A complete guide to Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts

A complete guide to Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts

By Becky Waring

One of the best ways to increase your computing productivity doesn’t cost a cent: learn the keyboard shortcuts for your most-used commands.

To help you stop mousing around and become a keyboard maestro, I rounded up the best resources for finding, using, and creating shortcuts.

Lincoln Spector struck a nerve with his Jan. 13 column, “Twenty-six ways to work faster in Windows 7.” Many of those tips involved keyboard shortcuts. After all, almost any time you can use the keyboard instead of the mouse, you work faster. But there are lots more shortcuts where those came from. This article aims to show you where to find the ones that can speed up your workflow. In case you can’t find the shortcuts you need, I’ll show you how to create your own.

You probably already know that you can invoke many menu and dialog-box items via the keyboard by pressing the Control or Alt key plus an underlined letter. For example, pressing Alt + F in most apps opens the File menu; then pressing the underlined letter N opens a new document. You might also know that when you press Alt + A, you apply dialog-box changes.

Direct keyboard shortcuts to menu commands (such as Ctrl + C for Copy) are typically shown next to the command in the menu itself. For a great introduction to using keyboard shortcuts, check out Gizmo’s Dec. 3, 2009, column. For general strategies and more tips, see Scott Dunn’s Feb. 25, 2010, column.

But hundreds of keyboard shortcuts for commands in Windows and widely used apps such as Internet Explorer and Office are not explicitly hinted at in menus and dialog boxes. In other words, you need to actually learn them.

I can hear you groaning. Yes, learning a whole bunch of keyboard commands is not my idea of a fun way to spend a weekend, either, but if you judiciously pick a few, list them in a cheat sheet that you stick on your monitor, and practice them for a week or two, they’ll become second nature.

Top 20 shortcuts for taming your windows

Managing windows is probably one of the most fertile areas for keyboard shortcuts because otherwise, you manipulate them solely with the mouse. Here’s my top-20 list of must-know shortcuts for taming your windows; you’ll never have to move your hands from the keyboard. For completeness, I’ve included many keyboard shortcuts you might already be familiar with; skip down the list to see the ones you don’t know.

Note that both Sticky Keys and Mouse Keys display a warning message when you turn them on and off. You can disable the warning boxes in the Control Panel’s Ease of Access Center by choosing Set up Mouse Keys or Set up Sticky Keys. This list is just a sample of the dozens of shortcuts available. For a full accounting of Windows 7 interface shortcuts, see Microsoft’s Windows 7 Help & How-to site.

Other programs and lots more shortcuts

Although the global Windows 7 shortcuts are the headliners, you will probably save the most time by getting to know the keyboard shortcuts in frequently used applications such as your Web browser, e-mail program, and word processor.

Here are links to handy keyboard shortcut reference guides for many popular apps, along with my favorite shortcut discoveries made researching this article:

• Internet Explorer. (shortcuts) Try Control + Shift + P to open an InPrivate browsing window; try Control + E to go to the Search box.
• Firefox. (shortcuts) Select the exact tab you want with Control + 1 to 8. Control + 9 chooses the last tab.
• Chrome. (shortcuts) Press Alt and click a link to download its target, such as a picture or PDF file.
• Office 2010. (shortcuts) Use the keyboard to work the ribbon interface in all Office programs. This is a huge timesaver. Also, create your own shortcuts by first clicking the File tab to open Backstage view. Then choose Options/Customize Ribbon/Keyboard, then Shortcuts/Customize to enter your own key combinations or to change existing ones, as shown in Figure 1.

  
  Figure 1. The keyboard customization tool in Office 2010.

• Word 2010. (shortcuts) Press Shift + F7 to open the Thesaurus. My new favorite function key! Lots of great formatting, selection, and navigation shortcuts here, too.
• Excel 2010. (shortcuts) Control + Shift + : enters the current time. Control + Shift + & adds a border around the selected cells.
• OneNote 2010. (shortcuts) I’ve fallen in love with the ability to move the current paragraph or selected paragraphs up or down in a document by pressing Alt + Shift + up- or down-arrow.
• Outlook 2010. (shortcuts) Enter Control + Shift + I to switch to your Inbox (or Control + Shift + O to move to your Outbox).
• Thunderbird. (shortcuts) Press F8 to toggle the message pane on and off; press T to jump to the next unread thread.
• Windows Media Player 12. (shortcuts) Alt + Enter toggles full-screen video.
• Adobe Photoshop CS5. (shortcuts) Adobe is kind enough to let you use theirs or build your own shortcuts right in the program.

With a little Googling, you can find more lists of shortcuts for most any program you use regularly.

Better than shortcuts: Windows Aero tricks

First introduced in Windows Vista, the Windows Aero interface comes of age in Windows 7 and is part of all editions except Starter and Home Basic. Critically, most Windows 7 PCs actually have the horsepower to run Aero smoothly (many Vista users were chagrined to learn their computer either wouldn’t support Aero or ran sluggishly), and new usability features make Aero much more than a pretty face.

You’re probably already familiar with many of the Windows 7 interface effects, especially Aero Peek, but others, like Shake, are relatively obscure. If you haven’t discovered these tricks, you’re really missing out.

Yes, they’re mouse shortcuts rather than keyboard shortcuts (and most have keyboard equivalents), but give them a try. Sometimes you have your hand on the mouse or trackpad already, which makes these mouse tricks faster than keyboard combinations to access. And they’re much more fun.

• Peek. Hovering over a program icon in the taskbar gives you a thumbnail preview of open windows for that program.
• Shake. Click and hold your main window on the screen, and then “shake” it with your mouse to minimize or restore all other windows. This shortcut lets you focus on the task at hand. It works like the Windows key + Home combination.
• Flip 3D. This trick is way cooler than Alt+Tab: holding down the Windows key while repeatedly pressing Tab visually flips you through your open windows. (See Figure 2.) To flip backward, hold down the Shift key, too.
• Snap. Drag the title bar of a window to the top of the screen to maximize, or drag it to the right or left edge of the screen until an outline of the window appears to make it fill the right or left half of the screen. The latter maneuver makes it a snap to arrange two windows side by side. This is the mouse equivalent of Windows key + left- or right-arrow.

Figure 2. Windows Aero Flip 3D lets you visually sift through open windows.

If Aero effects are not presently working on your Windows 7 installation (or only partially working), you may not have the horsepower to run the full Aero interface. Or you may need to enable Aero effects because they depend on your Windows Experience Index.

To enable Aero (or check your ability to run it), go to Control Panel/System & Security/System and run or refresh the Experience Index. Then choose Advanced system settings/Advanced/Performance settings to see what Aero effects are enabled for your system.

If not all effects are enabled, click Custom and check the additional effects you want to use. If these effects perform poorly, you can always go to the same settings to disable them.

How to play God and create program shortcuts

If you spend any time following Windows news, you’ve probably read one or more of the recent stories on the Web about the so-called GodMode, the Windows 7 tweak du jour. This is nothing more than a searchable/clickable list (see Figure 3) of all system and Control Panel tasks, produced when you create a special folder. (Ed Bott describes similar shortcuts in one of his blogs.)

GodMode has no extra powers or capabilities. But it does let you easily assign keyboard shortcuts to any task in the list, which is undeniably cool.

Figure 3. The GodMode folder contains a searchable list of system tasks.

So you could create keyboard commands for tasks such as adjusting your monitor resolution, showing hidden files and folders, blocking or allowing Internet Explorer pop-ups, or viewing network connections.

To do so, simply create a folder on your desktop with a name and a globally unique identifier (GUID) number, such as GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}. (Warning: Creating a GodMode folder reportedly crashes 64-bit Vista systems. Use at your own risk in any OS but Windows 7.)

Next, open the folder and right-click the setting for which you want to make a shortcut. Finally, right-click the newly created shortcut, choose Properties/Shortcut, and enter your choice of key sequences to invoke it. Press Apply and close the dialog box.

When you create your own sequences, try to stay away from anything already used by Windows or by your main programs. The Control + Shift + Function key territory is relatively uncharted.

Note that you can use this last trick to create keyboard shortcuts for any programs or documents you use frequently, not just the GodMode tasks. Simply right-click the program name in the Start menu and choose Properties/Shortcut/Shortcut key. Do the same for documents by first creating a clickable shortcut and then a keyboard shortcut.

Using KeyText and AutoHotKey for shortcuts

Want even more shortcuts? Start rolling your own with a keyboard macro utility. These apps let you create standard shortcuts not only for menu items but also for sequences of actions, including tasks such as entering text and clicking buttons in a dialog box.

Macro utilities for Windows 7 are not as plentiful as they used to be for XP. (And my all-time favorite, QuicKeys, has not been updated for Vista or Windows 7.) But I found a couple that do the job for little or no money.

The first is MJMSoft’s KeyText 3 (U.S. $29.95, info page). KeyText (see Figure 4) is an amazingly versatile program that can automate tasks such as opening your e-mail program and creating a new message using an e-mail address you’ve selected in another program.

It even supports regular expressions and if/then/else logic, so you can conduct search-and-replace operations or batch-file renaming, as well as perform different actions that depend on the result of a search.

Figure 4. KeyText 3’s macro menu can be invoked from the system tray or via a hotkey. You can also assign direct hotkeys to any item.

Learning how to harness all this power requires a little work, but you can use both the contextual help and a very good PDF manual (albeit one not updated since Vista). You’ll have no trouble learning simple tasks such as assigning trigger text to an action. A trial version of this software is available.

AutoHotKey (info page) is another versatile option for creating your own shortcuts. This free and open-source utility requires significantly more effort to learn and use than KeyText, but it has a very active community forum where you can get help quickly; it also has good documentation.

AutoHotKey is basically a macro scripting language that requires you to write simple programs for your shortcuts using a text editor like NotePad. After saving your shortcuts with the .ahk extension, you can then run them in the background by double-clicking them, or you can set them as startup items.

AutoHotKey’s command list (page) is quite versatile, and programmers are likely take to it in a flash. The rest of us can get by with the included AutoScriptWriter macro recording utility, which — as advertised — “watches where you type and what you click, and keeps track of which window is active.”

KeyText is considerably easier to use than AutoHotKey, and both powerfully fulfill almost every Windows 7 automation need. Even so, there’s room for a simpler utility with a great graphical user interface, such as the old QuicKeys. If you know of one, please tell us in the Lounge. In the meantime, try out some of the preprogrammed suggestions above.

Becky Waring is the former editor of NewMedia Magazine and has written for PC World, Macworld, Wired, Upside Magazine, Technology Review, CNET, and many other outlets.

Where workers work: data access at home (or not)

By Kathleen Atkins

Lately, Lounge members have been pondering data security: can (or should) one accord greater or lesser degrees of trust to workers, depending on where they’re doing their jobs any given day.

Lounge member Neil asks whether it’s possible to configure Terminal Services in Small Business Server 2008 to differentiate network services, giving users broader access to data at the office than at home.

A technical question leads to technical and philosophical answers — and to more questions. More»

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions that you may be able to provide responses to:

☼ starred posts — particularly useful

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right in to today’s discussions in the Lounge.

The Lounge Life column is a digest of the best of the WS Lounge discussion board. Kathleen Atkins is associate editor of Windows Secrets.

Jeggings — style trend gone amok

By Revia Romberg Clothing trends come and go like the wind. We can become so enamored with new style that when we look at older photos, we’re horrified by what we wore just a year ago. But our fashion situation can get worse. Take skinny jeans, for example. The skinnier the better, right? Taking that to its illogical conclusion, skinny jeans have led us to jeggings — leggings dyed to look like jeans. Watch this video to find out where fashion fusions just might take us. Play the video

A new security threat arrives: Evercookies

By Fred Langa The author of the Samy worm has released a new tool for creating permanent cookies that evade classic cookie-management tools. Evercookies hide themselves in eight different places, and they can regenerate themselves if you delete them.

Reader wants a way to block Evercookies

Rome Arnold was alarmed to learn of a new kind of cookie.

• “Is it correct that private browsing does not block the placement of Evercookies (or permanent cookies) on your computer, no matter whether you are using Firefox, Chrome, IE, or Safari?

  “From what I read on the Net, these Evercookies are very difficult to clean because they are placed in multiple locations and can self-regenerate.”

Evercookies are indeed real, but they can be managed.

Before we dig in, let’s define some terms. An Evercookie isn’t really a cookie. A real Web-browser cookie is a small text file, intrinsically no more dangerous than any other text file on your PC. Cookies aren’t programs and aren’t active in any way. They can’t snoop, self-replicate, phone home, or do any other damaging deed.

True cookies are inert text repositories, but — again, just like any other file on your PC — the data they contain can be mined or otherwise subverted. That’s why every major browser contains mechanisms for managing or blocking unwanted cookies. It takes some really unusual circumstances for a normal cookie to be a threat nowadays.

But some cookies aren’t normal. Software authors have long sought ways to create deletion-proof cookies or otherwise work around the limitations of standard cookies.

For example, Adobe Systems came up with the so-called Flash Cookie in 1997. More accurately described as a Local Shared Object or LSO (see the Adobe explanation), an LSO Flash Cookie can be used to store much more information than a conventional cookie can.

Although LSOs are casually referred to as Flash Cookies, they’re not really cookies at all. They store data by a completely different mechanism. And because LSOs aren’t really cookies, conventional cookie-management tools might miss them.

Worse, some vendors figured out how to create self-restoring LSOs. These are colorfully, if inaccurately, nicknamed Zombie Cookies, and they are very hard to delete. (See Wired’s article, “Think you deleted your cookies? Think again,” or Woody Leonhard’s Aug. 5 Top Story, “Eliminate Flash-spawned ‘zombie’ cookies.”)

Adobe’s LSOs are just one example of storing cookie-like information without using actual cookies. There are other methods, too. See, for example, the Ars Technica article, “Advertisers get hands stuck inside HTML5 database cookie jar.”

And that brings us to Evercookie, which is yet another way to store cookie-like information without using a true cookie.

Evercookie is actually an open-source JavaScript programming tool created in 2010 by notorious (and convicted) hacker Samy Kamkar, author of the infamous Samy Worm that infected more than a million MySpace accounts in 2007.

(In case you’re wondering, there’s nothing illegal in Kamkar’s developing the Evercookie tool nor in his publishing its source code online. He’s not trying to hide anything. But I won’t publish his URL because — no surprise — his site sets an Evercookie on your PC when you visit.)

Kamkar’s Evercookies are self-regenerative. The Evercookie data is stored in eight different places so that, if the data is removed from one place, it can be restored from another. This strategy makes Evercookies impervious to common cookie-removal tools.

That’s the clever part. The scary part is that the Evercookie-creation code is in ordinary JavaScript, supported by virtually every browser on Earth. The potential for the spread of Evercookies is enormous.

Fortunately, Evercookies can be blocked. Because they’re JavaScript-based, controlling JavaScript in your browser also controls Evercookies. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. Evercookies are JavaScript-generated. Controlling how your browser handles scripts (IE8 shown) thus gives you control over Evercookies.

Follow these steps in Internet Explorer:

• Click the Tools menu, then Internet Options.
• On the Security tab, click Internet.
• Click Custom Level and scroll to Active scripting (near the bottom of the scrolling window).
• Click Disable to completely shut down JavaScript, or click Prompt to make IE ask before running any scripts.
• Click OK, Yes, OK.

In Firefox, SeaMonkey, and other Mozilla-based browsers, running the NoScript extension (site) gives you control over scripts. Chrome users can find info on this Google support page. If you use another browser (Hi, Opera fans!), search the browser’s help system for disable javascript.

And, despite its name, it is possible to delete an in-place Evercookie. You can find manual methods online by using the search terms delete evercookie.

But it’s easier to use an automated tool. For example, the free, open-source BleachBit utility (SourceForge page) claims to be able to delete Evercookies and HTML 5 cookies in five major browsers. Among commercial tools, Piriform explicitly states that its popular and free CCleaner utility (download; FAQ) can combat Evercookies.

So: Evercookies are out there but are a manageable threat — at least for now.

Coping with generic error messages

Walter Dalsimer encountered a very uninformative error dialog box.

• “Fred, you have been talking about finding drivers. I get the following message whenever I reboot. I don’t know how to find the driver that is being talked about so I can disable it and avoid this message. (See Figure 2.)

  
  Figure 2. Walter Dalsimer’s vague error message.

  “Thanks for your help.”

I can see why that error message stumped you, Walt. It’s not a lot to go on.

But it turns out it was enough. I did a normal Web search using the entire phrase “cd recording software will cause Windows to become unstable” as the search term and got a number of hits.

Microsoft Knowledge Base article 315345 seems a perfect fit. The article says that obsolete versions of Easy CD Creator (Roxio site) or Windows Media Player (Microsoft site) or RealJukebox (Real site) are the problem.

The solution is to update the software to a newer version via one of the above sites. The new installation contains updated drivers and so should resolve your issue.

Solved: System Restore disk creation failure

John Cuddy wanted to create a System Restore disk, but the process failed.

• “Fred’s December 16, 2010, Top Story, “10 great ‘Do these first’ tweaks for Windows 7,” suggests creating a system restore disk.

  “I am running Windows 7 Home Premium. When I attempt to create the system restore disk, I always receive the following error message (translated from French, so maybe it’s not exactly what’s seen in English): ‘The system restore disk could not be created. Incorrect parameter (0x80070057).’

  “I have searched Microsoft to find out what these numbers mean, but without success. I have also seen a couple of threads on the Windows Secret Lounge referring to the same problem. Can you help?”

I found an answer — a command I’d never heard of called recdisc — posted in a Microsoft help forum by a Microsoft support tech. This is what he says:

• Boot the system by inserting the Windows 7 installation disk.
• When the process gets to the main setup window, click Repair in the lower-left corner.
• Select Command Prompt from the main Repair menu.
• At the command prompt, type in recdisc, and then press ENTER.
• A popup allows you to choose the letter of the drive on which you want to create the Recovery disk.
• Make sure you have a clean DVD in the DVD drive and select Start.
• This should get your System Repair disk created.

It worked for others reporting exactly the same error, John, so with luck, it’ll work for you!

Password managers need strong passwords

Dave Brock wants his stored passwords kept as safe as possible.

• “After talking about having secure passwords — not your dog’s name or the street you live on — what are your thoughts on using a password manager? Wouldn’t it be a popular target for hackers to break one password, instead of trying to break each individual website password? Then they’d have all of mine.”

Most of the better password managers, such as the free, open-source KeePass Password Safe (site), store their passwords using high-level encryption (such as AES encryption with a 256-bit key). But you’re right: having an easy-to-guess master password would make a hacker’s job much easier.

Fortunately, it’s not hard to create a strong master password that’s also easy to remember and easy to type. You can start with a phrase — say, something like “I want this to be uncrackable” or “I need a good master password” or anything at all.

Run the words together, add some punctuation, and substitute some numbers for similarly shaped letters. You get something like this:

1wantthi5t0beuncr@ckable* or Ineed@mem0rablepa55w0rd!

Both these demo passwords get good marks from password-rating utilities. For example, both get a 100% rating on the Password Meter site, a Best rating from Microsoft’s Check your password — is it strong? page, and a Best rating from the Test Your Password site test site.

For more suggestions, see the experts-exchange.com article, “How to create easy to use, strong passwords to protect your important stuff.”

A tool such as the free KeePass Password Safe, itself protected by a strong master password, keeps all your passwords very, very safe!

Fred Langa is a senior editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He was formerly editor of Byte Magazine (1987–91), editorial director of CMP Media (1991–97), and editor of the LangaList e-mail newsletter from its origin in 1997 until its merger with Windows Secrets in November 2006.

Internet Explorer 9 — finally a competitor

By Woody Leonhard Microsoft posted the Internet Explorer 9 release candidate last week, and it’s well worth a look. With Firefox 4 very close to launch and Google Chrome in a perpetual update cycle, lots of new browser goodies are on the horizon — and surprisingly, IE 9 contains a few of these morsels.

Internet Explorer’s twisted road to … success?

When I wrote about the public beta version of Internet Explorer 9 in the September 23, 2010, Top Story, I noted that although it looked promising, IE 9 still had lots of wrinkles. But after working with the near-final product, I believe Internet Explorer has finally come of age.

To understand Microsoft’s remarkable achievement with IE 9, you have to look back at IE’s somewhat sordid history. IE 6 appeared in 2001 and remained virtually untouched for five years. It developed a well-deserved reputation as the single greatest security risk ever to hit Windows. Even so, the browser became the mainstay on millions of PCs. A decade later, IE 6 has a market share that still hovers above 10%.

IE 7 gave new meaning to the term “me-too software,” having borrowed essentially all of its new features from competitors. Its sole redeeming social grace? It didn’t have as many gaping security holes as IE 6.

IE 8, which hit two years ago, scored very low on the Acid3 (Wiki page) compatibility test page. It introduced several new capabilities touted as major improvements — such as Accelerators, which lets you run specific Web applications without pointing the browser at them, and Web Slices, which lets you keep track of changing portions of a webpage without actually going to the webpage.

It speaks volumes that, two years later, it’s very hard to find anybody who actually uses either feature. This holds true for IE 8’s Quick Tabs view, which confused so many people that Microsoft turned it off in IE 9.

Fortunately, Internet Explorer 9 has a few oddball features destined for the dustbin of browser history — Microsoft might finally have learned its lessons. Although IE9’s interface certainly contains features borrowed from other browsers, it also contains some enhancements that are completely new — some of which you might actually like.

I readily confess to being a long-standing critic of Internet Explorer. In just about everything I’ve written over the past five years, I’ve recommended that people use Firefox — and, more recently, Chrome. But I’m here to tell you that IE 9 ain’t half bad. I intend to use it along with Firefox and Chrome — until one of these competitors comes up with all the features I want, in one package. Let me demonstrate why IE 9 has earned a place on my desktop.

Taking Internet Explorer 9 for a test drive

First and foremost, it’s still true that Windows XP users are out of luck. Firefox 4 and Chrome 9 both run on Windows XP, but IE 9 does not and never will. With more than half of all worldwide PC users still running XP, Microsoft’s decision not to support XP raised a lot of hackles. Microsoft doesn’t say why — only that “Windows XP is no longer supported.”

It’s hard to imagine a technical reason why XP gets short shrift; certainly Microsoft’s programmers are smart enough to work around XP’s shortcomings — especially if Firefox and Chrome can do it.

If you’re thinking about installing IE 9 now, know that it will replace any other version of IE that you happen to have. Although still a “Release Candidate,” IE 9 is very stable. Most, but not all, IE 8 add-ons now have working IE 9 versions. If that doesn’t put you off, and you don’t mind installing the final version of IE 9 when it’s released, head to Microsoft’s “Beauty of the Web” official IE 9 download site. Click either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of IE, depending on whether you’re running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows.

The one new IE 9 feature I talked about in my earlier report, the tear-off tabs, still works as advertised. Now you can drag-and-drop (pin) tabs onto Windows 7’s Toolbar, turning them into instant shortcuts. This feature’s useful, but I prefer Firefox 4’s Panorama tool that lets you group tabs, collapsing and expanding at will — a feature I use all the time. Some people use IE 9’s pinned sites like the Panorama feature, pinning and then setting multiple home pages on the pinned place, but I find that almost as intuitive as rubbing my belly, patting my head, and clicking my heels twice simultaneously.

Website compatibility has long been an IE shortcoming. Keeping in mind that compatible is in the eye of the beholder, IE 9 does a creditable job. For your own test drive, start with the “Beauty of the Web” home page and click through to some of the HTML 5 demo sites. I was very impressed with IE 9’s rendering of the Red Bull site, with remarkably smooth scrolling that Firefox and Chrome can’t currently match.

I found Microsoft’s Beauty of the Web Brain Power site, developed in conjunction with Scientific American, to be underwhelming — particularly when compared with the Google Labs Body Browser, a phenomenal application that works in any browser supporting WebGL (notably Firefox 4 and Google Chrome, but not Internet Explorer). In total there are 80 or so demo sites, all developed by or with Microsoft, all featuring HTML 5, and (of course) all putting IE 9 in an excellent light.

Next, try Ian Hickson’s Acid3 compatibility test page. As shown in Figure 1, IE 9 rates a reasonable (but not impressive) 95. Chrome, by comparison, hits 100. (Did I mention that Ian works for Google?)

Figure 1. While not definitive, the Acid3 compatibility test gives a good overview of a browser’s compatibility with standard Document Object Model and JavaScript functions.

To get a qualitative feel for IE 9’s HTML 5 compatibility, check out the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) HTML 5 Conformance test site. Once again, remember that compatibility is in the eye of the beholder — in many cases, the standards aren’t final; they need the standards committee’s vote and acceptance (and thus aren’t standards at all). In this case, the test measures the Internet standards group’s current impression of what will (or should) ultimately become a standard. Given that caveat, IE 9 does well; however, it isn’t the best in all categories, per Figure 2.

Figure 2. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) gives IE 9 Release Candidate high marks for (anticipated) HTML 5 compatibility.

You’ll find a lot of discussion on the Internet about IE 9’s speed — how it beats this browser in JavaScript metrics or that browser in HTML 5 rendering. Personally, I take all that posturing with a grain of salt; I couldn’t care less whether IE 9 runs 8.7% faster rendering D2D commands on some obscure performance test. What I do care about, though, is the overall feel of how fast the browser works, and in my totally subjective view, IE 9 feels quick indeed. Try it for a while and see whether you agree.

With all that’s new, what’s not to like?

My first IE 9 quibble is with the combined address/search One Box, which gets stuck on the same line as the tabs. I tend to open a lot of tabs, and within a few minutes every tab shrinks to Lilliputian dimensions. Fortunately, that’s easy to fix: right-click up near the top of the window and choose Show Tabs on a Separate Row.

Not so easy to fix is One Box’s propensity to search my recently used documents and sometimes include them in the list of suggested hits. Call me old-fashioned, but when I’m searching the Web for gingerbread cookie recipes, the last thing I want is a clutter of old Word docs that contain the term “cookie.” It’s confusing.

No, there’s still no built-in spell checker.

As for the rest of IE 9’s shortcomings, there’s an excellent, exhaustive list posted by tuxplorer on an “XP was my idea” blog. I’m humbled by tuxplorer’s thorough review.

Bottom line? IE 9 is worth a look, though there’s no reason to rush to the IE download site and install it — unless you want to play with some of the fun new HTML 5 sites. The good news is that IE 9 shouldn’t need to be patched nearly so often as IE 8, at least in the near term.

Keep an eye out for Firefox 4 developments (I’m guessing version 4 will ship early next month) and try to keep on top of Chrome. Each of these three browsers will offer benefits the others don’t.

Woody Leonhard‘s latest books — Windows 7 All-In-One For Dummies and Green Home Computing For Dummies — deliver the straight story in a way that won’t put you to sleep.

Windows Secrets PC Security Baseline

By Robert Vamosi You wouldn’t drive your car at night without at least buckling up and turning on the headlights, so why would you surf the Web without using basic safety procedures? Our Windows Secrets Security Baseline is a simple summary of the products and services that give PC users a minimum safe PC configuration.

The minimum security tools every PC needs

The minimum security configuration for all PCs includes a hardware firewall, anti-malware software, a secure Web browser, and a process for frequently updating applications.

Notebooks present a bigger security challenge. When you’re away from home, you have no control over what hardware firewall your laptop may — or may not — be connected to. So you should be especially vigilant that the software firewall running on your notebook is fully enabled.

Windows Secrets does not have a test lab and doesn’t run its own security tests. Instead, we have reviewed the data available on various security sites and publications that do test products, and we’ve summarized that information here.

Hardware firewalls — the first line of defense

A router is the gateway that gives networked PCs access to the Internet. Almost all routers used in small businesses and homes have a hardware-based firewall plus sundry other security features. A router can, for example, accept connections only from networked devices you’ve placed on its Media Access Control (MAC) address list. Using your router’s administrator controls, make sure you change its admin name and password from the default settings. (In an earlier column, I discussed how easy it is for someone to acquire a specific router’s default admin password.)

If you’re using wireless devices such as a notebook, ensure that they’re protected with either WA or WPA2 encryption.

Some Internet service providers combine a router and DBL or cable modem into one box — which often means you have to get your router from your ISP. If you’ve had the box for more than a year, consider asking the company whether it will upgrade you to a newer, faster 802.11N router for little or no cost.

The following routers are affordable, secure, and fast, and they’ve received high test ratings.

• Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Router: The N600 (info page) is a good compromise between price (as low as U.S. $80) and performance. Its dual-band radio will provide the speed you need to stream those Netflix movies to your notebook. You can also attach external storage devices to the single USB port. The N600 does not, however, support gigabit Ethernet networking. A CNET review gave this router high marks.
• Cisco Valet Plus: Priced at approximately $90, the Valet Plus (info page) is a single-band (2.4GHz) router with a svelte design and exceptionally easy set-up — including a special USB-key feature for configuring systems on your network. Unlike the Netgear product, the Valet does provide four-gigabit ports but does not have a USB port for external hard drives or printers. It received an Editor’s Choice in a PCMag.com review and earned kudos in a CNET review.
• D-Link DIR-825 Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router: D-Link’s DIR-825 (info page) combines the top-end features of the Netgear and Cisco router: dual-band radio, gigabit-networking ports, and USB for external devices — for around $130. PC Magazine designated the DIR-825 an Editor’s Choice.

Paid vs. free all-in-one security software

Security suites have in the past been the applications we love to hate. As they grew bigger over time, adding a plethora of additional security tools, their negative impact on PC performance was the source of many, many complaints. And users objected to the annual charges for receiving the latest updates — typically $30 to $70 a year to protect up to three PCs. The primary benefit of a home and small-business security suite is a unified interface, making the various components somewhat easier to access and configure.

There are many free anti-malware apps to choose from, but until recently they often had less-than-intuitive interfaces and could be difficult to configure. That changed when Microsoft released its free anti-malware suite, Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE).

MSE (download page) has been endorsed by several Windows Secrets columnists, including Woody Leonhard, Susan Bradley, and Fred Langa — who wrote about his six-month MSE test in a Sept. 16 LangaList Plus column (in the paid section of the newsletter).

Here are the top paid security suites:

• Norton Internet Security 2011: After weathering several years of widespread criticism for its adverse effect on PC performance, Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2011 turned its speed issues around and received top accolades in recent test comparisons. For example, reviews in CNET, PCWorld, and PCMag.com reported that the suite’s impact on PC speed was much improved. The software’s ability to block new threats also earned it top scores from all three publications.
• Kaspersky Internet Security: This popular suite also earned high scores in reviews by PCMag.com, PCWorld, and CNET. Kaspersky offers advanced sandboxing capabilities, allowing you to run potentially infected applications with less fear of contamination. There’s also an anti-banner feature that effectively removes ads from websites.

Again, these paid suites are best for PC users with basic or modest computer expertise. As all-in-one packages, they’re easy to install and manage. More experienced users will have their favorite — usually free — full-time and supplementary security products.

Browsers — still the likely path for malware

As gateways to all websites, browsers are still the favorite route for Web-based attacks on your PC. Secunia, the creator of Online Software Inspector, an application-updating service discussed below, regularly publishes a vulnerability scorecard for the leading browsers.

In Secunia’s most recent report, Google’s Chrome browser has no unpatched vulnerabilities; Internet Explorer and Firefox have only minor issues. That’s excellent news for all browser users — provided they continue to update their browsers to the most current versions.

• Google Chrome 9: This browser’s most compelling feature is its ability to contain downloaded Web content within a single tab. If malware crashes a tab, only that tab and not the browser fails. More important, malicious code should never make its way onto your desktop. The early attempts at sandboxing Web content caused some PC performance problems. But the current version of Chrome is surprisingly quick.

  Google has an active community of developers writing useful security add-ons for Chrome. I list five favorites in my Oct. 21 In the Wild column (paid content).

• Mozilla Firefox: The current version of Firefox is 3.6, but the Version 4 beta is very stable. Among its security enhancements are coding changes that mitigate some of the most common threats from today’s Internet — the most novel of which might be how Firefox controls your browsing history.

  Typically, when you click a link on a webpage, the link changes color. Internet snoops can use that color change to tell where you’ve visited. Firefox 4 prevents it by disguising those color changes.

  Firefox 4 also has a Do Not Track privacy feature that will prevent third parties from recording your Web travels — but only on those websites that support this feature.

  Mozilla, like Google, maintains a robust development community for Firefox security add-ons. See the previous link to the Oct. 21 column for my Firefox recommendations.

• Microsoft Internet Explorer: Version 9 of IE is now a release candidate (download page). Given IE’s legacy of vulnerabilities, I’ll have to withhold judgment as to whether it’s now on a par with Chrome and Firefox. There are many add-ons, but very few address security. I note two in the Oct. 21 column.
  

Taking control of application updates

Keeping all your applications up-to-date is an effective way of reducing malware threats. Susan Bradley, among other Windows Secrets contributors, recommends you configure Windows’ automatic updating service to Notify me but don’t automatically download and install. I recommend reading Susan’s twice-a-month Patch Watch column (paid content) before accepting any updates offered by Microsoft.

For the rest of your applications, Secunia.com has possibly the top software-updating services available on the Web. Its Online Software Inspector (OSI) scans your PC, checking whether you have the most current versions of your apps. OSI (product page) runs in your browser, requiring no download or installation. You can also download the company’s Personal Software Inspector (PSI) (product page), which runs as a standalone app. You can also sign up for Secunia’s automatic update-check reminders.

Robert Vamosi writes the In the Wild column. He was senior editor of CNET.com from 1999 to 2008 and winner of the 2005 MAGGIE Award for best regularly featured Web column for consumers. He is the author of the forthcoming book When Gadgets Betray Us (Basic Books, March 2011).