Four hard-to-find fixes for common Windows annoyances

You start typing only to realize 10 seconds later that the focus is on the wrong window. You see a Windows notification pop out of the taskbar only to have it fade away before you can figure out what it means. You get distracted by all of Windows' pointless animations. You miss seeing keyboard-shortcut hints on menu entries and elsewhere in Windows dialog boxes.

You could spend hours hunting for the settings that will do away with these four Windows annoyances. At least Vista collects them all in the Ease of Access Center. These usability settings are spread far and wide in XP.

Mouse over a window to make it the focus
About once or twice a week I find myself happily typing away only to discover after crafting the perfect memo opener or e-mail retort that the focus had switched to another open window. Not only have I lost the data I thought I was entering, I might inadvertently purchase a Winnebago if I press Enter while focused on the wrong page in my browser.

You can set Vista to change the focus to whichever window you mouse over via the Ease of Access Center. Press the Windows key and U to open it.

I described the top four options (all carryovers from XP's Accessibility Control Panel applet) in a previous post. To change focus by hovering, click "Make the mouse easier to use" and check "Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse" near the bottom of the dialog box. Click Save or Apply to activate the change.

The simplest way I know of to change this setting in XP is to use the free Tweak UI utility. After you download and install the program, open it and double-click Mouse in the left pane. Choose X-Mouse among the entries that appear, and check "Activation follows X-Mouse" in the right window.

Bonus tip: To keep programs from stealing the focus, choose Focus under General in the left pane, click "Prevent applications from stealing focus" in the right pane, and choose the number of times you want the window to flash when this happens.

Set Vista notification pop-ups to stay on screen longer
Sometimes the little windows that pop out of the taskbar to notify you of some event, such as a USB device you just plugged in being ready to use, disappear too quickly. To extend the duration of notification windows in Vista, click "Make it easier to focus on tasks" in the Ease of Access Center, scroll to the bottom of the resulting dialog box, and change the setting under "How long should Windows notification boxes stay open?" The default setting is 7 seconds, and the available options let you change this to 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, or 5 minutes. When you're done, click Save or Apply.

Extend the time Vista's notification windows stay visible via this setting in the Ease of Access Center.

(Credit: Microsoft)

The only way I know of to change the duration of notification windows in XP is to tweak the Registry. This is also how you disable notifications altogether. I'll describe the procedure in a future post.

Knock off the frivolous animations
Save some CPU cycles--and maybe your tired eyeballs--by telling Windows to do without the fancy-schmancy animations. In Vista, click "Make it easier to focus on tasks" in the Ease of Access Center (the same dialog I described above for tweaking notifications), check "Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)" under "Adjust time limits and flashing visuals," and click Save or Apply.

To tone down the animations in XP, right-click My Computer, choose Properties > Advanced, and click Settings in the Performance section. Under the Visual Effects tab, click "Adjust for best performance," or choose Custom and select the options you do and don't want in the window below. When you're done, click OK twice.

Show shortcut keys on menu items
Microsoft doesn't always make it easy for people who prefer to navigate around Windows and their applications using keyboard shortcuts. To make the key hints visible on menus in Vista, click "Make the keyboard easier to use" in the Ease of Access Center, check "Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys" under "Make it easier to use keyboard shortcuts," and click Save or Apply.

See hints for shortcut keys on Vista menus by choosing this option in the Ease of Access Center.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Add the shortcut-key hints to XP by right-clicking the desktop (or pressing Shift-F10 while on the desktop), choosing Properties, clicking Appearance > Effects, unchecking "Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key," and clicking OK twice.

[cdotspace]

Got any tips for preventing Word 2007 from crashing every time I exit? Or at least unchecking the 'reopen' box on the error report by default?

[zgreenwell]

How about "Com Surrogate has Stopped Working" Error. I would love for someone to figure that one out and fix it.

[SuperDave9999]

How about the "Vista is a buggy memory hog" issue? Any known fixes for that yet?

[ytsejam02]

This may be hard to understand, but it's by design. MS designed Vista such that it will use up as much memory as possible based on the data that you use the most. The theory is that it will load faster, which, in these cases, it would. If you randomly use all of your programs, you would probably notice a decrease in performance compared to XP. Most people don't work that way. Unfortunately the more memory you have, the faster Vista is, which usually means more than 2GB of memory. It's too bad they couldn't make it faster than XP at say, 2GB.

[isykal]

^zgreenwell

upgrade to the newest version of DIVX (http://divx.com). That did it for me.

[bob2600]

@zgreenwell: Uninstalling vista and installing a usable OS usually solves that problem. Send Microsoft a message and do not use their flawed operating systems and use Linux instead. Its about time we stood up to Microsoft and show them that we as technologically inclined consumers will not tolerate a crap OS that is inherently flawed and has been a failure from launch and will continue to fail until microsoft pulls their heads out of their rear ends...

[bob2600]

@zgreenwell: Uninstalling vista and installing a usable OS usually solves that problem. Send Microsoft a message and do not use their flawed operating systems and use Linux instead. Its about time we stood up to Microsoft and show them that we as technologically inclined consumers will not tolerate a crap OS that is inherently flawed and has been a failure from launch and will continue to fail until microsoft pulls their heads out of their rear ends...

[TheManInDboX]

Vista is not that bad, it isnt a good OS for a business desktop, but for home, it isnt that bad... I agree Linux is better, Ubuntu is my flavor... But, for those who can afford MAC's they can get a great vista machine for the same price... I unfortunately cannot afford a 3k+ machine for home use... But the MAC people, they are used to that...

[ytsejam02]

Before messaging MS, you might want to consider messaging the vendors of widely used software that you need their software to work on Linux. I love how Linux has a small footprint on a machine, but don't find it very practical to use in my real world environment. I'm sure there are many people that can use Linux for what they need just find, but they are a very small minority. Point is, MS isn't only to blame for the lack of options out there.

[Xiibo]

@TheManInDboX: Not all Macs are 3k+. If you want a Mac Pro, then sure, it's easy to hit that mark. But Apple aims its line of iMacs and macbooks to the home users. You can easily get a Mac for under 3k. If you're a student, it's possible to get the base level iMac for under a grand. If you need mor RAM, buy it yourself... it is cheaper that what Apple charges.

I made the choice of my first Apple notebook versus a new Vista notebook. I decided to pay a little more for the stability, plus I'm running XP on it when I need to. I've been very pleased with the transition.

[Renegade Knight]

Cool. Programs that are stealing the focus has been a major annoyance for a long time. Being able to fix that is a huge boon.

[ytsejam02]

I understand the annoyance of having your focus taken away, it happens all the time. As an alternative solution to the article, I would encourage anyone who writes entire sentences without realizing they've lost focus, to learn to type without looking at the keyboard.

[Zero187]

Simple quick fix: upgrade to linux

[Seaspray0]

Zero187, have you ever wondered if linux was so good, why do less than 1% of everyone use it?

[The_Decider]

Have you ever wondered why people call you an idiot all the time?

[Seaspray0]

Let me know when they find a way to cure the worst of the windows annoyances: macboy and linuxboy.

[anthonyyaco]

because yes while it maybe slightly less user friendly it is much more stable and it works.

[The_Decider]

Actually Linux is considerably more user friendly than Windows. 4 clicks and about an hour or less to a complete install of the OS and all applications and is rock solid, and secure from the get go. To run Linux securely it takes no additional downloaded, tweaking or knowledge from the end user.

[jschear]

I recently bought an HP Pav Elite Quad Q6700 running at 266. It also has 4 gig of fast 800 memory running duel channel. The OS was 32 bit Home premium which tech can only handle 3gigs the rest going to my video cards 8800gts in sli. I was all fired up to have a system with all this power, but I soon found out different because of Vista being a Hog that it is , my new unit was SLOWER that my old P4 @1.8mz running good old Xp. It gets worse Hp said that my new $600 Ipac would sync with Vista no problem. That was not the case. I downloaded new firm ware but it just made things worse. The real killer was that HP said if I want to use office, which I use daily and is the backbone of my business I must buy a $456/ for 2007 office suite. I tried the office trial version and it sucked. The learning curve was steep and even when I send attachments in the so called compatability mode people would complain that they were having trouble opening them. The last thing a small business like mine needs in a time were gas is $4 a gal.is to upgrade to a system that is a step backward. After fighting with HP for almost a month they gave me my money back. I am now back to cruising fast on the internet and all my add perrificals work and so does the printer and scanner and you know the rest. Also I thought that Dell had bad tech support HP is the worst by far. The techs can not speak English in a manner that I can understand. The worst thing was when they could not figure out what your problem is their answer is do a clean install, which requires the buring of 12 cds or 6 dvds. I told the tech guy I was not going to do a reinstall on a new unit 2 days old. From now on I am having local shops build for me so if I have a problem I have no more than to drive down the street. Time is money and Hp and Dell are guilty of time theft!

[Aluk Dramen]

@ Seaspray0: Market inertia, maybe?

Larger user install base, also. Everyone and their cousin got Windows. Why would one bother using anything else?