Windows 7 Migration
Go Glueless with Windows 7 Sticky Notes
Post-it®, like Kleenex®, is a registered brand name that has been elevated to the status of a proprietary eponym in common American parlance. But...
Post-it®, like Kleenex®, is a registered brand name that has been elevated to the status of a proprietary eponym in common American parlance. But Microsoft can't use another company's brand name for its on-screen reminder feature, so it chose the more generic Sticky Notes.
The Windows 7 applet seems straightforward enough, but it's actually quite versatile and helpful. Need to write down a phone number or quick to-do list? Instead of finding a pen, jotting down a note, and sticking the square of paper to your monitor, you simply open a note and let it 'stick' to your desktop.
The notes resize automatically as you type, and you can color-code them to conform to your own priority system or to stand out on a crowded desktop. They are saved automatically, and you can manage them by clicking the Sticky Notes taskbar icon.
Greg Shultz, writing for TechRepublic, took a deep dive into the applet and discovered a few interesting limitations and workarounds:
1. When you delete a Sticky Note, it's gone forever. It doesn't move to the Recycle Bin. The applet prompts you when you try to delete a note, but if you clicked "don't show this message again" to prevent the annoying box from interrupting your work, Shultz provides a Registry tweak to bring it back.
2. Lost in a sea of Sticky Notes? Shultz also offers a small script that will display all your active notes in a search results window, so you can sort and query them.
3. How do you back up your Sticky Notes? The file containing them is buried in C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Sticky Notes, so it's not easy to find.
Shultz gives you step-by-step instructions on how to tweak these and other Sticky Notes features, and the productivity boost can save minutes each day, which add up to hours per month, and so on.
Do you use Sticky Notes in Windows 7? Do you have a clever tip? Share it in our comments section!
