NirCmd

NirCmd is another great free utility from NirSoft. It allows for special commands to be run in Windows. It's available for download here.

So for example, if you CTRL + SHIFT right click in the folder containing, the nircmd.exe, and then enter this comand:

nircmd.exe win close class "IEFrame"

. . . any open instances of internet explorer will be closed.

NIrsoft has posted a long list of commands that can be used with this utility on the download page. These include closing all Windows explorer windows:

nircmd.exe win close class "CabinetWClass"

. . . copying the content of a text file to c clipboard

nircmd.exe clipboard readfile "c:\foofolder7\cities.txt"

clearing the clipboard;

nircmd.exe clipboard clear

. . . and speaking the text currently copied to the clipboard:

nircmd.exe speak text ~$clipboard$

Cool!

Superfetch

Superfetch is an option in Windows which pre-loads commonly used application components into memory in order to reduce load times. Applications such as Excel will open more quickly with Superfetch enabled. Prefetching is the process of storing information about applications to help them open faster. Superfetch predicts which applications will be launched and loads the necessary data ahead of time.

Follow these steps:

1. Open the Registry Editor (command: regedit).

2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters.

3. Right click on 'EnableSuperfetch' and select 'Modify'.

4. Entering a value of 1 will enable prefetching when applications are launched. A value of 2 will enable boot prefetching, or a monitoring of which files are accessed when the operating system is started. A setting of 3 enables both kinds of pretching, and a value of 0 disables them both.

Startup Me Up!

Tonight's tip is one I learned long ago, and it's a very simple one. It is however one that can hopefully help you organize your work day.

Each time you startup a Windows PC you can have it open certain files or certain programs. Just take these two steps:

1. Click on the Windows key in the lower left and then type in Run, to get the Run window. Then enter the command, "Shell:startup".

2. Windows will open the folder (probably, "C:\Users\[YourUserName}\Start Menu\Programs\Startup") that contains files and programs to be run after the system is restarted.

Whether it's a link to a web site or an executable file, Windows will open it the next time you login.