Top 10 Vista Hacks

4. Protect your privacy by removing Windows Vista metadata

One of Vista's more useful features is also one of its more dangerous ones -- the use of metadata. Metadata is information about files that you don't normally see but that can help you search for them.

For example, music files typically contain the name of the composer, type of music and so on. And a photograph usually contains data on when the photo was taken, who took it, the camera model and other information, such as ISO speed. Documents and spreadsheets contain a wide variety of information about their creators, including who created the document, how much time was spent editing it, who reviewed the document and so on.

In many cases, programs automatically generate their own metadata when a file is created. Users can also easily create or edit metadata. Right-click a file, choose Properties, and select the Details tab. Then click any field and type in metadata. Keep in mind that some metadata, such as the last time a file was printed, can't be altered.

This metadata can be quite useful, because Windows Vista search uses it. So if you want to find every music track on your PC that was composed by Mozart, for example, type Mozart into a search box, and Vista will search the metadata to find all the Mozart tracks.

But there are times when you don't want your files' metadata to be viewed by others or by people outside your organization. Analyst firm Gartner Inc. points out that businesses might embed metadata into files about a customer -- for example, "good customer" or "bad customer" labels -- and a business certainly wouldn't want others to see that. There may similarly be personal metadata in your documents that you don't want others to see.

It's easy to remove any metadata from any file:

1. Open Windows Explorer and right-click the file.

2. Choose Properties.

3. Select the Details tab. A screen that displays the document's metadata appears, like the one shown below.

The metadata associated with a Word file. (Click image to see larger view.)

4. Click the Remove Properties and Personal Information link at the bottom of the screen. The Remove Properties dialog box appears.

5. Select Remove the following properties from this file and check the boxes next to all of the metadata you want removed. Click OK. The selected metadata will be removed.

Removing metadata from a file. (Click image to see larger view.)

6. Alternatively, you can create a copy of the document with all the metadata removed. Select Create a copy with all possible properties removed and click OK.

You can also remove metadata from multiple files at once. Select all the files from which you want to remove metadata, then right-click them and follow the directions in this hack for removing the data. In order for this to work, though, the files have to have common metadata fields so that the metadata can be removed from all of them at once.

5. Power up Windows Vista's context menu

An expanded context menu.

If you want to, you can add options to the context menu. Hold down the Shift key as you right-click a file, and you'll see several new menu options, marked with arrows in the image to the right.

Here are the new options you get and what each one does:

Open as Read-Only: As the name says, it opens the file as a read-only file.

Pin to Start Menu: This pins a shortcut to the file you've right-clicked in the top section of the Start menu. To remove the shortcut from the Start menu, right-click the shortcut and select Remove from this list.

Add to Quick Launch: This adds a shortcut to your file in the Quick Launch toolbar, on the left side of the taskbar. To remove the shortcut, right-click it and choose Delete.

Copy as Path: This copies the file name and location to the Windows clipboard -- for example, C:\Budget\2007 memo.xls. You can then paste that path wherever you want.

Top 10 Vista Hacks   1. Hack User Account Control   2. Unlock the supersecret Administrator account   3. Tweak Aero's glass borders   4. Protect your privacy by removing Windows Vista metadata   5. Power up Windows Vista's context menu   6. Speed up or turn off Windows Aero   7. Bypass the Windows Vista log-on screen on multiaccount PCs   8. Hack Vista's blinking cursor   9. Hack Vista's screensavers 10. Make Windows animation go slo-mo