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Possibly the most overlooked part of XP is the way people start up and shut down their systems. How much do you think about startup and shutdown? Probably not much. Press a button to start your PC, click a few buttons to shut it down, and that's it.

In fact, there's a lot you can do to get more productive—and to have a little customization fun—when using startup and shutdown. You can create boot menus and choose from customized startup options; you can create your own boot screen; you can perform automated tasks every time you shut down your PC; and you can stop unnecessary programs and services from starting so that you increase the speed of your PC. In this chapter, you'll learn all that, plus other ways to master and customize system startup and shutdown.

Edit or create a startup menu that lets you choose which operating system to boot into in multiboot systems, or create a menu that lets you choose different startup options for your single operating system if you have only XP installed.

If you've installed another operating system (in addition to XP) on your system, your PC starts up with a multiboot menu, which allows you to choose the operating system you want to run. The menu stays live for 30 seconds, and a screen countdown tells you how long you have to make a choice from the menu. After the 30 seconds elapse, it boots into your default operating system, which is generally the last operating system you installed.

You can customize that multiboot menu and how your PC starts by editing the boot.ini file, a hidden system file, to control a variety of startup options, including how long to display the menu, which operating system should be the default, whether to use the XP splash screen when XP starts, and similar features. And as you'll see later in this hack, you can also use the file to create a startup menu that will allow you to choose from different versions of your operating system—for example, one that you'll use for tracking down startup problems, and another for starting in Safe Mode.

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Possibly the most overlooked part of XP is the way people start up and shut down their systems. How much do you think about startup and shutdown? Probably not much. Press a button to start your PC, click a few buttons to shut it down, and that's it.

In fact, there's a lot you can do to get more productive—and to have a little customization fun—when using startup and shutdown. You can create boot menus and choose from customized startup options; you can create your own boot screen; you can perform automated tasks every time you shut down your PC; and you can stop unnecessary programs and services from starting so that you increase the speed of your PC. In this chapter, you'll learn all that, plus other ways to master and customize system startup and shutdown.

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Edit or create a startup menu that lets you choose which operating system to boot into in multiboot systems, or create a menu that lets you choose different startup options for your single operating system if you have only XP installed.

If you've installed another operating system (in addition to XP) on your system, your PC starts up with a multiboot menu, which allows you to choose the operating system you want to run. The menu stays live for 30 seconds, and a screen countdown tells you how long you have to make a choice from the menu. After the 30 seconds elapse, it boots into your default operating system, which is generally the last operating system you installed.

You can customize that multiboot menu and how your PC starts by editing the boot.ini file, a hidden system file, to control a variety of startup options, including how long to display the menu, which operating system should be the default, whether to use the XP splash screen when XP starts, and similar features. And as you'll see later in this hack, you can also use the file to create a startup menu that will allow you to choose from different versions of your operating system—for example, one that you'll use for tracking down startup problems, and another for starting in Safe Mode.

The boot.ini file is a plain-text file found in your root C:\ folder. You might not be able to see it because it's a system file, and if you can see it, you might not be able to edit it because it's a read-only file. To make it visible, launch Windows Explorer, choose View → Tools → Folder Options → View, and select the Show Hidden Files and Folders radio button. To make it a file you can edit, right-click it in Windows Explorer, choose Properties, uncheck the Read-Only box, and click OK.

To edit the file, open it with a text editor such as Notepad. Following is a typical boot.ini file for a PC that has two operating systems installed on it—Windows XP Home Edition and Windows 2000 Professional:

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You're not stuck with XP's default splash logo on the startup screen; use any picture or logo of your choosing.

One of the nice things about XP is how malleable it is. Don't like the way it looks? No problem; change it. Take my splash screen, please!

The techniques in this hack work only with versions of XP before SP2. If you have SP2, they won't work, and they could harm your system. If you have SP2 and want to change your boot screen, your best bet is to use downloadable software, such as Style XP from Tgtsoft at http://www.tgtsoft.com/download.php.

Many people, myself included, would prefer to see a more interesting splash screen (also called the startup screen) than the default gives you on startup. You can change your splash screen to any of hundreds that have been created, or make one of your own—for example, with your picture or company logo on it.

To choose from already created splash screens, go to http://www.themexp.org and click Boot Screens. You'll find more than 1,000 of them, organized by categories such as Sports, TV/Movies, and so on. I live in wintry but civilized New England, and during the winter I like to imagine myself in a far wilder place, so I use a picture of wolves in the wilds of Alaska for my splash screen. You can see it pictured in Figure 1-2. Nice way to greet the new day, don't you think?

Figure 1-2: My startup screen, which lets me imagine myself in the wilds of Alaska

Once you've found the image you want to use as your splash screen, download it. It will be downloaded as a .zip file. I create a general folder for all my boot screen files, called C:\Bootscreens, and then for each boot screen I download I create a new folder—in this instance, C:\Bootscreens\Wild.

It's possible that something will go wrong with your new boot screen, so before making the change, create a system restore point by choosing Control Panel

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Shorten the time it takes for your desktop to appear when you turn on your PC, and make XP shut down faster as well.

No matter how fast your PC boots, it's not fast enough. Here are several hacks to get you right to your desktop as quickly as possible after startup.

There's a simple way to speed up XP startup: make your system do a boot defragment, which will put all the boot files next to one another on your hard disk. When boot files are in close proximity to one another, your system will start faster.

On most systems, boot defragment should be enabled by default, but it might not be on yours, or it might have been changed inadvertently. To make sure that boot defragment is enabled on your system, run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction

Edit the Enable string value to Y if it is not already set to Y. Exit the Registry and reboot. The next time you reboot, you'll do a boot defragment.

I've found many web sites recommending a way of speeding up boot times that might in fact slow down the amount of time it takes to boot up and will probably slow down launching applications as well. The tip recommends going to your C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch directory and emptying it every week. Windows uses this directory to speed up launching applications. It analyzes the files you use during startup and the applications you launch, and it creates an index to where those files and applications are located on your hard disk. By using this index, XP can launch files and applications faster. So, by emptying the directory, you are most likely slowing down launching applications. In my tests, I've also found that after emptying the directory, it takes my PC a few seconds longer to get to my desktop after bootup.

When you turn on your PC, it goes through a set of startup procedures in its BIOS before it gets to starting XP. So, if you speed up those initial startup procedures, you'll make your system start faster.

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Increase your PC's performance and speed up startup times by shutting off applications and services that you don't need.

One of the best ways to speed up your PC without having to spend money for extra RAM is to stop unnecessary programs and services from running whenever you start your PC. When too many programs and services run automatically every time you start up your system, startup itself takes a long time, and too many programs and services running simultaneously can bog down your CPU and hog your memory.

Some programs, such as antivirus software, should run automatically at startup and always run on your computer. But many other programs, such as instant messenger software, serve no purpose by being run at startup. And while you need a variety of background services running on your PC for XP to function, there are many unnecessary services that run on startup. For example, on many systems, the Wireless Zero Configuration Service runs to automatically configure a WiFi (802.11) network card, even though no such card is present in the system.

Stopping programs from running at startup is a particularly daunting task because there is no single place you can go to stop them all. Some run because they're put in the Startup folder, others because they're part of logon scripts, still others because of Registry settings, and so on. But with a little bit of perseverance, you should be able to stop them from running.

Section 1.5.1.1: Cleaning out the Startup folder

Start by cleaning out your Startup folder. Find it in C:\Documents and Settings\<User Name>\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, where <User Name> is your Windows logon name. Delete the shortcuts of any programs you don't want to run on startup. As with any shortcuts, when you delete them, you're deleting only the shortcut, not the program itself. (You can also clear out the startup items by going to Start → Programs

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If you need to start different programs on startup, depending on what you need to do on your PC, create different startup profiles with this startup utility.

With the hacks covered in this chapter, you can customize how XP starts up. But there's one thing these hacks won't be able to do for you—create different startup profiles. For that, you need downloadable software.

Let's say, for example, you have a laptop that you sometimes run attached to a keyboard, monitor, and an always-on Internet connection, and other times you travel with it, so it is not connected to the Internet. When you use it when you travel, you use it primarily in airplanes, airports, and other places where you typically aren't connected to the Internet. You also run a piece of monitoring software that will send a signal to a call center if your laptop is stolen. You don't need to run that software when you're not on the road.

Ideally, you would have one set of programs that run automatically at home and another set of programs that run when you're on the road. At home, you might want instant messenger software and file sharing software to load at startup; on the road, you don't want that software to load automatically, but you do want your monitoring software to load.

Advanced StartUp Manager—a piece of shareware from Ray's Lab (http://www.rayslab.com), shown in Figure 1-7—lets you create multiple startup profiles so that you can have separate profiles for your laptop at home and the road—or for any other purpose. It's free to try, but it costs $19.95 if you decide to keep it.

Figure 1-7: Creating multiple startup profiles with Advanced StartUp Manager

In addition to creating a profile for traveling and one for home, you might want to create other profiles. For example, when you want to play games, you'll want to start your system with a minimal number of services and programs running in the background, so you'll create a profile that disables a variety of services, such as the Indexing service, the Task Scheduler, and the Themes service that lets you apply themes to your PC. If you frequently need to troubleshoot your network, you'll want to create a network-troubleshooting profile that automatically starts networking analysis software, such as Qcheck

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Here's a grab bag of ways to customize the way you start up and shut down your system.

You can control the way you start up and shut down your PC in many small ways. This grab bag of four hacks shows you the best of them.

Turning off or rebooting XP involves a several-step process: click the Start menu, choose Shut Down, and then select Shut Down or Restart. If you want, however, you can exit or reboot much more quickly, by creating a shortcut that enables one-click shutdowns. You can also use the shortcut to customize the shutdown or reboot—for example, by displaying a specific message or automatically shutting down any programs that are running.

First, create a shortcut on your desktop by right-clicking the desktop, choosing New, and then choosing Shortcut. The Create Shortcut Wizard appears. In the box asking for the location of the shortcut, type shutdown. After you create the shortcut, double-clicking it will shut down your PC.

But you can do much more with a shutdown shortcut than merely shut down your PC. You can add any combination of several switches to do extra duty, like this:

shutdown -r -t 01 -c "Rebooting your PC"

Double-clicking that shortcut will reboot your PC after a one-second delay and display the message "Rebooting your PC." The shutdown command includes a variety of switches you can use to customize it. Table 1-3 lists all of them and describes their use.

Table 1-3: Switches you can use with shutdown
Switch	What it does
`-s`

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Make better use of the XP login screen.

If your system contains more than one user account, or if you've set up XP to require logins, you'll have to log in to XP before you can begin to use it. But you needn't stay with the default XP login rules; you can use a single Registry key to customize how you log in. For example, you can display custom text before login, and you can remind anyone with an account on the PC to change their password a certain number of days prior to the password's expiration.

To control logon options, run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to the

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion Winlogon

subkey, which contains a variety of logon settings (as well as some settings not having to do directly with logons). Following are the most important values you can edit to customize logons.

DontDisplayLastUserName: This setting lets you control how the system logon dialog box is used. If this String value is present and set to 1, all users will have to enter both their username and password to log on. If the value is 0, the name of the last user to log on will be displayed in the system logon dialog box.
DefaultUserName: This String value contains the name of the last user who logged on. It will be displayed only if the DontDisplayLastUserName value is not present or is set to 0.
LegalNoticeCaption: This String value, used in concert with the LegalNoticeText value, displays a dialog box prior to logon that contains any text you want to display. (The text doesn't have to be a legal notice, but this value is often used for that purpose.) The box has a title and text. The

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The Windows XP makeover was the biggest change Microsoft made to the Windows interface since it moved from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. Rounded-edge windows, large, cartoonlike icons, and a completely redesigned Control Panel are just a few of the most obvious changes. It's not merely the way XP looks that has been changed, but how it works as well. It is based on a more stable kernel and finally gets rid of its DOS-based heritage.

But let's face it: XP's interface isn't perfect. As shipped, its cartoonish user-friendliness might help newbies, but it can frustrate power users. XP's graphical user interface (GUI) need not be one-size-fits-all, though. Under the hood, you can make countless changes to the way it looks and functions. In this chapter, you'll learn how to hack your way to a better GUI—one that reflects your own preferences, not the market-driven designs of Microsoft engineers. You'll even learn how to make your PC work like a Mac and run Linux, without actually having to install either operating system.

Want to bend XP's interface to your will without getting your hands into the Registry or having to excavate through menus three levels deep? Then get this supremely useful freebie from Microsoft and create your own customized version of XP.

There are countless ways to customize XP's interface, including Registry hacks and menus and options hidden four layers deep. But if you're the kind of person who lives in the express lane, juices up on double espressos, and wants to hack away at the interface fast, you need Tweak UI.

Download Tweak UI for free from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp. It's part of a suite of free, unsupported utilities from Microsoft called XP PowerToys, but it's far and away the best one.

Tweak UI lets you tweak not only the interface, as the title suggests, but also many other system settings, such as how Internet Explorer's search works, whether to automate your logon upon system startup, and whether to enable CD autoplay so that the CD immediately starts up whenever you pop it into your drive. In this hack, you'll learn how to use it and apply that knowledge to create a speedy, stripped-down version of XP. Figure 2-1 shows Tweak UI in action, customizing the display of thumbnail pictures in Windows Explorer.

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The Windows XP makeover was the biggest change Microsoft made to the Windows interface since it moved from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. Rounded-edge windows, large, cartoonlike icons, and a completely redesigned Control Panel are just a few of the most obvious changes. It's not merely the way XP looks that has been changed, but how it works as well. It is based on a more stable kernel and finally gets rid of its DOS-based heritage.

But let's face it: XP's interface isn't perfect. As shipped, its cartoonish user-friendliness might help newbies, but it can frustrate power users. XP's graphical user interface (GUI) need not be one-size-fits-all, though. Under the hood, you can make countless changes to the way it looks and functions. In this chapter, you'll learn how to hack your way to a better GUI—one that reflects your own preferences, not the market-driven designs of Microsoft engineers. You'll even learn how to make your PC work like a Mac and run Linux, without actually having to install either operating system.

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Want to bend XP's interface to your will without getting your hands into the Registry or having to excavate through menus three levels deep? Then get this supremely useful freebie from Microsoft and create your own customized version of XP.

There are countless ways to customize XP's interface, including Registry hacks and menus and options hidden four layers deep. But if you're the kind of person who lives in the express lane, juices up on double espressos, and wants to hack away at the interface fast, you need Tweak UI.

Download Tweak UI for free from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp. It's part of a suite of free, unsupported utilities from Microsoft called XP PowerToys, but it's far and away the best one.

Tweak UI lets you tweak not only the interface, as the title suggests, but also many other system settings, such as how Internet Explorer's search works, whether to automate your logon upon system startup, and whether to enable CD autoplay so that the CD immediately starts up whenever you pop it into your drive. In this hack, you'll learn how to use it and apply that knowledge to create a speedy, stripped-down version of XP. Figure 2-1 shows Tweak UI in action, customizing the display of thumbnail pictures in Windows Explorer.

Figure 2-1: Customizing the size and quality of thumbnails in Windows Explorer

I don't have room to show you all the ways you can hack the user interface with Tweak UI, but here are some of the highlights:

The General section lets you control XP's animated effects, fades, and shadowing. Also worthwhile in that section is "Show Windows version on desktop." Check the option and it displays, in the lower-right portion of your screen, your exact version of XP—for example, "Windows XP Home Edition Build 2600.xpsp1.020828-1920 (Service Pack 1)," as shown in Figure 2-2. I find it useful for knowing whether I need to add XP Service Packs, or for providing the information to tech support if I have an operating system problem that needs to be solved. You'll have to log off or restart your PC before it will display your version.

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Whether you're a fan of the new Control Panel or not, there's a lot you can do to make it more palatable—like hiding applets you never use, recategorizing the ones you do use, and displaying all applets in a simple-to-use cascading menu.

When I first started using XP, one of the things that annoyed me most was its new Control Panel. Yes, the big new icons for running applets are certainly pretty, but the Control Panel's several-layer organization forces you to click far too many times to get to the applet you want. And its clutter of applets that I rarely, if ever, use makes it even more difficult and confusing.

My first reaction was to click the Switch to Classic View button to do away with the new design, but the Classic View has its problems as well: its long, alphabetized list of thumbnails is just as difficult to navigate as the new Control Panel.

The solution? Start by cleaning up the Control Panel, hiding applets that you rarely, if ever, use. Note that when you hide the applets, you can still use them; you just won't see their icons in the Control Panel.

In this hack, you'll not only find out ways you can control the Control Panel, but you'll also see how you can apply that knowledge to create different customized Control Panels.

To hide unused applets using the Registry, run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Control
Panel\don't load

.

The key, as its name implies, determines which Control Panel applet icons are not loaded into the Control Panel. You'll still be able to run those applets from the command line after you hide them (as explained later in this hack); you just won't be able to see their icons in the Control Panel.

To hide an applet, create a new String value whose name is the filename of the applet you want to hide. For example, to hide the Mouse Control dialog box, the

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XP Professional's Group Policy Editor gives you instant access to changing more than three dozen interface settings. Here's how to use it to create your own personalized Start menu and taskbar.

XP Professional's Group Policy Editor does more than just customize the Control Panel [Hack #9] ; it gives you control over many aspects of XP's interface as well—in particular, the Start menu and taskbar. In fact, it gives you quick access to more than three dozen separate settings for them.

Run the Group Policy Editor by typing gpedit.msc at the Run prompt or command line. Go to User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Start Menu and Taskbar. As you can see in Figure 2-5, the right pane displays all the settings you can change. If you click the Extended tab at the bottom of the screen, you'll be shown a description of the setting that you've highlighted, along with an explanation of each option. Settings you can customize include showing the My Pictures icon, the Run menu, and the My Music icon on the Start menu; locking the taskbar so that it can't be customized; and many others. To change a setting [Hack #9] , double-click it and choose the options from the menu it displays.

Figure 2-5: Customizing the Start menu and taskbar in the Group Policy Editor

There's not room in this hack to go into detail about each setting you can change, so I'll tell you about some of my favorites. I've never been a big fan of My Documents, My Pictures, and My Music. In fact, I never use those folders, so there's no point having them on the Start menu. The settings in the Group Policy Editor let you get rid of them.

If you share your PC with other people, the Group Policy Editor is a great way to make sure no one can change the Start menu and taskbar except you. So, when you have the Start menu and taskbar working the way you want, they'll stay that way until you want to change them. Enable "Prevent changes to Taskbar and Start Menu settings," and no one will be able to change their settings except you. Select "Remove drag-and-drop context menus on the Start Menu," and no one except you will be able to remove or reorder items on the Start menu. You can even stop anyone else from shutting down Windows by selecting "Remove and prevent access to the Shut Down command." (Of course, they can still shut down your PC the old-fashioned way: using the power switch.)

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Make this infrequently used tool useful. Ban programs from the Most Frequently Used Programs List, change the number of programs on the list, or do away with it altogether to make more room for the Pinned Programs List.

Windows keeps track of programs you use frequently and puts them on the Most Frequently Used Programs List, which appears on the new Windows XP-style Start menu (not the Classic-style Start menu) between the Pinned Items List at the top and the All Programs link at the bottom. The Most Frequently Used Programs List is a quick way to access programs you use often. But the rules for when programs appear on that list and disappear from the list are murky at best, and there appears to be no logic to what programs appear there.

There is some hidden logic, however. XP bans a variety of programs from the list. If any of the following words or phrases is included in the program's shortcut name, the program will be excluded from the list: Documentation, Help, Install, More Info, Readme, Read me, Read First, Setup, Support, and What's New.

Additionally, the following executables are excluded from the list: Setup.exe, Install.exe, Isuninst.exe, Unwise.exe, Unwise32.exe, St5unst.exe, Rundll32.exe, Explorer.exe, Icwconn1.exe, Inoculan.exe, Mobsync.exe, Navwnt.exe, Realmon.exe, and Sndvol32.exe.

You might want to ban other programs from the list, not just those that XP bans by default. Just because you use a program a time or two doesn't mean you want it on the Start menu's Most Frequently Used Programs List. You can ban programs from the list using a Registry hack.

Run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications. Underneath this key, you'll find a series of subkeys, each representing an application. The primary purpose of these subkeys, as you'll see later in this hack, is to determine whether the program appears on the Open With dialog box that appears whenever you try to open an unknown file type. But you can also add a value to any of the subkeys which will ban programs from appearing on the Most Frequently Used Programs List.

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To create the perfect XP interface, you want to be able to give every desktop icon and system object the name and icon of your choice. Here's how to do it—even to objects that appear to be unchangeable.

Interface hackers (myself included) are a details-oriented bunch. We want to be able to control every part of the interface so that it reflects our personality. That means being able to choose our own icons for desktop items and system objects, give new names to system objects, and create our own balloon tips—for example, adding a balloon tip to the Recycle Bin saying "Take out the trash!"

But it's not as simple as you might think. Microsoft has a way of protecting its own. For example, it won't let you change the text and balloon tips associated with a variety of system objects, such as the Recycle Bin, Outlook, Internet Explorer, My Computer, and My Network Places.

You can normally change both the name and the balloon text (text that appears when you hover your mouse over the icon) of all the icons on your desktop, but you can't change these. Normally, to change the name and balloon text of an icon, first you right-click the icon and choose Properties. To change the name of the icon, you choose the General tab and, in the box at the top, type in the name that you want to appear beneath the icon.

Then, to change the balloon text, you click the Shortcut tab and in the Comment box type in the text that you want to appear. When you're ready to make the change, click OK. The icon name and balloon text should now be changed.

But when you try to do this for system objects such as Outlook, Internet Explorer, My Computer, and Network Neighborhood, it won't work. The proper options don't appear when you right-click them and choose Properties.

There are ways, however, to change them in any way you want so that you can create your own personalized XP interface.

The Registry is your best tool for personalizing XP. It will let you change both the text and balloon tip associated with system objects. First, you need to know the object's class ID (CLSID), which uniquely identifies each system object. Table 2-3 lists the CLSIDs for common desktop objects.

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To create your own customized XP interface, you need to be able to remove certain desktop icons. A Registry hack lets you remove any you want, including those apparently protected by XP.

Creating the perfect, customized XP interface doesn't mean just changing icons; it also means removing them. For example, many power users look down their noses at America Online, and yet, on many systems, that icon can't be removed easily.

America Online isn't the only icon protected in this way; many others are as well. Which desktop icons are protected on your system will depend on your exact version of XP (for example, SP-1) and the manufacturer of your PC. The Recycle Bin is protected on all versions, but the America Online icon is protected on some systems, and not on others.

To customize XP to your liking, you'll want to be able to delete these protected icons. To do so, you'll need a Registry hack. Run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace. Here's where you'll find various special desktop icons. They're not listed by name, but instead by CLSID—for example, {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} for the Recycle Bin. Table 2-3 lists CLSIDs of common desktop objects, so use it to find the CLSID of the icon you want to delete.

To remove an icon from the desktop, simply delete the key of the icon—for example, {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} for the Recycle Bin. Then exit the Registry, go to your desktop, and press F5 to refresh the screen. The Recycle Bin icon should now be gone.

On some systems, the icons might not be deleted immediately. Instead, after making the Registry change, you might have to right-click the icon and choose Delete.

Some CLSIDs in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace can be deleted from the desktop without having to go through this procedure, but when you try to delete them they might give you a special warning message. For example, when you try to delete Microsoft Outlook from the desktop, you get the warning message "The Outlook Desktop icon provides special functionality and we recommend that you do not remove it." If you like, you can edit that message to display whatever you want. In the CLSID's subkey—for example,

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Use Registry hacks to make a grab bag of great interface changes.

Hidden in the mazes of the Registry are countless ways to hack XP's interface. Following are some of my favorites.

The system tray, also called the notification area, is the small area on the far-right side of the taskbar, in which utilities and programs that run in the background, such as antivirus software, show their icons.

I don't find it a particularly intelligent use of screen real estate, so I prefer not to see the icons there. To hide them, run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer. Among other things, this key controls the display of objects throughout XP. Create a new DWORD called NoTrayItemsDisplay. Assign it a value of 1. (A value of 0 will keep the icons displayed.) Exit the Registry and reboot.

While you're at the HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer key, you can also delete the My Recent Documents icon on the Start menu. Create a new DWORD called NoRecentDocsMenu. Assign it a value of 1. (A value of 0 will keep the icon displayed.) Exit the Registry and reboot.

You might want to display some icons in the notification area but hide others. If so, you can hide icons on a case-by-case basis. You'll do it by delving through menus, though, not by hacking the Registry. Right-click the taskbar and choose Properties → Taskbar. The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box appears. This dialog box, as the name implies, lets you control how the taskbar and Start menu look and function.

In the Notification area of the dialog box, check the box next to "Hide inactive icons," then click Customize. The Customize Notifications dialog box appears.

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Think you can't uninstall Windows Messenger, WordPad, and similar components? Think again. This hack shows you how.

Windows has always had a problem with uninstalling software, and it's particularly poor at uninstalling its own utilities, such as WordPad or Windows Messenger. Uninstalling these utilities can free up hard-disk space if your hard disk is starting to fill up. And if you never use Windows Messenger, you most likely will want to uninstall it because the program frequently launches itself automatically even after you've shut it down repeatedly, kind of like Dracula returning from the dead. It won't bother you any longer if you uninstall it.

To remove XP utilities and components, you normally choose Control Panel → Add or Remove Programs → Add/Remove Windows Components to get to the Windows Components Wizard, shown in Figure 2-12. To uninstall a utility or component, just follow the wizard's instructions.

Figure 2-12: The Windows Components Wizard

Ah, but there's a catch. A number of Windows utilities and components—notably Windows Messenger and WordPad—don't show up in the Windows Components Wizard so there's no apparent way to uninstall them. But you can, in fact, remove these components. XP has a Setup Information file that controls what appears in the Windows Components Wizard. If you edit this file, you can force these components to appear in the wizard, and then you can remove them as you would any others.

To start, use Notepad or another text editor to open the Setup Information file, sysoc.inf, which is generally found in the C:\WINDOWS\INF folder. For safety's sake, make a backup of the file before editing it, so you can revert to it if you need to. You should also set up a system restore point before making the changes. To set up a system restore point, choose Control Panel → Performance and Maintenance → System Restore and follow the instructions.

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Feeling jealous about some of the Mac's nifty features? Envy it no more. Use these tools to make your PC look and work more like a Mac.

Have you ever wished you could turn your PC into a Mac? You're not alone. A lot of Windows users have eyed its slick user interface and handy features with envy. But you no longer need to envy the Mac because in this hack, I'll show you how to make your Windows PC look and work more like a Mac.

Let's start with changing the visual appearance of XP to get a Mac-like experience. It involves three steps. First we'll change the boot screen. Then we'll replace the default logon screen. Finally we'll make Windows and its icons more Mac-like.

When you start your machine, you'll see a vendor-specific welcome screen, which provides access to BIOS settings. Depending on your setup, after that you might see a menu that lets you boot from one of multiple operating systems [Hack #1] . But if you run only one instance of Windows XP, you will be greeted immediately by the Windows splash screen. To get an almost complete Mac experience, we are going to replace the default Windows logo with something more Panther-like (at the time of this writing, Panther is the name of the latest version of Mac OS X, Version 10.3). To do this, we use BootSkin by Stardock (http://www.stardock.com/products/bootskin), which is free for noncommercial use.

After downloading and installing the program we need to obtain a Mac-like boot skin. A particularly nice one is called G5, available at http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=32&SkinID=740. Once you have downloaded it, you need to import it into BootSkin. From BootSkin, choose File → Import from file. After you import it, it will show up in BootSkin, as shown in Figure 2-13.

Figure 2-13: The BootSkin main window with the G5 boot skin imported

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Customize the way XP looks and sounds, and dress it up with themes from the best sites on the Internet.

Themes control just about every part of the way XP looks and sounds, including its background wallpaper, colors, icons, cursors, sounds, fonts, and screen saver, as well as the visual style of its windows and buttons. By default, your computer uses the basic Windows XP theme, which some people refer to as Luna because it was called that during XP's development. You can apply countless themes to XP, though it ships with only two: the basic Windows XP theme and the Windows Classic theme—a more stolid-looking theme, based on older versions of Windows, which uses rectangular windows and solid colors.

To change between themes, right-click the desktop and choose Properties → Themes. Choose the theme you want to use from the drop-down list, as shown in Figure 2-22. Click OK, and the theme will be applied.

Figure 2-22: Applying a new theme

Note that if you choose "More themes online..." from the drop-down list, you won't actually be able to get more themes online, so choosing that option is a bit of a bait-and-switch. When you choose it, you'll be sent to a web page suggesting that you buy Microsoft Plus! for Windows XP. There's no need to buy it if you're looking to use more themes, though. Instead, you can make your own and get thousands more online from non-Microsoft sites.

If you're like me (and most other people), you won't be happy with the basic themes that come with XP. What good is an operating system, after all, if you can't bend it, twist it, and make it your own?

There's no single, central place you can go to make themes in XP. Instead, you'll have to customize each part of XP individually and then roll it all up into a single theme. Once your system is using all the elements of your theme, save the theme with the following instructions.

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Control freaks, rejoice. With the powerful WindowBlinds utility, you no longer need to suffer with plain, common GUI elements such as the standard toolbars and scrollbars. You can modify and skin Windows to your heart's content.

In the years immediately following World War II, Bill Levitt realized that GIs needed homes. He planned and built a community outside New York City that he called Levittown. There were two models of homes in Levittown and there was very little distinction between them. Levittown was the first "cookie cutter" community and remains the epitome of that term.

The Windows XP user interface is a cookie cutter experience. Frequently, users don't bother to replace the Bliss (green field and blue sky) background, and it's even rarer for someone to change the Windows XP standard menu or colors. Fortunately, you don't have to settle for the same desktop as the guy in the next office. One way you can customize your Windows XP experience is to use themes [Hack #17] . An even better way is to use a software package called WindowBlinds to skin (customize many aspects together) the user interface.

WindowBlinds is created by a company called Stardock and can be downloaded from its web site at http://www.stardock.com. It is sold by itself (for $19.95) or as part of a larger package called Object Desktop (for $49.95). A free trial also is available from the Stardock web site.

If you use a P2P client to download software, be warned that there is a common virus that spreads itself by pretending to be an installer for WindowBlinds. Make sure you've got the real thing. The virus is passed around through P2P apps. The smartest thing to do and the best way to avoid the virus is to pay for this software!

After you install WindowBlinds, you will not notice any immediate changes. Activate the software by selecting Control Panel → Display Properties and then clicking the Appearance tab.

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Don't settle for the icons and cursors that Microsoft built for you. Roll your own with downloadable software.

If you're not happy with the cursors and icons that XP ships with, don't despair. You can easily make your own with Microangelo, from http://www.microangelo.us. It's shareware and free to try, but if you continue using it, you're supposed to pay $54.95. You can create animated icons or regular icons—in both the standard 32-pixel and large 48-pixel sizes—and a variety of cursors as well. Use paint-type tools and build your icons and cursors on a grid, as shown in Figure 2-28. A preview is available, so you can see the effects of what you do as you work.

Figure 2-28: Creating an icon with Microangelo

What I find most useful about the program is that you can import existing cursors, icons, or other graphics, edit them, and then save the edited versions. I'm no great artist, so I find editing existing graphics much easier than creating ones from scratch. The fine art of pixel placement in tiny icon images can be trickier than expected.

For a big selection of cursors, get CursorXP Free from http://www.windowblinds.net, the same company that makes the interface-customizing program WindowBlinds [Hack #18] . CursorXP Free is free, as the name implies. Install it, and a new CursorXP tab is added to the Mouse Properties dialog box, shown in Figure 2-29.

Figure 2-29: Customizing cursors with CursorXP Free

The Mouse Properties dialog box lets you choose from a variety of new cursors that ship with the program. By clicking the Options/Configure button at the bottom of the dialog box you can also customize how each cursor works and looks. (The button toggles between Options and Configure, depending on whether you click the Configure button at the top of the dialog box.) You can also import cursors that you've created with Microangelo or another program.

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Want to know what all the fuss is about when it comes to Linux? Here's an easy way to try it out and use it, without installing software on your PC; it runs straight from a CD.

The Linux operating system inspires intense devotion among its adherents. There's good reason for that: it's fast, it's free, it isn't subject to the same kinds of security woes that bedevil Windows computers, and it can be just plain fun.

Of course, it can be just plain maddening as well. And the thought of installing an entirely new operating system alongside XP, or reformatting your hard disk...let's just say that unless you really know you want to use Linux, you don't want to go there.

But there's a way to get instant Linux: use the free software called Knoppix. It runs straight from a CD, so you don't need to do any installation at all. Just boot your computer from your CD, and voilà: instant Linux.

If you find that you want to know more about Knoppix, and perhaps even install it on a system, you should get a copy of Knoppix Hacks by Kyle Rankin (O'Reilly), from which this hack is excerpted.

The simplest way to get started with Knoppix is to download a CD image, burn it to a CD, and then boot from the CD. To obtain the latest version of Knoppix, download the CD image from one of Knoppix's mirrors or send away for a CD. If you have an unmetered broadband Internet connection and a CDR/RW drive, simply download the CD image; it's the best way to get Knoppix. A collection of mirrors listed at http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html provides CD images in ISO form over HTTP, FTP, or rsync. If you use Bittorrent (a peer-to-peer file-sharing application designed for sharing large files), you can use the Knoppix torrent link on this page. When you click a mirror you are taken to a licensing agreement page. Have your lawyer read through the software license (your lawyer reviews all of your software licenses before you accept, right?), click Accept to proceed, and then choose a file from the list that is presented. In addition to the latest version of Knoppix, most mirrors host a few past CD images with their MD5sum (explained in a moment).

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You use Windows Explorer every day, probably many times a day, without giving it much thought. You open it, view some files, delete others, drag a few around to different folders, and then you're back on your way.

But Explorer can make your life easier in many ways. For example, you can use it to hide files by encrypting them, give yourself more hard-disk space by compressing files, and easily find the files you want by using the indexing service and its query language. And there are ways to hack Explorer to make it much easier to use—for example, by customizing its right-click context menu. In this chapter, I'll show you how to do all that, and more.

Longtime PC users and former Mac users alike are often shocked when they realize there's no easy, built-in option to print a list of files in a folder. This hack creates a context-menu right-click option to create such a list, which you can then edit, copy, paste, and—most usefully—print.

How many times have you been browsing through directories in Windows Explorer and wished you could generate a text file or printout listing the files and folders? It seems like such a simple request that it's amazing the option isn't available. You don't believe me? Right-click a folder and see for yourself if there is an option to list or print the structure. There isn't, but there is a workaround that doesn't require any third-party software. Here's how to create a context menu item [Hack #28] that, when clicked, generates a printable (and editable) text-file listing of the selected directory.

To create the entry in the context menu it's necessary to first create a batch file. A batch file is a text file that contains a sequence of commands for a computer operating system and uses the .bat extension. The format for the .bat file is:

dir /a /-p /o:gen >filelisting.txt

The name of the .txt file can be whatever you like. In this example, I've used

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You use Windows Explorer every day, probably many times a day, without giving it much thought. You open it, view some files, delete others, drag a few around to different folders, and then you're back on your way.

But Explorer can make your life easier in many ways. For example, you can use it to hide files by encrypting them, give yourself more hard-disk space by compressing files, and easily find the files you want by using the indexing service and its query language. And there are ways to hack Explorer to make it much easier to use—for example, by customizing its right-click context menu. In this chapter, I'll show you how to do all that, and more.

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Longtime PC users and former Mac users alike are often shocked when they realize there's no easy, built-in option to print a list of files in a folder. This hack creates a context-menu right-click option to create such a list, which you can then edit, copy, paste, and—most usefully—print.

How many times have you been browsing through directories in Windows Explorer and wished you could generate a text file or printout listing the files and folders? It seems like such a simple request that it's amazing the option isn't available. You don't believe me? Right-click a folder and see for yourself if there is an option to list or print the structure. There isn't, but there is a workaround that doesn't require any third-party software. Here's how to create a context menu item [Hack #28] that, when clicked, generates a printable (and editable) text-file listing of the selected directory.

To create the entry in the context menu it's necessary to first create a batch file. A batch file is a text file that contains a sequence of commands for a computer operating system and uses the .bat extension. The format for the .bat file is:

dir /a /-p /o:gen >filelisting.txt

The name of the .txt file can be whatever you like. In this example, I've used fileli

Table of Contents

Section 1.5.1.1: Cleaning out the Startup folder