Windows Tricks

If your mouse is not functioning, don't panic. You can use your keyboard to move around the Windows XP desktop.

The keys to get used to are the Windows key, the arrow keys, and the Enter key.

· Press the Windows key.

· Press the up arrow key one time to highlight Shut Down, and then press Enter.

· Press the up and down arrow key to select Shut Down from the menu, and then press Enter.

· Use your Esc key to cancel.

Running out of room on your hard disk?

Need some extra space to install a new program? Don't worry, Windows XP comes to the rescue.

Both Windows XP Professional and Home Edition now include a zip compression utility that you can use to compress files and folders on your hard disk.

To compress a file or folder:

· Right-click the file or folder.

· Point to Send To.

· Then click Compressed (zipped) Folder.

This will make a compressed folder, identified by a zipper icon, which displays the same name as the file you compressed.

You can also make a compressed folder from scratch, by following these steps:

· Right-click the desktop.

· Point to New.

· Click Compressed (zipped) Folder.

· Open the new compressed folder and drag files inside that you would like compressed.

You can use this tip to speed up the way menus display in Windows XP.

· Click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and the click System.

· Click the Advanced tab, and under Performance, click the Settings button.

· Clear the Fade or slide menus into view check box, and then click OK.

· Now when you bring up a collapsed menu, it will expand without delay.

Modify Boot.ini

Windows XP uses the Boot.ini file to determine the operating system options to display during the startup (boot) process.

Boot.ini is set with the hidden and system file attributes and flagged as read-only by default.

Have you been changing Boot.ini lately?
Are you tired of opening Folder Options, and clicking Show hidden files and folders on the View menu, so you can see Boot.ini in Windows Explorer?
Or worse, did you forget to remove the read-only attribute before editing the file?

You can use the command-line tool, Bootcfg.exe, to quickly edit your Boot.ini file.

You can modify the timeout (the amount of time Windows waits before choosing the default operating system), and add additional entries.

· Click Start, click Run, and then type cmd.

· Type bootcfg.exe

· Check out bootcfg.exe /? for more options.

Stop getting tricked into running viruses because you don't see the file extension of an attachment.

· Click Start, click My Computer, and on the Tools menu, click Folder Options.

· Clear the Hide file extensions for known file types check box, and then click OK.

Now when you receive a file called something.jpg.vbs, you'll see the .vbs extension and know that it is not an ordinary .jpg file.

Using NetMeeting, you can participate in virtual meetings, work in shared applications, and share data over the Internet or your company intranet.

NetMeeting is actually already installed after you perform a full install of Windows XP, but it won't appear on the Start menu until it's activated.

· Click Start, then Run, and enter Conf.

· Click OK.

· In the NetMeeting Wizard, supply the necessary information, and then select the Put a shortcut to NetMeeting on my desktop (or on my Quick Launch bar) check box.

NetMeeting should start and is now listed in the most frequently used programs list on the Start menu.

Find that you need more space for thumbnails and would like to turn the file names off?

· Hold down shift when you open a folder or when you switch into thumbnail view. This will turn of the file names, giving more space for the thumbnails.

Doing it again turns them back on.

To completely remove fonts from the hard disk:


· Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.

· Double-click the Fonts folder.

· Click the font you want to remove. To select more than one font at a time, press and hold down the Ctrl key while you click each font.

· On the File menu, click Delete.

· When you receive the "Are you sure you want to delete these fonts?" prompt, click Yes.

To prevent a font from loading without removing it from the hard disk, move the font from the Fonts folder into another folder. Use this method for troubleshooting purposes.

This process does not completely remove the font, because font registry information is not deleted. However, it prevents the font from loading.

· Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.


· Double-click the Fonts folder.

· On the File menu, click Install New Font.

· In the Drives box, click the drive that has the floppy or CD-ROM that contains the fonts you want to add.If you are installing fonts from a floppy disk, this is typically drive A or drive B.

If you are installing the fonts from a compact disc, your CD-ROM drive is typically drive D.

· Double-click the folder that contains the fonts.

· Click the font you want to add. To select more than one font at a time, press and hold down the Ctrl key while you click each font.

· Click to select the Copy Fonts To Fonts Folder check box. The Windows\Fonts folder is where the fonts that are included with Windows XP are stored.

· Click OK.

For a great way to put your digital photos to work, try creating a slide show presentation for use as a screen saver.

· Right-click an empty spot on your desktop, and then click Properties.

· Click the Screen Saver tab.

· In the Screen saver list, click My Pictures Slideshow.

· Click Settings to make any adjustments, such as how often the pictures should change, what size they should be, and whether you'll use transition effects between Pictures, and then click OK.

Now your screen saver is a random display of the pictures taken from your My Pictures folder.

Have you ever installed a device driver that makes your system unstable? Well, in Windows XP you can roll back such a change if it causes you problems!

To go back to the previous driver for a device:

· Click Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > Administrative Tools.

· Double-click Computer Management, and then click Device Manager in the left pane.

· Right-click the device for which you'd like to roll back the drivers, and then click Properties.

· On Driver tab of the Properties dialog box, click Roll Back Driver, and follow the wizard's instructions.

It's that simple, although you need to be an administrator or a member of the Administrators group to complete this procedure.

· Go to Control Panel, then go to Power Options.


· Click on the APM tab, then check the "Enable Advanced Power Management support."

· Shut down your PC.

It should now successfully complete the Shut Down process.

To enable Internet Connection Sharing on a network connection:


· Open Network Connections.

· Click the dial-up, local area network, PPPoE, or VPN connection you want to share.

· Then, under Network Tasks, click Change settings of this connection.

· On the Advanced tab, select the Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection check box.

· If you want this connection to dial automatically when another computer on your home or small office network attempts to access external resources, select the Establish a dial-up connection whenever a computer on my network attempts to access the Internet check box.

· If you want other network users to enable or disable the shared Internet connection, select the Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection check box.

Under Internet Connection Sharing, in Home networking connection, select any adapter that connects the

computer sharing its Internet connection to the other computers on your network.

The Start menu gets more real estate in XP than in previous versions, and it's more customizable.

To make the Start menu display only the applications you want, rather than the default determined by Microsoft:

· Right-click in an empty section of the Start menu's left column.

· Select Properties > Start Menu > Customize. Here you'll find a list of your most frequently used programs. (XP keeps track of what you use and what you don't, then updates this list dynamically).

Don't want your boss to know that Pinball, Solitaire, and Quake all make your list?

· Go to the General tab, click Clear List, and set the counter to zero.

· Click Start , click Control Panel , and then double-click System.


· Click the Automatic Updates tab, and then click Turn off automatic updating. I want to update my computer manually.

· Click Start , click Control Panel , and then double-click System.


· Click the Automatic Updates tab, and then click one of the following options:

- Download the updates automatically and notify me when they are ready to be installed. (This is the default setting.)

- Notify me before downloading any updates and notify me again before installing them on my computer.

To start the Desktop Cleanup Wizard:


· Click Start , and then click Control Panel.

· In Control Panel, click Appearance and Themes under Pick a category.

· Under or pick a Control Panel icon , click Display. The Display Properties dialog box is displayed.

· In the Display Properties dialog box, click the Desktop tab, and then click Customize Desktop. The Desktop Items dialog box is displayed.

· Under Desktop cleanup , click to clear the Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard every 60 days check box if you do not want the Desktop Cleanup Wizard to automatically start every 60 days.

· Click Clean Desktop Now. The Desktop Cleanup Wizard starts.

To bypass the Recycle Bin on a one-time basis, when you are deleting a file (or a group of selected files):

· Press and hold down the shift-key while you press the del-key (or use the delete command).

You receive the following confirmation-request message:

Are you sure you want to send to the Recycle Bin?

Identify a 16-bit Program

· Use Windows Explorer to open the folder that contains the program's executable (.exe) file.

· Right-click the .exe file, and then click Properties.

· A 16-bit program does not have a Version tab in this dialog box.

Edit your link to start Internet Explorer to have -nohome after it. For Example:


"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" -nohome

This will load internet explorer very fast because it does not load a web page while

it is loading. If you want to go to your homepage after it is loaded, just click on the

home button.

This is a unique technique for WinXP.

We know that it is necessary to scrub registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodically.

Prefetch is a new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the prefetch directory can get full of junk and obsolete links in the Prefetch catalog, which can slow down your computer noticeably.

· Open C(system drive):/windows/prefetch, delete those junk and obsolete files, reboot.

It is recommended that you do this every month.

It is possible to disable the XP splash screen, which will slightly speed up the overall boot process.

Be aware that removing the splash screen will also cause you not to see any boot-up messages that might come up (chkdsk, convert ... ), but if your system runs without any problems then it should not matter.

· Edit boot.ini.

· Add " /noguiboot" right after "/fastdetect".

Upon restarting, the splash screen will be gone. It can be re-enabled by removing the new switch.

If your system hangs about 2 or 3 minutes at startup, where you can't access the Start button or the Taskbar, it may be due to one specific service (Background Intelligent Transfer) running in the background.

Microsoft put out a patch for this but it didn't work for me. Here's what you do:

· Click on Start/Run, type 'msconfig', then click 'OK'.

· Go to the 'Services' tab, find the 'Background Intelligent Transfer' service.

· Disable it, apply the changes & reboot.

By default, Windows XP keeps a backup of system files in the System Volume Information folder. This can eat up valuable space on your hard drive.

If you don't want Windows to back up your system files:

· Open the Control Panel.

· Double-click on System.

· Click the System Restore tab.

· Check "Turn off System Restore on all drives".

· Hit Apply.

· You may now delete the System Volume Information folder.

Warning! If you turn this off you will not be able to use Windows System Restore to restore your system in case of failure.

Like previous versions of windows, it takes long time to restart or shutdown windowsXP when the "Exit Windows" sound is enabled. To solve this problem you must disable this useless sound.

· Click Start button.

· Go to settings > Control Panel > Sound, Speech and Audio devices > Sounds and Audio Devices > Sounds.

· Then under program events and windows menu click on "Exit Windows" sub-menu and highlight it.
 
 Now from sounds you can select, choose "none" and then click Apply and OK.

Now you should see some improvements when shutting down your system.

If you are connected to a LAN and have problems with jerky graphics, this might be the


solution:

· Right-click "My Computer".

· Select "Manage".

· Click on "Device Manager".

· Double-click on your NIC under "Network Adapters".

· In the new window, select the "Advanced" tab.

· Select "Connection Type" and manually set the value of your NIC. (Not "Auto Sense"

which is default.).

· You should reboot.