Customize Your Windows Desktop
Want Windows your way? Follow our tips and whip your desktop into shape.Yael Li-Ron
Where's the darn menu for...? Why can't I open...?
If you find yourself muttering complaints like these when you're using Windows, you're not alone. The best way to make Windows work for you is to tweak the user interface so it's more intuitive and accessible than Microsoft's idea of a "friendly UI." Note to Microsoft: It's anything but.
Your desktop is the main road to Windows' inner workings. Want to change settings, make the display more legible, show off your puppy's picture, have quicker access to your favorite programs? Here are ten tips to get you rolling, whether you use Windows 98, Me, 2000, or XP.
Sorting Is as Easy as A-B-C
As you install more and more new programs on your system, the Start menu can become long and unwieldy. But you can remove unwanted items with just a few mouse clicks. Click Start (or if you're using XP and not its "Classic Start menu," select All Programs). See the items above the horizontal line toward the top of the menu? If you want to get rid of them, right-click an item (say, Open Office Document) and select Delete. When you're done trimming there, proceed to the Programs submenu (in XP, the entries below the line in the All Programs menu) and follow the same procedure for other unwanted items. (If you delete items from the Programs submenu, though, you'll have to go into My Computer to start those infrequently used applications.) After you've finished giving individual items the boot, right-click any file or folder on that submenu and select Sort by Name. Things should start to look much more organized.
Live Better With Less Clutter (Part One)
You probably have lots of shortcuts on your desktop, placed there by programs you've installed. The problem? With so many shortcuts (and so little time), it's not always easy to find what you're looking for at a glance. Make those shortcuts more easily accessible in two easy steps:
First, move the shortcuts you use most to the Quick Launch toolbar, which lets you launch them with a single click. It's located on your taskbar, just to the right of the Start button. (If you don't see it, right-click the taskbar and select Toolbars, Quick Launch.) Right-click any shortcut icon you want to remove from your desktop, drag it down to the Quick Launch toolbar, and let go of the mouse button. Choose Move Here from the pop-up menu. Keep moving your frequently used icons, but don't fill up more than half the taskbar, so that there will still be room on the right side of the taskbar to display running applications.
Next, review the remaining shortcut icons. If you rarely use them, you can delete them by right-clicking the icon and selecting Delete. If you do use them occasionally, you can move them to the Start, Programs menu. Before you move any item, though, check the menu to see if it already lists the shortcut. If a particular item is already in the menu, you can just delete the desktop icon by right-clicking it and selecting Delete. If the program is not listed in the Programs menu, right-click the desktop shortcut and drag it over the Start button--the Start menu will pop up, but don't let go of the mouse yet. Drag the icon over the Programs option and drop it on the Programs submenu. You'll be prompted to copy or move; select Move.
Live Better With Less Clutter (Part Two)
If you still have additional unwanted shortcut icons on your desktop--ones you don't use very often--you can put them all together in one place. To do so, create a new folder on the desktop: Right-click the desktop, choose New, Folder, and type a name for the folder (something witty like My Shortcuts). Then you can select the remaining program shortcuts and right-drag them into your new folder icon; when prompted, select Move.
Even after reducing the number of icons on your desktop, if you still think they're taking up too much space, try shrinking the icons. Right-click the desktop, select Properties, and click the Appearance tab (or choose Advanced in Windows XP). Pick Icon from the drop-down list of options. Try a smaller size for your icons--a few points can make quite a difference--and click Apply. If you're running Windows XP, click OK, and then Apply. You can try a few different settings until you find the size that works for your desktop.
Now that you've cleaned up your desktop, you can enjoy a gorgeous photo (see next tip) displayed on your desktop without all those annoying icons.
Pretty Please
If you come across a picture you like on the Web, you can save it as your wallpaper, your desktop's background. Simply right-click the image, and, depending on your version of Windows, select Set as Background or Set as Wallpaper. While you're at it, if you want to store the picture on your hard drive, right-click the image, click Save Picture As, rename the file whatever you like, and select a folder to store the image in.
Change your mind about your wallpaper later? You can overwrite your wallpaper by saving a new image or by going back to what you had before. Right-click the desktop, select Properties, and click the Background tab (or in XP, after you select Properties, click the Desktop tab). Highlight the item you want from the list of options and click OK.
Pretty Please (The Sequel)
Windows' default wallpaper images are downright insipid. The same goes for its screen saver offerings. For a more spectacular desktop, download WebShots from PCWorld.com Downloads. Browse through the collections of fine art, maps, puppies, spiders, and other categories, and grab the images that make you smile. You can also download individual photos by going to WebShots' Web site. Click the Photo Search link on the top bar, type a keyword in the search field (such as Kauai, Picasso, schnauzer, and so on), and browse the available photos to find one you like. Click on a photo to see a larger version. When you find one you want to use, click the Download link, and the image will be added to your hard drive's collection.
To further customize the way WebShots handles the images, right-click its icon in the System Tray (the right side of the taskbar) and select Settings. Click each tab and specify your preferences for the screen saver (frequency and duration), wallpaper, and transitions between screen-saver images (in the Effects tab).
When you've collected enough images, press Ctrl-Shift-S whenever you want to launch the screen saver (a slide show of all your images), or Ctrl-Shift-W to change your wallpaper on the fly (the images will be selected randomly).
(You can also use WebShots to upload your own images to a public or private album on the program's Web site; only people you invite can see your private collection.)
Search Party
Do you often look for a particular type of file on your hard drive? MP3s, perchance? Or any file with the word "budget" in its name? You can save the parameters of that search and add it to your Quick Launch toolbar. Select Start, Find (in Windows 98) or Start, Search (in Me, 2000, or XP), select the option to look for files or folders (unless you use XP), type what you're looking for, and launch the search. When the tool is done searching, choose File, Save Search. In the 'Save in' field at the top, select Desktop. The file will be named x.fnd (where x stands for your search criterion).
Right-click that.fnd file on your desktop and drag it onto the Quick Launch toolbar. Release the mouse and select Create Shortcut(s) Here. If you don't want the shortcut to be called "Shortcut to Files named x.fnd" (urgh!), right-click the new icon, select Rename, and type a new name.
Support Your Local Electric Company
Many people like to leave their computers on even when they're not using them. It saves time next time you want to use the system, right? But you end up making the shareholders at your local electric company very happy, and wasting precious resources. Besides, your system can become a bit flaky if you run it for a few days without rebooting. So it's not a bad idea to shut down your computer whenever you're done using it for the day.
Or, if you often take breaks from the computer, you can set your monitor (the biggest energy hog in your system) to shut down automatically after a certain period of inactivity. Right-click anywhere on your desktop and select Properties. Click the Screen Saver tab. Then click the Power button and set the delay time. My recommendation: 20 minutes before the monitor shuts down and 45 minutes before standby kicks in.
If you're using Windows XP, click the Hibernate tab and make sure Enable Hibernation is checked. The hibernation mode essentially turns off your system, but not before taking a "snapshot" of everything you have open and running. Click Start, Turn Off Computer, then hold down the Shift key while you click Stand By, and your system will go into hibernation. To wake up your machine, press the power button, and you'll quickly be back where you left off.
Remember to save anything you have open before leaving your PC, just in case there's a power outage while you're away.
You Say You Want a Resolution
The display resolution on your system determines the sharpness of the display and the size of icons, dialog boxes, and so on. The higher the resolution, the smaller your onscreen objects. If you have trouble seeing small details, keep the resolution at 800 by 600 pixels. But if you haven't reached middle age yet and can easily see tiny items on your screen, you might enjoy the sharper display that comes with a higher resolution.
To alter the resolution, right-click your desktop, select Properties and click the Settings tab. Drag the slider toward 'Less' or 'More' to adjust the resolution; you can see the effect in the preview screen. If you'd like to try the new resolution, click Apply and watch your desktop resize itself. If you don't like the results, let Windows reset what you've done (in Windows 98/Me/2000), or drag the slider back (in XP) and select Apply.
View Thumbnails
If you have a folder that contains image files, you might want to view thumbnails or small versions of those pictures without having to open a viewer or image editor. It's an awkward process in Windows 98, but a snap in XP.
In Windows 98: Right-click the folder that contains the files you would like to preview and choose Properties. Click the General tab, check the Enable Thumbnails box, and click OK. If you're already in that folder, get out of it, then reopen it. Right-click in an unoccupied area within it and select View, Thumbnails. Close the folder, then reopen it. The folder now contains two additional files: Desktop.ini and Thumbs.db. If you delete them, you'll lose all your hard work and will have to repeat these steps.
In Windows XP, Me, and 2000: Right-click within the folder you want to view and select View, Thumbnails. Presto! (The Thumbnails option doesn't appear if the folder doesn't contain any image files.)
Give XP a Historical Look
This last tip is for Windows XP only. People who like XP enjoy its most attractive feature: It hardly ever crashes. But the user interface is annoying at best--especially if you've been a Windows user since the days of 95, and you're used to the standard Windows 9x "look and feel." XP's folders, Start menu, and other items don't behave the way you're used to. And you may not have the patience to get used to a whole new system.
Here's how you can make XP look more like Windows 9x: Right-click the Start button, choose Properties, click the Start Menu tab, and select Classic Start menu. Next, you can "dress down" your folders. Open a folder or Explorer window, and select Tools, Folder Options. On the General tab, under Tasks, choose Use Windows classic folders.