Those Nasty Balloon Tips

These things are like the neighbor’s wind chimes; an annoyance foisted upon us against our will that only gets more irritating with time. The quick, easy method of disposal is with ‘Group Policy Editor, above. No third-party software or registry hacking is necessary. Choose’ Disable Balloon Tips’ and breathe a sigh of relief. Too bad there’s no ‘Delete’ button for annoying neighbors.

WinXP Quick Tips

There are several methods (some involve risky and unnecessary registry hacks) for removing the persistent and annoying MSN Messenger. Hit ‘Start/Run’ then copy and paste the following: ‘RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove’ (without the quotes). Hit enter and it’s gone.

To enable sending items wherever you wish on your computer easily, enable hidden and systems folders in the ‘View’ folder settings, open
C:\Documents and Settings\your_user_name\SendTo\ and add shortcuts to whatever locations you wish.

Instantly switch between users by depressing the Win key and ‘Q’ simultaneously. After a moment, all users appear. Keep hitting ‘Q’ to rotate between them.

You will use far less memory if you keep multiple applications minimized rather than in open windows.

To create a keyboard shortcut from a desktop shortcut, right-click on the shortcut, choose properties and enter the combination in the Shortcut Key box, including two of the following: CTRL, ALT, and/or SHIFT. OK out and it’s done.

To eliminate the annoying question “Are you sure?” when you delete an item, right-click on the Recycle Bin icon, choose ‘Properties’ and remove the (default) checkmark from ‘Display delete confirmation dialog.’

Prefetch works great to speed up operations in WinXP, but the default folder needs a cleanout every few weeks or the clutter will actually slow the system. Open the ‘Prefetch’ folder in C:\WINDOWS, left-click ‘Edit,’ choose ‘Select All,’ right click on any item in the folder and choose ‘Delete’ to dump everything.

Unless you spend most computer time doing searches, this tweak will add a little speed to your system. Open my computer, right-click on C:\ and select ‘Properties.’ Uncheck ‘Allow indexing service to index this disk for faster searches.’ uncheck this OK out. Select ‘Apply to all folders and subfolders’ in the pop-up window.

To prevent the operating system from asking for the WinXP disk during installations, copy the I386 folder from the XP CD and paste in into the C:\ drive. That’ll stop it.

What? You actually used the Briefcase in Win9.x/Me? OK, to get it back on the desktop in XP, go to C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache and double click on ‘syncapp’ to place it on your desktop.

If you’ve removed the Recycle Bin from the Desktop (see Registry Hacks, below), you can access it by either from a ‘Desktop’ Toolbar added by right-clicking on the Taskbar and choosing ‘Toolbars’ and putting a checkmark by that setting or by opening ‘My Documents’ & going up one level.

If you don’t want XP to display the programs in the Start Menu that it determines are used most frequently, right-click in the empty space on the left side of the menu, choose ‘Properties’ then ‘Start Menu’ and Customize. Click on ‘Clear List’ and set number to zero.

Right?click My Computer, and then click ‘Properties’ then ‘Advanced.’ From here you can choose for what functions the greater portion of processing and power is used and set virtual memory if you’re so inclined.

To place the programs you want permanently on the Start Menu, right-click on the program from the pop-up menu and choose ‘Pin to Start Menu.’

For a quick desktop shortcut to any folder, file or application, find the target on your hard drive, right-click and choose ‘Send to Desktop.’