Windows XP

It is very easy to change your desktop wallpaper and screen saver, here is how:

1. On your desktop right-click your mouse
2. Click properties

Here you can change your desktop theme, you can play around with the themes and see which you like

    3.  Click the Desktop tab.

First open Internet Explorer than you want to click on the "Tools" menu option.  Then click on Internet Options.  You should get this window:

You want to click on the button that says Delete Files and you get this dialog:

12/19/03

Have you gotten used to the views of the older Windows operating systems?  Well with Windows XP you can use these classic views for your PC.  Here is how:

1. Right click your desktop and click properties
2. Click the Appearance tab
3. Under Windows and Buttons click the arrow and select Windows Classic
4. Under Color Scheme also select Windows Classic

This will give your Windows the classic look, now for the classic Taskbar:

ASSOC - Displays or modifies file extension associations.

AT - Schedules commands and programs to run on a computer.

ATTRIB - Displays or changes file attributes.

BREAK - Sets or clears extended CTRL+C checking.

CACLS - Displays or modifies access control lists (ACLs) of files.

CALL - Calls one batch program from another.

CD - Displays the name of or changes the current directory.

CHCP - Displays or sets the active code page number.

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.

Source: Microsoft Corporation July 2001

Summary: This document describes the steps you should take to create a Microsoft® Windows® XP driver for your device. To create a Windows XP device driver:

To change drive letters (useful if you have two drives and have partitioned the boot drive, but the secondary drive shows up as "D")

Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management, Disk Management, then right-click the partition whose name you want to change (click in the white area just below the word "Volume") and select "change drive letter and paths."

When I first saw the default search pane in Windows XP, my instinct was to return it to its classic look; that puppy had to go. Of course, I later discovered that a doggie door is built into the applet. Click "Change preferences" then "Without an animated screen character." If you'd rather give it a bare-bones "Windows 2000" look and feel, fire up your Registry editor and navigate to:

Go To Start > Run and type `Regedit` and press `ok`

Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Classes/CLSID/{e84fda7c-1d6a-45f6-b725-cb260c236066}/shellex

Delete the MayChangeDefaultMenu key.

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.