 |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Toward a Better Computing Experience | Neil Stahfest, Vice President, Tacoma Area PC User Group, Washington July 2011 issue, the Data Line NCStahfest (at) msn.com www.tapcug.org |
This is for all of you who have a laptop PC with Windows 7. As you move your PC between your home, office, library or meetings, you may need to change some settings such as screen brightness or connect to various networks. Windows 7 contains a number of controls in the Windows Control Panel that let you make these changes. You can make these changes individually or at one central location called the Windows Mobility Center. You don’t even need to go to the Control Panel to reach the Mobility Center. Simply press the Windows Icon key and the letter X on your keyboard at the same time.
When you do, the Windows Mobility Center will appear, looking something like the image below. Different tiles may be displayed depending upon the version of Windows 7 loaded on your computer or your computer’s hardware configuration. In addition, some PC manufacturer may customize the Mobility Center by adding some additional controls.
As you can see, commonly used settings such as display brightness, sound volume and network settings are easily adjustable from here. Some settings may not be available because the required hardware is not connected. In that case the tiles will be greyed out. In the example above, no external display is connected. Wireless settings may be temporarily unavailable if the hardware switch is turned off. (You may need to check the information that came with your computer to learn where to find this hardware switch.)
On another topic, are you “bugged” by those little windows that occasionally pop up in the corner of your display screen warning you about Windows maintenance and security items? Usually this happens when you turn your computer on but it can happen at any time. Personally, I want to see messages telling me that there are Windows updates available for my computer but I don’t care to see messages relating to things like spyware protection and user account control.
These messages are controlled by something called the “Windows 7 Action Center.” As usual, Windows gives us several ways to reach the “Action Center” but I prefer to do it this way. Click on the Windows “Start” button, in the search box enter “action center” and then press “Enter”. You should see something like this:
Now click on “Change Action CenterSettings” (circled in red). A new window will open that looks something like this:
As you can see, you can turn off a lot of security and maintenance messages here. Just uncheck the ones you don’t want to see and click on the “OK” button. If you change your mind, just click on the check boxes to restore the messages.