 |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Toward a Better Computing Experience |
Compiled by Ron Broadhurst, a member of the Space Coast PC Users Group, Inc., FL The Space Coast PC Journal, June 2009 www.scpcug.com shiron (at) cfl.rr.com |
Dear friends, These ideas are compiled from years of accumulations from various magazines, books, on-line sites and my own personal experience. I claim neither originality nor ownership to any of its contents. My only intent is to share the various “tips, “tricks”, & “hints” in hopes of helping & maybe enhancing your computing experiences. They are all intended for anyone who uses a PC. It is for beginners as well as advanced users. Enjoy and use as you will.
Ron Broadhurst
Windows XP keeps a record of all files on the hard disk so when you do a search on the hard drive it is faster. There is a downside to this and because the computer has to index all files, it will slow down normal file commands like open, close, etc. If you do not do a whole lot of searches on your hard drive then you may want to turn this feature off:
• Open My Computer.
• Right-click your hard drive icon and select Properties.
• At the bottom of the window you’ll see “Allow indexing service to index this
disk for faster searches,” uncheck this and click ok.
• A new window will pop up and select Apply to all folders and subfolders.
It will take a minute or two for the changes to take affect but then you should enjoy slightly faster performance.
If your system hangs about 2 or 3 minutes at startup, where you can’t access the Start button or the Taskbar, it may be due to one specific service (Background Intelligent Transfer) running in the background. Microsoft put out a patch for this but it didn’t work for me. Here’s what you do:
• Click on Start/Run, type ‘msconfig’, and then click ‘OK’.
• Go to the ‘Services’ tab; find the ‘Background Intelligent Transfer’ service.
Disable it, apply the changes & reboot.
Does the new Windows XP Start menu take up too much space on your desktop? You can easily change the look back to the Windows Classic Start menu by following these steps:
• Right–click the Start button, and then click Properties.
• Click Classic Start menu.
• Click the Customize button to select items to display on the Start menu.
By default, selecting the Classic Start menu also adds the My Documents, My Computer, My Network Places, and Internet Explorer icons to your desktop.
• Right-click an empty area on the taskbar, click Toolbars, and then click
Quick Launch.
• Easy as that your Quick Launch bar appears.
• To add items to your Quick Launch toolbar, click the icon for the program you
want to add, and drag it to the Quick Launch portion of the taskbar.
Do you have a favorite program that you frequently use? Elevate its priority on the Start menu by putting it at the top of the list. This ensures that the program will remain on the Start menu and cannot be bumped by other programs, even if you use the others more frequently.
Right-click the link to your favorite program on the Start menu and select Pin to Start Menu. Your program will be moved permanently to the top part of the list, just below your browser and e-mail programs.
Tired of seeing your pointer as an arrow or an hourglass all the time? Windows XP offers a number of alternative pointer schemes, such as Dinosaur, Ocean and Sports:
• Open the Control Panel, double-click Mouse, and select the Pointers tab.
(If you start in Category view, select Appearance and Themes, then click Mouse
Pointers under “See Also”).
• Next to Schemes, click the down arrow and select a scheme to preview its
pointers. Click OK to apply the scheme to your desktop.
For a great way to put your digital photos to work, try creating a slide show presentation for use as a screen saver.
• Right–click an empty spot on your desktop, and then click Properties.
• Click the Screen Saver tab.
• In the Screen saver list, click My Pictures Slideshow.
• Click Settings to make any adjustments, such as how often the pictures should
change, what size they should be, and whether you’ll use transition effects
between pictures, and then click OK.
Now your screen saver is a random display of the pictures taken from your My Pictures folder.
This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author’s permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).