How to Instantly activate a screen saver

Screen savers were originally intended to prevent monitor burn-in, which could occur if a single image was displayed most of the time. Over time, that image would essentially become etched into the display, making the monitor harder to use. Monitor technology has improved over the years, and screen savers have become more a form of entertainment than a way to avoid burn-in.

Screen savers can be used to display your favorite photos or other images you'd like to see. Sometimes you might want to immediately start your screen saver like you would any other program, without waiting several minutes for it to start automatically.

To add a shortcut to your desktop that you can double-click to instantly start your screen saver

1.	Click the Start button, and then click Search.
2.	In the Search Results window, click All files and folders.
3.	In the All or part of the file name box, type *.scr. Then, click Search.
4.	You will see a list of screen savers in the search results. Pick the screen saver you want. You can preview it by double-clicking it. To add a shortcut to your desktop, right-click the file, click Send To, and then click Desktop.

Now you can instantly start your screen saver by double-clicking the icon on your desktop.

source: www.microsoft.com

How to Speed up menu display

Microsoft Windows XP uses many visual effects to provide a rich, friendly interface. One of these settings allows menus to fade into view when you open them. This visual effect is so smooth that you may never have noticed it; however, the effect does cause menus to take a little longer to appear.

On a fast computer, this shouldn't be an issue. But on a computer that isn’t responding as quickly as you'd like, you can make menus display faster.

To speed up menu display

1.	Click Start. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2.	Click the Advanced tab. In the Performance area, click Settings.
3.	On the Visual Effects tab in the Performance Options dialog box, clear the Fade or slide menus into view check box.
4.	Click OK.
5.	In the System Properties dialog box, click OK.

Now when you click a menu, it will appear almost instantly.

Source: www.microsoft.com

Tired of chasing your mouse? Use keyboard shortcuts

he mouse, one of the greatest advances in computing history, provides you with an intuitive point-and-click method for using your computer. Depending on the type of work you're doing, however, sometimes using a mouse actually slows you down. If you are a good typist, taking your hands away from the keyboard to move the mouse can use up a few seconds. Over the course of a full day, you could save several minutes by using keyboard shortcuts instead of the mouse.

You can use your keyboard instead of your mouse to do these three tasks:

You can use your keyboard instead of your mouse to do these three tasks:

Start a program using a keyboard shortcut

The Start menu is great for finding programs, but its multiple levels of folders can be time consuming to navigate. If there is a program you start frequently, you should set a keyboard shortcut for it so that you can start the program without taking your hands off the keyboard.

To set a keyboard shortcut to start a program

1.	Click the Start menu, and then click All Programs. Right-click the program that you want to start with a keyboard shortcut, and then click Properties.
2.	Click in the Shortcut key box. Now press the letter on your keyboard that you want to use to start the program. Make it easy to remember—for example, press I for Microsoft Internet Explorer. Note: You can use either uppercase or lowercase letters when creating your keyboard shortcuts—and when accessing them later. In the Shortcut key box, Microsoft Windows XP automatically adds Ctrl + Alt + before the key you pressed. When you want to start the program, hold down both the CTRL and ALT keys simultaneously, while also pressing the letter you chose. This way, your program won't start every time you type that letter.
3.	Click OK.
4.	Now test your shortcut. Hold down the CTRL and ALT keys, and then press the letter you chose. If you find it difficult to hold down two keys at once, read Turn on the Sticky Keys feature. Your program should start.

When your friends see you start up programs without touching your mouse, they just might think you have a psychic connection with your computer!

Navigate menus using the keyboard

You can speed up tasks in almost any program by choosing menu items using your keyboard instead of your mouse. This operation is particularly handy when you're performing repetitive tasks.

To control menus using your keyboard

1.	With your program open, press the ALT key. Notice that one letter on each menu name is now underlined. To open the menu, press the underlined key. For example, in Internet Explorer, the View menu name shows the V underlined after you press the ALT key. To open the View menu, press the ALT key, and then press V.
2.	Now, each menu item will show one letter underlined. To access or activate the menu item you want, simply press the underlined key. For example, in Internet Explorer, after you open the View menu, the Privacy Report menu item shows the V underlined. Instead of clicking Privacy Report with your mouse, you can just press the V key.
3.	You can also choose menu commands by pressing key sequences quickly, without waiting for the menus to open. For example, to quickly view a Web page's privacy report in Internet Explorer, press ALT, V, V. Similarly, to save a Web page in Internet Explorer, you would normally click the File menu, and then click Save As. To choose the same commands using your keyboard, press ALT, F, A.

Control windows using your keyboard

If you like to keep four or five windows open while you work (or play) on your computer, you'll appreciate knowing these keyboard shortcuts. You can quickly switch between your Web browser, e-mail, instant message windows, and other programs without taking your hands off the keyboard.

Action	Shortcut
Minimize a window to your taskbar	ALT, SPACEBAR, N
Maximize a window so it takes up your whole desktop	ALT, SPACEBAR, X
Restore a window so it's visible but doesn't take up your whole desktop	ALT, SPACEBAR, R
Close a window	ALT+F4
Switch to the last window you had open	ALT+TAB
Switch to any window	Hold down the ALT key, and press TAB until the window you want is active

Programs often start up in a "restored" state, where the window takes up only part of the screen. To maximize the window so that it takes up the entire screen, press the ALT key, press the SPACEBAR, and then press X. This will feel natural after you do it a few times, and you will feel much more efficient while using your computer.

Source: www.Microsoft.com

How to Shut donw computer Faster?

Some people have noticed that they are experiencing a really slow shutdown after installing Windows XP Home or Professional. Although this can be caused a number of ways, the most clear cut one so far is happening on systems with an NVidia card installed with the latest set of drivers. A service called NVIDIA Driver Helper Service is loading up on start up and for whatever reason doesn't shut itself down properly. The service isn't needed and can also increase the amount of memory available to your system. Here is how to disable it.

1: Go into your Control Panel
2: Select Administrative Tools and then click on Services
3: Right click on the file "NVIDIA Driver Helper Service" and then select STOP.
4: To stop this loading up every time you boot up your PC Right click it again and select properties - then where the option "Startup Type" is shown - make sure it is set at Manual like we have shown in the image below.

How to make your Desktop Icons Transparent

Go to ontrol Panel > System, > Advanced > Performance area > Settings button Visual Effects tab "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the Desktop"

How to speed up your browsing of Windows 2000 & XP machines?

Here's a great tip to speed up your browsing of Windows XP machines. Its actually a fix to a bug installed as default in Windows 2000 that scans shared files for Scheduled Tasks. And it turns out that you can experience a delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network because Windows 2000 is using the extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Note that though the fix is originally intended for only those affected, Windows 2000 users will experience that the actual browsing speed of both the Internet & Windows Explorers improve significantly after applying it since it doesn't search for Scheduled Tasks anymore. Here's how :

Open up the Registry and go to :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Under that branch, select the key :

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

and delete it.

This is key that instructs Windows to search for Scheduled Tasks. If you like you may want to export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary.

This fix is so effective that it doesn't require a reboot and you can almost immediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes.

How to Share Multiple Folders

If you need to share multiple folders, running the program SHRPUBW.EXE will bring up a simple dialog box to let you:

1. Browse to the folder you want to share
2. Enter in a Share name
3. Ender in a Share description
4. Set permissions. Several choices are available
5. Restart the process from within the same program

Speeding Up Network Browsing

There are a lot of things which can negatively impact how fast XP will browse network shares.
One has been previously covered regarding browsing to Win9x computers.

Other things you can try, especially when there is slow browsing to network shares with a lot of files:

1. Remove current shortcuts in My Network Places

2. Change the registry so shared folders on remote computers are not automatically added to My Network Places when you even open a document from that shared folder

1. Start Regedit
2. Create a DWORD value:
3. HKEY_Current_User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer \ NoRecentDocsNetHood to 1.
4. I have also seen setting the following help as well.
   HKEY_Current_User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer \ UseDesktopIniCache to 1.

Download Reg file to do both

3. Increase the amount of data is buffered at one time to send to a client. On the computer with the shared directory:

1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
3. Create a DWORD Key called SizReqBuf
4. Give it a value of Hex FFFF

Download Reg file

How to Increase Graphics Performance

To turn these off selectively:

1. Right click on the My Computer icon
2. Select Properties
3. Click on the Advanced tab
4. Under Performance, click on the Settings button
5. To turn them all of, select Adjust for best performance
6. My preference is to leave them all off except for Show shadows under mouse pointer and Show window contents while dragging

how to rollback a Device Driver

If you install a device drive that does not work correctly,
you can restore the previous one fairly easily.

1. Log in with an administrator account
2. Right click on My Computer
3. Select Properties
4. Click on the Hardware tab
5. Click on the Device Manager button
6. Go to the device you want to reconfigure
7. Click on the Driver tab
8. Click on the Roll Back Drive button

how to rename the Start Button

To rename the start button, you will need a hex editor.
My preference is UltraEdit

1. Copy the \windows\explore.exe file to a new name (e.g. explorer_1.exe)
2. With the hex editor, open that file and go to offset 412b6
3. You will see the word start with blanks between each letter
4. Edit it be any 5 characters or less
5. Save the file
6. Boot to DOS
7. Copy the existing c:\windows\explorer.exe to explorer.org
8. Copy explorer_1.exe to explorer.exe
9. You will also need to replace the explorer.exe in the c:\windows\system32\dllcache file as well with the new one.

Note: If the partition is NTFS and you can't access the files from DOS:

1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon.
3. Change the value of Shell from Explorer.exe to explorer_1.exe

How to decrease Boot Time

Microsoft has made available a program to analyze and decrease the time it takes to boot to WindowsXP
The program is called BootVis

1. Uncompress the file.
2. Run BOOTVIS.EXE
3. For a starting point, run Trace / Next Boot + Driver Delays
4. This will reboot your computer and provide a benchmark
5. After the reboot, BootVis will take a minute or two to show graphs of your system startup.
6. Note how much time it takes for your system to load (click on the red vertical line)
7. Then run Trace / Optimize System
8. Re-Run the Next Boot + Drive Delays
9. Note how much the time has decreased
10. Mine went from approximately 39 to 30 seconds.

How do I delete an "undeletable" file?

Open a Command Prompt window and leave it open. Close all open programs. Click Start, Run and enter TASKMGR.EXE Go to the Processes tab and End Process on Explorer.exe. Leave Task Manager open. Go back to the Command Prompt window and change to the directory the AVI (or other undeletable file) is located in. At the command prompt type DEL where is the file you wish to delete. Go back to Task Manager, click File, New Task and enter EXPLORER.EXE to restart the GUI shell. Close Task Manager.

How do I repair Internet Explorer?

The ability to Repair Internet Explorer does not exist in the version that ships with Windows XP. This feature only becomes available after you upgrade to a newer version. This is normal and has been this way since Windows 98 and IE4.

However, you can reinstall IE in Windows XP by clicking Start, Run and entering the following command:

rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 %windir%\Inf\ie.inf

You will need to have your XP CD available.

Some people have problems with the command line above. A small VB Script that will execute the command for you can be downloaded here. Save the file to your hard drive and double click it to run IE Setup.

How to Reinstall or Repair Internet Explorer and Outlook Express in Windows XP (Q318378)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q318378

How Do I see the Security Tab in XP Home?

Go to: http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/downloads/recommended/scm/default.asp

Instructions: Download the x86 (Intel) version of the Security Configuration Manager and save it to your hard disk. Double click the SCESP4I.EXE file you downloaded and extract the contents to a temporary location on your hard disk. Then open the folder you extracted the files to and locate the Setup.inf (Setup Information) file. Right click Setup.inf and select Install. After the installation is finished, reboot your computer.

If the download link on the page, listed above, does not work, try this one:

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/tools/SCM

Right click the SCESP4I.EXE file and select Copy to Folder). Make sure to read the README files!!!!

Disclaimer: I have tested this procedure on my XP Home installation, and it works. I cannot guarantee that it will work on your system. Make sure you create a System Restore point before proceeding.

WARNING: Adjusting the permissions on a drive, file or folder can lock even the Administrator account out of that drive/file/folder. Deny Permissions take precedence over Allow Permissions, regardless of your group membership. Administrators are members of the User's group, by default. Uncheck Allow, rather than using Deny.

How do I find my IP address?

What is your Internet IP address? - Click HERE - http://www.ipaddressworld.com
(Note: if you're using a router, the IP displayed will be that of the router's WAN IP address, not your actual LAN IP address)

You can download the Windows 2000 version of WINIPCFG here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/existing/wntipcfg-o.asp

If the network connection icon is in the System tray, right click it, select Status, then go to the Support tab.

See this page for a small VB Script that will list all IP addresses in use on your machine.

Last, open a Command Prompt window and type IPCONFIG /ALL

Changing Drive Letters in Windows XP?

When you add drives to your computer, such as an extra hard drive, a CD drive, or a storage device that corresponds to a drive, Windows automatically assigns letters to the drives. However, this assignment might not suit your system; for example, you might have mapped a network drive to the same letter that Windows assigns to a new drive. When you want to change drive letters, follow these steps:

1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
2. Under Computer Management, click Disk Management. In the right pane, you’ll see your drives listed. CD-ROM drives are listed at the bottom of the pane.
3. Right-click the drive or device you want to change, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
4. Click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the drive letter you want to assign, and then click OK.

You will not be able to change the boot or system drive letter in this manner. Many MS-DOS-based and Windows-based programs make references to a specific drive letter (for example, environment variables). If you modify the drive letter, these programs may not function correctly.

HOW TO: Change Drive Letter Assignments in Windows XP (Q307844)

To enable Autologon in Windows XP Professional

Option 1: Download and install TweakUI from the Powertoys for Windows XP collection. In the Logon section, set the default username and password to be used.

As of 4/24/2002, the individual Powertoys for Windows^® XP are available here.

Option 2: Do the following

1) Click Start, Run and enter CONTROL USERPASSWORDS2
2) In the list of users, highlight the user account you want automatically logged on.
3) Uncheck Users must enter a Username and password.................
4) Click Apply.
5) In the next dialog, enter the password for the account you selected in Step 2, if any
6) OK your way out.

Enable autologon in Windows XP Home Edition

Option 1: Download and install TweakUI from the Powertoys for Windows XP collection. In the Logon section, set the default username and password to be used.

As of 4/24/2002, the individual Powertoys for Windows^® XP are available here.

Option 2: Do the following

1) Click Start, Run and enter CONTROL USERPASSWORDS2
2) In the list of users, highlight the user account you want automatically logged on.
3) Uncheck Users must enter a Username and password.................
4) Click Apply.
5) In the next dialog, enter the password for the account you selected in Step 2, if any
6) OK your way out.