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Cheap Tricks for computer success
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Hidden drivesWant to hide drives with sensitive material on them from prying eyes? You can prevent any or all disk drives from being displayed in My Computer and Explorer. It takes some Registry tweaks, which can be tricky. Check instructions at www.WE-Compute.com/registry.html if you are new to Registry editing. In the Registry navigate to HKEY__USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Right-click on Explorer and choose New and DWORD value. In the pane on the right, rename the new value NoDrives and double-click on it to open the Edit DWORD Value box. Click the Decimal option to select it, instead of the Hexidecimal option. Now for the complicated part. To hide a drive or drives, a number that corresponds to the drive(s) must be entered. Enter the value listed below for the drive. If multiple drives are to be hidden, add the numbers for those drives together. For example, hiding drives D and E requires a value of 24, because you are adding the value for D (8) to the value for E (16), which equals 24.
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A: 1 B: 2 C: 4 D: 8 E: 16 |
F: 32 G: 64 H: 128 I: 256 J: 512 |
K: 1024 L: 2048 M: 4096 N: 8192 O: 16384 |
P: 32768 Q: 65536 R: 131072 S: 262144 T: 524288 |
U: 1048576 V: 2097152 W: 4194304 X: 8388608 Y: 16777216 |
Z: 33554432 All: 67108863 |
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The boot disk, usually the C drive, tends to show up in Explorer even if you hide it in My Computer. To bring back hidden disks, just change the value of NoDrives to 0 or delete the value altogether. Free *Cheap Trick* of the Week: May 25, 2001 |
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| Windows Explorer is a truly useful tool. Microsoft tends to hide this, but it should be your standard interface with your computer, unless you don't mind working blind. You can always right mouse click the Start button to invoke it, but you should add Windows Explorer to your Quick Launch bar and several other menus in Windows. The default settings for Windows Explorer defy logic. Change these so you can actually see what files you are looking at. Enable it to show you the file extensions (unclick the insane "Hide extensions" box that is, stupidly enough, checked by default though actually there is never any reason to ever check this box). Select the option to show details. Now, you will be able to see your file size, file date, and other useful information. If you right click around a bit, you can find quite a bit of functionality in Windows Explorer. If you haven't been using this interface previously, make a point of using it now. If you always open files from within Windows Explorer, you will always be able to see all available files and select the right one. Use Windows Explorer to set up your filing system as if it's a paper filing cabinet. Save all files either on the data drive (dual hard drive machine) or in a folder on a single hard drive machine. Do NOT save files to the default locations. These never make any sense. They are typically within your applications, which is a dumb place to save them. That's how you end up with corrupted data files and it also makes file backups difficult. For single-drive users, an easy solution is to create a folder called 0files as your top-level data folder. The zero means it will show up at the top of your file list, making things easy for you. Below this folder, create you filing structure. Never store anything at the root of this folder. Think of it as the shell of a five-drawer filing cabinet and don't toss stuff in the bottom. Always put files in folders that are in drawers. With a good filing structure in place, you will always be able to find your files by simply clicking right to them. So think this out as you go and follow a good taxonomy. It's a much more effective way to work than how the zombies at Microsoft envision people working.
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