of files that Windows keeps when ever you download and install Windows updates. These are hidden the Hidden files in the Windows folder that you may have seen. The folders holding these files have names with the format $abcdef$ . Generally speaking these can be deleted, but you may wish to keep those with recent date and time stamps.

So which programs do I favour? Well for scripting and general use I use TempFileCleaner from software.addpcs.com . But I also make use of ATF-Cleaner which you can get from Major Geeks at majorgeeks.com amongst other places. My final choice would be Temp File Cleaner by Old Timer also known as TFC . Again this is available on Major Geeks at www.geekstogo.com . This program requires a system restart after running.

Which is the best, well we could argue that all day! They all work well, they all do the job. Some times the reboot required by TFC may not be convenient. Some times you may want to script the process and so TempFileCleaner may be your choice. As I would normally remove temp files as part of a complete clean up process, I would be running a number of programs and would therefore script the whole process to reduce the amount of user interaction required. 

I’ll cover scripting the whole process once we have talked about defraging and a few other little speed up tricks!

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Beta testing the CounterPath Bria 3.5 softphone

Bria 3.0 softphone

Beta testing the CounterPath Bria 3.5 softphone

I’ve been invited  by CounterPath  to take part in the Beta testing of the Bria 3.5 softphone! This is the second time I have had the good fortune to be part of a CounterPath Beta program. 

It’s exciting to see and trial a new product and rewarding to be part of the team working on such a great product. 

eyeBeam

Check out Bria and the venerable eyeBeam at http://www.counterpath.com/

Softphones can be used in conjunction with a Voice over IP (VoIP) provider such as Sipgate http://www.sipgate.co.uk/ to allow you to make and receive phone calls from you PC or laptop to any other VoIP phone or to any landline phone such as those provided by BT. 

EyeBeam with Sipgate

VoIP to VoIP calls are free, calls between a landline and a softphone incur charges. I have been using Sipgate for five or more years both to provide a SIP trunk to my home Asterisk PBX and directly linked to some softphones. The provide a very good and reliable service and good support.  

If your interested in setting up a VoIP phone system and need some help drop me a line at 
rolfe.james@rolfejames.co.uk


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Cleaning the Windows Registry

In my last post I talked about how Windows inevitably slows as time passed and outlined what can be done to put a spring back in its step!

Over the next three or four posts I’ll describe how we can speed up Windows and what tools I currently prefer to use.

Step 1: Clean the Windows Registry

Step 2: Remove temporary files

Step 3: Defrag the hard drive

Step 4: Disable unneeded services

Step 5: Set Windows for best performance and not best appearance

Step 1: Clean the Windows Registry

Regedit - the Windows Registry editor

There are a number of free tools that can be used to clean the Windows Registry. They all work by removing orphaned entries from the Registry.

Deleting or changing the Registry entries should only be contemplated if you understand its implications and, of course, if you take precautions first. ‘Belt and Braces’ is a good approach to life. Never get into something until you have worked out at least one exit strategy! With the registry, for me, this involves making a backup or the keys I am going to change or most frequently the whole Registry. This is done by running Regedit (Start/Run/regedit) and then selecting File/Export and saving the registry to a safe location. Remember, mess up the Registry and you mess up Windows!

Once I have a copy of the Registry saved I would run CCleaner  from Piriform https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner . 

CCleaner's Registry clean option

Or if I am scripting the cleanup process I would use RegSeeker from Hoverdesk http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm . For a manual approach I prefer the portable version of CCleaner as it does not need to be installed on the PC. 

CCleaner does have the option to backup the Registry before it makes any changes, and I do always select to do that. Remember, ‘Belt and Braces’! 

RegSeeker: great for scripting

CCleaner will also search for and remove temporary files. It works well but for scripting I would use Temp File Cleaner from http://software.addpcs.com .

 So that’s the Registry cleaned. In the next post I’ll describe how I would remove temp files and the tools I would use.



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Nuke And Pave?

Windows slowing with age is, it seems, as inevitable as death and taxes. Often Nuke And Pave is seen as the only or at least the best option. But with all the bits and bobs we install and use nowadays the prospect of rebuilding can be daunting and very time consuming. 

So what other options do we have? Well in the dark distant days of DOS a ‘defrag’ always worked wonders. Not that we had tools to do that, well not directly anyway. The trick I often employed was to simply copy everything off, format the disk to remove everything and copy it all back on again! It worked a treat. With the advent of Windows 95 and the Registry that of course ceased to be an option and Windows Defrag became the tool of choice. Norton soon came out with a tool to clean up the registry, but I quickly realised that it always ‘cleaned’ the registry. Even if it had just ‘cleaned’ and you reran it, it would ‘clean’ again. It just didn’t seem to work very well. NTFS promised never needing to be defragged. But a promise was all it was. Windows, it seems, is build to slow down!

So what can we do, short of Flattening and reinstalling? Over the last few years I have come to realise that the old wisdom of tidying the Registry, removing temp files and defragging can make a huge difference. Combine that with ensuring the Pagefile is correctly setup, unneeded services are not running and Windows is configured for best performance and not best appearance and we have a winner!

I’ll be going into more detail as to how we do this in my next blog.


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