IE9 - Tips and Tricks

© Saumya Aggarwal. All rights reserved.

Tips and Tricks

Internet Explorer 9

Written By:

Saumya Aggarwal

[email protected]

www.saumyaaggarwal.com

mailto:[email protected]


Table of Contents Download the IE9 beta.................................................................................................................................. 3

Tips & Tricks .................................................................................................................................................. 3

Show bars .................................................................................................................................................. 3

Without Add-ons in Safe Mode ................................................................................................................ 7

Full Screen Mode ...................................................................................................................................... 8

More Downloads from single window ...................................................................................................... 9

Automatic InPrivate Mode ........................................................................................................................ 9

Font ......................................................................................................................................................... 10

Customize Pinned Shortcuts ................................................................................................................... 11

Restore to Default Settings ..................................................................................................................... 11

Specific IE9 Tab Directly From Windows7 Thumbnail Preview .............................................................. 13

Reopen Accidentally Closed Websites or Tabs ....................................................................................... 13

Enable or Disable Hardware Acceleration .............................................................................................. 14

Uninstall Internet Explorer 9 ................................................................................................................... 15

Other tips ................................................................................................................................................ 17


Download the IE9 beta

Here the link:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/products/ie-

9/home?os=win7&arch=a&browser=other

Tips & Tricks

Show bars

The default interface of Internet explorer 9 is very simple – there are no toolbars, menu bars,

favorites bar on top of the browser window. Here is how the interface of Internet Explorer 9

looks without any browser toolbars, command bar or status bar:

However, if you want to show favorites bar, status bar or the command bar, here are the steps

you have to follow.

Simply right click on the tabbed area in internet explorer 9 and you will see the options to bring

back menu bar, favorites bar and the command bar in Internet explorer 9. You can later hide the

toolbars in Internet explorer 9 by unchecking the required toolbars from the same area.


Always Show the Menu Bar

You’ll notice now that when you hit Alt or Alt+T the menu bar will be displayed but won’t stay

on. If you like to always have the Menu bar displayed, we can do it with a hack to the Registry.

Remember before making any changes to the Registry create a Restore Point and / or back it up.

Make sure you’re closed out of IE 9, then open the Start menu and type regedit and hit Enter.

When the Registry Editor opens navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft and create a new Key and name it

Internet Explorer.


Under Internet Explorer create another new Key and name it Main.

When you’re done the path will look like this.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

Highlight Main and create a new DWORD Value.


Give it the Value name AlwaysShowMenus and give it a Value data of “1” then click OK.

Now you can close out of Registry Editor, and open IE 9. When you first open it you won’t see

the Menu Bar, so hit Alt or Alt+T again and it will come up and will always be there from now

on anytime you launch IE 9.


If you wish to revert to default setting, go back into your Registry settings you created and

change the AlwaysShowMenus Value to “0”.

Without Add-ons in Safe Mode

Add-ons are always great; they bring new features to your browser and allow you to perform a

wide variety of tasks. But if you don’t want to slow down and wish to concentrate on browsing

then start IE9 without any add-ons (safe mode).

The easiest way to run Internet Explorer in safe mode is to type Internet explorer in the search

box of Windows start menu and choose “Internet Explorer (Safe Mode) as shown in the

following image:

This will disable all add-ons in Internet explorer and open the browser in safe mode.


Full Screen Mode

To always load Internet Explorer 9 in Full Screen Mode, Open Regedit

Navigate to the following location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

To the right of main locate the value Fullscreen

Change the Fullscreen value to Yes

Quick Tip: You can also use F11 key to switch between Full-Screen and Normal Screen.


More Downloads from single window

If you have trouble downloading more than 2 files from a single website. You can try this

Registry Edit to enable more than 2.

Open Regedit

Navigate to the following location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet

Settings

Right-Click Internet Settings select New then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.

Name this value MaxConnectionsPerServer and set its value to 4.

Right-Click Internet Settings select New then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.

Name this value MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server and set its value to 6. You can set both

of these to as many as you want, but settings them to 4 and 6 is a safe number

You should now be able to download more than 2 downloads at the same time. To revert, just

remove the 2 values.

Automatic InPrivate Mode

Microsoft has removed automatic InPrivate Mode in IE9. To use InPrivate Mode automatically, use the

following steps:

Right-Click on the desktop, Select New, next select Shortcut.

Type the following in the path box: “C:\Program Files\Internet

Explorer\iexplore.exe” -private (The path will be the path to Internet Explorer, then add

-private after ending quotes)

Click next and give it a name. Now you can run InPrivate Mode Automatically by running the

shortcut.


Quick Tip: Hover over the Tools icon at Right and under Safety, click InPrivate Browsing to

Start the InPrivate Browser Mode.

Font

Due to the web font rendering in IE 9, the fonts in some webpages that are not “IE9-friendly” yet

might be smaller than usual. To change the font:

Method 1: Increase or Change Font Size in IE 9

Click Tools beside the tabs on the topmost area (or Alt-X shortcut key), click Zoom and select

any zooming percentage you like.

Method 2: Increase or Change Font Size in IE 9

Another method to change font size in Internet Explorer is by using your keyboard and mouse

which is much more simple:

Point the mouse cursor to anywhere on the web page.

Hold down the CTRL key and spin the wheel of your wheel mouse up and down.

As you do the text will either increase or decrease depending on which way you move

your wheel.


If you do not have a wheel mouse, there is a windows shortcut that is able to change font size in

Internet Explorer. Follow the steps below:

Open any web page using Internet Explorer.

Hold down the CTRL key, then press + to increase the font size, or press – to decrease

the font size.

Customize Pinned Shortcuts

To take maximum advantage of this feature, use the Alt, T, M shortcut and then edit the

properties of the saved shortcut so that it has the name you want, not the one the site designer

assigned. Click Start, click All Programs, and then right-click the shortcut and click Properties.

That opens the Properties dialog for your saved website shortcut. In the box at the top of the

General tab, give it the name you want to see (and search for) in the Start menu. On the Website

tab, you can edit the Start URL if it includes details you don’t need, and you can also customize

the Tooltip Name so that it accurately describes the site itself.

If you want to customize pinned shortcuts on the Taskbar, you’ll find them all in this folder:

C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User

Pinned\TaskBar

Pinned shortcuts on the All Programs menu are here:

C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Restore to Default Settings

If you have messed up Internet explorer settings and wish to restore all the default settings with

the touch of a button. You don’t want to troubleshoot IE issues, nor you want to uninstall

Internet explorer and reinstall it from scratch. Get IE Restorator – a simple utility which can be

used to reset internet explorer to its default settings.

Link: http://majorgeeks.com/SF_IE_Restorator_d6521.html


The application is a freeware and can perform a wide range of operations , other than resetting

Internet explorer to it’s factory settings. You can flush the DNS cache, re register concerned

DLL’s, reset winsock or renew the IP address.

The program works with Internet Explorer 8 on Windows7 or Windows Vista. Make sure you

have the latest version of .NET framework installed and working before trying to install IE

Restorator.

Note: Some Antivirus / Firewall might detect SF IE Restorator Tool is Trojan its just a False

positive because the publisher is unknown. Nothing to worry it won't harm your Computer

Make sure when you open the application your Right Click on the icon and click Run as

administrator.

http://www.ampercent.com/find-download-latest-version-net-framework/6617/


Specific IE9 Tab Directly From Windows7 Thumbnail Preview

Hover the mouse cursor on the thumbnail preview of IE window, you can select a specific tab

and directly open it, as shown in the following screenshot:

This is very useful because you can jump to a specific tab without having to use any keyboard

shortcuts or maximize the browser window, then click through different tabs one by one. It is

unlike in some of the other competing browsers.

Reopen Accidentally Closed Websites or Tabs

While surfing the web, there are times when you accidentally close some or all the browser tabs

and may want to restore them at a later point of time. If you are using Internet Explorer 9 and

want to quickly reopen the last closed websites or tabs, here are the steps you have to follow:

Open Internet Explorer and enable viewing of the Command Bar.

Now click Tools > Reopen last browsing session and you are done.

This will automatically resume the websites or browser tabs that were active during the last

browsing session. It’s a great way to open the same websites from the last time you used IE.

Note: If you have cleared your browsing history and deleted all the temporary internet files, you

may not be able to restore the last browsing session in Internet Explorer9.


Another way to resume browsing session in Internet Explorer9 is to open a new browser tab and

click “Reopen closed tabs” or “Reopen last session” from the bottom of the page. You will see

thumbnails of most visited websites on the top of the page, as shown below:

Enable or Disable Hardware Acceleration

The most impressive feature of Internet explorer9 is Hardware acceleration which uses your computers

GPU (Graphical processing unit) to render webpages faster. The result is faster graphical rendering and

more accelerated graphics. Follow the steps below.

Enable showing the command bar. To do this, you have to right click on the tabbed bar

and select the “command bar” option.

Next click Tools > Internet option to open the internet options window, as shown below:


Under Internet options, browse to the “Advanced” tab and select “Use Software

rendering instead of GPU rendering”

Click OK and you are done. Now you will have to restart Internet explorer for the

changes to take effect.

This setting will disable hardware acceleration and use software rendering in IE9, however you

can revert back to the older settings by simply unchecking the checkbox from Internet options >

Advanced.

Uninstall Internet Explorer 9

When you install Internet Explorer 9, the program overwrites the files of the older Internet

explorer installation which means that the newer version will replace any earlier version of IE in

your operating system.

Go to Windows control panel from Start Menu> Control panel.

Click “Programs and Features”

Find the link “View Installed updates” in the sidebar, as shown below:

http://img.ampercent.com/post/EnableorDisableHardwareAccelerationInInt_14D85/disablehardwareaccelerationie9.png


Now windows will show you all the updates that are installed in your computer. Find

“Windows Internet Explorer 9” and click the uninstall button as shown below:


Clicking the “Uninstall” button will start the uninstallation procedure. A simple wizard will

open, just follow the instructions of the Uninstall wizard and Internet Explorer 9 will be removed

from your Windows operating system.

After the wizard is complete, you will have to restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

When you restart the computer, launch Internet explorer and you will see that the older version

of Internet Explorer is back again.

Other tips

To open a new tab, just Double-Click and area to the right of the tabs boxes, without

having to click the little blank Tab Box.

Right-Click a blank area and hit Move Stop and Refresh to move the Search Bar Stop and

Refresh from Right of Search Box to Left side of Search Box.

To give more area to your Tabs and make the Search Box smaller, position your cursor

between the Search Box and a Tab, when the Cursor switches to the Right/Left arrow,

you can click and drag the Search Box to the Right or Left to either enlarge or make it

smaller.

Click the ALT key, then click View on the Menu Bar, click Style and select No Style to

View the Webpage without Webpage formatting. Click Default Style to change the

Webpage back to default.

If you are having problems viewing webpages, click the ALT key on your keyboard and

under Tools, click Compatibility View.

Copyright Information

The content presented in this ebook has been taken from various experts’ opinion and sources.

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IE9 - Tips and Tricks