1: Open Folders in a New Process

If you understand processes, you might realize how this is a monumental feature for you. If you don’t understand how processes work, let’s just say that every single folder you open adds up to “explorer.exe” and doesn’t open a new instance of the application. That means that everything you’ve opened is governed by that same “explorer.exe” application. What if “explorer.exe” crashes? This would mean that everything you ever opened will have to be closed, including the taskbar, within the task manager application included in Windows. Believe me when I say that it’s an enormous hassle. So, what do you do?

While holding the “Shift” key, right-click “Computer” within your “Start” menu. Now, click “Open in new process” and you’re done! You should have the following result:

As in the image above, you should see two processes named “explorer.exe.” If you didn’t, re-read the instructions. Perhaps you missed something. Don’t forget to hold “Shift” while right-clicking “Computer.”

2: Reduce Volume of Other Applications When You Get a Call

This one comes handy when you’re an office user and you depend on Skype or other applications to complete calls in your daily life. Instead of lowering the sound volume manually for each other application you use, you can easily configure Windows to reduce the volume of everything else to give you better call quality. You can even mute everything else if you want complete silence – something handy when you’re conducting interviews. The whole shebang is in the “Communications” tab of your “Sounds” menu. For those of you who don’t know how to get there, just right-click the speaker icon in the bottom right corner of your screen and click “Sounds.” It takes you to a window like this:

In the above window, the “Communications” tab has already been selected. Notice how you have the option to either reduce the volume of other sounds by 80% or 50%, or even the option to mute everything else currently playing on your PC/Laptop/doohickey. Once you click “OK,” the settings will apply automatically.

3: Problem Steps Recorder

Have you ever had a problem that you would like to explain to someone with screenshots and concise steps? There are some things so complex that you can’t really explain them only in a couple of phrases, so you’re left with a really difficult choice: Either you bring your PC over to a technician, or you just sit there and try to put two and two together without any guidance. Fortunately, Windows 7 takes care of this issue with a little application known as the Problem Steps Recorder. The program automatically records everything you do on your computer, including keystrokes, after you press the record button, and saves a file to a place of your choosing containing all the information necessary for someone to see what’s wrong.

Just click your “Start” menu, type “PSR,” and press “Enter.” This will open this window:

It’s that simple! Be warned: Once you hit “Start Record,” everything you do will be recorded on your computer. And, by everything I mean everything. Make sure you don’t have anything private on your computer that you would not like someone else to see. There will be screenshots of every event. Make sure you take advantage of the “Add Comment” button to help make things easier for the person who’s helping you take care of the problem. Once you click “Stop Record,” the application will ask you where you want to save a ZIP file of your recording. If you open the ZIP  file and then open the recording within it, you’ll see something like this:

4: Switch Display Modes (And Calibrate Each Display)

Let’s face it: Tons of computer users nowadays need more than just one display to work efficiently. Microsoft implemented some juicy features for power users who have multiple displays that allows you to work with them quickly without moving your mouse all over the place and clicking through a labyrinth of menus. What’s wrong with indulging in the sweet, sweet taste of Windows shortcuts? That’s why you switched over from XP, right?

In order to quickly switch display modes, you only need to press the Windows key and the “P” key on your keyboard. That wasn’t so hard, was it? If you’re doing it right, this comes up:

As for screen calibration, Windows has a tool known as the “Display Color Calibration Wizard.” This can be found in the personalization menu when you right-click somewhere on your desktop, but who wants to waste time and click through a ton of stuff? There’s a simpler solution: Click your “Start” menu, type “dccw,” and press “Enter.” You’re in!

Mind you, but I think that guy looks creepy! Anyway, that’s part of the calibration process.

5: Minimize All Windows With a Wiggle

There’s nothing more frustrating when you have a bunch of windows open than, well, seeing a bunch of windows open. Sometimes, you just want to see your desktop and catch a breath of fresh air. There are three ways to do this without going through a lot of trouble minimizing each window manually. The first way is by pressing “Win + D.” That’s an easy, straightforward way, but perhaps you’re someone who’s more comfortable with the mouse.

Your second way of minimizing all windows, using the mouse, is by clicking a bar on the lower right corner of the screen. Still, you need precision and you might not be nimble enough to do this without wasting a bit of time. Here’s the bar, if you didn’t notice it:

Both of the options will get you where you want, but none of them let you explore your inner child and have a little fun. Restore a maximized window, right now, and wiggle it around a bit. Try a little more intensity. Did your computer just go nuts? Nope! It just minimized everything and led you straight to your desktop.

Let us know below in the comments section what you think about these top-secret Windows 7 features!

About /proc

Probably the most important thing to understand about /proc is that it’s not a normal directory with normal files. It’s more like a viewscreen into the system internals. Files in this directory are not read and saved to the hard drive like your average document or MP3, they’re generated by the Linux kernel on the fly. Accessing the file /proc/meminfo will likely give you different results each time, because memory usage is nearly always fluctuating.

By putting this kind of system information into a virtual filesystem like proc, the developers adhere to the UNIX philosophy “everything is a file”. They do this so that it can be easily read by any person or software as easily as a normal text file, no special libraries or languages necessary. For us, this means that up-to-date system information is always easily available.

Note: The files mentioned here should all open cleanly in any text editor of your choice. The examples here are showing the contents using the standard cat command from within a terminal.

/proc/cpuinfo

If you’ve spent any time at all in proc, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with this file. Displaying the contents of cpuinfo will give you a detailed picture of exactly what CPU you have and what features it supports.

/proc/meminfo

The other most well known file in proc, meminfo is an extremely handy file to keep around. It shows you information about memory and swap usage, and is one way that scripts and programs can find out what’s available.

/proc/cmdline

This file shows the options that were used to start the kernel. This can be handy when troubleshooting boot problems, or if you need to verify exactly which kernel file was used for boot.

/proc/filesystems

A lesser known but still useful file is filesystems. From here you can read the (somewhat extensive) list of filesystems currently supported by your kernel. Not all of these are the type of filesystems you’d use to store your data, some are like proc itself and have special-purpose uses.

/proc/PID

In this case, PID is the process ID of a running program. Each process has a unique number that the system uses to identify that particular instance of that particular program. For example, when you run the program top from the command line, you see a list of running processes and their PIDs. Each process has its own subdirectory in proc, which you can browse for information about that particular process.

/proc/modules

One of the most vital of the files in proc, modules contains a complete list of the currently active kernel modules. If you’ve ever had to work through video driver issues, you likely know how useful this can be. While likely not something you’d use every day, this file can be a lifesaver for troubleshooting.

/proc/mounts

You can quickly and easily check all your mounted devices by opening the mounts file. Once again, many of the items here are not necessarily mounts points that a user need be aware of. Most of the sections relevant to you will be found toward the bottom.

Conclusion

There’s certainly more to proc than can be covered here, so I’d greatly encourage anyone reading this to do some poking around in proc to find the bits of information that could be really useful to you. While many of the files you’ll find there are intended to be used by the OS itself, they can all provide a valuable look into Linux’s operations.

In the past, there has not been an easy way for noobs like us to understand what is behind the scene. With File Inspect, this suddenly become a breeze (and you can easily become an expert and boast to your friends).

File Inspect Library is an educational site that provides detailed information of all (if not, most) the processes/files running in your Windows machine. You simply type in the process/file name and it will bring you its description, functionality and whether it is safe to delete/disable them. Cool, isn’t it?

Let’s delve into it further.

When you go to the site – http://fileinspect.com, you will find a search bar, a list of the most popular files and a list of the most dangerous files on the home page.

Type in the process/file name in the search bar to start searching. As you type, it will fetch the results on the fly and displays them in a dropdown list.

The search result is categorize into different status: safe, unsafe and dangerous. A safe file is denoted by a green icon, unsafe with yellow icon and dangerous with a red icon. In some occasions, you will find that there are several entries of the same file name marked with different colors (see screenshot below). The reason being that some viruses/worms disguise themselves as the filename of some important processes and create havoc in your computer.

Click on the search result to get more information.

On the information page, you will find a great deal of information, including what is the process’s functionality, where it is located, is it safe to remove, (if yes) how to remove etc.

At this moment, File Inspect is still in beta version as the developer is testing out the algorithm and making sure the file description is up-to-date. In the final version, there will also be some extra widgets that you can use to show where have all the bad files spread to.

Is File Inspect everything I need to protect my computer?

In actual fact, NO! Unlike any other antivirus or firewall software, File Inspect Library does not safe guard the safety of your computer. It is only meant to be used as an informational hub for you to get educated on the various files/processes running behind the scene. You still have to play your part to install a good antivirus and Firewall software and perform regular system scan.

If you haven’t or aren’t too sure how to check for running processes on your system, press Ctrl + Alt + Del and a utility named Task Manager will popup. The Processes tab of Task Manager should give you a list of all the processes running on your system and this is where you’ll see multiple svchost.exe processes, along with the rest of the processes running on your system.

The svchost processes have, until now, been a mystery to me. I mean, I don’t remember starting them, I definitely don’t use them but there they are using precious memory on my machine and making me feel helpless. The helplessness got to me and I had to do something about it, or at least find out what purpose svchost.exe plays in the grand order of things.

I did some research and came across a Microsoft article which says that

Svchost.exe is a generic host process name for services that run from dynamic-link libraries (DLLs).

This gibberish basically means that svchost.exe is a utility used to load System services which require DLL files. I know that is oversimplifying things, but that should be enough for most people.

Since I was more curious and wanted to see the services that each svchost instance was responsible, I googled for tools which would give me this info and came across Svchost viewer.

Svchost viewer is a simple and useful utility that analyzes your system for all running instances of svchost.exe and tell you the services each instance is responsible for.

It’ll also tell you the amount of memory each instance of svchost is consuming and the number of threads that it has open.

When you first start Svchost Viewer, it’ll take a couple of seconds to analyze your system and will then display all the running instances of the svchost.exe process, followed by their process ID in a tree like structure.

Click on any one individual process you’ll be able to see more data about the process, like the number of services it is responsible for, number of active threads it has and the amount of memory that is being consumed by the process. Expand the tree and you will be able to see more information about the individual services along with a handy description of the process.

The best thing about Svchost viewer is that it doesn’t even require an install. It comes as a self contained executable and can be run from a USB flash drive if required. Very handy when you want to use it for troubleshooting on a friend’s computer.

Svchost viewer is an excellent utility to have around and probe a little deeper into the inner workings of the operating system. It might even be helpful when you are looking to save some previous RAM and want to see the services that are taking up the most of it and can be killed safely.