Easter Eggs

Easter eggs 

Everyone likes to find hidden stuff, whether it's loose change in the couch cushions or an Easter egg in your favorite video game. Windows 7 has its own hidden treasures. Yes, there are features and goodies to be uncovered—some obvious, some not. And you can access all of those listed here without downloading anything extra (well, mostly). Read on for 10 handy and largely-undocumented items in Windows 7 that you probably weren't aware of...and soon won't be able to live without.

Microsoft is taking on Internet trolls with a new ad that acknowledges the sometimes vitriolic Internet Explorer hate but suggests that even the trolls are coming around, albeit slowly.
The new ad (video below) features a stereotypical Web troll - a young man sitting in the glow of several computer monitors, surrounded by takeout cartons and geek paraphernalia. He sips from an "I *trash* Internet Explorer" coffee mug and scours the Web for any opportunity to dismiss Microsoft's IE browser.
"IE SUCKS," he writes in the comments section of a positive IE10 reviews. "IE SUCKS!!! 4evUR! Srsly," he quips on Facebook. He rolls his eyes at IE10 news, like Xbox 360 availability. "IE is only good for downloading other browsers," the smug bully writes.
The ad then shows the IE Twitter feed, which features a tongue-in-cheek tweet that reads: "IE adopts an island of kittens and donates them to children everywhere!! #Kids+KittiesRULE." Not even that impresses our troll, who responds with his signature "IE SUCKS."
It is not until Microsoft posts a tweet about IE introducing a new Karaoke Web standard that our troll comes around. He swivels in his chair to face his 2008 Karaoke Grand-Master Award before reluctantly returning to his keyboard to write "IE sucks ... less."
A single word flashes across the screen: Progress. "Comebacks come in many shapes and sizes," the ad concludes.
IE is the most popular browser in the world, but it has its very passionate critics, as this ad acknowledges. IE10 was released with Windows 8, and a test version for Windows 7 made its debut earlier this month. The revamped browser provides what the company touts as an entirely new browsing experience, complete with new touch-first browsing, full-screen UI, and security and performance improvements.
Redmond also patched up Internet Explorer 9 last week, providing four fixes to the browser, which left other versions — IE 7, IE 8, or IE 10 — unaffected.
For more, see PCMag's review of IE10 and the slideshow above. Visit www.TheBrowserYouLovedToHate.com for more IE 10-related videos, GIFS, and more.

It may be hyperbolically named, but Windows 7's God Mode is indeed omnipresent. It conveniently puts hundreds of settings from all around the operating system all in one place.

To turn on God Mode, create a new folder on your desktop--or anywhere you'd like--and name it: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}. Don't include the final period. The resulting folder will contain 270 items, representing virtually every configurable option in Windows 7.

Wipe Free Disk Space08

It's no secret (or at least, it shouldn't be) that when you delete files or folders in Windows, they're not actually erased—the space they took up is simply marked as "available for use," which allows the files to be recoverable (with the right software) until they're overwritten with new data.

There is a utility built-into Windows (even XP Pro and Vista) that will overwrite all the free space on a hard drive, insuring any files you've deleted stay dead. Launch a command prompt and type cipher /w:X where X is the letter of the drive or partition you want to wipe. Be patient—the process can take a long time if you have a lot of free space.
 

WordPad's File Support

The built-in WordPad word processor in Vista is of limited usefulness because it only supports RTF (Rich Text Format) and plain text (TXT) files. In Windows 7, on the other hand, WordPad isn't quite as restricted.

Although Windows 7's WordPad still doesn't work with .doc files from Microsoft Word 2003 and earlier versions, it can open and save ODT (OpenDocument Text) files used by the free OpenOffice.org word processor as well as .docx files created in Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010. Although WordPad can't understand all the complex formatting (it will warn you of this upon opening or saving a file), it will still let you read the documents without having the native programs installed.