In the interests of exposing all of the secrets in Windows Vista, I’ve decided to explain how to create a shortcut that turns on or off the transparency in Windows Vista. I don’t find this especially useful, but I’m sure it will be relevant to at least one of the readers.

Update: This same tip works identically in Windows 7.

Setting Up the Shortcut

The first thing you’ll need to do is download the HideDesktopIcons application and save it somewhere other than the desktop, preferably somewhere where it won’t be deleted.

Have you ever wanted to hit a shortcut key to turn off the monitor? Sure, you can use the Win+L combination to lock the screen, but that leaves your monitor on… and those of us with multiple monitors find it a pain to hunt down the power buttons all the time.

Have you ever wanted to be able to just hit a hotkey that tells Windows to switch from High Performance down to Power Saver? Sure, you can use the tray icon, but since we like to customize things there’s always another way.

CCleaner is one of the most popular freeware applications to clean up your computer, and with good reason – the application is powerful and easy to use. So how do we make a shortcut that runs it in silent mode like the “Run CCleaner” option on the Recycle Bin?

With a command-line switch on a shortcut, of course, which will run the same option as when you right-click on the Recycle Bin:

Using the built-in Windows dialog is more powerful and probably would suffice for most people, but for those of us that want complete control there’s a small freeware utility called USB Disk Ejector.

Note: This utility only works for ejecting USB devices, so if you need to eject another type of device you’ll have to use the Windows method.

Using USB Disk Ejector from the GUI

Create a Shortcut to Eject the CD/DVD Drive

Right-click on the desktop or elsewhere and choose New \ Shortcut.

In the location box, put the full path to the nircmd.exe file that you downloaded, and append the “cdrom open” command to the end of it, adjusting the drive letter to match your disc drive:

“C:\path\to\nircmd.exe” cdrom open D:

If you often use removable USB devices like a flash drive, you are probably already familiar with the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon that sits in the system tray. The problem for many people is that the icon is tiny, and clicking it just right to bring up the menu is a pain. Can’t we just make a shortcut to bring up the dialog?

Of course you can, and it’s really quite easy. Easier than trying to click the tiny icon in the tray, at least…

When you are troubleshooting network problems, one of the first things to do is disable the built-in Windows Firewall… but there are just way too many steps required to the firewall on and off. Can’t we make a simple shortcut icon instead?

Naturally we can, using the built-in netsh utility that is usually used on the command line to perform advanced networking functions. We’ll simply create a shortcut to it with the appropriate parameters.

If you are thinking of installing an application but aren’t quite sure what it’s going to do to your computer, I would absolutely recommend creating a restore point before you install that application, and here are the steps to do so. Note that most application installs automatically create a restore point, but you can do this if you are really worried.

Open up the Start Menu and right-click on “Computer”, and then select “Properties”.