One of the coolest new features in Windows XP is its album thumbnail generator. By using this feature you can automatically places the appropriate album cover art on the folder to which you are copying music. When you download the album cover art from the Web, just save the images as folder.jpg each time and place them in the appropriate folder. Then, Windows XP will automatically use that image as the thumbnail for that folder.
By default, Windows XP is set up with passwords which will expire after 42 days. 14 days in advance, Windows will start warning you of this fact. If you do not want your passwords to expire:
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Do you know that you can hide all your desktop icons. If you want to give nice appearence to your desktop by using buetiful wall paper, you canuse this trick. Actually this is simple. Just click on any free area on desktop and select Arrange Icons By and unckeck Show Desktop Icons. Here is the screen shot of this
we can give password protection to folders. The folder must be zipped. Double click on zipped folder, or right click and select explore. Select add a password from the file menu. Enter password in the box. This file can be opened, but it can not be accessed by others. The password will be asked during unzip.
We can create our own icon files. For that just in to programme>
accessories> paint. Now the paint window will be open. From the menu
click on image and select attributes. Set height, width to 32. This is
the normal size of an icon. Unit should be in pixel. Click on ok. To
this image you can type text, insert picture, ect. After editing save
the file with .ico extention. Now you can use this icon file to any
folder or file.
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It's very simple to block out certain websites that you do not want to open up on your computer.You can do this by clicking the Start button and select Run. Type the following: c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows might ask you which program should be used to open this application. Click on Wordpad.
It will open up a new window on your screen showing some text information. At the end of the last line of the file, press the Enter key. Type 127.0.0.1 and the name of the website you want to block.
Example: 127.0.0.1 google.com
Save the file. The websites that you have put in this list will not open up on your system.
In case you want to open them, go back to the text file using the same commands and remove the names you have typed. Save the file.
Normal shutdown can take a lot of time if you have programs or background services open on your system. To shut down quickly, save all your open documents, open the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete, press Shut Down from the menu and choose Turn off.
Step 1- Open up notepad, the native text editor in Windows. Type in the exact line below:[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
Specify the picture to use: Now, in the next line we will specify the picture that we want to use as the background for the folder. We will do this by typing the following line:iconarea_image=C:\My Pictures\flower.bmp
Let me elaborate the above-mentioned process. The image to be used as the folder background is specified through iconarea_image. So you can type in the exact path to any image of your liking after the “=” sign as shown above.
Step 2- Now we will save the contents in a file called desktop.ini in the folder that we are customizing (in this case the folder is C:\infofolder). From the File>Save option save the file as desktop.ini and put the file name in double quotes as shown in the picture below to maintain the .ini extension
Step 3- Now we will have to give the folder system attribute. This can be done very easily through the command prompt. Open up the command prompt through Start>All programs>Accessories>command prompt. Type the following and press enter (remember we are using infofolder as an example, so the path name may vary accordingly for you) :Attrib +s “C:\myfolder”.Additionally you can hide the desktop.ini file.That’s it, done !! The folder will now display the picture of your choice in the background.
You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.
By sharing a folder in Windows XP Pro, it usually means that you want network users to be able to find and access the folder in the My Network Places tool. If you want to share a folder with only certain users, you can use the Net command line tool to essentially hide your computer and shared network folders.
Follow these steps to create the hidden share:
Open a command prompt.
Type this command: net config server /hidden:yes.
Share the folder as you normally would.
If your computer is already sharing network folders, it may take up to 30 minutes for this command to take effect and hide the computer name.
Users who have access to the hidden shared folder can get to it by using the UNC name or by mapping the hidden share to a local drive letter. To unhide the computer, typenet config server /hidden:no.
Note: This tip is for Windows XP Professional only.
Create a new Registry import file named context_defrag.inf in Notepad (be sure to save with it with the Save as type set to All Files and not Text Documents) and place the following text inside:
; context_defrag.INF; Adds Defrag to the right click context menu in Windows XP[version]signature="$CHICAGO$"[DefaultInstall]AddReg=
AddMe[AddMe]HKCR,"Drive\Shell\Defrag\command",,,"DEFRAG.EXE %1"
Then, right-click and choose Install. This will add a context menu to XP that allows you to automatically defrag drives, using the command line version of the built-in defragmentation utility. To use it, navigate to a drive in My Computer, right-click, and choose Defrag. A command line window will appear, and that drive will be defragged. When it's complete, the window just disappears.
UPDATE: To remove this functionality, Open regedit.exe and navigate to the following location:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\
Then delete the Defrag folder and close Regedit.
For some people, pushing CTRL, ALT and Delete (CTRL+ALT+DEL) at the same time can be an inconvenience, if not a complete impossibility. With Windows XP, there are two ways to get around this.First option: Configure the system so that you do not need to press CTRL+ALT+DEL at all during logon (assuming you're not using the Welcome screen, in which case this key combo is not required). Here's how:
- Open Control Panel then User Accounts.- Navigate to the Advanced tab.- Uncheck the Require users to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete checkbox under Secure Logon.Second option: Configure XP's accessibility options so that "sticky keys" will be activated at the secure desktop: That way, you may "press" ALT, CTRL, and DEL sequentially rather than simultaneously. You can turn that on via the Accessibility control panel. (Control Panel then Accessibility Options):- Bring up the Accessibility Control panel and navigate to the Keyboard tab.- Check Use Sticky keys - Navigate to the General Tab.- Check Apply all settings to logon desktop.
Unfortunately, the Disk Cleanup tool misses certain temp files. Here's a little batch file to complete the task: Open Notepad or your favorite text editor and type del /s /q C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Temp\*.*", replacing 'Username' with the name of the user account and adjusting the drive letter as needed. Save the file with a name like deltemp.bat (be sure to use the .bat extension) and store it with your other batch files (if you don't have other batch files, your Desktop or any other easy-to-access folder will do). Then add the file to your Startup folder (Start, All Programs, Startup) so that it deletes the files every time you log in to Windows.
When you create a Gmail account, you actually get two email addresses - one is the regular @gmail.com while the second email address has @googlemail.com in the domain.
That means if your email address in Gmail is something like billgates@gmail.com, all email messages that are sent to billgates@googlemail.com will also be delivered to your own Gmail account. That’s two for the price of one.
The Editor allows you to perform various operations with audio data such as displaying a waveform image of an audio file, filtering, applying various audio effects and more. It includes a click and crackle filter for cleaning vinyl records, a noise filter for cassette-tape recordings, and an equalizer to enhance the sound quality of all recordings.
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How to change a drive's icon when you open My Computer
Create a file called AUTORUN.INF on the root of your hard drive
Enter the lines
[autorun]
ICON=Name of the ICON file
For the name of the icon file you can either specify the path and name (e.g. ICON=C:\WINDOWS\ICONS\MY_ICON.ICO) or
a specific icon in a library (e.g. ICON=ICONFILE.DLL,2)
How to change the icon used for specific drives in Explorer
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Explorer
Create a key called DriveIcons
Within DriveIcons, create another key with the drive letter you want to change (..\DriveIcons\K)
Create another key within the drive letter key called DefaultIcon
Set the default value equal to the icon you want to use.
If you have a file that has more than one icon in it, such as a DLL file, use the standard C:\full_path\icon_file.dll,x
where x is the number of the icon within the file icon_file.dll.
Ctrl+Alt+Del. It is also known as the "three-fingered salute," since it is so useful when your Windows computer locks up. Pressing the combo once (simultaneously) opens the Windows Task Manager. From the Task Manager you can select the crashed program separately and close it. If your system is totally locked, grab the mouse and click Shut Down.
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1) You open notepad
2) now you writ: [autorun]
OPEN=INSTALL\filename.EXE
ICON=INSTALL\filename.EXE
Now save it but not as a .txt file but as a .inf file.
But remember! The "filename.EXE" must be replaced with the name of the setup file. And you also need to rember that it is not all of the setup files there are called '.exe but some are called '.msi
3) Now burn your CD with the autorun .inf file included.
4) Now insert the CD in you CD drive and wait for the autorun to begin or if nothing happens just double-click on the CD drive icon in the computer
Open registry editor.Scroll to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ExplorerRight-click on the right pane and select New, DWORD Value. Name it NoFavoritesMenu.Double-click and enter 1 as value. To restore the Favorites menu, reverse the steps by changing 1 to 0 or delete DWORD value.
This error is caused if the DisableTaskMgr restriction is enabled. To enable Task Manager, try one of these methods:
Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe
Navigate to the following branch:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies\ System
In the right-pane, delete the value named DisableTaskMgr
Close Regedit.exe
Using Desktop.ini Files
Folders are normally displayed with the standard folder icon. A common use of the Desktop.ini file is to assign a custom icon or thumbnail image to a folder. You can also use Desktop.ini to create an infotip that displays information about the folder and controls some aspects of the folder's behavior, such as specifying localized names for the folder or items in the folder.
Use the following procedure to customize a folder's style with Desktop.ini:
Use PathMakeSystemFolder to make the folder a system folder. This sets the read-only bit on the folder to indicate that the special behavior reserved for Desktop.ini should be enabled. You can also make a folder a system folder from the command line by using attrib +s FolderName.
Create a Desktop.ini file for the folder. You should mark it as hidden and system to ensure that it is hidden from normal users.
Make sure the Desktop.ini file that you create is in the Unicode format. This is necessary to store the localized strings that can be displayed to users.
Creating a Desktop.ini File
The Desktop.ini file is a text file that allows you to specify how a file system folder is viewed. The [.ShellClassInfo] section, allows you to customize the folder's view by assigning values to several entries:
ConfirmFileOp
Set this entry to 0 to avoid a "You Are Deleting a System Folder" warning when deleting or moving the folder.
NoSharing
Not supported under Windows Vista or later. Set this entry to 1 to prevent the folder from being shared.
IconFile
If you want to specify a custom icon for the folder, set this entry to the icon's file name. The .ico file extension is preferred, but it is also possible to specify .bmp files, or .exe and .dll files that contain icons. If you use a relative path, the icon is available to people who view the folder over the network. You must also set the IconIndex entry.
IconIndex
Set this entry to specify the index for a custom icon. If the file assigned to IconFile only contains a single icon, set IconIndex to 0.
InfoTip
Set this entry to an informational text string. It is displayed as an infotip when the cursor hovers over the folder. If the user clicks the folder, the information text is displayed in the folder's information block, below the standard information.
