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Speed Up The PC - Icons and Desktop Oddities |
Make your desktop icons larger or smaller. First,
right-click an empty area of your desktop and choose
Properties. Open the Appearance tab. Find Icon in
the Item drop-down menu. Change the size and press
Apply to see how your icons will look. Don't be
afraid to repeat this step and experiment with
different sizes. When you're satisfied with your
icon size, hit OK.
Your desktop is stuffed with icons to things that
you never use. What are these things? "My Computer"
is an ineptly named access path to all the major
functions of your computer: the disk drives, fonts,
Control Panel, DUN, etc. As mentioned above, you can
rename "My Computer" by right-clicking the icon,
choosing Rename, and typing your choice of
sobriquets. "My Briefcase" is used primarily by
frequent flyers who pull files off their home PCs,
modify them on a laptop during road trips, bring
them home, and copy the changed file back into their
home PC. To use it, you copy files to My Briefcase
(drag the files' icons to the My Briefcase icon and
drop them on it one by one), move My Briefcase to
another diskette or another computer (drag the My
Briefcase icon to the icon for the disk drive or the
hard disk of a connected computer in My Computer or
Explorer), work on the files while you fly the
friendly skies, and once you're home again,
synchronize the files (put the diskette containing
the travel version of My Briefcase into your home
PC's drive, find its icon in My Computer or
Explorer, drag the icon onto the PC's desktop,
release the mouse button, double-click the newly
restored My Briefcase icon, open the View menu,
select Details, and check the Status column for the
message "Needs Updating;" use the Update commands on
the Briefcase menu). "Network Neighborhood, "
renamed "My Network Places" in Win ME, won't come
into play unless your PC is part of a Local Area
Network (LAN). It is used to get a graphic view of
the workgroups, PCs, and other shared resources in
your LAN. If you're hooked into a LAN, your system
operator can tell you how to get some mileage out of
Network Neighborhood.
I can share one little LAN tidbit with you before we
move on: how to share printers using Network
Neighborhood. When your PC is connected to a LAN,
you'll see sharable printers appear in Network
Neighborhood. Make them "local" and you can use them
as your own. How? Just double-click My Computer,
double-click Printers, choose "Add New Printer," and
follow the Wizard instructions. From now on, that
printer will show up in the Print dialog box of any
app.
XP
users may find themselves wondering where the heck
their My Computer, My Documents, Network Places,
and Internet Explorer desktop icons went.
They're there, but not shown in the default
installation. Right-click on an empty area of your
desktop, choose Properties, click the Desktop tab,
and then the "Customize Desktop" button. You'll see
four buttons you can check or uncheck to add or
remove these icons from your desktop, as well as
options to change the look of each icon.
XP users might not appreciate the "blue meanie"
style that comes by default with their Desktop
settings. To change to the old-fashioned "Windows
Classic" style, just right-click the Desktop and
choose Properties. Then click the Appearances tab.
Under the "Windows and buttons" drop-down menu,
choose "Windows Classic style." Select a color
scheme from the next list. If you want to tweak it
further, go through the Advanced button, choose
colors and sizes for the various elements, and click
OK twice. You'll still have the wide Start menu with
its list of frequently used programs, but to get the
old Start menu back, right-click the Start button,
choose Properties, and click "Classic Start menu."
Click OK and you're back to the old style. More
daring XP users can download the $20 Style XP
utility from www.themexp.org/ to completely
overhaul the XP look.
A few users are finding that when they click on the
"Show Desktop" in their Quick Launch menu, the
Desktop folder opens instead of showing the Desktop.
Strange, but correctable. Here's how. Open up
Notepad, and in the blank document, type the
following:
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop
When you save the text document, change the "Save as
Type" field to "All Files," and type SHOW
DESKTOP.SCF for the file name. Save your file in
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM or C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32, depending on
your Windows installation. Use Windows Explorer or
My Computer to navigate to where you saved the SHOW
DESKTOP.SCF file. Right-click the file and choose
"Create Shortcut." Move the shortcut to
C:\WINDOWS\APPLICATION DATA\MICROSOFT\INTERNET
EXPLORER\QUICK LAUNCH if you are on Windows 9x,
C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32 if you are on Windows NT4/2000, or
to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEMPROFILE\APPLICATION
DATA\MICROSOFT\INTERNET EXPLORER\QUICK LAUNCH for
Windows XP. Last, you need to right-click the
shortcut, choose Rename and type DESKTOP for the
name. Now the Show Desktop icon will automatically
appear in the Quick Launch toolbar, and you
shouldn't have to restart. However, if you don't see
the shortcut, then try restarting your machine
before retrying the steps. This tip also works if
you managed to delete your Show Desktop icon.
You can make your entire Desktop accessible from a
single taskbar button. Essentially, you're putting
your desktop and file system on a menu. When you
click the button you'll create, you'll see
everything on your computer mounted on a pop-up
menu, and as you hold your mouse pointer over
"container objects," like My Documents or My
Computer, a cascading submenu appears that reveals
all the drives, files, folders, programs, and other
icons at that level. You can keep burrowing into
lower levels of your PC, so you can reach every
folder and file on your every drive of your
computer, including CDs and ZIP drives, even network
volumes. You need MSIE 5 or higher installed. Here's
how: right- click any empty part of the Taskbar.
Select Toolbars, Desktop from the context menu. On
older versions of Windows, you may have to select
Toolbars > New Toolbars > then scroll all the way
upward, click the "Desktop" icon, and click OK. On
some PCs, you'll see the chevron, two bold
greater-than symbols like this: >>, to the
left of the system tray area on the taskbar. Under
other versions of Windows, you'll see the word
Desktop followed by the chevron. And on older
versions of Windows, the new Desktop toolbar may
spread out across your Taskbar, using all available
space. (If this happens to you, grab the handle just
to the left of the Desktop label and slide it as far
to the right as it will go, so all you see is the
word "Desktop" followed by the chevron.) A chevron
indicates there are more items available but not
currently visible. When you click right on the
chevron itself, you'll see a giant menu open. The
more things on your desktop, the more things you'll
find on this menu. And container objects, like
folders, My Computer, and so on, cascade their
contents off into submenus. Once you try this
powerful menu, you'll see how much it can do. Note
that this tip can be localized on any folder, drive,
or Windows structure you find in the New Toolbar
selection dialog, including Control Panel, Printers,
My Documents, My Computer, Dial-Up Networking. The
Desktop and My documents menus seem to work best. If
you want the feature off, just follow the same steps
and click the Desktop entry to remove the checkmark
beside it. Win XP users might not see as much of an
advantage, as the improvements to the Start menu
provide some of the same features, or can if you
configure the Start menu properly.
Most XP users quickly tire of the "Clean Desktop
Wizard" that keeps reminding them that there are
icons on the desktop that can be removed. Yeah,
yeah. Get rid of it by running this VBS script.
Here's how to create it:
Open Notepad. Copy the following text into the file:
Option Explicit
Dim WSHShell, n, MyBox, p, itemtype, Title
Set WSHShell =
WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
p =
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\CleanupWiz\"
p = p & "NoRun"
itemtype = "REG_DWORD"
n = 1
WSHShell.RegWrite p, n, itemtype
Title = "Cleanup Wizard is now Disabled." & vbCR
Title = Title & "You may need to log off/log on"
& vbCR
Title = Title & "For the change to take effect."
MyBox = MsgBox(Title,4096,"Finished")
Now, save the file as CLEANUPWIZ.TXT, and rename it
CLEANUPWIZ.VBS . Double-click the file to execute
the script. Your antivirus program may ask for
permission to run the script. (Note: A reader says
that an easier way to handle this is to right click
on the desktop, go to Properties, and click on the
desktop tab. Click on Customize. Unclick run desktop
wizard every 60 days. That stops the Cleanup Wizard
from running. Thanks!)
Win ME users can get rid of the desktop shortcut to
the My Documents folder: double-click the My
Computer icon, click the Tools menu and select
Folder Options. Click the View tab and scroll down
to the bottom of the Advanced Settings window.
Uncheck the box in front of "Show My Documents On
The Desktop." To get the My Documents folder back
onto your Desktop, just come back to this spot and
reinstate the check mark. In fact, you can do all
kinds of neato things to your display while you're
in Advanced Settings. Enjoy.
You can also make the My Documents shortcut point to
whatever folder you like. If you store your work
somewhere else, and would rather have the shortcut
point to that folder, right-click the icon on the
Desktop and choose Properties. Select the Target
tab, click inside the Target box, and choose Browse.
Browse to the folder you store your work in, select
it, and click OK. If the name My Documents doesn't
trip your trigger, change it by right-clicking it
and choosing Rename. Type a new name and press
Enter. This should work for all 9x versions.
This one only works for ME and 2K (and perhaps XP)
users. While we're playing around with My Documents,
let's make it handle more than 15 items. (My
Documents is set to display only the last 15 files
used; earlier ones drop off.) The shortcuts
displayed in the Documents menu are stored in the
C:\WINDOWS\RECENT folder (unless you're using user
profiles, in which case the folder location will be
something like C:\WINDOWS\PROFILES\yourloginname\RECENT.
You may need to enable the "Show Hidden Files and
Folders" option, discussed elsewhere in these pages.
Usually the Recent folder contains far more
shortcuts than you'll see in your Documents listing.
View all the listings by opening the folder and
dragging the edges to resize it for a larger
display. Now right-click and drag the folder icon to
your Desktop folder, Start Menu folder, or StartUp
folder (in the Start menu's Programs folder). Select
"Create Shortcut(s) Here" when you release the mouse
button.
Most of us don't mess with My Briefcase, but if you
need it, you should set it up properly. It should
have installed when you or your vendor installed
Windows, but if it didn't, go through Add/Remove in
Control Panel, go through Windows Setup and
Accessories tabs, highlight My Briefcase, and press
OK twice. Insert your installation CD or floppy when
asked and you're off. Now, you get the most mileage
out of Briefcase by clicking and dragging files
directly to the Briefcase icon; Windows copies the
files into Briefcase and calls them "sync files."
You can use Send To for sending the Briefcase files
to another disk or PC (often a laptop used for
mobile computing). To edit briefcase files on a
floppy disk, pop the disk in the floppy drive of the
destination computer and copy the briefcase files to
any location on that system's hard drive. (Whatever
you do, don't move the Briefcase off the floppy
disk.) Now go ahead and edit these "sync" (or
linked) copies of the briefcase files. If you've
moved your briefcase from the originating PC to a
laptop, leave the files in the briefcase and edit
away. (Don't copy or move the briefcase files to a
new location on the laptop, or you'll lose your
links to the originals.) Now you can update all the
files at once. If you copied your briefcase to a
floppy and then copied the briefcase files to
another system, updating is a two-step process.
Here's the first: At the location where you edited
the files, place the floppy disk containing the
briefcase in the floppy drive, display its contents,
right-click the briefcase icon, and select Update
All. (Note: If you want to change an operation in
the Update dialog box, right-click it and select a
new operation, such as Skip.) Click Update. Now for
the second step: Insert the floppy disk in the drive
of the originating PC and follow the steps above
(right-click the briefcase icon, select Update All,
and so on). The original files are now identical to
their copies on the second system (where you edited
them). If you moved your briefcase to a laptop,
updating is only a one-step process: Move the
briefcase back onto the system where the original
files are located, right-click the briefcase icon,
select Update All, and click Update. (Note: If you
created the briefcase right on the laptop, connect
the laptop to the originating PC, right-click the
briefcase, select Update All, and so on.) So far, so
good. Now how do you delete one copy of a Briefcase
file while preventing Briefcase from getting rid of
the other copies? You "orphan" the file, or break
the links to its sync copies. Open the briefcase and
select the file you want to orphan. Select
Briefcase, Split From Original, and click Yes to
confirm. Now you can delete that file from the
briefcase without a problem. The orphaned file has
no links to its former sync copies. You can also
rename a sync file, but be sure to remove all other
sync copies before updating, or you'll befuddle both
Briefcase and yourself. Now, if you mistakenly
delete a Briefcase file, you can't just right-click
the Briefcase, choose Update All, and expect
Briefcase to re-create the file--at least not
without help. Inside the Update All window, you'll
see a Delete action next to the sync copy of the
file you deleted. Right-click this action and select
Create. Click Update, and Briefcase creates a new
copy of that file to replace the one you deleted.
You can also move the entire Briefcase to a floppy
disk: simply right-click the Briefcase icon, select
Send To, and choose the floppy drive from the
resulting list. If you have a laptop hooked in to
your desktop machine, you should be able to do the
same thing with the portable machine.
Back to Network Neighborhood: you may not have a use
for it and want to delete it, especially if it's
causing you to go through an unnecessary password
dialog box every time you restart Windows. Here's
how. To remove the Network Neighborhood Icon, start
the System Policy Editor, also called POLEDIT. (It
is on the Windows CD in \ADMIN\APPTOOLS\POLEDIT; you
should install it first by opening Add/Remove
Programs from the Control Panel and choose the
Windows Setup tab, selecting Have Disk, and browsing
down to the ADMIN\APPTOOLS\POLEDIT directory on your
CD-ROM. Once it's installed, you can run it from the
Programs/Accessories folder on the Start menu. If
you don't have the CD, you can get the utility for
free from www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/
under Management Tools.) Select File, Open Registry,
and double-click on Local User, Shell Restrictions.
Check the Hide Network Neighborhood box, click OK
and Save. Once you reboot, the icon will be gone.
You can use the Policy Editor to keep other users
from messing with your Display Properties settings.
Open the Policy Editor. In the System Policy Editor
window, pull down the File menu, select Open
Registry, and double-click the Local User icon. Set
the restriction by double-clicking the Control Panel
book, double-clicking the Display book, and
selecting "Restrict Display Control Panel." From the
options that appear at the bottom of the dialog box,
select "Disable Display Control Panel" to completely
restrict access. You can also restrict access to
individual tabs by selecting the appropriate options
(i.e. keep people from replacing your wallpaper by
choosing "Hide Background Page"). Click OK and
select File, Save. To unlock your restrictions, go
into Policy Editor again and deselect your earlier
choices.
Icons are something we often take for granted in
Windows; yet we can change them around, delete them,
replace them, whatever we like (almost). Change a
file's icon on your Desktop by simply right-clicking
it, selecting Properties, and choosing Change Icon.
Just follow the online prompts and you've got a new
icon to replace the stodgy old one. But you know
that buried somewhere in the bowels of your system
are more icons. Where are they and how do you find
them? Well, the easiest way is to go through the
Registry. Deep breaths now. Back up the Registry
(see the previous discussion), and dive in. Go
through Start/Run, type REGEDIT, and you're in the
Registry. Navigate your way to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \
dllfile \ DefaultIcon. In the right pane,
right-click Default, select Modify, replace the text
on the Value Data line with %1 and click OK. Close
the Registry Editor and restart Windows. Now try
browsing for icon files in the Change Icon dialog
box. If the icon next to a .DLL file looks different
from the default, that file has icons inside. Slick,
huh.
Hard to find icons on that cluttered desktop? Just
click on a blank area of the desktop and press the
first letter of the icon you're looking for (i.e. if
you're hunting for an icon titled "America Online,"
press A). Windows will highlight the first icon it
comes to starting with that letter. If that isn't
the right icon, just keep pressing the letter key
until it finds your icon. Or, just right-click a
blank area of your Taskbar and select "Minimize all
windows" from the menu to get to your desktop. Can't
find the icons if you can't find the desktop. Win
98/ME users, just use the "Show Desktop" icon in
your Quick Launch toolbar.
Can't find the "Show Desktop" icon on your Quick
Launch toolbar? Sometimes evil applications, or
fumble fingered users, delete it. Recreate it by
going through the Start, Find (or Start, Search)
application, and have the computer search for "SHOW
DESKTOP.SCF" (include the quotation marks). Specify
Local Hard Drives in the Look In field. Click Find
Now. If the stars are in your favor, you'll find it;
drag the file from the Find window to the Quick
Launch bar to recreate the Show Desktop icon. If
it's nowhere to be found, recreate it. Open Notepad
and type the information below exactly as it
appears:
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe.3
[Taskbar]
Command=Toggle Desktop
Choose File, Save As, and navigate to the folder
where the Quick Launch items are stored by
right-clicking an empty area of the Quick Launch
toolbar, or the gripper line that you click to
resize the toolbar, and choose Open. The folder name
appears in the Address box. In the File Name box,
type "SHOW DESKTOP.SCF" (include the quotes again).
The shortcut will reappear. If for some reason you
can't find the Quick Launch folder, just create the
shortcut on your Desktop and drag it to the Quick
Launch folder. Or place it anywhere else you like.
Of course, this is all moot if you have a Windows
key; holding that key down and pressing D shows the
Desktop as well.
If you use the Find command frequently, you can put
Find on your Quick Launch Toolbar. Go to Start,
Find, Files Or Folders, and select the place you're
most likely to look for files in the Look In field
(for example, your C drive). Now go to File, Save
Search. This creates an icon on your desktop with
your saved search criteria. Drag this icon to your
Quick Launch Toolbar to create an icon for it, then
simply drag the original from the desktop to the
Recycle Bin. There you go.
Every now and then someone accidentally deletes
their Recycle Bin icon, mistakenly thinking they're
getting rid of deleted files. It can be restored
with a careful walk through the Registry. Open
Regedit, drill down to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE
\ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ explorer \
Desktop \ NameSpace and in the left pane,
right-click the NameSpace key and select New, Key.
Type exactly:
{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
and press Enter. (To save yourself some typing, copy
the above line to your clipboard, then press Ctrl-V
after selecting New, Key.) In the right pane,
right-click (Default) and select Modify. In the
resulting Edit String dialog box, on the Value Data
line, type
Recycle Bin
and click OK. Close the Registry Editor, click the
desktop once, press F5 (for refresh), and there's
your Recycle Bin icon. Now, don't do it again!
Speaking of the Recycle Bin, everyone knows (or
should know) that when they delete files, folders,
etc. from the hard drive, they go to the Recycle
Bin. There they sit until you empty the trash
(right-click the Recycle Bin icon and choose "Empty
Recycle Bin") or until the Recycle Bin gets full, in
which case the oldest files disappear. The Recycle
Bin gives you one last chance to rethink your
deletion and recover a deleted file from oblivion.
All you do is right-click the Bin's icon, choose
Open, highlight the file you want to restore, and
choose Restore. It is returned to its proper place
and all is once again right with the world. If you
change your mind almost immediately (i.e. you
haven't performed any other mouse functions), you
can right-click the location from which you deleted
the file and choose Undo Delete. Or hit Ctrl+Z
(Windows' ubiquitous Undo function).
Sometimes the Recycle Bin file itself becomes
corrupted, and then you find yourself unable to
delete any file on your machine. There's a
way to remove your Recycle Bin completely, if you're
running Windows 95/98, which I've cribbed from
support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q246726&.
First, restart your machine to MS-DOS. At the C:\
prompt, type the following lines:
CD\
CD RECYCLED
ATTRIB -r -s -h info2.*
DEL INFO2
(this deletes the damaged INFO2 file and creates
a new file automatically)
Now
the procedure becomes a little different for the two
flavors of Windows. Win 95 users should restart your
computer, and when you see the Starting Windows 95
message, press F8. On then on the Startup menu,
select Command Prompt Only. If you're running Win
98, you'll restart your computer, press and hold
down the CTRL key after your computer completes the
Power On Self Test (POST), and then on the Startup
menu, select Command Prompt Only. NOTE: You can
start the computer with the Windows Startup disk if
it is available.
All
users will do the following at the command prompt:
attrib -r -s -h c:\recycled
deltree c:\recycled
If
the problem occurs on a drive other than C,
substitute the appropriate drive letter for drive C
in the above commands. Restart the computer. This
re-creates the Recycle Bin.
If you're willing to go spelunking in the Registry,
you can give the Recycle Bin the same Delete and
Rename options in its right-click menu as most other
icons have. Here's how. Go into the Registry through
Regedit and find the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Classes \ CLSID \
{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} \ ShellFolder
Edit the value "Attributes" (BINARY value) and
change the value setting to one of the following
numbers, depending on which choice you want:
50010020 = Add Rename Only
60010020 = Add Delete Only
70010020 = Add Delete and Rename
You know that when you use the Delete button to get
rid of a file, you can delete it directly (bypassing
the Recycle Bin) by holding down the Shift key as
you delete. Another way to streamline the process
(for Win ME users only, sorry) is to get rid of the
warning dialog box that asks if you're sure you want
to do the deletion. Right-click the Recycle Bin,
choose Properties and uncheck the "Display
confirmation dialog" box to remove the warning box.
You can sort through the trash in the Recycle Bin
before disposing of it, if need be. Select Details
from the View menu and click on the bar of your
choice (Name, Original Location, Date Deleted, Type
or Size) to sort by that category.
There's another way to shove a few more icons on
that cluttered desktop. The icon spacing (how much
space separates the icons from each other) is
determined by the Horizontal and Vertical Spacing
settings, which are easily changed. Right-click the
Desktop and choose Properties. Click the Appearance
tab. Under Items, choose "Icon Spacing (Horizontal)"
or "Icon Spacing (Vertical)" and adjust the number
next to "Size" (the default for the Windows Standard
scheme is 43). To test your changes, minimize all
open windows, click Apply, then click and drag the
window over a little to see the effect on your
Desktop. (Icons not moving? Right-click the Desktop,
select "Arrange Icons," and click "Auto Arrange.")
When you find a setting you like, click OK to make
it permanent. Naturally, this doesn't work in older
versions of Windows.
Win 98 and ME users, you can just right-click and
drag shortcut icons to the Quick Launch area of the
taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Choose the
appropriate options (copy, move, create shortcut)
and you're good to go. This is a nice way to keep
your desktop from getting overly cluttered. If you'd
rather, create shortcuts by right-clicking the
desktop, choosing New, Shortcut, and browsing for
the program you're creating the shortcut for. Drag
the shortcut to your Quick Launch bar; this copies
the shortcut. Delete the original shortcut from your
desktop and you're ready to roll. Just don't
overload your Quick Launch bar, or it becomes hard
to manage. Want to make the icons bigger?
Right-click the Quick Launch bar's handle and choose
View, Large. Whoa! Bigger icons, bigger Quick Launch
bar. Too big? Click View, Small to return it to its
previous size. Want to get rid of some icons? Drag 'em
from the bar to the Recycle Bin. (Remember, you're
recycling/deleting a shortcut, not the program
itself.) Delete the wrong icon? If you're quick
(i.e. you haven't done anything since the erroneous
deletion), just hit Ctrl+Z to undo the mistake. Or
just right-click the icon and choose Delete.
There's another way to add shortcuts to your Quick
Launch bar, this one going through the Start Menu.
Say you want to add Spider Solitaire to your Quick
Launch bar. Go through Start, Programs, Games, and
before highlighting Spider, press and hold the Ctrl
key. Drag the Spider menu item to the Quick Launch
menu (Ctrl+drag always copies whatever is being
dragged). Release the mouse button and the Ctrl key,
and you've got a shortcut to Spider Solitaire on
your Quick Launch bar.
Missing your Quick Launch bar? It's there, Windows
has just decided to hide it from you. Right-click
the Taskbar (a blank area) or, if necessary,
right-click the time display. Choose Toolbars, Quick
Launch. The Quick Launch menu will appear.
Since we're talking about shortcut icons, here's a
quick method of creating and modifying shortcuts, as
well as preventing your thumbfingers from
inadvertently changing the icon of a shortcut.
There's an undocumented line utility called
SHORTCUT.EXE that resides on Windows users' master
CD, in the ADMIN\APPTOOLS\ENVVARS folder. It is also
included in the Windows 95 Resource Kit. Win98
users, you don't have it at all; you'll have to
sweettalk your Win 95 buddy into letting you copy
his. (Note for WinNT users: your version of
SHORTCUT.EXE is not the same. Don't try using the
Win 95 version.) You need to be somewhat familiar
with running programs from the DOS prompt to use
this little goodie, but if you are, you can make
this utility work wonders for your shortcut
collection.
Windows' selection of icons for files is downright
tiresome -- a plain manila folder. Zzzz.
Fortunately, it isn't hard to change the icons to
anything you have available. Inside an Explorer
window, select View, Options (or View, Folder
Options). Click the "File Types" tab, and under
"Registered File Types," select the file type you
want to redress. Click Edit, then click Change Icon.
(Note: If the Change Icon button is grayed out, you
can't change the icon for that file type.) Select
your icon of choice, then click OK. (Or click
Browse, navigate your way to another icon file, such
as C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\PIFMGR.DLL or
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SHELL32.DLL, click Open, select an
icon, and click OK.) Click OK two more times, and
the change is complete.
Want to change the icon for your hard drive? Not
that this is a necessity, but if you're tired of
that old icon, open Notepad and type the following
directions exactly:
[autorun]
icon=PATH,# (where PATH is the path of the icon
file containing the icon you want to use, and #
is its number -- so if you wanted to use a globe
icon, your Notepad icon path file would read:
ICON=C:\WINDOWS\SHELL32.DLL,13)
Save
the file as AUTORUN.INF on the root of your hard
drive and close Notepad. Open My Computer, press F5
(which refreshes the display), and there's the new
icon. (Note to the intimidated: You can see how this
works as you go through it. Don't be shy.)
Win 98 and ME users can change their shortcut icons
by simply right-clicking on the shortcut, choosing
Properties, and clicking on the Change Icon button
under the Shortcut tab. Enter
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SHELL32.DLL in the File Name box,
and select an icon from those in the palette. You
can also use the Browse button to search through ICL,
DLL, ICO and other files on your hard drive that may
contain icons. Click on OK to change to the new
icon. (Win 95 users, you can do this, too, but since
Microsoft didn't update its icon library until Win
98, your choices are quite limited.)
After a while, Win 98/ME users (and probably other
OS users as well) find that their icons don't behave
properly any longer. Either they don't click into
the program as they are supposed to, or you just get
an error message. Annoying. Most icons on the Win 98
desktop are shortcuts to other files, which means
they do little more than point Windows in the right
direction. The file that the shortcut icon points to
is called the target. Broken shortcuts can be fixed
using several different methods: First, Windows
tries to conduct a search for the target, and if it
is located, the shortcut is automatically revised.
You do nothing, which is optimal. However, if
necessary, you can manually revise the shortcut by
right-clicking the icon and choosing Properties. If
you know the correct file path for the target, type
it in the Target field and click OK. If needed, you
can get rid of the shortcut, especially if it points
to a file that has been deleted or a program you
have uninstalled. (You can safely delete shortcut
icons without affecting the file or program they
point to.)
Want to lose those little arrows on your Desktop
icons? Some people pay them no mind, some people
find them annoying. The TweakUI utility is the
quickest way to get rid of them, but if you don't
have it, you can do it with a quick Registry tweak:
Load the System Registry Editor by opening the Start
menu, choosing Run, typing REGEDIT, and pressing
Enter. Then navigate through HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT until
you find the "lnkfile" entry. Click to select "lnkfile"
on the left pane, then select and delete the "IsShortcut"
item on the right pane. Restart Windows. You may
find that logging off and back on works. To reverse
the process, navigate to the same location in the
System Registry Editor. With "lnkfile" selected,
right-click any blank area of the right pane. Choose
New > String Value. Name the new entry ""IsShortcut"
(without the quotation marks) and close RegEdit.
Again, you may have to restart or log off and back
on.
Many shortcut icons have a "text tag" that appears
when you hover the cursor over them. Often these are
useful, but if you want to get rid of the text for a
particular icon, here's how. Rename the icon (select
it and tap the 'F2' key). Now press ALT and enter in
'0160' on your numeric keypad. This should create a
blank space. Hit ENTER and the icon will no longer
have text underneath it. If you'd like other
'nameless' icons on your Desktop, enter an
additional '0160' for each one. Remember, no two
shortcut icons can have the same filename.
Here's a neat way to make sticky notes for your
Desktop, found on
TechTV's
"ScreenSavers" message boards.
Open Explorer (or any folder window) and choose
View, Folder Options or Tools, Folder Options,
depending on your version of Windows. Click the File
Types tab, and then select New or New Type. In
Windows 2000, ME, or XP, type STKY for File
Extension, and click OK. With the 'STKY' extension
selected in the 'Registered file types' list, click
Advanced. Type Sticky Note in the box next to the
Change Icon button. The Win 98 procedure is slighly
different: type STKY in the 'Associated extension'
text box, and Sticky Note in the 'Description of
type' box. In all versions, click the New button,
type open in the Action text box, and enter
notepad.exe in the 'Application used to perform
action' box. Click OK, select the Change Icon
button, and choose an icon to represent your new
sticky notes. Windows provides icons; locate them by
making sure that SHELL32.DLL is listed in the 'File
name' box 'Look for icons in this file' in Windows
XP). In most versions of Windows, scroll through the
icon list until you reach the icon in the third row
of the eighth column. Windows XP's invisible icons
are in the second, third, and fourth rows of the
thirteenth column (and the first row of the
fourteenth column). Select one and click OK or Close
as many times as needed to close all dialog boxes.
To add your new Sticky Note file type to your
right-click New menu, choose Start, Run, type
REGEDIT, and press Enter. Click the plus sign next
to 'HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT', right-click the key (folder
icon) named .STKY, and choose New, Key. Type
ShellNew and press Enter. Select the ShellNew icon
in the left pane, right-click inside the right pane,
and choose New, String Value. Type NullFile, press
Enter, and exit the Registry Editor. To add a sticky
note to the desktop or to any folder window,
right-click it, choose New, Sticky Note, type the
text of your note, and press Enter. You can't use
colons, question marks, or other characters that are
forbidden in file names. If your notes aren't wide
enough, right-click the desktop, choose Properties,
and click the Appearance tab. In Windows XP, click
Advanced. In all versions, choose Icon Spacing
(Horizontal) from the Item drop-down list. Increase
the Size value and click OK. Note text that exceeds
two lines will be truncated -- an ellipsis symbol
(...) will indicate this -- but you can see the
whole note by selecting it. To make a note longer
than 255 characters, double-click the note and add
supplementary information in Notepad. To move a
sticky note, simply drag the icon area above the
text.
The scrollbars are the bars on the right and bottom
sides of your display, with buttons somewhere on
them that you use to scroll through a displayed
document or file. If your scrollbars are too small
to easily use, make them bigger. Right-click the
desktop and select Properties to open the Display
Properties dialog box. Select the Appearance tab,
and in the dropdown list under Item, select
Scrollbar. Adjust the Size (to the right of the Item
field), and watch the preview area until it looks
right. Click OK to keep the change.
Some people like to download programs directly to
the Desktop, so they can be easily located. The
problem is, how do you move that program (and the
two dozen other programs all conspiring to jam your
Desktop) off the Desktop to somewhere else on your
hard drive? There are two ways to do this, depending
on where you want the particular program. The
simplest way is to open My Computer, double-click on
whatever folder you want to hold the item (i.e. the
C: drive), then hold down the Shift key while
dragging the program into that folder. Holding the
Shift key makes this a move, not a copy (hold down
Shift+Ctrl to see a menu of choices). There's
another way to move a program off the Desktop that
might suit you better. First, hold down the Shift
key. Now, drag the item to the Start button and wait
for a menu to open. Keep the Shift key depressed and
when you see the Programs menu item appear, drag the
item over Programs and wait a little longer. Keep
that Shift key down! In a moment, the Programs menu
opens, showing you everything from Accessories to
Windows and whatever else is on there. Drag the item
to wherever you want it and release the mouse
button. Only now should you release the Shift key.
Easy, huh? Now you just need to delete the first
copy from your Desktop (right-click it and choose
Delete) and you're done. Note: make sure you
actually moved the program and didn't just create a
Shortcut. If you just created a Shortcut and then
delete the program from the Desktop, it's gone and
you've just wasted a good bit of time.)
Create a shortcut to your printer on your Desktop
for easy access. Right-click on the printer you want
in your Printer folder and drag it to your Desktop,
choosing the Create Shortcut Here option. Then drag
and drop documents to the shortcut to print them.
You can create a new document or file from the
Desktop without going through the fuss of opening a
particular app, starting the new document, ho hum.
Just right-click on an empty area of the Desktop and
select New. In the resulting menu, you're given the
option of creating a new file in any of a number of
applications -- MSWord, Paint Shop Pro, whatever's
installed on your PC (and cooperates with this
little capability of Windows). Just choose the app
that you want to start the new document or file in,
and it opens with a new document fresh for your use.
A related technique is to create a shortcut to a
document on the Desktop. Locate whatever document
you want the shortcut to point to in Windows
Explorer, right-click it, and drag it to an empty
area of the Desktop. Choose "Create Shortcut Here."
To change the default name, press F2 and type the
new name of the shortcut.
Many times the display of CD-ROM movies, .AVI files,
or other multimedia files is limited to a display
screen the size of a postcard or smaller. Force the
file to display in Full Screen mode by going into
Control Panel, opening the Multimedia applet,
clicking the Video tab, and selecting "Show Video in
Full Screen" from the dropdown menu. Click OK, play
the video, and see how it looks. To return to normal
display mode, press Esc.
How about dressing up your Desktop? The plain-jane
blue-and-grey color scheme bores the stew out of
some people, the screen savers Windows provides
induce narcolepsy, the wallpaper behind your Desktop
icons is blah. Worse, if you bought a PC from
bigname vendors like Gateway or Compaq, chances are
you've got wallpaper and screensavers with their
corporate logos splashed all over your system. Ick.
You can do a lot to change the looks of things
without sucking up precious system resources. The
place to start is with the Desktop Properties
applet, which can be accessed either in Control
Panel or by right-clicking an empty area of the
Desktop and choosing Properties from the menu.
Several functions present themselves.
-
Background.
Here's where you set the wallpaper, or the
graphic that displays behind your Desktop.
Depending on who made and set up your PC, it
came out of the box with the standard Windows
clouds, a dark blue picture of gears and drive
shafts, or one of any number of corporate logos
and ad displays. You can take the easy way out
and choose (None) from both the Patterns or
Wallpaper lists, which lets the Desktop default
to the Appearance menu (explained below). That's
just too boring, so look at the Wallpaper menu
to the right instead. Here you've got a
selection of graphics, some of which are large
enough to fill the whole screen (these are
"Centered") and some which are small enough to
"Tile" (think bathroom linoleum). Choosing a
small graphic and centering it places it in the
middle of your Desktop, surrounded by a color
from the Appearances menu. Choosing a graphic
that's larger than your display might look odd;
Windows will paste it to the top left of the
display, and whatever excess on the right and
the bottom will disappear. Here's where it pays
to know the size of your display: 640x480,
800x600, etc. If you just want a color, you can
choose one from the Appearance menu, and apply a
pattern to it from the Patterns menu to the
left. Just play with things until you get a feel
for how this function works, and until you find
something you like. Win 98/ME users, you get a
"Stretch" option that expands a picture to fill
your screen. This option is located in the
Picture Display drop-down menu in Backgrounds.
If you use the Active Desktop, occasionally the
use of wallpaper will confuse your system. Turn
off the Active Desktop by right-clicking a blank
area of your desktop, clicking the Active
Desktop option, and removing the check mark from
beside the "View as Web Page" option. (Of course
you know that you can make most any graphic your
wallpaper choice simply by right-clicking it and
choosing Save as Wallpaper.)
-
Screen Saver.
Windows ships with no screen saver selected, but
that doesn't mean the vendor hasn't selected one
or installed one of their own. Just choose one
from the drop-down menu and hit "Preview" to see
how it looks (you may need to make some
configuration choices first in "Settings"). If
you, like so many others, want to use fancier
screen savers from outside the minimal selection
provided by Windows, then download one from the
Internet or load one from a disk, make sure its
filename ends in .SCR, and place it in your
Windows folder. Windows will find it and add it
to the list the next time you check. Remember,
modern monitors no longer need screen savers to
prevent "burn-in," but when did that stop any of
us from finding and running the coolest screen
savers we could find?
-
Appearance.
Tired of the blue title bars? gray backgrounds?
plain fonts? Here's where you change things
around. Play with the available options,
particularly the Item list and also the Scheme,
Icon, and Font menus, all you like, but
remember, you have to look at this stuff every
day. Be prepared to change it back once it
starts to make your head hurt.
-
Settings.
Here's where you can change the color depth and
screen resolution of your video display, always
remembering that you're at the mercy of what
your monitor and your video card will handle.
The Advanced tab (not available in all versions
of Windows) lets you make some changes to your
monitor and video card settings. Careful playing
in this section -- it's easy to set things so
that your video card or monitor gets annoyed.
Choose Other from the Color menu to create your
own color scheme.
-
Resolution.
Your display resolution can be changed to allow
more info on your screen. Under Display
Properties, choose Settings. In the Desktop
control of the Display Area box, click and drag
the lever closer to More, and watch as the
numbers under the lever and the desktop preview
change. (How much you can change it depends on
your monitor.) Try bumping the resolution up one
notch and working with it for a while to let
your eyes adjust (you'll click OK to make the
changes stick, then you'll click Yes to accept
the changes or No to dump them). Give yourself a
chance to adjust to the new view before
instantly changing it back; you might end up
preferring the new resolution. Or not.
-
Desktop Themes.
Not available to plain-jane Win 95 users.
Microsoft took some items from the old Microsoft
Plus! package and gave them to Win 98/ME users.
Go through Control Panel to access these. My
system has about 15 or so loaded from the
factory; if you want others, you'll need to
install them into the C:\PROGRAM
FILES\PLUS!\THEMES subdirectory. They change a
lot of things about your computer's appearance,
including default appearance and color scheme,
icons, wallpaper, etc. Themes are system
resource hogs, so if memory is at a premium for
you, forget about this little dressup item.
-
Effects.
Another item not available to Win 95 users,
Effects include whether or not to use
"transition effects" for menus and tooltips (in
other words, the animated shrinking and
expanding as opposed to items just popping into
size), whether or not to smooth the edges of
fonts (the default is off; I recommend turning
it on), the option to use large icons, a color
option for icons, and whether or not to show a
window's contents while it is being dragged.
Most of these, except for the font smoothing
ability, aren't worth spending time on.
-
Web. A
third option only for 98/ME users or those 95
folks with MSIE's Active Desktop. Basically, if
you activate this, you can display "push"
content from the Web, such as constant streaming
stock tickers, news headlines, or Internet radio
broadcasts. Those of us who aren't constantly
connected to the Internet may find this more
annoying than useful.
Remember, you're the one staring at this display for
hours on end. If it bores you, or worse, makes your
eyes hurt, then it can and should be changed.
A more direct approach to managing your system's
color scheme is to manually edit the WIN.INI
configuration file. To access WIN.INI, just type
Start/Run/WIN.INI and press OK. Look for the
[Windows Help] section. If you can't find one, you
can create the section from scratch, as show from
the example below:
[Windows Help]
IFJumpColor=000 128 255
IFPopupColor=255 128 000
JumpColor=000 000 255
MacroColor=255 000 128
PopupColor=255 000 000
The
above settings will take affect after you save the
WIN.INI file and restart Windows. These colors are
represented in triple word (hypertext) notation,
similar to the Windows Desktop colors (which can be
changed from the Control Panel). The values are for
the most popular default set of 16 colors. Valid
values range from 000 (for black) up to 255 (for
white), and they are ordered as red-green-blue.
Naturally, you can change them as you like.
There's a different way to deal with wallpaper
displays, one that especially appeals to those of us
constantly looking to conserve system resources.
Fancy graphical wallpaper displays eat up their
share of resources; if you don't want to use the
resources but still don't want to look at a blank,
boring Desktop, try using patterns. Right-click the
desktop, select Properties, and on the Background
tab, select any pattern. Click OK, and a two-color
pattern appears. To change the color of the pattern
(not black--the other one), right-click the desktop,
select Properties, and click the Appearance tab.
With Desktop selected under Item, click the down
arrow under Color (on the Item line), select a new
color, and then click OK. You can even make your own
patterns for use on your Desktop. Right-click the
desktop and select Properties. On the Background tab
of the Display Properties dialog box, make sure None
is selected under Wallpaper, and then select the
pattern you want to change (or select a pattern
that's close to the one you want to create). Click
the Edit Pattern button, and the Pattern Editor
appears. The rest is just a matter of clicking.
Click any square within the enlarged pattern to
toggle its color between black and your desktop's
background color. When the sample matches the look
you had in mind, type a name for the pattern, click
Add, then click Done. You can now choose your custom
pattern by name from the Pattern list. Yes, compared
to some other options, patterns are relatively drab,
but they aren't anywhere near the drain on system
resources that other, more lively items are.
Your Wallpaper images may not be where Windows
thinks they are. If you don't prefer to keep them in
your Windows or Web folders, tell your machine where
they are. Open your Registry Editor and navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows
\ CurrentVersion. There you should find the
WallPaperDir entry. Feel free to change it. One
helpful string is %USERPROFILE% - which opens up the
current user's "Documents and Settings" folder in
Windows 2000 or XP. In Windows 9x, the My
Documents\My Pictures folder will be found
elsewhere. Wherever you have your favorite Wallpaper
images stored is where you should set this value.
Yes, you can change the color behind the text of
desktop items, simply by going to Control Panel and
then double-clicking Display. On the Appearance tab,
click on the drop-down list under Item and choose
Desktop. Choose a different color that will become
the color behind your text on Desktop items. Easy
enough. If you don't want any color behind your
icons' text at all, then you will need a third party
program. One program that does this for Win 9x/NT4
is DeskColor 3.0, a freebie whose home page
seems to be AWOL, but can be downloaded from
www.totalshareware.com/asp/detail_view.asp?application=2040,
among other places. XP/2K users might like
SetColor, one of the ubiquitous 12Ghosts
utilities from www.12ghosts.com/, but unlike
the other program, this will set you back $20.
You can tile or cascade your various open windows as
you like. Tiling, of course, is the old-fashioned
way of displaying several windows together on your
screen like window panes, while cascading your
display arranges the windows in overlapping stacks.
You can right-click the Taskbar and get several
options: Cascade, Tile Horizontally, Tile
Vertically, or Minimize All. Right-click the taskbar
again to get the Undo option for whatever you've
chosen. There are other ways to skin yon cat. One is
to create keyboard shortcuts for cascading or tiled
displays. The other is to create commands that
reside in your Quick Launch bar that can be clicked
whenever desired.
Quick Launch Icons:
You're going to create a tiny JavaScript file to
deal with this. Open Notepad and type the following
line:
(new
ActiveXObject("Shell.Application"))CascadeWindows().
Choose File, Save As, save it somewhere appropriate,
and title it "CASCADE.JS" (include the quotation
marks so Notepad won't tack on its .TXT extension).
Click Save. Test the script by opening Explorer,
locating the icon for the file, and double-clicking
it; the windows on your display should automatically
cascade. Want to tile those windows? It's somewhat
the same: To have your windows tile horizontally,
open Notepad and type the following line:
(new
ActiveXObject("Shell.Application"))TileHorizontally().
Choose File, Save As, save it somewhere appropriate,
and title it "TILEHORIZONTALLY.JS" (include the
quotation marks so Notepad won't tack on its .TXT
extension). Click Save. Test the script by opening
Explorer, locating the icon for the file, and
double-clicking it; the windows on your display
should automatically tile horizontally. For vertical
tiling, do the same thing except in the code string,
type TileVertically and name the file
TILEVERTICALLY.JS. Give yourself quick access to
these scripts by using the right mouse button to
drag and drop them somewhere easily accessible, such
as the Quick Launch bar or wherever you like --
Desktop, Start Menu, or whatever blows your skirt
up. Choose "Create Shortcut Here" and name it
something appropriate. Note: some computers are set
to associate JavaScript with Notepad and therefore
won't execute the script. Get around this by
right-clicking the shortcut you've placed in Quick
Launch or wherever, and choosing Properties. Make
sure the Shortcut tab is in front, and click the
beginning of the Target text box. Type wscript.exe
and a space, and click OK.
Keyboard Shortcuts:
You'll need to place the shortcut icon described
above either on the desktop or in the Start Menu,
perhaps in a folder titled "Keyboard Shortcuts" or
something similarly obvious. Right-click the
shortcut icon and choose Properties. Make sure the
Shortcut tab is in front. Click in the "Shortcut
key" box and press the keys that you wish to use as
keyboard shortcuts. You have to have at least two
modifier keys from Ctrl, Shift, and Alt unless you
use a function key. Be aware that the keystrokes you
choose will no longer work in any Windows
application (so don't choose F1, for example). Click
OK. Want to eliminate the shortcut? Come back to the
dialog box, click in it, and press the backspace key
to delete the keystrokes.
If
you use these shortcuts and you don't like the
arrangement, Ctrl+Z gives you the previous setup. If
that doesn't work, right-click the taskbar and use
the Undo command.
Some folks never worry about "tiling" their various
windows (i.e. putting several on the screen
together, like bathroom tiles), instead just letting
them cascade one atop another. But, if you're an
inverterate tiler, you may find yourself spending
too much time manually resizing various windows to
fit your screen. Why bother, when a leftover goodie
from the 3.1 days is still around to help? Open
Start, Run, and type TASKMAN in the box. In the
dialog box that appears, choose the windows you want
to tile by clicking on their corresponding tabs
while holding down the Ctrl key. Select Windows/Tile
Horizontally or Tile Vertically. That does the job.
Win 98/ME/2K and/or MSIE 4.x or later users can make
any text document (i.e a to-do list) your desktop's
wallpaper with a few easy maneuvers. Basically, you
transform it into an HTML file, but relax, you don't
have to know HTML to do this. Open the document in
Notepad (or create it in Notepad) and save it with
an .HTM file extension. Right-click on the desktop,
select Properties and click on the Web tab. Click on
the New button, select "Web site" and click OK. Use
the browse button to find your new file. Click OK,
then OK again. This is a real HTML document, because
you gave it an .HTM extension, so if you know how to
create HTML documents, you can spice it up with
colors, sound, graphics, video, live links, ActiveX,
Java or anything else.
Having a tough time seeing what's on your monitor?
You might want to try one of Windows's
"high-contrast" color schemes. The choices are
simple, three sizes of black-on-white or
white-on-black. Of course, you can just go with the
"Large" color schemes, schemes that use real color
but just make the lettering large enough to make
your eyes happier. Just right-click the Desktop and
choose Properties, Appearance, and poke around in
the drop-down Scheme menu. They all have preview
options, so try them all out, just press OK to make
the choices stick.
If you like to change your Display functions around
a lot, it might be helpful to add a shortcut to the
Display menu to your Taskbar. Here's how: First, get
back into Display Properties and click on
"Settings." Now click the "Advanced" button. Under
the "General" tab, you'll see a check bar titled
"Show settings icon on taskbar" -- click it. Click
on OK twice. Now you've got a Display icon in your
Taskbar; hold the cursor over it to see the current
settings, and right-click it to access the menu if
you want to changes things around.
If you work primarily with text files and
spreadsheets, you can probably live with a little
less color in your life. 24-bit or 32-bit True Color
looks cool, but sucks up system resources.
Right-click on an empty space on your desktop,
choose Properties, then Settings, and in the Color
Palette drop-down menu, select "256 Color" and click
OK.
You might want to make your desktop more easily
accessible if you're one of those people who bury
their desktop under a ton of open windows. You can
put a shortcut to your desktop in your Start menu
and call it up at any time by going through Start.
Right-click on an open area of your desktop and
choose New, Shortcut. Type the command EXPLORER
/ROOT, including the final comma. Name the shortcut
Desktop. Drag the shortcut to the Start button and
drop it; this will make the Desktop icon appear on
your Start menu. When you want to get to your
desktop, click Start, Desktop; a window with all the
files, shortcuts, and system objects on your desktop
will appear.
Sometimes you look at the borders on your programs
and wish they were just a bit thicker so you could
"grab" them more easily. Not a problem: right-click
the desktop, choose Properties, and choose
Appearance. Under "Items," select "Active Desktop
Border" and adjust the "Size" to whatever you want.
The preview function lets you know what changes
you're making. When you're happy, click OK to lock
your changes in.
When you poke around in the Display Properties box,
you come across something called "Palette Title"
(under Appearance, Item). You can change the
settings here and not notice the results off the
bat. What you're doing when you play around with the
Palette Title settings is changing the title bars of
floating palettes. These include Paint's color bar,
Office's box for the dancing paper clip, and
Netscape Communicator's Component Bar. Granted, this
is pretty unimportant, but now you know about it.
As discussed above, screen savers are popular and
fun, but contrary to popular belief, aren't
necessary. Modern color monitors don't suffer from
"burn-in" the way the older monochrome ones did. (In
fact, screen savers can actually do more harm than
good, by preventing the PC or monitor from going
into energy-saving suspend mode.) Buy or download as
many as you like, but don't panic if you leave your
screen up and unprotected. (Remember the warning
above about precious system resources being gobbled
by fancy screen savers.) Want to create an icon for
a particular screen saver on your desktop? Open
Explorer and choose the Windows/System folder. Click
on the heading of the Type column. Scroll down to
"type" Screen Savers. Right-click on the screen
saver of choice and drag it to the desktop. Let go
of the mouse button and choose Create Shortcut Here.
Now just double-clicking the shortcut will activate
the screen saver. You can check the "Password
protected" box to make it impossible to get rid of
the screen saver unless you enter the password; this
is good for when you want to leave your machine and
keep nosy people from seeing what you're doing
(usually playing solitaire at work instead of Being
Productive).
Win 98/ME users can use a screen saver to keep
prying eyes from your PC with a little more security
than the above procedure: Pick the desired screen
saver, give it a password as noted above, then run
the Find, Files and Folders utility from the Start
Menu, and type *.SCR in the "Named" field. Click the
Browse button, locate your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ folder,
and click the Find Now button. Find the screen-saver
filename that matches the screen-saver you picked.
Right-click drag and drop it from the Find window to
your desktop. As you drop it, choose "Create
Shortcut(s) Here" from the pop-up menu. Rename the
new shortcut icon "LockDown," or any name your
prefer. From now on, whenever you want to shutdown
both viewing and active access to your PC instantly,
just double click the LockDown icon. Mount it on the
Quick Launch part of Taskbar to make launching even
faster.
Many people with an older, Win 95-enabled PC have an
annoying little MSN (Microsoft Network) icon on
their Desktop. If you don't intend to use MSN, and
you don't ever intend to network with other Windows
computers and servers (they use some of the same
software), you can delete the thing through Control
Panel. Double-click on the Network control panel,
click on the Configuration tab, and then on the
Client for Microsoft Networks. Click Remove, and
click OK. The little beastie is kaput.
MSIE 4x users may be familiar with the Desktop
Update feature, that lets them view files as web
pages, choose whether icons are activated by single
or double clicks, etc. The Desktop Update facility
was left out of MSIE 5x, so if you installed 5x
without upgrading from 4x (and had the Update
feature already activated), you don't have the
Update feature. If you want it that badly, you'll
have to remove MSIE 5x altogether, install 4x,
activate the Update feature, and install 5x on top
of 4x. Do you really want it that badly? Of course,
those fortunate souls who are running 98/ME have
this already.
Win 98 and ME both have a neat trick that Windows 95
users can't replicate. You can drag the Desktop
icons of either My Computer or Network Neighborhood
to any of the four edges of your display and let go;
they turn into toolbars. From there you can move
them around to display wherever you like (floating
toolbars), stack them together, pile them on top of
the Taskbar, or whatever tickles your fancy.
Right-click the toolbar and choose "Close" to make
it disappear. (This also works with most folder
icons.) To get even more use out of the My Computer
toolbar, press the Ctrl button and click on your C:\
(or another) drive for a cascading display of all
the files and folders therein. You can click on
these files to open them. Another slick trick is to
right-click (hey, rhyme!) on your Taskbar, select
"Toolbars," then "Desktop." You should see a new
toolbar appear in your Taskbar; left-click where it
says "Desktop" and drag it all the way to the right
(towards your System Tray) until you see just the
word "Desktop" and a couple of small right-pointing
arrows. Left-click on those arrows, and you'll get a
menu of all the items currently sitting on your
Desktop, plus cascading menus for every component
and folder on your computer. Now that's useful. Or
annoying. You decide.
When you minimize or restore a window, you see it
shrink or grow correspondingly. This is a neat
effect, but wasteful of system resources. Win 95
people, if you'd like to save that little bit of
system oomph, and you don't mind editing the
Registry, here's how to lose that Windows animation:
Save your Registry files first, just in case of
screwups. Now open Regedit, and navigate your way to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \
WindowMetrics. In the left pane, right-click the
WindowMetrics key and select New, String Value. Type
MinAnimate (to name the new value) and press Enter.
In the right pane, right-click MinAnimate and select
Modify. In the resulting Edit String dialog box,
type 0 on the Data Value line. Click OK, close the
Registry Editor, and restart Windows. Later on, you
may want to restore the Windows animation; if so,
delete the MinAnimate string (right-click it, select
Delete, and click Yes to confirm), or change its
data value to 1. To do this, right-click it, select
Modify, type 1 on the Value Data line, and click OK.
Win 98/ME users, it's easier for you. Just go
through Display/Effects and uncheck the box titled
"Use transition effects..."
If you have Internet Explorer 4.x installed on your
system (or had, and then upgraded to IE 5.x), you
have a Quick Launch toolbar next to your Start
button. This row of icons includes the Show Desktop
icon, which you can click to minimize all windows
and go directly to the desktop. That's all well and
good, and probably something you already knew. What
you may not know is that after clicking this icon
once to display your desktop, clicking it again
restores all windows to their original position.
Note: if you do anything on the desktop before
clicking the icon again--for example, if you open
and close a window--you may have to click the Show
Desktop icon twice to restore your windows. Of
course, Win 98/ME users know all about this feature,
as it is standard with these systems.
Make nifty new icons for use on your Desktop simply
by going through MS Paint. Open Paint from the
Accessories menu, then in the Paint window, choose
Image, Attributes. Make the Height and Width 32
pixels, and click OK. Click View, Zoom, and then
Show Grid. Click View, Zoom, and Custom. Choose 800%
and click OK. Create your new icon. Save it as a
bitmap (bmp) file. You can change its extension
later to .ICO, if you like. You can now treat this
file as a regular icon file. When you replace a
Desktop icon with one you made yourself, you don't
need to refer to it by anything other than its
filename.
XP users can synchronize their desktop clock with an
Internet time-synching facility by simply
right-clicking the clock in the Taskbar, clicking
"Adjust Date/Time," and choosing "Internet Time."
Clicking the "Automatically synchronize with an
Internet time server" option allows Windows to
periodically reset the clock when you're online.
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