1. Right-click on an empty portion of the Taskbar and select Properties.
2. Go to the Taskbar buttons section and use the dropdown to change it from Always combine, hide labels to Never combine.
3. Click the OK button.
Your Taskbar will go from this:
to this:
Did you know that you can install Windows 7 without any license key and use it for 30 days? What you might not know is that you can also extend that trial mode to 120 days, without requiring a key.
The basic way this works is that at the end of the 30 days, you’ll need to run a small command and reboot your computer, at which point you’ll have 30 more days, up to a maximum of 120 days. This trick should work regardless of where you got your copy of Windows 7 from.
Note: make sure to check out our screenshot walkthrough of the Windows 7 Beta if you haven’t already, because Microsoft is giving away beta keys that don’t expire until August 1st.
Extending the Trial By 30 Days
The first thing you’ll want to do is check how many days are left in your trial period. You can do this by right-clicking Computer and choosing Properties…
At the bottom of this window you’ll see how many days are left to activate (29 in my case since I installed this box yesterday).
Now to actually perform the hack that will extend the trial mode, you’ll want to find Command Prompt in the start menu (or search for it), and then right-click on it and choose Run as administrator. (very important)
Next you’ll simply type in this command:
slmgr -rearm
Within a few seconds you’ll normally see this dialog show up, saying that the command has completed successfully, at which point you’ll want to reboot.
Checking the system properties again shows that I now have 30 days left to activate.
Of course you’d normally want to do this near the end, probably on the last day before activation. I’m pretty sure that you can even perform this trick after the 30-day trial expires, although I’m not certain yet.
Hidden, though, are background scenery and themes from other English-speaking countries -- Australia, Canada, Great Britain and South Africa. Normally, you can't access those backgrounds or themes, but there is a simple way you can install and use them:
1. In the search box in the Start menu, typeC:\Windows\Globalization\MCT and press Enter. (Note: If Windows 7 is installed in a drive other than C
2. Windows Explorer will launch and show you a list of subfolders underC:\Windows\Globalization\MCT: MCT-AU, MCT-CA, MCT-GB, MCT-US, and MCT-ZA. Each subfolder has wallpapers for a specific country: AU for Australia, CA for Canada, GB for Great Britain, US for the United States, and ZA for South Africa.:, use that letter instead.)
For any of the countries whose wallpaper and themes you want to use, go into its Theme folder, for example, C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT\MCT-ZA\Theme. Double-click the theme you see there (for example ZA).
You can now use them as you would any other theme or background, by right-clicking the desktop, choosing Personalize, and choosing a background or theme. They will be listed in their own section.3. That will install a shortcut to the theme and wallpapers in the Personalization section of Control Panel.
Apart from making you work more efficiently and faster, you can also impress your friends or colleagues by being able to work without a mouse. This article describes some cool Windows 7 keyboard tricks to get you started. In the end you might never want to take your hands off the keyboard again.
For your convenience, more keyboard shortcut resources are attached at the bottom.
Note that some of these shortcuts will only work if Windows Aero is enabled. If Aero effects are disabled on your computer, it might not be powerful enough to support resource intensive graphical features. The visual effects may also have been disabled to increase overall performance. If you wish to enable Aero nevertheless, have a look at my recent article explaining How To Enable and Troubleshoot Aero Effects in Windows 7.
