Create a Shortcut to Lock Your Computer
Leaving your computer in a hurry but you don’t want to log off? You can double-click a shortcut on your desktop to quickly lock the keyboard and display without using CTRL+ALT+DEL or a screensaver.
To create a shortcut on your desktop to lock your computer:
Right-click the desktop.
Point to New, and then click Shortcut.
The Create Shortcut Wizard opens. In the text box, type the following:
Enter a name for the shortcut. You can call it "Lock PC" or choose any name you like.
Click Finish.
You can also change the shortcut's icon (my personal favorite is the padlock icon in shell32.dll).
To change the icon:
Right click the shortcut and then select Properties.
Click the Shortcut tab, and then click the Change Icon button.
In the Look for icons in this file text box, type:
Shell32.dll.
Click OK.
Select one of the icons from the list and then click OK.
You could also give it a shortcut keystroke such CTRL+ALT+L. This would save you only one keystroke from the normal command,
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Clean The Temp Folder At Startup
Use can use a simple BAT file to clean out your Windows Temp folder every time you reboot your computer by opening Notepad and entering these lines into it:
Save the file to your Desktop as 'cleantemp.bat'. Now click on the Start button and go to Programs then right-click onStartup. Select 'Open' to open the Startup folder then drag and drop the 'cleantemp.bat' file into this folder.
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Turn Off Thumbnail Caching
Every time you go into a folder which contains either pictures or movies, Windows creates a thumbnail image so you can see what that picture/movie is. The thumbnail cache helps speed up access to the thumbnails instead of having them load up every time you go into a folder, but each picture you have in a folder will take up around 2kb's. Follow these steps to disable this:
1. Go to 'Start->Settings->Control Panel'
2. Double-click on the 'Folder Options' icon
3. Click on the 'View' tab
4. Tick the 'Do Not Cache Thumbnails' check box
5. Click Apply, then click OK
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Change the Size & Font of Desktop Icons
You can make your desktop icons and text as big or as small as you want by following these steps:
1.Right click on an empty space on the desktop and select 'Properties'
2. Click on the 'Appearance' tab then click on the 'Advanced' button
3. In the 'Item' drop down box select 'Icon'
4. Change the number in the 'Size' box to make your icons bigger or smaller
5. Do the same in the 'Font' drop down box to change the font and size of
the icon text
6. Click on the OK button then click 'Apply' on the Properties window
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Disable Error Reporting in Windows XP
As you may have noticed, every time a Microsoft program crashes in Windows XP,an 'Error Report' screen pops up allowing you to send some information on the crash to Microsoft.Well this can get quite annoying, so you can follow these steps to disable it.
1.Click on the Start button and select 'Settings->Control Panel'
2. Double-click on the 'System' icon
3. Click on the 'Advanced' tab
4. Click on the 'Error Reporting' button at the bottom
of the window
5. Select 'Disable Error Reporting'
6. Click OK twice
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How to disable Windows XP Boot logo
Disable The Windows XP Boot Logo
You can disable the Window XP boot logo (the gray screen that appears right after you start your computer),which will shave a few seconds off your booting time. To do this follow these steps:
1. Go to the 'C:\' folder and double-click on the 'boot.ini' file
2. On the 'timeout' line, change the 30 to 1 so it reads 'timeout=1'
3. On the last line, insert '/noguiboot' right after '/fastdetect'.
This line should now look something like this:
\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /noguiboot /NoExecute=OptIn
4. Click on the 'File' menu and select 'Save'
5. Reboot your computer and the Windows XP logo should now be gone
NOTE: Do not change anything else in this file or your computer may not reboot correctly or may not reboot at all.
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