What Are the Best Stupid Geek Tricks?

Did you ever surprise and impress a non-geek friend with something you did on your computer that seemed simple to you? If so, you pulled off a Stupid Geek Trick. There are simple, sometimes useless computer tasks.

Here is a collection of some of the best of our Stupid Geek Tricks, whether you're the geek performing the Stupid Geek Trick and want to learn more or you're your non-geeky friend wishing you could do what your geeky friend did.

How to access secret items in Windows 7 by using the Send To menu

Windows 7's Send To feature is very useful. This feature allows quick access to files, folders, and programs. The Send To menu contains some items that are not immediately apparent. These are hidden items that can be revealed by holding Shift while right-clicking on a file.

In the following article, you will learn how this works and how to access the Send To folder to add shortcuts to the menu that are available without holding the Shift key while right-clicking.

Windows 7: How to Open the Start Menu Folder

How organized is your Start menu? You can do this once you have access to the Start menu folder. To categorize Start menu items, you can create folders and move shortcuts around. In Windows 8, accessing the Start menu folder is not as straightforward as it was in Windows XP. The following article shows you how to access the user-specific Start menu folder as well as the system-wide Start menu folder.Windows 7's Start Menu includes a search box for the Internet

The Search feature has been improved in Windows 7 by adding a Search box to the Start menu so that you can quickly and easily search your computer's files and folders. Couldn't the Start menu also be used to search the Internet? The following article explains how.

Windows 7: Tile or cascade multiple windows

Windows 7 can become cluttered with many open windows if you run many programs simultaneously. In order to tile or cascade only a few of the open windows, you would have to minimize all the windows, reopen only the ones you want to tile or cascade, and then choose Tile or Cascade from the Taskbar context menu.

Windows XP and Vista offered the option to Ctrl + Click on multiple Taskbar buttons to tile just the selected windows. This capability was removed in Windows 7, and Aero Snap was added instead, which allows you to drag a window to one side of the screen and have it snap to fill half of the screen. However, what happens if you want to tile windows vertically or tile more than two windows? This article describes an easier method for cascading or tiling multiple Windows 7 windows.

Windows 7: Disable Aero Peek

Windows 7's Aero Peek feature temporarily makes open windows transparent so you can see what's on your desktop. It's very easy to turn this feature off if you don't want to use it.

The following article explains how you can disable only the desktop preview setting. Aero Peek can also be disabled as a taskbar thumbnail and the delay can also be changed or disabled

Right-click on the desktop and select Command Prompt

You can quickly open a command prompt window without having to search for it on the Start menu or navigate the Start menu to find the shortcut in Windows 7 and Vista if you use the command prompt frequently.

In the following article, we will show you how to open a command prompt window by right-clicking on the desktop or any folder in Windows Explorer. Upon opening the command prompt, you are located in the desktop or whatever folder you right-clicked.

In a command prompt window, open an Explorer window from the current directory

You learned how to open a command prompt window to the directory currently open in Windows Explorer in the previous stupid geek trick. There is also another way.

The following article shows you various ways to open the current folder or another folder from the command prompt.

This trick works in Windows 7, Vista, and XP.

Using the keyboard to navigate the File Open/Save Dialog

This stupid geek trick will appeal to you if you prefer using the keyboard rather than the mouse. The File Open or File Save dialog box can be navigated using the keyboard.

It shows how to navigate up one directory, navigate by relative paths, and navigate by UNC paths, among other things, in the File Open and File Save dialog boxes.

Using a keyboard shortcut, you can undo an accidental move or delete

It is likely that at some point in time, you have accidentally deleted the wrong file, or duplicated files while trying to select them. It's very easy to reverse mistakes like this.

Here is an article that shows you how to undo your mistake using a keyboard shortcut. The shortcut works in any version of Windows.

Add Apps to the Windows 7 Explorer Favorites Lis

Getting your favorite programs to launch right from the Explorer window would be convenient if you use Windows Explorer often.

The Favorites list allows you to add folders you use frequently for quick access; however, programs cannot be added. In the following article, we'll show you how to get around this restriction and add programs to your Favorites list.

How to Switch Windows 7 to the XP-Style Alt-Tab Switcher

If you like the way you switched among programs in Windows XP, you can get back the XP-Style Alt-Tab switcher in Windows 7 that does not use thumbnails like the Windows 7 version does.

You can temporarily do this using a certain combination of keys, but it you want the feature back permanently, the following article shows you how to do this with a registry hack.

NOTE: We don’t actually recommend the XP-Style Alt-Tab switcher or say it’s better than the one in Windows 7. We’re just showing you the method as an extra option in case you prefer it

To close an application in Windows, double-click its left window icon

Windows offers several ways to close an application. If you have a menu bar, you can select Close or Exit from the File menu. On the window of the application, click the X button in the upper, right corner. If you right-click on the application's icon on your Taskbar, you can select Close window.

In the following article, we describe another option for closing an application using the icon in the upper, left corner of the window.

Text files can be used to hide data

There are many ways to protect your data. There are many ways to hide data, including hiding it in a text file so that no one can see it unless they know what you called your secret compartment.

How to hide data in a text file is explained in the following article. This method of protecting your data isn't the most secure, but it's a fun trick, and it doesn't involve any third-party software.

NOTE: This method of hiding data in a text file only works on a drive formatted with NTFS.

There are six ways to open the Windows Task Manager

Ctrl + Alt + Del is sometimes disabled by a virus so that you cannot open Task Manager. It is still possible to open the Task Manager in other ways, and this article explains six ways for you to do that.

Some of these methods are more effective than others, but if you're fighting a virus, any of them is a good choice.

How to Modify the Icon of an .Exe File

In addition to improving your geek skills, you can change some of your programs' icons to something more appealing. This article explains how to do it.

NOTE: Before you make any changes to an application's icon, make sure you have a backup of the .exe file

Hack the Windows Experience Index

The Windows Experience Index is sometimes used by programs to enable or disable functionality. The functionality of some programs may be limited or even disabled if your score is too low. It is possible to hack the Windows Experience Index to increase your score without buying a new PC and unlock some programs that were previously restricted or disabled.

You can also use this stupid geek trick to compete against your friends for the Windows Experience Index if you just want to be geeky.

The following article shows you how to modify the Windows Experience Index scores: by editing an XML file and using a small, portable program.

The Firefox profile data storage can be hacked

Some SQLite databases in your Firefox profile folder store the history of your previous browsing sessions, including URLs, passwords, form data, and preferences. The following article shows you how to use an open source program called SQLite Database Browser to view these databases and their data, as well as manipulate the data in each of their tables. Database tables can even be backed up.

Make Zip Files with the Same Name as a Selected File

Zip files created by Windows' Compressed Folders feature have the same name as the selected file. This can get confusing when you have multiple files selected. If you right-click on the files to be compressed, it will choose the appropriate name automatically.

7-Zip is a lightning-fast file browser

If you're not happy with Windows Explorer, you can use a free, powerful file browser. Our testing found it to be less buggy and slower than Windows Explorer, and the viewing mode does not revert back to the original one. How to make the most of 7-Zip as a file browser is discussed in the following article.

All files in a directory are renamed at random

Using a batch script provided in the following article, you can easily rename all files in a directory randomly when using a slideshow or in a digital picture frame.

This batch script can also be used as a practical joke on someone. When the script is run, it warns you that deleting the translation file (__Translation.txt) will prevent you from undoing the renaming. Be sure to back up that file before running the script so that it doesn't get renamed.

There is also an "undo" function in the batch script. Instructions are provided in the script.