Windows Tips: Fast Windows Navigation Is a Command Performance
Improve your Windows efficiency by typing commands instead of clicking the mouse.Send Windows-related questions and tips to scott_dunn@pcworld.com. We pay $50 for published items.Click here for more Windows Tips. Scott Dunn is a contributing editor for PC World.
Illustration by Philip Anderson
Address for success: One place where you can type commands is the ubiquitous Address bar in both Explorer folder windows and the Internet Explorer browser. If you don't see it, choose View, Toolbars, Address Bar. With Explorer or Internet Explorer active, press Alt-D to highlight the current entry, and then begin typing.
To put the Address bar on your taskbar, right-click an empty area of the taskbar and choose Toolbars, Address. If the entry field isn't big enough, drag the bar--with the pointer at the left edge of its name--to the left to enlarge it (if the bar is not there, right-click the toolbar and uncheck Lock the Taskbar). Rearrange the Address bar and your toolbars until the taskbar looks juuuust right (see FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1: Pump up your taskbar so the Address bar can have a line of its own.
).
To resize and reposition the Address bar, drag the name--'Address'--from your taskbar onto your desktop. You can also drag it to any screen edge to dock it there; the top and bottom screen edges give you the most typing room.
Right-click the Address bar and choose Always on Top to make it always visible (see FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2: The Address bar is ever visible with the 'Always on Top' feature.
). If the Address bar is docked in the taskbar or on a screen edge, you can right-click it and uncheck Show Title to hide the Address label. If the Address bar is docked but separate from the taskbar, right-click it and choose Auto-Hide to make it invisible until the pointer moves to that screen edge.
To access your desktop Address bar from your keyboard, press Ctrl-Esc, Esc to activate the taskbar (opening and closing the Start menu in the process); then press Tab as many times as necessary until the Address bar is active. If any toolbars on your taskbar show the double-chevron (>>) symbol indicating a pop-up menu, you may also have to press Esc at one or more points (to close such menus) as you tab your way to the Address bar. Once the Address bar is active, scroll through your last several entries by pressing Up Arrow or Down Arrow.
Run wild: An even more accessible (if not always visible) place to enter commands and Web addresses is Windows' Run box. Choose Start, Run to view this box, or simply press Windows-R if you have a keyboard with the <Windows> key.
If you'd rather launch the Run box from a Quick Launch or desktop icon, or if you have a mouse with a programmable button for launching apps, you can make a simple JavaScript file that will open the Run box. Open Notepad and type the line: (new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application")).FileRun(). Choose File, Save As, navigate to a convenient folder, and type a file name with the .js extension--for example, run.js. To make a shortcut to this file on your desktop or Quick Launch toolbar, use the right mouse button to drag the file to one of these locations and choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. Click or double-click the icon (or the original script file) to display the Run box (see FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3: The Run box is just a click away when you create a Quick Launch icon for it.
).
If your computer associates JavaScripts with Notepad or another text editor, it won't run the script. To fix that, create a shortcut to the.js file as described above, right-click the shortcut, and choose Properties. With the Shortcut tab in front, click the beginning of the Target text box. Type wscript.exe and a space. Click OK.
Keyboard launches: Both the Address bar and the Run box let you open any folder, file, application, Web address (URL), shortcut, or batch file by typing in its name. If the item isn't in a place Windows normally checks (such as the Windows folder), you may need to type a complete path, such as c:\Program Files\opera\opera.exe to launch the Opera browser or \\network\docs\report.doc to open this network document in Word. If you're in the habit of placing quotation marks around paths that use long names or spaces, the Run box won't mind, but the Address bar will think you're looking for a Web address; so avoid using such marks with that tool.
The Address bar lets you open Control Panel items by entering Control Panel\ followed by the item's name (for instance, Control Panel\Display), or to open items in the Printers or Dial-Up Networking folders (Printers\LaserJet, say). The Run dialog box's commands are not as simple (an example: control main.cpl keyboard).
Give orders: You can use the Address bar or Run box to issue what were once considered "external" DOS commands, such as attrib, move, or xcopy. In other words, you can type any command that exists as an independent application file in the Windows\Command folder (in Windows 9x and Me) or the Windows\System32 folder (in Windows 2000 and XP). For instance, to copy all the text files in your Documents folder to a folder called My Text Files, type xcopy c:\documents\*.txt "c:\My Text Files" and press Enter (quotation marks are required if any folder or file name contains spaces). Windows runs the command through a window that closes upon completion. (If the window doesn't close, see the next tip.)
Life's a batch: To run so-called internal DOS-style commands in the Address bar or Run box, type command /c before typing the command (or command /k to keep the command-prompt window open after executing the command). In Windows 2000 and XP, you can save a little typing by using 'cmd' instead of 'command'.
Here's a quick way to make a batch file that renames groups of files automatically: Open Notepad, type rename %1 %2, and press Enter. Save the file in the Windows folder as rn.bat. To convert all the.txt files in a folder to Word documents (with the.doc extension), just use the Address bar or Run box to type something like rn "c:\My Documents\*.txt" *.doc (your path is likely to differ, of course).
If the command-prompt window that runs your batch file stays open after the batch file is done, click the icon on the left end of the window's title bar and choose Properties. Under the Program tab, check Close on exit and click OK. The next time you run that batch file, the window will close automatically when it's done.
Commands in batch files saved with the.cmd extension (instead of.bat) in Windows 2000 or XP will be interpreted as Web addresses, so either rename your batch files using the.bat extension, or launch them only via the Run box.
Send e-mail: To use the Address bar or Run box to drop someone a line, just type mailto: followed by the e-mail address of your desired recipient (for example, mailto:wintips@pcworld.com) and press Enter. Your default e-mail application will then open a blank new message with the shortcut's address in the 'To:' field.
Start a search: To search for text on the Web using IE's Auto-Search feature, click the Address bar; type find, search, go, or even just ? followed by the text to search for; and press Enter. You can customize how the search results are displayed by choosing Tools, Internet Options, Advanced. Scroll to the 'Search from the Address bar' heading. Some options may not work as expected because Microsoft occasionally changes the site that this feature is linked to. Also note that you can't search this way from the Run box.
Let Windows do the typing: As you type a folder path or URL in the Address bar or Run box, AutoComplete supplies the first folder or Web address that matches the characters as you type. To reopen folders or revisit sites, type just enough letters to get the correct path or URL to pop up. To add to this text, press Down Arrow to select the nearest match; continue typing if you need to add more to the path. Repeat as needed until you get the entire path that you want; then press Enter.
Shorten shortcuts: Instead of typing paths in the Run box or Address bar, create shortcuts in the folders Windows looks in by default. In Windows 9x and Me, try the Windows\Command folder. In Windows 2000 and XP, put the shortcuts in the Windows\System folder (not Windows\System32), since the System folder is relatively uncrowded.
To create the shortcuts, open Explorer and select the applications, folders, and files you use most often. Right-click and drag them to one of the aforementioned Windows folders, release the mouse button, and choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. (You can also create shortcuts to Web pages this way.) Give each a short name so you can launch it with little typing; you could name your word-processor shortcut wp, for example. Don't use the name of an existing folder, since doing so could confuse the Address bar or the Run box.
When using this tip with the Address bar, include .lnk (the hidden extension for shortcuts) when you type the name of a non-Web shortcut--wp.lnk, say. And in both the Run box and the Address bar, add .url when launching Web shortcuts--for example, pcw.url. If you store batch files in one of these folders, omit the.bat extension when entering file names.
Bypass paths: To cut down on typing even more, choose Start, Run, type regedit, and press Enter. Select this folder in the left pane: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths. Right-click App Paths in the right pane and choose New, Key. Type the shorthand name in the Address bar followed by .exe--regardless of whether you plan to launch an application or a file. For instance, type r.exe to launch a report file in a desktop publishing app. Press Enter to complete the naming.
Select your new shorthand key in the left pane and double-click (Default) in the right pane. In the 'Value data' box, type the path and name of the program, data file, or shortcut you want to launch. (Add .lnk to the name of shortcut paths, and .url to the end of Web shortcuts.) For example, type c:\My Documents\Quarterly Report.indd (see FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4: Reduce typed commands to one letter by entering often-used paths in the Registry.
). Click OK and exit the Registry Editor. Now when you enter your shorthand text (minus the.exe) in the Address bar or the Run box--such as r, to continue the example above--Windows will open the specified file.
Windows Toolbox: Improve Your Moves With Total Copy
If your system is interrupted while copying a large number of files and folders, it can be tough to tell the folders whose contents were completely copied from those that are incomplete. You have to either start over or open each folder manually to figure it out. Fortunately, a solution may be just a download away. Total Copy adds two extra commands (Total Copy Here and Total Move Here) to the menu you see when you drag and drop files with your right mouse button. The program automatically pauses when a problem occurs and then resumes later. It has manual pause and resume, as well as controls for adjusting the transfer speed (handy for any quirky network connections). The program's creator, Bj??rn Gulliksen, claims that Total Copy works faster than Windows' own copy function. Though it's designed for Windows 9x and 2000, I've found no problems using the program in Windows Me and XP. Go to WebAttack.com to download your free copy.
