Cool tricks do windows xp

This tip will only hide the drive from being displayed, applications and the command prompt will still have access to it, and you can still manually browse to the folder if you type in the path. Yeah, you can always create a shortcut icon for anything on the desktop, but this one is the actual icon without the shortcut overlay. If you want to manually restore a specific section of the registry from a previous System Restore snapshot, or access some specific keys from an older version of the registry, you can do so by getting access to those files and then exporting sections from them.

Have you ever opened the Control Panel in Windows 7 and thought there is no reason to have some of the icons listed? Today we take a look at how to remove unwanted or unneeded items from Control Panel in Windows 7. You could use a program like Unlocker, but we can tweak the Registry to hide items in Control Panel. Aero Peek is one of the more useful new features in Windows 7… just move your mouse to the taskbar for half a second, and everything else hides so you can see the desktop or application window.

But why does it take half a second? The same thing should work for when you hover over an application window on the taskbar. Files are only deleted if they are older than 7 days old, but you can tweak that number to something else.

There are a lot of new users to Windows 7 who are not happy with the new Start Menu and wish they could revert to the Classic menu. Have you ever wanted to add the Recycle Bin to your My Computer screen? One of the first things you might notice in Windows 7 is the addition of the new Gadgets and Screen Resolution items to the context menu. Have you ever noticed that there are only two fonts to choose from in the Command prompt properties window?

What you might not know is that you can use a simple registry hack to enable alternate fonts, including a very readable font that comes with Windows 7, Vista, or Office If you use the built-in file encryption in Windows 7 or Vista, you might be interested in adding an option to the right-click menu to more easily encrypt and decrypt your files, rather than having to use the file properties dialog.

Thanks to a free app and some registry changes, however, you can make the default screensavers uniquely yours! You can customize the Bubbles, Ribbons, and Mystify screensaver to enable hidden options with this registry hack.

Customize the Default Screensavers in Windows 7 and Vista. Instead of getting a list of programs to open the file with, you get an annoying dialog asking you to use a web service to find a program. So how do we change this? You can use a registry hack to force Windows to skip this dialog altogether, and give you a list of applications to use to open the file instead, just as if you had selected the second option.

The caps lock key is one of those remnants of another age of computers, back when people used to shout at each other more often. A couple of days ago I noticed a thread on our forum asking how to add Control Panel to the desktop context menu, so I decided to write up the solution for everybody, since it seems like a really useful hack. Enabling these verbose messages is not going to magically solve your problems, of course—the point is to use this to identify a problem, which you can then solve through other means, generally by uninstalling a problem application or upgrading a faulty driver.

By default you may notice that there is a slight delay when hovering your mouse over a Taskbar Thumbnail. Here is a neat registry hack that will allow you to speed it up. Would you like to clean up the Open with menu in Windows Explorer? Having customised your display, click the left-hand tab in the Display Properties dialog, and you'll see the Themes window appear. From here, you can select one of the defaults from the drop-down list. More importantly, you can save the current theme for future use.

If you're not happy with the icons used for some of your shortcuts, you can change them to something else that may be more obvious or make your own, see tip 6 below for that particular type of application.

Right-click the shortcut, select 'Properties', and click 'Change Icon'. Now, use the 'Browse' button to choose a file to search for icons, make your selection, and click 'OK'. If you decide to make your own custom icons, there are a few things to be aware of. First, they come in different sizes according to where they are displayed, such as the desktop, the Start menu, Folders, Drives, and so on.

Icons are measured in pixels, and the three sizes used on Windows XP are 16 x 16, 32 x 32 and 48 x Second, icons use a bit palette, enabling you to use any colour that the eye can detect.

In the past, icons were either opaque solid , or completely transparent, making them appear as sharp-edged cutouts on the screen. Now, they can gently fade into the background, and you can create subtle shadow effects. Finally, the default Windows icons are packaged and encoded into the shell If you choose to replace these icons, you can either select any of the default icons, or you can add icons you've downloaded from the internet or created yourself in an image editor or icon creator. You can improve the general look of your PC's desktop by removing the names of shortcuts, leaving the icons to speak for themselves.

If you try renaming a desktop shortcut to a single space, Windows XP won't let you. However, you can force it to accept a space as the name by holding down [Alt] and typing on the number pad. If you want multiple shortcuts to have blank names, you'll need to give each one a different number of spaces to avoid them having identical names. To remove an unwanted program from this list, select it and right-click in the right hand pane. Name it 'NoOpenWith'.

Repeat for each application that you want to remove from this list. Windows XP comes complete with a selection of screensavers, and it's easy to switch between them. There are plenty more screensavers available online too, although be careful when looking for them. There's plenty of research that indicates that 'free screensaver' is a search term most likely to lead you to malicious software. Right-click inside a folder and select 'Customize This Folder If you decide you'd like to use a picture to represent your chosen folder, when you use thumbnail view, the folder icon will display the picture you've chosen.

For example, if the folder is a collection of family snaps, you might want to use a photo of your family.

Alternatively, you can use the Change Icon option to give individual folders a unique, identifiable icon. If you've split your hard drive into two or more partitions, renaming drives can make them easier to identify. To make Windows always alphabetize the list, remove the permissions from the registry key that controls the sort order for the Start menu.

To do so, go to:. Choose Edit Permissions and click the Advanced button. Click OK and clear the Full Control entry for your account and all security groups you are a member of. Leave only Read permission. You don't have an option to set a different interval there, but you can change the interval in the registry. Windows XP provides no direct support for the Patterns feature that was present in earlier versions of Windows, but the feature is still there.

It's just hidden in the registry. To enable a pattern, first set None as the background in Display Properties. Then, you need to find out the code for that pattern. To look up a code, go to:. A variety of patterns is listed, and each one has a Data value. Copy the value you want to the Clipboard. Then, go to:. Add a string value called Pattern. Paste the string from the clipboard as its value. The new pattern will appear the next time you log on. If a user doesn't need it and most folks don't , you can get rid of it.

You might be concerned about someone browsing your users' swap files and gathering up little bits of their sensitive data. Remote Control Light Switch by alanmerritt in Arduino. Reply Upvote. SarahE5 6 years ago on Introduction. Kwitmeh3 12 years ago on Step 1. Gamgee flataffect Reply 12 years ago on Introduction.