XPloring XP

Exploring XP

Capers and conjurations with the world’s best known OS

Life would be much easier if we had its source code… And we could tweak and tune it according to our whims and wishes. Yet, most of us are always in so much awe of our PC and its operating systems that we accept anything and everything exactly the way it is dished out to us. Shouldn’t be that way. We must learn to twist things around to suit our needs and temperament so let’s try a few capers and conjurations in the world’s most popular OS, Windows XP.

Squeaky Clean Desktop

Two kinds of Homo sapiens populate this earth. People who like to live with a cluttered Windows desktop. And freaks like me who like to keep it squeaky clean. In fact, I don’t even let the four ubiquitous system desktop icons-- My Documents, My Computer, my Network Places and Internet Explorer—mask even a pixel of my desktop’s beautiful wallpapers.

A little bit of tweaking is all it takes to make this bunch disappear (or appear). To add or subtract these icons from your desktop, right click on your desktop and select Properties. Then click the Desktop tab followed by Customize Desktop. Go to the General tab, check the appropriate boxes for the icons that you want visible on your desktop. Uncheck the boxes of the ones you want removed. Click on OK, once-twice…

Now you are wondering how I manage to quick access the aforementioned icons when required, right? Well, I use a little magic genie called ObjectDock (www.stardock.com/products/objectdock) to open these, or launch other thingies. Give this free software a try.

Lost Passwords

First let’s tackle how to cope with alost /forgotten admin password. Reboot XP in safe mode by re-starting the computer and repeatedly pressing F8 as your PC starts up. In safe mode, click on Start and then on Run. In the Open field, type “control userpasswords2” (minus quotes). This will give you access to all the User Accounts, including the administrator’s account. Click on Administrator under User Name and then on Reset Password. Type a fresh password in the New Password field, confirm it, and click on OK.

If you have lost or forgotten a user account password, life is even simpler. Log in as the computer administrator. Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > User Accounts and reset the password for the required systems user account.

Upload-Download Speed Checks

If you’re always doing soch vichar about the actual speed of your Internet connection at any given moment, here is a neat little site which lets you check your upload and download capabilities. Just zip across to www.speedtest.net and give your dabba an online velocity and drag test.

Squawking about this online business, do you know how to keep a tab on how long you have been online? Very simple haiji: simply peer at the Windows taskbar and double- click on the network connection icon (two blue/black monitors) roosting there. A pop-up window will display the duration of your current call/connection.

Quick Reboots

You have just installed a new app or upgrade. A pleasant looking pop-up pops up and orders you to restart your PC. You snarl and mentally mutter/audibly mumble an unmentionable expletive. Gaawd no, do I have to? Well, there’s no getting around that. But maybe next time you could try and remember this easy trick to speed up the entire reboot process. Simply, when you are about to press the button to restart, press and hold the Spacebar. This will get Windows XP restarted much faster.

Taskbar Tango

Here are some simple time and effort saving Windows taskbar tweaks meant to tweeze and squeeze more productivity out of your workings. Try them and take what you like.

If you want to quickly reset the time and/or date on your PC, double-click on the clock displayed in the Windows Taskbar and reset as required.

Swaraj Kishore

Helpful Shortcuts

Bored of selecting Shutdown, Restart everytime by going to Start Menu...Try This!
This process will create a shortcut of shutdown and restart commands on your desktop. For this, just follow these simple steps:-

Right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose New->Shortcut. Now type the following command in the target box (without the square brackets)

%SystemRoot%\system32\shutdown.exe -s -t 00 [to shut down]

%SystemRoot%\system32\shutdown.exe -r [to reboot]

%SystemRoot%\system32\shutdown.exe -l [to log off]

Click Next and type a name of this shortcut. Click Finish.

Shutting Down or Restarting your computer is now a double-click affair.

You can also:
Create a pre-addressed e-mail message from the desktop

If you frequently send email to abc@xyz.com or even multiple people, you can create a desktop shortcut that will launch a compose message window in your default email editor (like Outlook, Thunderbird, GMail, etc).

Just type the following command in the target box from New->Shortcut as explained previously:

mailto:abc@.com [create a new e-mail message that is pre-addressed to abc

mailto:abc@xyz.com;lmn@pqr.com [create a new e-mail message that is pre-addressed to abc as well as lmn]

Start Microsoft Office Programs without the Splash Screen

You can suppress the splash screens of Microsoft Office software like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc with a simple trick - append a /q switch in the application shortcut.

"D:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 2007\Office12\WINWORD.EXE" /q

The above example will start Microsoft Word in quiet mode.

Send an Instant Message or Make a Call via GTalk

When you have a long list of contacts in Google Talk, this will come in very handy. Create a shortcut on your desktop for gtalk buddies with whom you frequently chat or call as mentioned below:

gtalk:chat?jid=abc@gmail.com (starts a chat)

gtalk:call?jid=abc@gmail.com (starts a call)

Click on the desktop shortcut and a message window pops-up for you to type the message , no need to hunt for that name in your long GTalk buddy list. [via]

Start Skype in Minimized mode

Select an existing Skype shortcut menu or create a new one using the same method New -> Shortcut and browse for skype.exe. Add the /minimized switch.

skype.exe /minimized

Skype is minimized to system tray when it starts.

Launch Firefox with Multiple Websites

Say you want to check gmail, google search, orkut scraps in one go.

Just create a desktop shortcut with the following text in the target box.

firefox.exe "gmail.com|google.com|orkut.com"


Further if you right click on the shortcut and go to its "Properties", you can add a shortcut key after which you need to press just Ctrl+Alt+(your desired key) to execute the shortcuts.

Howzzat!!!