To create a shortcut that will open your default e-mail program starting a new e-mail,

Right click on an open area of the desktop

Select New / Shortcut

For the Command Line, enter mailto:

For the title enter something like New E-Mail

When you click on this your default e-mail program should start with a new e-mail form.

You can create a nice 3D effect for your windows

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Colors

Make sure the following setting are there:

To create the icons, create a shortcut on the desktop.

For Shutdown, the command is C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE user.exe,exitwindows

For Restart, the command is C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE user.exe,exitwindowsexec

For Logoff, the command is C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE shell32.dll,SHExitWindowsEx 0

If your Start Menu Program or Favorites are not sorting alphabetically, it is easy to fix this:

Start Regedit

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/MenuOrder

Under here is are Favorites and Start Menu folders

In each there is a value called Order

Simply delete (or rename this) and restart Winodws

Your Favorites or Start Menus should now sort alphabetically                                    Go to Top

Run Regedit

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer

Create a new string called Max Cached Icons

Give it a value of 10000

This will increase response time in windows and give the Shellicon cache file more elbow room

Open the Registry

Hit Ctrl+F

Type Shell Icon BPP

When found, right click the Shell Icon BPP icon

Click Modify

Change the value from 4 to 16

Click Ok

Close the registry

Restart your computer

An easy way to remove those irritating arrows from your desktop shortcut icons and not change their properties

Right click the Desktop / Properties / Appearance tab

Select Item

Scroll for Icon

The default size is 32

Change this to 30

Clicking Apply                                                                                                    Go to Top

Open up the Explorer

Go to \WINDOWS\Start Menu

Right click in the right-hand panel

Add a new folder

Name it Control Panel.{21ec2020-3aea-1069-a2dd-08002b30309d}

This makes getting to the Control Panel items a little easier

To make changes to the Desktop like window size, positon after rebooting:

Start Regedit

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Create a New Binary Value

Name it NoSaveSettings

Give it a value of 01 00 00 00

To change the icon of a Folder on desktop:

Using the Explorer, move the folder from the Desktop directory to another directory on the hard drive

Right click on the new folder and select "Create Shortcut"

Move the shortcut to the Desktop

Right click and select a new icon

Start Regedit

Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER /ControlPanel /Desktop /DragFullWindows

On "DragFullWindows" properties change 0 to 1                                                        Go to Top

If you need to get a screen shot, and you do not have a screen capture program, try this:

Hit the Print Screen key. This copies a bitmap of the full screen into the Windows clipboard. Start up a graphics editor and paste it in.

Alt + Print Screen will capture only the active window.

How to adjust the width of the scroll bar:

Select Properties

Select the Appearance tab

Go to the item list and find scrollbar.

Increasing the value in the Size field will increase the scrollbar width.

To change a folder's icon:

Open Notepad and enter two lines,

IconFile=file name,number

Save the file as DESKTOP.INI in the folder you wish to change.

Click Start -> Run, type in the command line,

ATTRIB +S "folder name"

(e.g. ATTRIB +S "C:\Custom Folder")

Open Explorer or My Computer and refresh (press F5 key).

This tip only work Windows 95/NT 4.0 + IE 4.0 with shell integration, or Windows 98/NT 5.0.

To remove Recycle Bin from the desktop:

Run REGEDIT.

Find NAMESPACE key in left pane (HKEY_Local_Macine \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Current Version \ Explorer \ Desktop \ Namespace)

Expand NAMESPACE (click '+' box)

Delete the value RECYCLE BIN in right pane                                                            Go to Top

Add a SHORTCUT TO THE RECYCLE BIN in your SEND TO folder.

That way you can just right click on a file you want to delete, and send it to the recycle bin without having to confirm each time.

Normally you have to have a name for an icon, just spaces are not allowed.

To create an icon with no name attached:

Make sure NumLock is on

Highlight the Icon you want to change

Right-Mouse click and select Rename

While holding down the Alt key, type 0160

Now the icon will have no name below it.

To Create Multiple Icons with No Name - From John R.

Follow directions detailed above

With the second icon simply add one space-bar character AFTER the 0160 number.

Each successive icon gets an additional space-bar character at the end (to prevent a duplicate naming error).

How to move or close the start button!

Click on the Start button

Press the Esc key

Press the Alt and the - keys together

This will give you a menu, you can move or close

But if you move it you need to use the arrow keys and not the mouse.                        Go to Top

All dropdown menus can be aligned to the right.

This features becomes useful when trying to access

menus with submenus that appear directly to the right.

Open the Registory editor (e.g. regedit.exe)

Goto \\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Create a string entry called "MenuDropAlignment"

Set its value to 1

Reboot

Note: Will not work under NT 4.0.

To change a drive's icon when you open My Computer

Create a file called AUTORUN.INF on the root of your hard drive

Enter the lines

ICON=Name of the ICON file

For the name of the icon file you can either specify the path and name (e.g. ICON=C:\WINDOWS\ICONS\MY_ICON.ICO) or

a specific icon in a library (e.g. ICON=ICONFILE.DLL,2)

Start Regedit

Go to:HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer

Add binary value to Explorer:link="00,00,00,00"

Now You can make Shortcuts to desktop without Shortcut To" text.                            Go to Top

To change the display of the clock on the taskbar to 24-hour format:

Open the Control Panel

Double-click on the Regional Settings icon

Click on the Time tab

In the Time style section select H:mm:ss

Download Microangelo and install it.

Create a blank.ico file.

Put it in a directory (C:\Windows. Then double click on the Microangelo Engineer to run it.

When you get it up on the screen click on the "start" tab. You will see a list of all the icons in the start menu.

Highlight the first one (programs) and select "Change". It will bring up a dialog box - select "browse".

Go to the directory that contains the blank icon and select it. Hit OK until you get back to the main

Engineer window and do all the rest exactly the same way.

When you have finished changing them all to the blank icon, Hit "Apply".

Hit your start button and look to see if all the icons are invisible. (They should be.)

Close out Micro Engineer and you're finished.

I have recently found that if you want to send something from A: drive or from any where to any drive, you can just make a short cut of that drive in subdirectory SENDTO.

For example I have two hard drives, a Floppy Drive, and a CDROM

After I have make a copy of each of my drive I will be able to send a whole directory of E:\XXX from the CDROM drive to A: drive or any other drive that i have had made the short c t in the SENDTO subdir of WINDOWS.                                                                                          Go to Top

To change the name of the Start button:

Copy EXPLORER.EXE in your Windows directory to another directory

Start a hex editor (I've been using Diskedit from Norton)

Edit EXPLORER.EXE

Search for the string 53 00 74 00 61 00 72 00 74

This is the word Start with the letters separated by a null character

The section you are in should also have the words "There was an internal error..." also separated with the null character immediately following

Now just replace the Start letters with any of your choice (up to 5 characters only)

Exit Windows

Boot to DOS

Copy your new Explorer file over the original

To change the Start button icon:

Copy USER.EXE in your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory to another directory

Use an icon editor that can replace icons in executable files

Edit USER.EXE and replace the flag icons with the icon of your choice

Boot to DOS

Copy the new USER.EXE

The same can be done with NT 4.0, just the offset will be different but the location to just before "There was an internal error..." is the same.

Click the Start Button once with your right mouse button. You should see a right-button menu (called a context menu because it offers different choices in different contexts).

You should see the items Open, Explore, and Find on the context menu. Click Explore with your left mouse button.

An Explorer file management window should open. A directory tree should appear in the left pane, with the right pane displaying the contents of the Start Menu folder.

Right-click any empty space within the right pane. A context menu should appear. Click New and then Folder.

The Explorer will create a highlighted icon called New Folder. Type in the following string, all on one line, replacing the words New Folder with this new line. You must type the period, the curly braces, all four hyphens, and the hexadecimal numbers exactly as shown. After the closing curly brace, press Enter.

Other Folders can be added following the same instructions.

Fonts.{BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948F534}                                                  Go to Top

You can shut off the animation displayed when you minimize and maximize windows.

This tip makes navigating Windows 95 a lot faster especially for those that don't have

super fast video cards.

Open Regedit

HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Control panel

Desktop

WindowMetrics

Right Mouse Click an empty space in the right pane.

Select new/string value.

Name the new value MinAnimate.

Doubleclick on the new string value (MinAnimate) and click on "Modify"

Enter a value of 0 for Off or 1 for On then hit

Close Regedit and all programs then reboot.

Start the REGEDIT program

Search for the word desktop

This should be in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT / CLSID / {00021400...

Right Click on the right panel

Pick NEW / String Value.

Name it MenuShowDelay, all one word.

Select a value from 1-10, 1 being the fastest.

Exit REGEDIT

Restart Windows                                                                                                 Go to Top

Startup Screen

Create a 320x400 bitmap in the root directory and name it LOGO.SYS

You can use LOGOW.SYS file in the Windows directory as a starter

Logoff Screens

There are several files called LOGOX.SYS

They are actually bitmaps 320x400 that just have a different extension

The hidden one in the root directory LOGO.SYS is the startup logo.

There are two files in the Windows directory.

LOGOW.SYS is the Wait while Shutting down ... screen

LOGOS.SYS is the You may now shut-off or Reboot screen

To edit them, rename them with a BMP extension and use your favorite graphic editor

You can edit these files or create you own

They just need to be the same size