Automatic Hotkeys in Vista

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 04:25:20 GMT

This is a really cool feature of Vista and when I use it I think that is should be present in every version of windows by default.

Normally when you have to set hotkey for any application, you have to set the shortcut manully by getting into properties.

There are some applications that we use often like firefox(very often). In vista every application that has an icon in the quick-launch (the icons besides the start menu) automatically gets allocated a hotkey in the order that thet appear in the quick-launch, like show desktop has a shortcut key WIN+1, 3D Flip has a hotkey Win+2 and so on. That is a nifty feature, isnt it?

Just drag your application in the tray to get a hotkey. Really easy.

A word about Vista

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:22:00 GMT

I have been using Vista for the last 5 months, since its beta releases and I must say that is surely much better that XP and is more customizable than so called better OSes. XP is a great OS in its own right but I have has some stability issues with it when you install some install too may softwares.

The performance of Vista doesn't seem to change after installing same number of softwares. It plays all my games and all of my softwares except for the older version of Nero have works fine with it.

Also security wise it is really good as by default it does not run in the administrative mode. I tried to use the restricted mode in windows XP but as the name says it was too restrictive. You literally cannot do with your system at all. Vista elevates the privileges as & when required. So really its not that restrictive. Some people have problems with UAC dialogs popping up frequently but once you install all your softwares, then you will only be seeing that dialog rarely. So don't turn it off, its for your own good (just my humble opinion). If you want to turn it off temporarily then read one of my previous blog.

System wide search is another good feature. Eye candy is great. Windows defender, better firewall, media center, movie maker, ultimate extras are really good features.It has great driver support (30,000 inbuilt drivers and that number is increasing everyday, runs almost every hardware, yes even on a Mac). File level security makes sense as user is not the administrator by default. Bit locker can further increase the security.

So it is definitely a better OS that XP and worth the upgrade.

Blog on Rails: Vista

Automatic Hotkeys in Vista

A word about Vista