A note about "God mode" settings in Windows 7
[I am not a Windows expert and this is all probably totally obvious.]
There has been some buzz about "God mode" in Windows 7. What am I talking about? It's an undocumented way to create a special folder that has a bunch of commonly used control panel settings. A recent article by Ina Fried provides more details, including a list of more undocumented settings folders (via Steven Sinofsky). Here are the folders given in the article (thanks to a hilariously-named commenter in the Ina Fried article):
| god mode | {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} |
| location sensor | {00C6D95F-329C-409a-81D7-C46C66EA7F33} |
| biometric device | {0142e4d0-fb7a-11dc-ba4a-000ffe7ab428} |
| power options | {025A5937-A6BE-4686-A844-36FE4BEC8B6D} |
| taskbar icons | {05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9} |
| credentials | {1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70} |
| install from network | {15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4} |
| default programs | {17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966} |
| public keys | {1D2680C9-0E2A-469d-B787-065558BC7D43} |
| wifi networks | {1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87} |
| network | {208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D} |
| computer | {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} |
| printers | {2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D} |
| workspace connections | {241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B} |
| firewall | {4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423} |
| performance ratings | {78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC} |
To try it out, create a folder (anywhere) whose name has the following pattern: <name>.<ID>, where <ID> is one of the strings in the second column of the table above. Once you create the folder, Windows will magically change the icon and remove the ID. Example: on my laptop I like to change power options - when I am doing dev stuff like compiling code or running tests I want high performance, otherwise I want to preserve battery life. So I created the "power options" folder and stuck it on my desktop (and also stuck it on the taskbar in the third slot, so that Windows Key + 3 will pop it up). Nice!