Vista Tip: Windows Explorer

I’ve been tooling all over, jotting down Vista tips, now that I run it on two outta four machines… the problem is that I don’t remember who I’ve shared tips with!

What do you notice about this?



One of the things that sorta irks me about OSX is that you can’t close a Window from “either” side. In Windows 3.1 it was in the upper left hand corner, with a double-click on the system icon. Since Windows 95, there was an X button on the right hand corner. In some cases I use the X, in other cases I use the system icon especially when I have a TS window running on a huge desktop.

In Windows Vista, I was greatly annoyed that they took away the icon on Windows Explorer windows, on the left side… then I hit Alt+Space – a shortcut key from at least 1992 – that shows the system menu as if you single clicked the system icon. Lo! There is a system icon on Explorer windows – it’s just invisible! Double-clicking the icon area will still close it.

What about Office 2007? The system icon went messing there too – in place of it there’s an Office Button which drops down a “common” menu – it’s sorta of like a File menu on steroids… double click the Office Button and it closes there too.

Just another tip (and a reminder for myself!)


7 thoughts on “Vista Tip: Windows Explorer”

  1. Single clicking in the invisible area will also bring up the menu.

    Kinda interesting though that being able to close a window on either side is an ‘interesting’ feature though, IMHO. :)

  2. Since you have been moving all the temp and my documents directories since windows 95, I assume you have also been changing the the folder open default to windows explorer. My question is this: Do you know of a way in Vista to make the save as dialog box in firefox, ie7, or whatever default to an explorer version instead of the dreaded crippled vista open dialog box?

    Thank you very much for all of your time and effort in to this website!


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