Windows 7 Parting Shots Registry Tip Of The Month Ever wonder why Windows thinks that one of your file types can be opened with a particular program? Use the contextual Open With menu item and some curious options come up. For some reason, our system thinks that the comics reader formats CBR and CBZ are compatible with iTunes. The problem is that the Open With menu can become cluttered with irrelevant or incorrect program options that can add time to operations or result in strange launches. To winnow the options for an important file type, open Regedit and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts. Look for the file extension for which you want to change Open With options. Fair warning: It can be tricky trying to restore any of the associations you delete here. It is a good practice generally when making a Registry tweak to back up the original state of the key you are modifying. Highlight the key you are going to change and use the File/Export commands to make a .reg file that contains the original key. If you make an error, you can simply double-click that exported .reg file and Windows will restore it. Now, back to making the change. For the relevant file extension, open its OpenWithList sub-key. You will see in the right pane values named a, b, c, etc., with programs associated with each. Highlight the value(s) related to the program you want to excise from the Open With list and delete it. The change will occur immediately. ow that the preview version of Windows 8 has hit the Web, many hard-core techies like us are looking forward to a whole new class of tweaks and tips to explore. Boy have we gotten some mileage out of Windows 7 these last few years. But before we say goodbye to the Windows version that gave Microsoft some of its groove back, let’s offer some tricks you may not have seen before and a few oldies but goodies. N A Windows Of Many Gods Veterans of this feature may recall that two and a half years ago we introduced you to what many call Win 7 “God Mode.” This little hidden feature in Win 7 gathers many of the switches and settings scattered all around the OS into one easily accessible Windows Explorer interface. In Windows Explorer, simply make a new folder. You can give it any descriptive name you like so long as it ends with a dot followed by the text string {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C- 99712043E01C}. So in our case we renamed our new folder GodMode .{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C- 99712043E01C}. When you click away from the new name, the folder turns into an icon. When you double-click this new folder, your Windows Explorer window gets a column of commands divided into 46 categories, such as Action Center, Keyboard, and Programs and Features. Now, a couple of little tricks. In the Name column, right-click any of the main headings and the context menu will let you expand all of the settings under this heading, collapse them, or collapse and expand all headings under all groups. If you collapse everything, you will get a better peek into all that is available here. Double-clicking any of the items brings you directly to specific settings adjustments like “Add clocks from different time zones” under the Date and Time heading. You can also make a shortcut out of any of the individual controls here. Just right-click on the operation and make a shortcut, and it will appear on the Desktop. In fact, if you use the Make Shortcut command on the section header in God Mode, it will make shortcuts for all of the operations under In the same way we make a God Mode by naming a folder with a specific number of strings, there are many other shortcuts you can make to individual settings in Windows. Windows Tip Of The Month Did you ever need to turn your PC’s speaker volume way up to get the audio from a YouTube video and then suffer the jolting effect of having a Windows’ system sound blast your eardrums? Don’t forget that Windows’ audio mixer lets you set volumes separately for system sounds as well as for most other programs and media players. Click your speaker icon in the System Tray and enter the mixer link. In order to adjust the audio for a given program, it should be running. Set the left speaker volume to the highest you want any audio source to play. This sets the upper limit for all channels. Then adjust things like System Sounds, Windows Media Player, Messenger, your VoIP program, or iTunes to the default levels you want. You can even mute any one of these channels separately by clicking the speaker icon at the base of the respective slider. CPU / May 2012 95