Improve ur destop in windows xp

Disable your screen saver It can be annoying if you forget to switch off the Windows screen saver when you’ve just started an important task, such as running Defrag or copying a large number of files from one disk to another. Don’t worry, though, you can temporarily disable it simply by making sure the Start menu is open. Bypass Windows Media Player If you have a lot of multimedia files in a directory, you won’t want Windows Media Player to open each time you access them. To get around this, right-click inside the folder, select Customize this folder and then choose Create or edit HTML document. Click Next, and Notepad will open, then locate the line saying var wantMedia = False; – change the ‘False;’ to True; and close NotePad, saving your changes. Finish the wizard, and then to open media files, just right-click on them and select Play. Use the toolbar To quickly access programs you use regularly, use the toolbar. Right-click on it, and select Toolbars, New Toolbar. From the dialog box, browse to the directory the file is in, and select the file. If the program is in the Start Menu the folder you require is C:\Windows\Startmenu. Fast copy in Explorer In a dual-pane Explorer view, if you’re dragging a file or folder from the right pane to a buried folder in the left pane, you don’t need to expand the folders first. Select the files or folders you want to copy, drag them to the left pane, and hold them over the contracted folder for a second or two. The folder will expand automatically, so you can drop the files into the folder or continue drilling down until you reach your desired location. Quick access with QuickTray The QuickTray tool sits in your system tray and gives you an easy way to put other applications on your taskbar. Click on QuickTray to launch it, and use the Add button to add any program. The icon for each program you select will be placed to the right of the Start button, enabling you to launch the program at any time with a single click on the icon. View image thumbnails One of the many excellent new features in Windows 98 is used you view open folders as Web pages - if you haven’t done this, select My Computer, View, As Web Page. In the left-hand pane you'll be able to see a small thumbnail of any image icon that you have clicked on with the mouse pointer. Unfortunately, some JPEGs don’t show up, because JPEGs come in two types – RGB and CMYK – and Windows 98 can read only RGB. One way around this is to use your favourite graphics program to convert your CMYK JPEGs to the RGB format. Not so fast Windows 98’s WinAlign feature speeds up application launches by placing key files on the fast part of the disk during a defrag; it also re-writes programs so that they use memory more efficiently. What you may not know is that only applications that have specifically been designed to work with WinAlign, such as Microsoft’s Office, are supported by the feature. You can find out exactly which files are boosted by WinAlign by checking your WINALI.INI file in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM. You can try adding programs, DLLs and other files to this list to tell Windows 98 to ‘WinAlign’ them, but they may or may not work. If you’re going to add unsupported applications, though, make sure you back up your system first. Select files fast If you've opened up a large directory and want to copy, for example, 95 files out of 100, the quickest way to do this is to select the five you don’t want using [Ctrl], then choose Edit, Invert Selection. Add the date and time to a Notepad document To quickly insert the current date and time in Notepad, just press [F5]. Restart Windows as quickly as possible To bypass the Shutdown dialog box, create a batch file in Notepad. To do this, create a new file and enter the text @Exit on the top line. Save it into a folder called Batch files as something like shutdown.bat. Next, exit Notepad and right-click your .bat file and select Properties. Switch to the Program tab, select Close on Exit and click on Advanced. Next, choose MS-DOS mode and uncheck Warn before entering MS-DOS mode. Click OK. Now, to quickly restart Windows, just double-click on this program (another good idea is to create a shortcut to this program and store it on the desktop or in your Start folder). Easily access the Device Manager If you regularly use the Device Manager, you can create a speedy little shortcut to it, and put it on your desktop. Just right click on the desktop and select New, Shortcut. In the command box, type C:\WINDOWS\CONTROL.EXE SYSDM.CPL,,1. Now call the shortcut Device Manager. Faster Quickview This enables you to quickly ‘Quickview’ any file, but it's not installed by default. Go to Control Panel, select Add/Remove Programs and select Windows Components, Accessories. Select Quickview. You can then also make a shortcut to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ VIEWERS\QUIKVIEW.EXE on the desktop, and just drag and drop files on it. Take control of Explorer To quickly open all folders in Explorer, press [*] on the numeric keypad. To collapse them all, just press [-] on the numeric keypad. Select open windows You probably know how to use [Alt] + [Tab] to cycle through open applications before – basically you hold down [Alt] and press [Tab] to rotate between applications. Now discover how to do a similar thing, this time with the Taskbar. To cycle between items on the Taskbar, hold down [Alt] as shown above, but this time use [Esc] to move between different Taskbar items – as each item is highlighted, so any corresponding windows are brought to the top of the open-window pile. This rotation also includes open windows that don’t appear on the Taskbar, such as the Display Properties box. Shut down without accessing the Start menu To quickly select the Shutdown dialog box from the desktop, just close all Windows and press [Alt] + [F4]. Clear the Documents list Clearing the Documents list in the Start menu can be time consuming, but you can just as easily create a batch file to do the job with a simple double-click. First, create a new file in Notepad and enter the following two lines: ECHO OFF ECHO Y|DEL C:\WINDOWS\RECENT\*.* Now save the file into your Batch files folder and call it something like cleardoc.bat. Quit Notepad, locate the file and create a shortcut to it, which you can then place on the desktop or in your Start menu for easy access. Right-click the new shortcut, switch to the Program tab, and select Close On Exit. On the same tab, under Run, select Minimised, then click OK. Rename files quickly You know that clicking once on a file, then clicking on it again enables you to rename that file. You may also know how easy it is to accidentally double-click the file and launch it with this method. Instead, click once on the file and then just press [F2] to rename it. How to bypass the Recycle Bin If you're absolutely 100 per cent convinced that you no longer need a file, right-click on it while holding down [Shift] and select Delete to skip past the Recycle Bin - this will permanently delete the file. If you’re feeling particularly brave, you can bypass the Recycle Bin by default – just right-click on the Recycle Bin and click on Properties. Select 'Do Not Move Files To The Recycle Bin. Remove Files Immediately Upon Delete' and click OK. Minimise windows with the keyboard Do you want to quickly hide all those open windows without using the mouse? Just use the following key combination: [Ctrl] + [Esc], then press [Esc] followed by [Alt] + [M]. Power up the Context menu What do you do if you open files of the same type in different applications, such as text files? You can easily add an option to the file type’s context menu. In this example, we’re going to make it possible for you to open .txt files in WordPad using the context menu. First, open any Explorer window and select View, Options. Switch to the File Types tab, scroll through the list of registered file types and select Text Document. Hit the Edit button, then click New. In the text box under Action, type the command name that will appear in the context menu, such as Open with WordPad. Next, click Browse and go to Program Files\Accessories\. Select Wordpad.exe and hit Open. Click OK to exit the New Action dialog box, and you'll see the new command in the Actions list. Click Close twice. Now whenever you right-click on a .txt file you’ll be given the option to open it in WordPad.