Right-click an empty section of the Taskbar and select toolbars, then New Toolbar. Navigate to the My Documents (XP) or Documents (Vista) folder and click the OK or Select Folder button. In its default position to the far right of the Taskbar, the toolbar provides menu access to the entire contents of the folder.
If you have lots of folders open in Windows XP, when one of them crashes, they will all close. This can be avoided by using a hidden option. Open the Control Panel, then choose Folder Options. Move to the View tab and scroll down through the list of options until you get to one called ‘Launch folder windows in a separate process’. Place a tick next to it, then click OK.
The Start menu includes space for six shortcuts to the most frequently used programs, but this can be increased if it is not enough. Right-click the Start button, select Properties and click the Customize button. In the Programs section in the centre of the dialogue box, use the up arrow button to increase the number of icons that should be displayed and then click OK.
If your PC has only a single user account, it might seem silly to type in a password every time you start it up. To avoid this, click Start, then Run, and type control userpasswords2 before pressing Enter. Select your account and untick the box labelled ‘Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer’. Click OK, enter the password when prompted and click OK again.
The Show Desktop icon in Windows XP’s Quick Launch toolbar is very handy, but it’s also easy to delete. Getting it back is rather convoluted, but Microsoft has provided a guide – scroll down the page and click Download Guided Help. Opt to Run the file, and follow its instructions. For a quicker way to show the desktop, press the Windows key and the M key together.
The Windows Start menu normally shows which files have been opened most recently. This can be handy, but it’s possible to remove this feature. To do so, right-click the Start button, select Properties and move to the Advanced tab. At the bottom of the dialogue box, untick the option labelled ‘List my most recently opened documents’ and click OK.
It’s possible to make it easier to find shared files on a computer attached to a network. Right-click the My Computer icon in the Start menu, select Map Network Drive then choose a drive letter from the dropdown menu. Click Browse, then navigate to the shared folder and then click Finish. It’ll now be easy to find that shared folder by simply opening My Computer.
Unless you regularly use the Find tool to search for files on your computer, Windows XP’s indexing feature will only slow down the PC. To disable it, right-click the hard disk in My Computer and select Properties. Untick the box labelled ‘Allow Indexing Service to index this drive for fast file searching’, then click OK.
For security purposes, a computer can be quickly locked by pressing the Windows key and L simultaneously. To make this process even quicker, right-click on the desktop, hover the mouse over New and select Shortcut. In the dialogue box that opens, type rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation.Give the shortcut an appropriate name, such as Lock, then drag the shortcut to the Quick Launch bar – the desktop can now be locked simply by clicking this button.
Normally opening more than one copy of the same program will produce more than one button on the Taskbar, and this can mean the Taskbar runs out of space. To make things simpler, it’s possible to group Taskbar buttons from the same program together. To activate this feature, right-click on an empty section of the Taskbar and select Properties. Tick the box labelled ‘Group similar Taskbar buttons’ and click OK.
Visiting a website is a two-stage process: first open a web browser, then type in the address. To speed things up add an address bar to the Windows Taskbar. Right-click an empty section of the Taskbar – if there is a tick next to ‘Lock the Taskbar’ remove it. Next, hover the mouse over Toolbars and click on Address.A tiny address bar will appear – type in any website’s address and it will open in your web browser of choice.Access web pages quickly (XP)
Visiting a website is a two-stage process: first open a web browser, then type in the address. To speed things up add an address bar to the Windows Taskbar. Right-click an empty section of the Taskbar – if there is a tick next to ‘Lock the Taskbar’ remove it. Next, hover the mouse over Toolbars and click on Address.A tiny address bar will appear – type in any website’s address and it will open in your web browser of choice.
When using the Start menu you might notice a delay between clicking a sub-menu and watching it open – this is added deliberately by Windows. It’s possible to remove it, as long as you are a confident computer user happy to edit the Windows Registry. To do so, click Start, then Run, type regedit and press Enter.Click the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, then click the plus sign next to Control Panel and select Desktop. Look for an entry in the right pane called MenuShowDelay. This has a default value of 400. Right-click it and select Modify – entering a value of between 50 and 100 will speed up the Start menu.
Windows XP is full of keyboard shortcuts, but there are a few that every user should know. Hold down the Windows key, then try pressing these letter keys: E will launch Windows Explorer, R will launch the Run box, F will launch the Find utility, M will minimise all open windows to show the desktop, and L will instantly lock the computer.
It’s easy to lose notes kept on scraps of paper, so why not keep them handy on the desktop? Right-click the desktop, select New then Text Document. Call it ‘notes’. From now on, to make a note simply double-click the file, press F5 to insert the date and time, type a note then press the Control and S keys together to save.
Windows Update means Windows XP can be set to check for security updates automatically. If you prefer to check yourself, you can create a desktop icon to simplify the process. Right-click an empty spot on the desktop and select New, then Shortcut. In the box that appears type www.windowsupdate.com, then click Next. Enter a name such as ‘Check for updates’ and click Finish.Simply double-click this icon to start the update process.
There are a few programs in Windows that can be very handy but which are hidden in the Start menu. If you’re busy doing something else and don’t want to rummage around in the Accessories folder for the Calculator, though, don’t worry. Simply press the Windows key and R together, type calc and press Enter.Similarly, for a quick way to start a text file press the Windows key and R together, type notepad then press Enter.
If your computer has more than one hard disk, it’s often a good idea to store different files on each one – programs on drive C, for example, and music files on drive D. If so, why not give each disk a friendly name? Open My Computer, right-click the hard disk and select Rename, then type in something appropriate – we called our second disk ‘music and video’.
Sometimes it’s helpful to know some basic information about the parts inside your PC. For details on the processor and memory, right-click the My Computer icon and select Properties. Look at the bottom of the box that appears: under the word ‘Computer’ you’ll find, the type of processor inside, along with its speed (in MHz or GHz), and then the amount of memory, which will look something like ‘512MB of Ram’.
Now that hard disks are larger and cheaper than ever, it’s easy to keep documents and programs separate. If you’ve added a new hard disk, it’s easy to move the My Documents folder over to it. Click the Start button, right-click My Documents and select Properties. Click the Move button and then choose a folder on the new disk. Click OK once again and click Yes to move existing documents to the new folder.
By default, Windows XP uses its own image preview tool if you double-click an image file. Annoyingly, though, other programs will sometimes take over so double-clicking an image opens that program instead. For those who prefer the preview tool, open the Control Panel, then Folder Options. Select the File Types tab, and scroll down to find the file type in question, such as JPG, then click the Restore button.
Windows XP remembers which web browser you prefer to use, but if several different users share a computer it annoyingly assumes they all prefer the same one. To allow different users to choose different web browsers, download a free copy of the DefaultBrowser tool. Double-click the ZIP file and copy the defaultbrowser.exe file to somewhere safe on the hard disk.Each user can now double-click this program file and select a browser from the menu.
If you install lots of programs on your computer, the notification area in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen can become full. To make it more manageable, right-click the Taskbar, select Properties and tick the box labelled ‘Hide inactive icons’. This generally works well, but sometimes useful icons can disappear.If this happens, right-click the Taskbar and select Properties again, then click the Customize button. Click the icon you want to see, then select ‘Always Show’ from the menu to its right and click OK.
When you insert a CD or DVD into a Windows XP computer, Windows will pop up an Autoplay window asking you what to do with it. This can be very handy, but if you want to do the same thing each time it can be skipped. Open My Computer, right-click on the CD or DVD drive and select Properties, then click the Autoplay tab.Select a type of file from the dropdown menu, then choose the action you want the computer to perform from the list below it. For example, we like to set ‘Mixed Content’ discs so Windows will ‘Open folder to view files’ without asking us each time. Different options can be set for each different type of files.
Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether a broadband internet connection is broken, or whether there’s a problem with your web browser. For a quick way to tell, press the Windows key and R together to launch the Run box, then type cmd and press Enter. A black window will appear. Type ping www.computeractive.co.uk and press Enter. Windows will attempt to connect to our website.If several lines of text beginning with ‘reply’ appear, the connection is fine. If not, check your broadband connection and try again.
Windows XP has a built-in feature that lets you view detailed system specifications with ease. This includes memory capacity, processor make and model and hard disk size. It’s called System Information and to make use of it, first click on Start and then select Run. Now type ‘msinfo32’ (without the quote marks) and click on OK. All the information you need is now available to view. Use the navigation panel on the left-hand side to locate the particular detail you need.
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