Tweak Windows XP settings with TweakUI
Posted on October 14, 2007 - Filed Under Windows XP | 7 Comments
Since I just wrote a post on how to tweak Windows Vista, I thought I would throw in some power toys for the Windows XP users. Windows XP is not going to disappear any time soon, so if you still have not gotten around to customizing it the way you want, take a minute and read through this article.
One of the best programs for tweaking Windows XP is the TweakUI PowerToy utility from Microsoft. Using this nifty little program, you can fine-tune many Windows settings quickly and easily. You can many settings, from how to group items in the taskbar to disabling or getting rid of those annoying shortcut icon arrows on the desktop.
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Read More..>>Three utilities to enhance functionality in Windows Explorer
Posted on September 27, 2007 - Filed Under Windows XP | 2 Comments
Unfortunately due to many problems that people have with Windows Explorer, such as random error messages and computer crashes, many people want to change or replace Windows Explorer altogether with a more robust alternative. I have tried this myself, but have found that I end up always coming back to the default Explorer installed in Windows because it’s just there and works fine most of the time.
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Read More..>>How to pin a folder to the Start Menu in Windows XP
Posted on September 19, 2007 - Filed Under Windows XP | 3 Comments
If you’re a person who likes shortcuts on your desktop or lots of programs in your quick launch bar, then you’re probably using the Pin to Start Menu feature in Windows XP. If not, I’ll give a quick overview of how you can “pin” a program to your Start Menu, which means it will remain there permanently, unlike the recently used program list right below it.
To pin a program to the Start Menu, simply right-click on the program in the recently used list and click Pin To Start Menu! Pretty simple. You’ll see that the program gets moved to the top, above the separator line.
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Read More..>>How to disable settings, services, and programs in Windows XP
Posted on September 18, 2007 - Filed Under Windows XP | 10 Comments
Even though most people never change the settings on their computers, there are some situations where it’s very useful to be able to turn off or disable a certain program, service, or setting in Windows XP. For example, over the last few years working as an IT Professional, there have been many occasions where it has been proven very useful to disable the firewall in Windows, or to disable the popup blocker in IE, or to disable the autorun/autoplay feature for the CD/DVD drive.
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Read More..>>An introduction to the Windows XP Task Manager: Processes, Programs, and Performance - Part 3
Posted on May 11, 2007 - Filed Under Windows XP | 6 Comments
In this post we’re continuing on exploring the Windows Task Manager. We already looked at the Applications tab and the Processes tab, now we’ll go through the last two tabs: Performance and Networking.
The Performance tab is a little confusing with all kinds of monitors like Physical Memory, Commit Charge, and Kernel Memory. What the hell does all that mean? Well, let’s do the easy part first: CPU Usage. This is simply a graphical view of your current CPU usage, nothing special. You’ll see it spike here and there, especially if you open a program or something similar.
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Read More..>>An introduction to the Windows XP Task Manager: Processes, Programs, and Performance - Part 2
Posted on May 9, 2007 - Filed Under Windows XP | 2 Comments
Ok, so continuing on from the previous post about ending programs in Task Manager, now we’re going to hit on what the Processes tab lets us do.
Now we ended off saying that if your program does not die by click the End Task button on the Applications tab, then you can right click on the program and choose “Go to process“. This will bring you to the Processes tab, which is actually the executable that is running in Windows for that particular program.
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