Vista Hidden Context Menu!!!

You can access the hidden context menu in Vista by holding down the shift key before right-clicking on a file or folder. One of the coolest features in the new menu is Copy As Path. By choosing this, the path of the selected object is automatically pasted in the clipboard so you can paste it elsewhere. Otherwise, we would have to open the properties dialog of the file to copy its path, but even then you would not be able to copy the full path.

When you shift-right-click a folder, the context menu gives you the option Open Command Window Here. This will open a command window (DOS prompt) with the selected directory as the current directory. Many of you will find this quite a handy feature.

The hidden menu also has some shortcuts to pin the selection to start menu, add to quick launch, etc.

Vista Hidden Context Menu!!!

Office Compatibility Checker

You have typed this certain document having several pages with lot of effort in the Word 2007 format, or perhaps the document may span several hundred pages. And now you have to convert the document to 2003 format. But will the converted document be exactly a clone of the original? Well, you can find this out by clicking on the Office button (to the top-left screen) and selecting Prepare->Run Compatibility Checker.

It gives a list of warnings on what will happen when you try to convert to 2003 format, and their number of occurrences. For example, I got the following warning recently: SmartArt graphics will be converted into a single object that can't be edited in previous versions of Word.

In the bottom of the box you can turn on automatic compatibility checking when saving in older formats (this is turned on in default)

This compatibility checker is available in other Office packages as well.

Office Compatibility Checker