Learn Desktop Tips Lesson 2 - Computer Tips

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16) Changing the clock to 24-Hour Time
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

17) Changing or Removing the Start Menu Icons
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.

18) Adding Drive to the SendTo List
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.

19) Customizing the Start Button's Name and Icon
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.

20) Create a Control Panel menu directly below the Start Button 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. Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} Other Folders can be added following the same instructions. Dial-Up Networking.{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48} Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D} Inbox.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D} My Computer.{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} Recycle Bin.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} Network Neighborhood.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D} Desktop.{00021400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} Briefcase.{85BBD920-42A0-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D} Fonts.{BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948F534} 21) Turn Off Window Animation 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. 22) Adding Send To the Recycle Bin 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. 23) Having Icons with No Name 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). 24) Moving the Start Button 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. 25) Aligning Drop-Down Menus to the Right 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. 26) Changing Drive Icons 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 [autorun] 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. 27) Adding Shortcuts to Desktop Without "Shortcut To" text 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. 28) To speed up the Start Menu 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 30) To change the Startup and Logoff screens 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 .