Customize
the Look of your Windows XP Desktop the way you like it
The following are a range of tweaks which relate to the Windows
XP desktop.
 Remove
text from desktop icons
Tool: None
Right click on the icon whose title you want
to remove and select Rename. Instead of entering any characters
in the text box, hold down the ALT key and type 255 (ALT + 2 + 5
+ 5). Note you need to use the NUMPAD numbers for this to work (i.e.
the numbers to the right of your arrow keys, not the ones at the
top of the keyboard). When you release the ALT key the title will
be blank, and you can press ENTER to accept this (blank titles are
usually denied under Windows, but not this way). For every other
icon for which you wish to remove the title, do the same as above,
but for each subsequent icon you'll have to add a '255' to the end
of the string you enter. That is, to blank a second icon name, you'll
need to hold down ALT and type 255 then 255 again, then release
ALT. For a third, you'll have to type ALT 255 255 255, and so on.
PS : madleb
just informed us that this tweak just works for up to 5 desktop
icons and you'll need to use the spacebar in between the multiple
255, like 255[space]255[space]255 !
Remove
the box around desktop icon titles
Tools: System Properties
If you followed my first XP Guide, you would
have removed most fancy visual effects for maximum performance.
However, if you've applied the 'Remove text from desktop icons'
tweak above, and you still see a faint box where the text was (and
you're fussy about things like that), you can remove that box by
doing the following:
1. Go to Control Panel>System>Advanced
and click the Settings button under Performance.
2. Put a tick against the Visual Effects
tab and tick 'Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop'.
Click OK.
3. Check your desktop. The boxes should be
gone, regardless of whether you removed the text or not. If they're
still there, right click on the desktop, look under Arrange Icons
By and make sure there's no tick against 'Lock Web Items on Desktop'.
This effect is a virtually insignificant
drain on performance, so re-enabling it won't do any major harm
if you want a cleaner looking desktop, particularly if you've removed
icon text labels. However hardcore performance nuts should leave
it off as suggested in my first XP Guide.
Create
desktop icons for Shutdown or Restart
Tool: Create Shortcut Wizard
Instead of clicking Start>Turn Off Computer
and selecting Shutdown or Restart, you can create desktop icons
which automatically shutdown or restart your PC with just a double-click.
This tweak makes use of the Shutdown.exe command to create a new
shortcut as follows:
Shutdown Icon
1. Right click on an empty area on your desktop.
2. Select New>Shortcut.
3. In the first box of the Create Shortcut
Wizard, type "Shutdown -s -t 00" (without quotes). Click
Next.
4. Call the shortcut something like "Shutdown
PC" (without quotes) and click Finish.
5. To add the finishing touch, right click
on this new icon, select Properties, click the Change Icon button
and select an appropriate icon.
Reboot Icon
Follow the same steps as for the Shutdown
Icon, but substitute the following steps in place of the corresponding
ones above:
3. In the first box of the Create Shortcut
Wizard, type "Shutdown -r -t 00" (without quotes). Click
Next.
4. Call the shortcut something like "Restart
PC" without quotes and click Finish.
Note that double-clicking on these icons
will shutdown or restart the PC straight away without any warning.
If you want a countdown before a shutdown or restart, substitute
a time in seconds in place of the '00' entries in the shortcut properties
above (e.g. Shutdown -s -t 10 gives 10 seconds warning before shutting
down). Also note that once the shutdown or restart process begins
via an icon, it can't be aborted. If you want more command line
switches which can be used with the shutdown command, open a command
prompt and type "shutdown" (without quotes) to see the
full list of switches.
Create
Desktop icon to lock the computer
Tool: Create Shortcut Wizard
1. Right click on an empty area on your desktop.
2. Select New>Shortcut.
3. In the first box of the Create Shortcut
Wizard, type "Rundll32.exe User32.dll,LockWorkStation" (without
quotes). Note there is no space between the comma and LockWorkStation,
which is also one word. Click Next.
4. Call the shortcut something like "Lock
PC" (without quotes) and click Finish.
5. To add the finishing touch, right click
on the new icon, select Properties, click the Change Icon button and
select an appropriate icon.
Now whenever you click this icon your PC will
instantly be locked, and can only be accessed by the user entering
a correct password in the Login box. Note you can also lock the computer
at any time by press WINDOWS + L. Also note that if you have an account
with no password, locking the desktop is a little pointless as anyone
can login by just leaving the password field blank and clicking OK
to log back in.
Save
desktop icon positions
Tool: Two files from the MS Windows NT 4.0
Resource Kit (26KB). Download them from here.
This is one of my favorite tweaks because I'm
a real neatness freak about my desktop icons. Basically this tweak
allows you to save the positions of your desktop icons, so you can
restore the icons to their saved positions at any time in the future.
To give you this added functionality in XP, do the following:
1. Download the file Layout.zip from the link
under Tools above, and extract the contents to an empty directory.
2. Copy Layout.dll to the \Windows\System32
directory on the hard drive which contains Windows XP.
3. Double click on the Layout.reg file to automatically
make the appropriate changes to your registry.
4. Now go to your desktop and arrange the icons
as you'd like them to be saved.
5. Once done, right click on the Recycle Bin
and select 'Save Desktop Icon Layout'. The positions of all the icons
are now saved. You can move the icons around freely, however whenever
you want them restored to their original saved positions, right click
on Recycle Bin again and select 'Restore Desktop Icon Layout'. Bingo!
This is particularly handy if you're installing
new graphics card drivers for example and your desktop icons get messed
up, or you change resolutions and they get bumped around, or if you
accidentally move an icon while trying to double click on it.
Change
desktop icon size
Tool: Regedit
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics]
Shell Icon Size=32 The value of this
entry determines the size in pixels both for the height and width
of desktop icons. The smaller the value, the smaller the desktop icon.
Default value is 32, which is a 32 x 32 pixel icon. Create the entry
as a new String if it doesn't exist, and reboot Windows (or use the
Explorer trick under Before We Begin) to implement the new icon size.
Set
spacing between desktop icons
Tool: Display Properties
To adjust the spaces between your desktop icons,
you can manually move them. However if you've chosen automatic spacings
(Right click on desktop and select Arrange Icons by>Auto Arrange)
then you can adjust the vertical and horizontal spaces placed between
each icon by right clicking on the desktop and choosing Properties
to bring up the Display Properties box. Next select the Appearance
tab, then the Advanced button. Under items select Icon Spacing (Horizontal)
and Icon Spacing (Vertical) and edit the values to determine how many
pixels are placed between the icons. The defaults are 43 pixels between
icons. Smaller values squeeze them together, higher values spread
them apart.
Remove
'Shortcut to...' from new shortcuts
Tool: Regedit
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
Link=00 00 00 00 If this entry doesn't
exist, create it as a new Binary value, and set it equal to 00 00
00 00 to remove the 'Shortcut to...' prefix in front of new shortcuts.
Reboot Windows (or use the Explorer trick under Before We Begin) to
implement the change.
Create
a custom popup menu on the taskbar
Tool: Explorer, Taskbar
To put your favorite shortcuts all under one
easy-to-access popup menu on the taskbar, do the following:
1. Open Explorer and create a new folder wherever
you like.
2. Put shortcuts to all your favorite programs/pictures/documents/songs
in this folder.
3. Right-click on an empty area of your Taskbar,
and choose Toolbars>New Toolbar.
4. In the New Toolbar dialog box, browse to
where you created your new folder with all the shortcuts, highlight
the folder and click OK.
You will now have a new item on your Taskbar
with the name of the folder you created earlier. Click on the double
arrows just above its name and you'll get a popup menu of all the
programs you can now quickly access. If you want to remove this folder
from the Taskbar, right click on an empty area of the Taskbar and
select Toolbars, and untick the folder's name from the list.
Windows
XP Themes
Tool: Display Properties, Various Utilities
and Guides.
One of the biggest benefits of Windows XP over
other Windows versions is that you can customize the Graphical User
Interface (GUI) or "skin" as much as you want. By default
XP comes with 2 main skins or "Visual Styles" as Microsoft
calls them – Windows Classic Style and Windows XP Style. You can choose
either of these by going to Control Panel>Display Properties>Appearance
and selecting either under the Windows and Buttons section. Note that
you must have Themes enabled. Do this by going to Control Panel>System>Advanced,
click the Settings button under Performance and on the Visual Effects
tab make sure there's a tick next to 'Use visual styles on windows
and buttons'.
Microsoft has not made it easy to modify or
install any styles beyond those it provides. You'll need special tools
and some detailed information on how to download and install new themes,
or to create your own. Rather than getting into those details here,
I'll refer you to these websites which cover just that and much more,
including a huge range of pre-made themes you can download and install:
ThemeXP.org
XPTheme.info
Wincustomize.com
Windowsblinds.net
These are the best sites for Windows XP customization.
For an excellent guide which takes you through the steps required
to change your Windows Bootup screen, Login screen and GUI, try this
recent WinXP Customizing Guide.
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