Tips

Great shortcuts

Windows Tips & Tricks

Written by Jim Wednesday, 17 December 2008 08:01

Windows shortcuts are handy, and whats more the are useful for doing tasks you thought you couldn't do.

Create a new Email in Outlook without opening Outlook itself

(NOTE: Only tested on Outlook 2000, 2003 & XP)

• Create a new outlook shortcut (easiest way is to copy an old one)
• Right Click on the new shortcut, and select properties.
• Add the following text to the end of the target field on the shortcut tab (outside the closing quote marks):
  /c ipm.note
• Click OK.
• Rename the shortcut.

Now only the "create new email" window opens when you click this icon.

Have an Explorer Window open at a certain drive or folder.

(NOTE: Not tested on Windows Vista)

To have windows explorer open up displaying the drive or folder of your choice, instead of my documents:

• Create a new explorer shortcut (optional)
• Right Click on the new shortcut, and select properties.
• Add the following text to the end of the target field on the shortcut tab:
  /n, /e, x:\www

(NOTE: where "x:\www" is the drive letter and folder of choice.)

• Click OK

Synchronising time of windows machines in a Workgroup

Windows Tips & Tricks

Written by Jim Wednesday, 17 December 2008 08:00

Windows has many built in features that are hidden away from the average user. One of these commands is the ability to synchronise times on windows machines in a workgroup.

(NOTE: This Works on Win NT4, 2000, XP, 2003 but is untested on others)

To Set manually:

• Open a command prompt (Start>run>cmd.exe)
• type the following into the command prompt (replacing "computername" with the computers name that you have dedicated as your time server):
  net.exe time \\computername /set /y
• check that the command completed successfully, and your done.

To setup Automatic time synchronisation:

• Test the above works successfully.
• Open Scheduled Tasks ("Start > All Programs > Accessories > System tools > Scheduled Tasks" in XP)
• Create a new scheduled tasks
• Follow the wizard to locate net.exe (usually in C:\WINDOWS\system32 on XP)
  setup the frequency of the task (how often to sync times) and anything else the wizard asks for (tick the box at the end of the XP wizard to open the advanced settings).
• When the wizard finishes, open the properties of the task, and add the remainder of the following command at the end of the command line (the run dialogue in XP):
  net.exe time \\computername /set /y
• Click OK, and your Done !

Extracting the Files from executables and Compressed Archives

Windows Tips & Tricks

Written by Jim Thursday, 20 November 2008 00:19

If you have ever wanted to extract files from most compressed archives and many executables, then "Universal Extractor" is what you need ...

This handy application allows you to right mouse click on many different file types, and extract them. Moreover it is open source autoit, so it gets two big thumbs up from us.

How to send e-mail without opening Microsft Outlook first

Windows Tips & Tricks

Written by Jim Dolby Monday, 14 April 2008 16:01

1. right click on desktop & choose new->shortcut & click browse
2. locate the outlook.exe file and select it & click open
3. in the create shortcut box add the following text to the end of the command line (outside the closing quote marks) /c ipm.note
4. click next and name your s/cut
5. click finish