Thursday 23 July 2015

Secret Tips For Glary Utilities

Secret Tips For Glary Utilities

Customise your right-click menus, split massive files and get daily PC tips for free

Split big files


Glary’s File Splitter tool lets you get around size limits on attachments imposed by internet service providers, freeing you up to email files of any size.

In File Splitter’s ‘Split file’ tab, use the first Browse button to select the original file, then the second Browse button to choose a destination for the split files. Now select the ‘User defined file size’ button, then type your (or your recipient’s) attachment limit in the box below – 10MB is a typical limit. Tick ‘Add Self-Joining Functionality to the split files set’, then click Split Now.

You can now send each of the resulting files as an attachment on individual emails. When all pieces have been received, your recipient needs to doubleclick the EXE file to have the original large file automatically reconstructed.


Add or remove right-click options


Glary adds several shortcuts to Windows’ right-click (‘context’) menus. This is handy, but you might not need all these options – or you might want different ones. To customise what’s displayed when you right-click, click Menu followed by Settings and then Context Menu. Now tick or untick the various items, then click OK to save.

Save your startup setup


Glary’s Startup Manager has an option for saving the current configuration as a text file, so you can compare future setups – useful for troubleshooting.

Click File followed by Export, type a name for the file and then click Save. The saved file can be opened in a text editor.

When Windows startup gets bumpy, export a second file with a different name and then compare the two to see what’s changed. You can then use Startup Manager to disable troublesome items by setting their Status switches to Disabled.

Switch your skins


You can spruce up Glary’s interface with a new skin, or by creating one of your own. Click the little T-shirt icon at the top right of the program window, then switch between the thumbnail or palette tabs to apply a new image or colour cast. Alternatively, click Custom, then navigate to a photo of your own, select it and click Open. Move the slider at the bottom of the box to change the opacity of the main Glary interface.

Make Glary Utilities portable


Glary can turn itself into a portable program. Click Menu followed by Portable Version, then click the large red Generate button. Now click ‘Open file location’, right-click the highlighted file (‘Glary Utilities_Portable.zip’) and choose Extract All. Note the folder name and location, then click Extract. Copy this folder on to your USB drive. To launch the program, double-click the portable program file (‘Integrator_Portable.exe’).

Discover Glary’s hidden PC tips


The latest version of Glary Utilities (version 5.28) has a design that reminds us of Windows 8.1’s Modern interface, with a flatter graphical look and feel, so you might not have noticed the tiny blue dots at the left-hand side of the bottom toolbar. If you click the lower one of these, the toolbar will flip to display a selection of links to tips hosted on the Filepuma website (www.filepuma.com), hosted by Glary’s publisher Glarysoft (www.glarysoft.com). Just click a link to open the tip in your web browser. These tip links are updated all the time, so check back now and then for the latest additions.

Also look for the similar pair of dots to the right-hand side of the Advanced Tools tab in the main Glary window: these flit between category and list view, in much the same way as you can toggle the Control Panel interface in Windows. You’ll probably find the latter a more efficient way to navigate Glary’s many features.