Replace Windows Alert Sounds with Visual Cues [How To]

If your hearing isn’t what it used to be or you’re in a noisy environment, you may find you’re not hearing audible notifications when you’re using Windows. If, when a sound would normally notify you, you’d like to be visually notified, you can turn on visual cues alongside audio cues.

Enable Visual Cues for System Notifications

To enable visual cues alongside audible notifications:
1. Click the Start button, type ease, and click Ease of Access Center

2. Click Use text or visual alternatives for sounds

3. Check Turn on visual notifications for sounds (Sound Sentry), choose to flash the caption bar, active window, or desktop:
Note: You can also use text captions for spoken dialogue

Now, when you trigger an alert sound, your desktop (or window or caption bar) will flash:

To disable queues, simply uncheck the Turn on visual notifications for sounds (Sound Sentry) option and click OK.

Customize which Sounds/Visual Cues You Use

You may want to adjust sound settings to stop audio cues when you’re browsing through Windows Explorer for example (it can be annoying browsing folders with the screen constantly flashing.) To customize the sounds and visual cues used:
1. Click the Start button, type sound and click Change system sounds
2. On the Sounds tab, click the sound you want to disable and select (None)

3. Click OK to save changes

Create a Shortcut to a Program or Folder on Your Desktop or Start Menu [Beginner Tip]

Most programs put a shortcut on your start menu or desktop when they’re installed. However, if you accidentally remove this shortcut or need to create a shortcut to a commonly used folder, this guide will show you the basics:

• Create a shortcut on your desktop
• Create a shortcut on the start menu

Hint: If you’re not sure where the program or folder is located, use the search box in Windows Explorer (Start > Computer or Windows Key + E)

Create a Shortcut on Your Desktop

Here are two easy ways to create a shortcut on your desktop:

Method 1: Send to Desktop (Create Shortcut)

1. Open Windows Explorer (Windows Key + E) and navigate to the desired program or folder
2. Right click the program or folder and click Send to > Desktop (create shortcut)

Method 2: ALT Key and Drag and Drop

1. Minimize all current Windows (Windows Key + D)
2. Open Windows Explorer (Windows Key + E) and navigate to the desired program or folder
3. Hold the ALT key, click the program/folder, and drag it over your desktop:

Note: You do not need to hold ALT to create a shortcut for programs but it’s good practice so you don’t relocate any files by accident

Create a Shortcut on the Start Menu

Here are two ways to create a shortcut on your start menu:

Method 1: Pin Program to Start Menu (Windows 7 only)

1. Open Windows Explorer (Windows Key + E) and navigate to the desired program or folder
2. Right click the program and click Pin to Start Menu

Method 2: ALT Key and Drag and Drop

1. Open Windows Explorer (Windows Key + E) and navigate to the desired program or folder
2. Hold the ALT key, click the program/folder, drag it over the Start button (wait for the menu to pop up), hold the icon over All Programs (wait for all Programs to show), and drop the icon on the start menu:

What Resolution is My Screen Running? (Desktop Wallpaper) [Beginner Tip]

If you’re looking for desktop wallpaper, the best way to make sure you’re getting wallpaper that will fit, not blur, and show the complete image is to get wallpaper at the right resolution.

What is Resolution?

Screens are made up of tiny addressable squares or pixels. If you look closely at your monitor, you’ll see these tiny squares made up of (usually) Red, Green, and Blue lines. The Red, Green, and Blue lights mix to produce a colored light; the collection of these colors work like a huge patchwork quilt to produce the image you’re looking at right now.
Resolution is the number of these pixels wide by the number of pixels high that your screen displays.
i.e. 1920 x 1080 resolution is 1,980 pixels wide and 1,080 pixels high and is referred to as “nineteen twenty by ten eighty.”

What is My Resolution?

If you have JavaScript enabled in your browser, you will see your resolution below:

Your display resolution is currently set at 1366 x 768

Manually Check Screen Resolution

To manually check screen resolution:

Windows 7

Go to your Desktop (Windows Key + D)
Right click the Desktop and click Screen Resolution:

Your screen resolution is displayed:

Windows Vista

Go to your Desktop (Windows Key + D)
Right click the Desktop and click Personalize:

On the Personalize appearance and sounds panel, click Display Settings

Your screen resolution is displayed:

Use Multiple Home Pages in Internet Explorer [Quick Tip]

If you’re using Internet Explorer (IE) and you want to open more than one homepage when you start a web browsing session, this guide will help you get set up.

Note: As you increase the number of tabs to open, the time it takes to launch Internet Explorer will increase.

Add a Page to Your Home Page Tabs

1. Browse to a website you want to add to your home pages
2. Click the drop-down arrow on the Home Button and click Add or Change Home Page…

3. Select Add this webpage to your home page tabs and click Yes

Manage Home Page Tabs

To add and remove tabs:
1. In IE, click Tools > Internet Options
2. On the General tab, under Home page, delete any pages you don’t want to include
3. Add sites (one per line) that you’d like to open at each launch

4. Click OK
Now restart Internet Explorer and verify the tabs you want to launch load successfully.

Improve Performance in Windows 7

Personally, I don’t see the point in upgrading your hardware if your computer does everything you need it to. However, sometimes it’s nice to improve what you already have. In this guide we will learn how to make the most out of the hardware you have and make Windows 7 run faster. (Here’s a similar list for Windows XP and for Windows Vista.)
I highly recommend you create a system restore point before starting.
Note: There is a lot of crossover with this guide and the guide to extend laptop battery life as some of the procedures, listed below, will help save power.

1. Scan Your PC for Malware

The first step you should take, to increase performance, is to scan for and remove malware. Use Microsoft Security Essentials to perform this task.
For a more in-depth look at PC security, check out the PC Security Handbook.

2. Defragment Your Hard Disk

Imagine you are in a shopping mall, and the person you are with wants to visit fifteen different shops. However, this person ends up walking you up and down the mall six times. Does that make sense? Of course not – as human beings, we like to do things to save time.
When your hard drive becomes fragmented, it is literally wasting time by looking in all kinds of places on the disk for all the pieces of one file. Defragmenting your drive is a great solution to speed up your computer as it puts all the files together in order.

1. Click the Start button, type Defrag, and click Disk Defragmenter.
2. Click the drives you want to defragment and click Analyze.
3. Click Defragment.

If you want to schedule disk defragmentation (so you don’t have to do this manually), see this guide: Schedule Disk Defragmentation.

3. Detect and Repair Disk Errors

Over time, your hard disk develops bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing difficult or even impossible. To detect and repair disk errors, Windows has a built-in tool called the Error Checking utility. It’ll search the hard disk for bad sectors and system errors and repair them for faster performance.
To detect and repair disk errors:

1. Click the Start button and click Computer.
2. Right click the hard disk you want to scan and click Properties.
3. Click the Tools tab.
4. Click Check Now.
5. Select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box and click Start.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 for all drives you want to check.

4. Disable The Search Index Service

Indexing Services is a little application that uses a lot of CPU. By indexing and updating lists of all the files on the computer, it helps you to do a search for something faster as it scans the index list. But if you know where your files are, you can disable this system service. It won’t do any harm to you machine, whether you search often or not very often.
To disable the search index:
Click the Start button, click Control Panel, and type index in the top-right search box. Click Change how Windows searches.

Click Modify.

Remove all locations by unchecking them and click OK.

5. Cut Down on Background Applications

Many background applications don’t need to run and only increase CPU cycles and, in turn, the demand on your battery. Here’s a couple of things you can do to cut down on background applications:

5a. Disable Windows Sidebar Gadgets

If you don’t use the sidebar, you probably have it disabled already (right click the Windows Sidebar icon in the system tray and click Exit.)
If you use the Windows Sidebar, do you really need all your gadgets running? To disable Windows Sidebar gadgets:
Click the Start button and click Control Panel. Type gadget in the top-right search box, and click View list of running gadgets.

Next to the running gadgets, click Remove.

5b. Diable Startup applications

To disable unneccessary startup applications, follow this guide.

6. Optimize Visual Effects

Visual effects also use CPU and memory, which reduces system performance. To optimize visual effects:
Click the Start button, click Control Panel, and type visual in the top-right search box. Click Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows.

 Select Adjust for best performance and click OK.

7. Turn off Windows Aero

Windows Aero enables the glass effect you see on your Windows. This (surprise surprise) also uses CPU and memory and should be disabled to increase performance. To disable Windows Aero:
Right click the desktop and click Personalization. Click Window Color.

 Uncheck Enable transparency and click OK.

8. Disable Your Wireless Internet & Bluetooth

If you’re not using the internet or Bluetooth, consider disabling the hardware to save resources. To disable your wireless, bluetooth, or both cards, either:
A. Locate the switch on the side of your laptop (many laptops now have this) and turn your cards off.
or
B. Click the network icon in the system tray and click Open Network and Sharing Center.

 In the left-hand menu, click Change adapter settings.

 Right click your wireless connection and click Disable.

Repeat for your Bluetooth device.

9. Keep Your Computer Cool

The hotter your computer gets, the harder your fans have to work to keep it cool and the slower your hardware performs. If using your laptop, ensure there is proper ventilation by putting your laptop on a hard surface (not buried in a pillow!) Also check your desktop has proper ventilation by doing the following:

• Removing bunches of wires from the back of the PC.
• If your desktop has holes in its case for ventilation, ensure these holes are unrestricted.
• If your desktop is in a cabinet, leave the door open or install an intake and outtake fan to keep the cabinet cool.
• Consider adding more fans to your desktop.
• Keep your hardware clean.

Note: Never use your laptop on a blanket or soft surface where airflow is restricted. This will also keep your laptop working longer as hardware is less likely to overheat and fail.

10. Uninstall Unneccessary Programs

If you’re not using software and have no plans to use it in the future, you can uninstall it to free up hard disk space and resources. Use the following guides to help you remove unwanted software:

• Remove Bloatware with the PC Decrapifier
• Revo Uninstaller completely removes programs

11. Check for Bad Memory Sectors

Failing memory can be a cause for a slow PC. To check your memory for errors, follow this guide: Test Your Computer’s RAM.
Your computer will be running faster already! What did I miss? What do you do to improve your PC’s performance?