More fun with Millennium's Start Menu: when you create these custom menus as explained in the tip above, you won't have any "accelerator keys" designated -- the underlined letters in the menu name that allow to open the item by pressing Ctrl+Esc+the key. If the item has no underlined character, its accelerator key is by default the first character in its name. If you have several items with the same first letter, you can reassign accelerator keys in your customized menus simply by typing an ampersand (&) in front of the key you want designated as the accelerator key. Unfortunately, this feature isn't fully implemented, so your item name won't have an underlined letter -- i.e. it will look like foldername It looks funny, but it works.

XP users have a Desktop Cleanup wizard that moves unused icons to a separate folder so your desktop is less cluttered. By default, it runs every 60 days, and moves icons (not file folders or other desktop flotsam) to a desktop folder. If you want to access it beforehand, right-click the desktop, choose Properties, and look under the Desktop tab. Look under "Customize Desktop." I'm still waiting to hear about a way to turn off the Desktop Cleanup Wizard completely.

Tidbit of no great use to the majority of us: Win 98/ME boots up with NumLock automatically activated. If you'd like to have it boot up without NumLock on (say, to use the number keys as cursor controllers), you'll need to edit the CONFIG.SYS file. Go into Start, select Run, and type SYSEDIT into the field (Win ME users, type MSCONFIG instead). When the SYSEDIT or MSCONFIG program loads, click on CONFIG.SYS and add the line NUMLOCK = OFF (or ON, depending on your preference). This line needs to stand as a separate line, though it can come anywhere in the file. Close it up and you're ready to roll. Why it isn't simpler to just punch the NumLock key, I don't know.

<>System Tray

The system tray is something a surprising number of users forget about. (It's the little box in the lower right corner of the Windows display; it always contains a clock, usually a Volume icon in the form of a little speaker, and often other icons that control other programs.) It seems that the more sophisticated programs use system tray icons more often than Taskbar buttons. System tray icons have several advantages, the biggest being independence from Windows. Windows tells the Taskbar buttons what to display when a cursor is placed over it, but system tray icons get to display whatever they want to. Similarly, right-clicking on a system tray icon gives you whatever menu the manufacturers chose to include, not one stipulated by Windows. Some programs have their main functions launching from their tray icons. Check yours out by right-clicking each one in turn and seeing what each one offers in the resulting menus.

Windows has a little goodie called the CPU Meter that monitors your CPU usage. While you can access it manually through TASKMAN.EXE, you can also place it in your system tray. Here's how: First, hunt it down by searching for TASKMAN.EXE (it's in different places depending on your version of Windows. Now right-click it, point to Send To, and click Desktop (create shortcut). Right-click the shortcut on your desktop. From the Shortcut tab, change the Run: option to Minimized (go into the Run drop-down box). Click OK. Right-click the shortcut and click Cut. Right-click the Start Menu and click Open All Users. Open the Programs, Startup folder and paste the shortcut. Right-click the Taskbar and click Task Manager. From the Options menu, place a check beside "Minimize on use" and "Hide when minimized." Minimize the Windows Task Manager dialog box. An icon in your system tray will now appear for the CPU Meter.

Make your machine shut up by right-clicking the Volume icon in the system tray and selecting Mute. (Note: I had to go through Volume Control to get a selection which included Mute.)

While we're on the subject of the little yellow speaker, sometimes it disappears from the taskbar. If yours is gone and you want it back, go into Control Panel and open the Multimedia applet. Under the Audio tab, check the "Show volume control on the taskbar" option in the Playback section (in Win 98/ME, the option is at the bottom of the dialog box). Click on OK, and the yellow speaker should return. If not, try reinstalling your audio driver and then repeat these steps. Want to get rid of it? Right-click it and select "Adjust Audio Properties." Deselect "Show Volume Control On The Taskbar" and click OK. Get it back later by going into Control Panel and double-clicking Multimedia. On the Audio tab, select "Show Volume Control On Taskbar," then click OK.

The Volume Control works a bit differently in XP. If you want it back next to the clock in your Taskbar, just click the Start button, open the Control Panel, and click the Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices icon. Click the Sounds and Audio Devices icon and select the Place Volume Icon in the Taskbar check box. A little speaker then appears next to your clock. Click OK to close the window. That's all.

Speaking of the Volume Control menu, the box that opens up when you double-click the little speaker icon is huge. Shrink it by opening the box and then pressing Ctrl+S. Want it back to its original size? Open it and press Ctrl+S again.

The clock in the system tray displays time in the civilian 12-hour way, with AM and PM notations. If you prefer a 24-hour notation, reset the display by double-clicking My Computer/Control Panel, and then opening the Regional Settings panel. Click on the "Time" tab. In the Time Style field, change the style to read H:mm:ss. If you prefer a leading zero (so that 9:00am is viewed as 09:00), change the style to HH:mm:ss.

You can give yourself an icon in your System Tray that allows you easy access to your Display Properties settings. Right-click on the desktop, click Properties to bring up the Display Properties Menu, then click on the Settings tab, and click Advanced. Now check the Show Settings icon on Taskbar option, and a small icon will appear on your Taskbar, giving you a quicker view of your display properties and settings.

<>Taskbar

The Taskbar is that little gray bar at the bottom of your screen that contains the Start button, the Quick Launch menu in most flavors of Windows, buttons showing whatever programs are currently open, and the System Tray, which contains some more launch icons and your time display.

Where'd the Taskbar go? It's there, but some apps like to hide it. Temporary solution: Press Ctrl+Esc. Temporary fix #2: Drag the mouse arrow to the bottom of the screen, and when it turns into the double-sided arrow, click&drag upward -- wooo, it's magic! Permanent fix: find the Taskbar, right-click on an empty spot on it, select Properties, and select Always on Top. Rather have it hidden? Drag-and-drop it to the top or the sides of the screen, or right-click on it and select Auto Hide (moving the mouse pointer to the side of the screen where it hides makes it reappear again). To hide it permanently, turn off Auto Hide and drag it completely off the screen. Its edge remains visible so you can drag it back when you want it. While you're in Properties, make any other changes you'd like, such as hiding the clock or changing the size of the icons. While you're playing with the Taskbar, you can move it to the top or one side of your screen by clicking on a blank area of the Taskbar and dragging it to the edge you want it at. When it gets close enough, the Taskbar will automatically place itself.

There's another way to restore a "lost" Taskbar. You can press Ctrl+Esc to bring up the Start Menu, but more importantly, force Windows to focus on the "invisible" Taskbar (look for a razor-thin strip on one edge of your display). Now press Alt+spacebar to make the Taskbar's control menu appear. Choose Size, press S for size, and watch the cursor move to rest atop the Taskbar. Press the up arrow a few times to fatten up the taskbar to an acceptable size (if the Taskbar is not at the bottom of the screen, one of the other arrow keys should do the trick). Press Enter to lock in the taskbar's new size.

To enlarge the Taskbar, snag the top of the bar with your mouse (left-click and hold the top edge) and drag it straight up. It will increase in size, allowing more programs to display on the bar.

Where the heck is that Quick Launch toolbar? You may not have one. Create it by right-clicking on your Taskbar, going to Toolbars, and choosing Quick Launch. Note: Windows 95 doesn't support Quick Launch.

There are a couple of little tricks you can do with the Taskbar, also. You can drag any icon to the Start button to have the icon appear when you click Start. You can make the Taskbar auto-hide itself by right-clicking and selecting Properties. Win 98/ME and MSIE 5 users have a wealth of new Taskbar functions and modifications they can play with, but Win 95 users have to just stare through the window and wish.

Want to change the font in your Taskbar? Right-click the Desktop, choose Properties, and in the Display Properties dialog box, click the Appearance tab. Click the down arrow below Item, then scroll up and select "Active Title Bar." (Note that this change affects the text of your window title bars, too.) In the bottom row of settings, use the Font and Size options to change the appearance of the text. As you do, you'll see your changes in the preview area. When you like what you see, click Apply or OK to keep the change. You can also change the way Windows displays its open screens, selecting between the usual options -- Cascade, Tile Vertically, Tile Horizontally, etc.

Familiar with Win 98/ME's Quick Launch taskbar? You should be. You can keep shortcuts to the apps that you use every day here for the absolute speediest access -- one click and you're off. The biggest mistake people make is to overlead the Quick Launch taskbar with too many buttons; in that case, where's the advantage over the Desktop? Keep it under ten at least. The easiest way to add buttons is to drag&drop them from the Desktop; the easiest way to delete them is to right-click them and choose "Delete." By the way, you'll notice a "Show Desktop" button. Don't delete it, it's not so easy to restore, and can prove quite useful on occasion. Want to put shortcuts to your various disk drives on there (A:\, D:\, etc.)? Easy enough, just open My Computer, and then click Drive A. Now, press Ctrl and click your CD-ROM icon. Next, drag them both to the Quick Launch bar and release the mouse button. You'll get a dialog box asking if you want to create a shortcut. Click Yes to continue. Now you have shortcuts to both your CD-ROM and floppy drives.

A cool thing to do in 98/ME/XP is add toolbars to the Taskbar. Right-click the Taskbar and choose Toolbars -- you'll see a menu that includes Links, Address, Desktop, Quick Launch, and New. Whatever is already in place is checked, most likely the Quick Launch toolbar. The Links, Address, and Desktop toolbars should be self-explanatory (the Links and Address toolbars are similar to the corresponding bars in MSIE). As for the New toolbar, you can use this to give yourself a shortcut to any folder or program on your hard drive(s). The Address toolbar is particularly useful, since you can open files and folders simply by typing in their paths (or in the case of Windows folders such as My Documents, by just typing the names). You can also launch programs and Web sites from the Address bar.

We all know about the Start, Run address bar, but how about a similar address bar for your Taskbar? Then you can open any program directly from your Desktop without wading through a bunch of menus. This works in Win XP, and I think it will work in Win 98/ME as well. I think. Anyway, here's how you do it: Right-click your taskbar and choose Toolbars, Address to display an address bar on your taskbar. The Address bar is a toolbar whose main purpose is to call up Internet Explorer when you type or paste a URL. It looks and works just like the Internet Explorer Address bar. Despite its name, the Address bar is also a command line processor, which means that you can type a filename into it and the associated application will open and display the file. You have to type the complete pathname as well as the filename, and there is no Browse button, as there is in the Start, Run dialog box. Nifty, huh?

Windows XP likes to "stack" buttons from the same program on top of one another -- i.e. if you have multiple browser windows open, you'll just have one taskbar button that controls all of them. It's a nice way to keep the Taskbar organized, but if you don't go for this methodology, get rid of the stacking by right-clicking in an empty spot on the taskbar, selecting Properties, and unchecking "Group Similar Taskbar Buttons." There are plenty of other taskbar customization options at www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/tune-02.html.