Windows XP Tips

Enable XP SP2's "Show Updates" Option

One change made by SP2 is the new feature that lets you see the updates that have been installed for your application programs. This is handy for keeping up with the patch status of your programs, but you need to enable it. Here's how:

Click Start | Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs.
At the top of the Add or Remove Programs window, check the checkbox labeled "Show updates."
Scroll to the program for which you want to see updates. The updates will be listed under the program name, along with the date when each update was installed.

Uninstall Windows Updates

Windows Update is a handy tool to ensure that you install critical updates to protect or improve the functionality of your computer, but sometimes an update that is installed may cause problems. What do you do then? Here's how to uninstall update packages and device drivers.

To remove updates, do the following:

Click Start, Control Panel and click the Add/Remove Programs icon
Select Change or Remove Programs.
Locate the update that you want to uninstall, click it to highlight it, and then click Change/Remove.

To uninstall updated drivers, do the following:

In Control Panel, click the System applet.
Click the Hardware tab, then click Device Manager.
Double click the device you need to go back to the previous driver.
Click the Driver tab.
Click Roll Back Driver.

Another way to undo the changes is to use System Restore, if you made a system restore point before the changes were made.

Tune XP's Visual Performance

Depending on how you set it up, XP may have reserved a substantial amount of your CPU horsepower for things like animating various desktop elements, placing shadows under menus and cursors, and rounding the upper corners of open windows. In the aggregate, these visual effects can slow down screen-drawing operations significantly. Also, XP may have selected a "color depth" for your video system in excess of what you really need; this, too, can slow down screen operations.

To adjust the color depth, right click anywhere on an empty portion of your desktop and select Properties/Settings. For most normal business users, the Color Quality setting should be set to Medium (16 bit). Higher settings do matter in photo/video editing and similar applications, but for mundane things like Web browsing, E-mail, and word processing, the Medium setting is fully adequate, and it's faster.

To adjust XP's desktop animations and visual effects, right click on My Computer and select Properties/Advanced/Performance Settings. You can choose to activate/deactivate individual items or use the general "best performance/best appearance" buttons. When you've made a change, click Apply, and you'll see the effects almost immediately. (By the way: Selecting Best Performance makes your desktop look very much like the classic desktop in Win98/Win2K.) Experiment until you've found the mix of speed and visual effects that works best for you.

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Improve XP's Folder Views

You can easily change the folder view to something more restrained, space-efficient, and useful.

Open My Documents. In the View menu, select Status Bar, List, and Arrange Icons by Name. Next, right click on an empty spot in the My Documents toolbar and select Customize. Choose any of the Available Toolbar Buttons you wish and click Add. Exit the dialog.

Now click to the Tools menu and select Folder Options. Under the View tab, tell XP to show you the full path, to show hidden and system files, not to hide any file extensions, and not to hide protected folders--plus any other settings you want. When you have the folder options set the way you desire, click the "Apply to all folders" button at the top of the dialog. This adjusts all windows opened by Explorer, so they'll inherit the visual choices you made for this one window.

Customize XP's Taskbar

Right click on an empty spot in the Task Bar (the bar next to the Start button). Uncheck Lock the Taskbar. This lets you resize various portions of the taskbar the way you want them. Now, explore the other Taskbar settings to see if any will work for you.

One I always select is Toolbars/Desktop. I place the new Desktop toolbar far to the right on the Taskbar, over by the clock area. Whenever I want access to something on the Desktop that's covered with open windows, I can use this new Desktop toolbar as a shortcut to get to the item on the Desktop without having to close or move any open window.

Disable Error Reporting

By default, XP wants to contact the Microsoft servers to auto-search for patches, downloads, and updates. It also wants to send Microsoft information about any crashes you experience. The former can be an annoyance if the auto-update cycle kicks in at an inopportune time. The latter is a potential security hole, because the crash-reporting information includes a mini-dump of XP's memory contents; it can include snippets of open documents, passwords you've recently typed, and so on.

You can turn off both behaviors by right clicking on My Computer, selecting Properties, and first choosing the Automatic Updates tab. Select either Turn Off or, Notify me.

Now select the “Advanced” tab and click on “Error Reporting”. Check "Disable error reporting," but leave "notify me when critical errors occur" checked

Free Up Space, Control XP's Cache

By default, both the Recycle Bin and Internet Explorer's Cache want to consume ridiculous amounts of your hard drive space. Right click on the Recycle Bin, select Properties, and on the Global tab, decide how much space you want the Recycle Bin to consume, either for all drives in your system, or on a per-drive basis. (It's a percentage of the total space. I adjust the slider way to the left, so I'm using "only" a few hundred megs of space for trash.)

Similarly, open Internet Explorer, and select Tools/Internet Options. Under Temporary Internet Files, click the Settings button and select a reasonable size for this cache area. Generally speaking, if you have a fast connection, 5 Mbytes to 10 Mbytes is adequate; 25 Mbytes or so is usually enough with a slower dial-up connection.

Clear XP's Recent Document List

Windows XP remembers your recently opened documents and puts those files in the My Recent Documents menu in the Start menu. This is a useful feature because it allows you to get to stuff you recently opened. Odds are that if you opened a file recently, you're going to open it again! Visiting the My Recent Documents menu speeds up accessing those files you open the most. The problem is other people can see what you've been looking at recently, too! Maybe you opened something recently you don't want anyone to know you've opened. Here's how you clear the list:

Right click on an empty area of the taskbar and click Properties
In the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, click on the Start Menu tab.
On the Start Menu tab, click the Customize button. Note that there is a Start menu and a Classic Start Menu option. I'll assume you're using the new Start menu and have the first option selected.
After clicking on the Customize button, you'll see the Customize Start Menu dialog box. Click on the Advanced tab.
On the Advanced tab, click the Clear List button. This button lies just to the right of the List my most recently opened documents check box. If your computer is like mine, the dialog box will lock up! I hope that your Windows XP computer isn't like mine . Click OK and then click OK again to close all the dialog boxes.

Now when you go to the start menu, you'll see your My Recent Documents folder is gone! Don't worry. It will come back when you start opening documents.

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Clear XP's Page file at Shutdown

The Windows page file is a portion of the hard disk used for virtual memory - that is, swapping information in and out of physical memory (RAM) so the applications have more usable memory than is actually installed. The information in the page file is not needed when you shut down, since information in RAo so in Windows XP Pro by performing the following stM is lost when the computer is turned off. The page file can be quite large, so if you want to be sure it's cleared at shutdown to save disk space, you can deps:

Click Start | Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Local Security Policy
In the Local Security Policy management console, expand Local Policies in the left pane.
Click Security Options.
In the right pane, scroll down to the policy named "Shutdown: clear virtual memory pagefile." This policy is disabled by default. Right click it and select Properties.
Click the Enable option button.

Reassign drive letters in XP

When you install Windows XP, assigns your drives the lowest letters available (D thru Z) so if you install new drives, the letter of your existing drives won't change. If you already have Windows installed and software installed, here's how to reassign the drive letters.

Right-click My Computer.
Choose Manage.
Click Disk Management.
Right-click the drive you want to rename.
Select Change Drive Letter or Path.
Select your new drive letter

You cannot change a drive letter to a drive letter that already exists, and you cannot change your boot drive.

Hide the User Accounts applet from other users

Don't want other users to be able to access the User Accounts applet in Control Panel and make changes to user account settings? On your XP Pro computer, you can prevent this by editing the local group policy. Here's how:

Click Start | Run.
In the Run box, type gpedit.msc. This opens the Group Policy Editor.
Expand User Configuration, then Administrative Templates and click Control Panel.
Double click "Hide specified Control Panel applets."
Click Enabled to check it.
Click Show.
Click Add.
Type nusrmgt.cpl in the box.
Click OK.

Note that you can also hide other Control Panel applets. To do so, you need to know their program names. To find the file name of an applet, search for files with the extension .cpl in the System32 folder within the Windows installation folder

Run Windows 9x programs in XP

Some programs written for Windows 9x may not run properly on XP, but you still might be able to run them if you use compatibility mode.

Navigate to the program file, right click it and select Properties.
Click Run this program in compatibility mode to check it.
Choose the operating system on which the program will work (for example, Windows 98) and click it.
Change the display resolution and settings if necessary.
Double click the program file to run the program.

Open previously-opened windows when you log on!

Do you want XP to "remember" the folder windows that you had open when you logged off, and open them up again automatically when you log back on? By default, XP doesn't do this, but you can change that easily:

Right click the Start button and click Explore.
On the Tools menu, select Folder Options.
Click the View tab.
Under Advanced Settings, scroll down and check the box labeled "Restore previous folder windows at logon."

Now XP will reopen any windows you had open when you logged off.

Disable the "There are Newly Installed Programs" Balloon

When you install a new program in XP, the operating system helpfully tells you about it and highlights the new program(s) on the Start menu. If you don't like this behavior, there's something you can do about it:

Right click the Start button and select Properties.
Click the Start Menu tab.
Click the Customize button.
Click the Advanced tab.
Uncheck the box labeled "Highlight newly installed programs."

Built-in Backup

If you're using Windows XP Professional an easy backup solution is just a few clicks away. The built-in Backup utility lets you make copies of files, settings, or everything on your computer. To use the Backup utility:

• Click Start
• Point to All Programs
• Point to Accessories
• Point to System Tools
• Point to Backup

If you use Windows XP Home Edition, you'll have to manually add the Backup utility. To add the utility to Windows XP Home Edition:

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into the drive and, if necessary, double-click the CD icon in My Computer.

2. On the Welcome to Microsoft Windows XP screen, click Perform Additional Tasks.

3. Click Browse this CD.

4. In Windows Explorer, double-click the ValueAdd folder, then Msft, and then Ntbackup.

5. Double-click Ntbackup.msi to install the Backup utility.

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Open XP Utilities from the Command Line

Are you the command line sort? Would you prefer to type program names into the Run box instead of clicking through menus? Hey, it takes all kinds. Here are the commands to open some of XP's commonly used utilities from the command line:

Computer Management: compmgmt.msc
Device Manager: devmgmt.msc
Disk Defragmenter: dfrg.msc
Event Viewer: eventvwr.msc
Local users and groups: lusrmgr.msc
Local security settings: secpol.msc

Stop the Desktop Cleanup Wizard from Popping Up

By default, every 60 days the XP Desktop Cleanup Wizard pops up and offers to clean up your desktop. What if you like your cluttered, messy desktop? Here's how to make the Wizard leave you alone:

Right click an empty space on the desktop.
Click Properties.
Click the Desktop tab.
Click the Customize Desktop button.
Uncheck the box labeled Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard

How to Customize the Start Menu

Is the XP Start menu too "busy" for you? Don't use Outlook Express and want to remove it from its top left "pinned" position on the Start menu, or even better, replace it with the email program you do use? Want to get rid of the links to My Documents and/or other folders on the right side? Want a permanent link to the Administrative Tools on the Start menu? Luckily, you can easily customize it to fit your own needs and preferences. Here's how:

Click an empty space on the Start menu and click Properties.
Click the General tab.
Here you can select whether to include your Web browser and/or e-mail client on the Start menu, and even better, which program to use for each.
Click the Advanced tab.
Under Start Menu Items, you can select which items to display on the right side of the Start menu, and you can also control how each is displayed. For instance, you can choose to display Control Panel as a menu instead of just a link.
On this tab, you can also select whether you want newly installed programs to be highlighted, whether submenus should be opened when you pause on them with your mouse (a feature that can be very annoying), and whether to list your most recently opened documents.

How to use the System File Checker (SFC)

Sometimes when you install third party software, it may overwrite important operating system files. This can cause instability - or worse. Windows XP includes a command line tool that you can use if you think this may have happened (for example, if you get a message box warning that there is a problem with a .dll or the system just seems unstable). Here's how to use it:

Click Start | Run.
In the Run box, type: sfc /scannow Windows will scan all protected Windows files to verify that they are intact and in their original versions. If they're not, corrupt, missing or incorrect files are replaced. You may be prompted to insert your Windows XP installation CD if your Dllcache folder (where Windows keeps a copy of essential system files) has become corrupt or has been deleted.

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