Click on the the following compiled How-Tos
Press Win+L to switch to the Welcome screen.
Press Win+L to lock your workstation.
You can switch users without going through the Welcome screen: From Task Manager, go to the Users tab, right-click a user, and select Connect.
Hold down the shift key in the shutdown dialog to change “Stand By” to “Hibernate”. Or just press H to hibernate instantly. You can even use the Power Control Panel to configure your power button to hibernate.
Disable password when resuming stanby
To disable the password when resuming from standby or hibernation, open the Power Control Panel and uncheck “Prompt for password after returning from standby” on the Advanced tab.
From the View Menu, select “Choose Details” to select which file properties should be shown in the Explorer window. To sort by a file property, check its name in the “Choose Details” in order to make that property available in the “Arrange Icons by” menu.
Display volume control icon in taskbar
To display the volume control icon in the taskbar, go to the Sounds and Audio Devices Control Panel and select “Place volume icon in the taskbar”.
Delete file without send into recycle bin
Hold down the shift key when deleting a file to delete it immediately instead of placing it in the Recycle Bin. Files deleted in this way cannot be restored.
Put a shortcut to your favorite editor in your Send To folder and it will appear in your “Send To” menu. You can then right-click any file and send it to your editor.
a) To organize your Favorites in Explorer instead of using the Organize Favorites dialog, hold the shift key while selecting “Organize Favorites” from the Favorites menu of an Explorer window.
b) You can organize your Favorites by dragging the items around your Favorites menu.
Alternatively, you can open the Favorites pane and hold the Alt key while pressing the up and down arrows to change the order of your Favorites.
To run Internet Explorer fullscreen, press F11. Do it again to return to normal mode.
If your “Printers and Faxes” folder is empty, you can hide the “Printers and Faxes” icon when viewed from other computers by stopping the Print Spooler service.
Add/remove columns from detail mode
To add or remove columns from Details mode, select Choose Details from the View menu, or just right-click the column header bar.
Go backwards or forward by mouse wheel
In Internet Explorer, hold the Shift key while turning the mouse wheel to go forwards or backwards.
In Internet Explorer, type Ctrl+D to add the current page to your Favorites. This and many more keyboard shortcuts can be found by going to Internet Explorer, clicking the Help menu, then selecting Contents and Index. From the table of contents, open Accessibility and click “Using Internet Explorer keyboard shortcuts”.
To shut down via Remote Desktop, click the Start button, then type Alt+F4.
Bored by typing ‘www________.com”
In the Address Bar, type “google” and hit Ctrl+Enter. Internet Explorer automatically inserts the “http://www/.” and “.com” for you.
Windows XP comes equipped with it and you can change the setting to use Clear Type fonts. For those of you who do not know how to use clear type fonts in normal session here are the instructions:
Right click on at any free area of the desktop and go to appearance tab of Display Properties. Click on effects and check the box saying “use following methods to smooth edges of screen fonts” and select clear type.
Create your own customized legal notice at Windows Startup
Open Registry by going to START-RUN and typing REGEDIT. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. In right hand panel look for two fields by the name legalnoticecaption and legalnoticetext. Modify legalnoticecaption to what you want popup window caption should read and change legalnoticetext to customize whatever message you want.
Align to Grid for dsektop Icons
Note: I found this somewhere on the internet … but I can’t remember where.
Sometimes there just isn’t enough room for the all the text underneath those icons. Or, you maybe you are having some kind of overlapping problem. You can fix this by adjusting the space between your icons.
There is an invisible grid on your desktop the computer uses to place icons and associated text in to. This grid sort of looks like a checker board. You can adjust the size of the boxes. Here’s how:
Right click on any empty spot on your desktop. Click Properties, and then click the appearance tab. Next click the advanced button and you should find yourself in the “Advanced Appearances” window. Click on the pull-down window under “Item” and select “Icon spacing (horizontal). Note there is also an “icon spacing) vertical too. Click on the size arrows to adjust icon size. Do the same with Vertical. You will need to work at this some until you get the size/spacing you want. Click ok.
Note: You may have to uncheck and recheck the “Align to grid” option before your icons will move into place. Here’s how: Right click on any empty spot on your desktop. From the menu select “Arrange icons by” and click on “Align to grid” to uncheck it and then click to option again to recheck it. Once you do that your icons will move to your new grid settings.
Right-click an open area of the Desktop, select Properties, and choose the Appearance tab. Next click Advanced to open the Advanced Appearances window and select either Icon Spacing (Horizontal) or Icon Spacing (Vertical) from the Item drop-down menu.
Use the Up and Down arrows under Size to increase or decrease the horizontal or vertical spacing. When finished, click OK twice to exit the Advanced Appearance and Display Properties dialog boxes.
For the new spacing to take effect, you may have to uncheck and recheck the Align to Grid option on your Desktop. Do that by right-clicking an empty area of the Desktop, selecting Arrange Icons By, and clicking to uncheck Align to Grid. Follow the same steps to recheck the option.
