Windows XP Page 2

Change Default Wallpaper Folder to My Pictures on Windows XP

Have you ever wondered why Windows XP had such terribly ugly wallpapers to choose from? On top of that, there’s no way to easily change the list of backgrounds to a folder you might actually use… like your My Pictures folde…

Lowell Heddings Jan 28th, 2008

Clear Recent Commands From the Run Dialog in Windows XP

Has it ever bothered you that there isn’t an obvious way to remove the previous items in the Run box in Windows? It’s often very useful, of course… but if you are just a little bit paranoid you might want to clean out that …

Lowell Heddings Jan 13th, 2008

Turn Off the Annoying Windows XP System Beeps

When you spend a lot of time in front of your computer, the annoying beeps start to drive you mad after a while. I really don’t need to be told that I hit the wrong key anymore, so I’ve compiled a list of how to turn off all …

Lowell Heddings Jan 11th, 2008

Minimalist Explorer Breadcrumbs for Windows XP

One of the more popular changes in Windows Vista is the Explorer Breadcrumbs feature that lets you easily navigate to folders below the current folder by using the drop-down arrows. We’ve already featured one alternative for …

Lowell Heddings Dec 20th, 2007

Vista Style Analog Desktop Clock for Windows XP

One of the features that regular users seem to love in Windows Vista is the sidebar’s analog clock. Every time I glance at somebody’s desktop in a coffee shop they are using one. Windows XP users are not left out in the cold …

Lowell Heddings Dec 19th, 2007

Unofficial Windows XP Themes Created by Microsoft

Anybody who has ever tried to change the theme in Windows will already know that you have to hack the uxtheme file in order to install themes into XP that aren’t digitally signed by Microsoft. If you would rather not or are u…

Lowell Heddings Nov 14th, 2007

Get Vista Style Drive Icons in Windows XP

One of the nice little features in Windows Vista that you don’t think about is the graph of drive space for your drive icons, so you can visually see at a glance how much space is used. There’s no reason to upgrade for this f…

Lowell Heddings Nov 12th, 2007

Troubleshooting "My Computer" Opening Slowly on Windows XP

If “My Computer” takes a really long time to open on your computer, you are most likely experiencing a well-known issue where Windows hangs while trying to search for network folders and printers before displaying anything to…

Lowell Heddings Oct 30th, 2007

Customize Your Folder Icons in Windows XP

Scott pointed me in the direction of an interesting utility for Windows XP that will let you “skin” your icons by replacing the built-in folder icons with custom icons, and even assign a different color for different folders….

Lowell Heddings Oct 15th, 2007

Force Open/Save Dialogs to Use Details Mode in Windows XP

The common Open/Save dialogs are so prevalent in Windows applications that each little annoyance ends up driving us crazy after a while. The most frustrating thing for me is that you can’t save your view mode, so every time I…

Lowell Heddings Oct 6th, 2007

Another Desktop Cube for Windows XP/Vista

The Desktop Cube effect for Linux is extremely popular because people love eye candy, but the choices for Windows are much less interesting. The latest utility to give this effect for Windows is surprisingly fast, and works o…

Lowell Heddings Sep 26th, 2007

Vista Breadcrumbs for Windows XP

The same programmer that created yesterday’s Tabbed Explorer plugin also has another add-in that will give you Vista-style breadcrumbs in Windows XP. This application should be really helpful for those of you that aren’t…

Lowell Heddings Sep 5th, 2007

Resolving "Setup did not find any hard disk drives" during Windows XP Installation

One of the most popular topics among our readers is installing Windows XP on your new Windows Vista computer – sometimes for compatibility reasons, but also because a lot of people just don’t like Vista very much….

Lowell Heddings Sep 3rd, 2007

Quickly Remove Items from Windows XP Startup

Do you sigh when it comes to starting up your computer because it takes what seems an eternity to boot up? Here is a quick tip which should make your computer start up faster by removing startup items quickly….

Brian Burgess Jun 30th, 2007

Sweet Black Theme for Windows XP

I’ve received a number of emails asking where we got the sweet black theme for Windows XP in most of the screenshots. It’s the Zune theme from Microsoft, which you can get directly from their download site:…

Lowell Heddings Jun 1st, 2007

Why Do My Icons Have a Background Color in Windows XP?

If you’ve been wondering why your XP desktop icons have a background color, you’ll be glad to know you can flip a checkbox and have them go back to a normal transparent background.

Lowell Heddings May 1st, 2007

Find Your Missing USB Drive in Windows XP

Have you ever plugged in a USB drive or any external device with a hard drive and wondered why you cannot see it in My Computer?

Brian Burgess Apr 18th, 2007

Get Vista Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Windows XP

It was only a matter of time before people started cloning Windows Vista features and adding them into Windows XP. One of my favorite Vista features is the thumbnails that popup when you mouse over the taskbar. And now I can …

Lowell Heddings Mar 25th, 2007

Add Internet Explorer Icon to Windows XP / Vista Desktop

I know what you are thinking. Can’t I just make a shortcut? Of course you can. But using this tweak you can recreate the native Internet Explorer icon the way it used to be in prior versions of Windows….

Lowell Heddings Mar 7th, 2007

How To Fix System Tray Tooltips Not Displaying in Windows XP

There’s a bug in Windows XP where sometimes the system tray tooltips and popup notifications will show up behind the taskbar, or behind other windows. This is really annoying when you want to use a tooltip….

Lowell Heddings Dec 6th, 2006

Login Automatically on Windows XP Home / Professional

If your Windows XP installation forces you to login every time you reboot, you can automate the login process easily so that you won’t have to login again.

Lowell Heddings Nov 8th, 2006

Disable "Your computer might be at risk" Popup in Windows XP SP2

Since upgrading to XP SP2 a long time ago, I constantly get nagged by a popup message that tells me my computer might be at risk because I don’t have an antivirus software installed. Here’s how to turn off that annoying messa…

Lowell Heddings Nov 8th, 2006

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