Workers' Edge

I got a kick out of the recent headlines stating that Microsoft wants to make the next version of Windows less annoying than Vista. Talk about setting the bar low!

Most of the things that bug me about Windows are easy to fix--the lack of a Run option on Vista's Start menu is an example. To put Run back on the menu, right click the Start button, choose Properties, click Customize under the Start Menu tab, scroll to and check "Run command," and click OK twice.

Here are three other Windows irritations that I finally got around to addressing, though a cure for the first one has eluded me.

Shift to unlock the Caps Lock key
There are plenty of keyboard-remapping utilities that can disable the Caps Lock key and make other changes to your keyboard layout. You can also find downloadable Registry files (.reg) that disable Caps Lock, the Windows key, Insert, and other keys people find useless.

I tried a half-dozen of each, and none of them worked with my HP laptop, the machine whose Caps Lock key I'm forever hitting by accident. It's a shame that there's no easy way to disable this key, which does me absolutely no good.

Yet Vista and XP let you turn off Caps Lock not by pressing the key a second time, but by pressing the Shift key, which is the way the keys work on typewriters. I'm sure there was an army of former Royal and IBM Selectric users clamoring for this option!

In case you're curious, you change this setting in Vista by opening the Regional and Language Settings applet in Control Panel (not the Keyboard applet, of course). Click the Keyboards and Languages tab, choose "Change keyboards," and click the Advanced Key Settings tab. (The options are slightly different in XP, and you may need to add a second keyboard via the settings under the General tab.)

Under "To turn off Caps Lock," select "Press the SHIFT key" and click OK twice.

Use the Shift key to turn off Caps Lock by changing this setting in Vista's Regional and Language Settings applet.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Put an Address bar in your taskbar
I'd be lost without my Address bar, which I rely on more than shortcuts and bookmarks to return to sites, files, and folders. I can get to a lot of these resources in Vista simply by pressing the Windows key, typing their name, and pressing Enter once Windows retrieves them.

But I'm much more accustomed to clicking the little arrow to the right of the Address bar text box to select the file or URL from the list that pops up. Or I can just start typing the URL or file name and choose it from those that appear.

To place an Address bar next to your system tray, right-click anywhere in the taskbar and choose Toolbars > Address. (Make sure Lock the Taskbar is unchecked.)

You can resize and move the Address bar--or any other taskbar item--or the entire taskbar, for that matter. I stick with the smallest possible taskbar at the bottom of the screen, but some people like having their taskbar run vertically along the left or right side of their monitor.

Reset your default image editor
I'm a fan of Paint, the simple, no-nonsense image editor built into Windows. Unfortunately, Windows keeps wanting to make Windows Photo Gallery or some other app the default program for opening JPEGs and other image files on my PC.

To change the program that opens by default when you double-click a file of a certain type, right-click the file and choose Open With > Choose Default Program. Select one of the options in the resulting dialog box, or click the Browse button, navigate to the executable file of the program you want to make the default for that file type, and click Open. Make sure "Always use the selected program to open this type of file" is checked (it's selected by default).

There are many things I like about Windows Vista. The OS's approach to folder views isn't one of them.

XP had it right: To change your default view in Windows Explorer and folder windows in Vista's predecessor, you just open a folder, change it to the view you prefer (for me, its View > Details), and click Tools > Folder Options > View > Apply to All Folders > Yes > OK.

If only things were that simple in Vista. XP's successor (I use the term lightly) has five different types of folders. Changing the view in one type won't apply to the others. Also, because of Vista's content sniffing, a folder's view may change depending on what type of file you place in it. What does a guy have to do to get all Details view, all of the time?

It turns out, you can edit the Registry to deactivate this feature. You'll find step-by-step instructions on Kristan Kenney's Windows Now blog. Be sure to back up the Registry by creating a restore point before you begin.

I'm usually not averse to a little light Registry editing to get Windows to look or act the way I want it to look or act. But it bugs me that Vista won't let you set your default view for all folders without having to edit the Registry. So instead I opted for the long, tedious approach of changing the view one folder at a time until they all looked like I wanted them to.

Open Windows Explorer or any folder window (pressing the Windows key and E simultaneously is one way), click View (or press Alt-V), and choose your preferred folder view. Now click Organize > Folder and Search Options (or press Alt-T, O), choose the View tab, click Apply to Folders (make sure "Remember each folder's view settings" is checked in the Advanced Settings window), and click OK.

Change your folder view in Vista via the View tab in the Folder Options dialog box.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Back in Explorer, click each folder in the left pane in succession, and whenever a folder doesn't have the view you want, repeat the steps above. Even though there are officially only five types of folders in Vista, I found that I had to change the view settings of about eight different folders until they all opened in Details view by default.

Note that several of the shortcut folders aren't accessible; clicking them opens a scary warning. These folders, which include Documents and Settings, My Documents, and My Music, are there for backward compatibility with Windows XP and don't store any files.

Your preferred view won't be applied automatically to Open and Save As dialog boxes in Word, Paint, and other applications. These you'll also have to change manually via the Views dropdown menu. Even though Folder and Search Options is grayed out in these dialog boxes, Vista appears to remember your choice the next time you view that folder in the Open or Save As dialogs.

Change Vista's default Details categories
The problem with Vista's Details view is the lame categories that appear by default. I don't have much use for Ratings. And for better or worse, I don't do much tagging of my Word documents. Yet those are two of only four Details categories that are shown automatically in some folders.

Altering the lineup is a cinch: Right-click any existing category, check or uncheck the options as you wish, or click More to see a complete list of available options. Once you've made your selections, click OK. You can also change the order of the categories by dragging their headings left or right.

Change the categories shown in Vista's Details view by right-clicking a heading and making your selections.

(Credit: Microsoft)

There's no guarantee some Windows update or program installation won't reset all my folder views. In fact, I expect Vista to revert to its content-sniffing ways before long. Maybe by then Microsoft will have wised up and given us the ability to set a single view for all folders in Vista, no matter what. Well, I can dream, can't I?

You use your browser a lot. You use your e-mail program a lot. But the chances are better than even that you spend a big chunk of your workday in Microsoft Word. There's no way any application used by so many people for so many different tasks is going to be set up just right for you. Here are the five settings I changed to make Word work my way, more or less.

I say "more or less" because Word isn't quite the paragon of flexibility. You can make serious changes to the program's look and operation by editing its normal.dot template (it's called normal.dotx in Word 2007), or by creating a new template with the settings you prefer and telling Word to use that one by default. But I'm the impatient type, and this takes more time than I'm willing to spend on these tasks. I'd rather take the quick-and-dirty route. (I may describe the template-change approach in a future post, if I ever have the time to spare.)

Get rid of smart quotes
Many of the documents I create in Word end up on the Web. Word's curly quotes tear up HTML and make the text around them tough to read. To revert to good ol' straight quotes and apostrophes in Word 2003, click Tools*AutoCorrect Options*AutoFormat As You Type, uncheck "Straight quotes" with "Smart quotes", and click OK. In Word 2007, click the Office button in the top-left corner, and choose Word Options in the bottom right. Select Proofing in the left pane, and AutoCorrect Options in the right pane. Click AutoFormat As You Type, uncheck "Straight quotes" with Smart quotes", and click OK twice.

Set Microsoft Word to use straight quotes instead of smart quotes, and not to convert Web addresses to hyperlinks.

Keep your Web addresses unlinked
Most of the Web addresses I put in Word docs are intended as notes to myself or someone I'll be sharing the file with. They will eventually be cut from the document and pasted into another program that needs the whole URL, including the "http://". But as soon as I type them, Word strips off the URL prefix and makes them live links (though you have to press the Ctrl key as you click). The program also makes any e-mail addresses you type Ctrl-clickable, which opens your e-mail program with the address in the To: field. To retain URLs, network paths, and e-mail addresses as plain text in Word 2003, click Tools*AutoCorrect Options*AutoCorrect As You Type, uncheck Internet and network paths with hyperlinks, and click OK. In Word 2007, click the Office button in the top-left corner, select Word Options, choose Proofing in the left pane, click the AutoCorrect Options button in the right pane, uncheck Internet and network paths with hyperlinks, and click OK twice.

Change your default font
Some people are satisfied with Times New Roman, Calibri, or whatever font Word chooses for them. Personally, I bounce between Arial and Book Antiqua, but you've probably got your own preference. To reset the default font in Word 2003 or 2007, press Ctrl-d to open the Font dialog box, select your preferred font, style, and size, click Default, and then Yes at the warning.

Change your default document folder
I'm forever moving from PC to PC, so I keep my Word documents and other files on a USB thumb drive that I bring with me and plug into whatever system I'm using. For backup, I zip the folder and e-mail it to myself about once a month. I'm sure I'm violating several security "rules," but the process works for me.

Even if you prefer to store your files on your hard drive, you may want to put them somewhere other than XP's My Documents or Vista's Documents folders. To change the folder Word 2003 stores documents in by default, click Tools*Options*File Locations, select Documents (it should be highlighted by default), and click Modify. Navigate to and select your preferred storage location, and click OK twice. In Word 2007, click the Office button and choose Word Options in the bottom-right corner. Choose Save in the left pane, click the Browse button to the right of Default file location, navigate to and select the folder you want to store your documents in, and click OK twice.

Change the folder Word 2007 stores your documents in by default.

Get a new view
My eyesight isn't what it used to be, so I like viewing Word 2007 documents in Draft view (the equivalent of Word 2003's Normal view). Draft view does away with the blue borders on the left and right sides of Word 2007's default Print Layout view. To open Word files in Draft view, click the Office button and choose Word Options in the bottom-right corner. Click Advanced in the left pane, scroll down to the General section, check Allow opening a document in Draft view, and click OK. From now on, if you close Word in Draft view, your files should open in the same view when you restart the app and reopen them.

This option under Word 2007's Advanced Options dialog lets you open documents in Draft view.

Tomorrow: A simple solution for pasting plain text.