Remove text from desktop icons

Tool: None

Right click on the icon whose title you want to remove and select Rename. Instead of entering any characters in the text box, hold down the ALT key and type 255 (ALT + 2 + 5 + 5). Note you need to use the NUMPAD numbers for this to work (i.e. the numbers to the right of your arrow keys, not the ones at the top of the keyboard). When you release the ALT key the title will be blank, and you can press ENTER to accept this (blank titles are usually denied under Windows, but not this way). For every other icon for which you wish to remove the title, do the same as above, but for each subsequent icon you'll have to add a '255' to the end of the string you enter. That is, to blank a second icon name, you'll need to hold down ALT and type 255 then 255 again, then release ALT. For a third, you'll have to type ALT 255 255 255, and so on. PS : madleb just informed us that this tweak just works for up to 5 desktop icons and you'll need to use the spacebar in between the multiple 255, like 255[space]255[space]255 !

Remove the box around desktop icon titles

Tools: System Properties

If you followed my first XP Guide, you would have removed most fancy visual effects for maximum performance. However, if you've applied the 'Remove text from desktop icons' tweak above, and you still see a faint box where the text was (and you're fussy about things like that), you can remove that box by doing the following:

1. Go to Control Panel>System>Advanced and click the Settings button under Performance.

2. Put a tick against the Visual Effects tab and tick 'Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop'. Click OK.

3. Check your desktop. The boxes should be gone, regardless of whether you removed the text or not. If they're still there, right click on the desktop, look under Arrange Icons By and make sure there's no tick against 'Lock Web Items on Desktop'.

This effect is a virtually insignificant drain on performance, so re-enabling it won't do any major harm if you want a cleaner looking desktop, particularly if you've removed icon text labels. However hardcore performance nuts should leave it off as suggested in my first XP Guide.

Create desktop icons for Shutdown or Restart

Tool: Create Shortcut Wizard

Instead of clicking Start>Turn Off Computer and selecting Shutdown or Restart, you can create desktop icons which automatically shutdown or restart your PC with just a double-click. This tweak makes use of the Shutdown.exe command to create a new shortcut as follows:

Shutdown Icon

1. Right click on an empty area on your desktop.

2. Select New>Shortcut.

3. In the first box of the Create Shortcut Wizard, type "Shutdown -s -t 00" (without quotes). Click Next.

4. Call the shortcut something like "Shutdown PC" (without quotes) and click Finish.

5. To add the finishing touch, right click on this new icon, select Properties, click the Change Icon button and select an appropriate icon.

Reboot Icon

Follow the same steps as for the Shutdown Icon, but substitute the following steps in place of the corresponding ones above:

3. In the first box of the Create Shortcut Wizard, type "Shutdown -r -t 00" (without quotes). Click Next.

4. Call the shortcut something like "Restart PC" without quotes and click Finish.

Note that double-clicking on these icons will shutdown or restart the PC straight away without any warning. If you want a countdown before a shutdown or restart, substitute a time in seconds in place of the '00' entries in the shortcut properties above (e.g. Shutdown -s -t 10 gives 10 seconds warning before shutting down). Also note that once the shutdown or restart process begins via an icon, it can't be aborted. If you want more command line switches which can be used with the shutdown command, open a command prompt and type "shutdown" (without quotes) to see the full list of switches.

Create Desktop icon to lock the computer

Tool: Create Shortcut Wizard

1. Right click on an empty area on your desktop.

2. Select New>Shortcut.

3. In the first box of the Create Shortcut Wizard, type "Rundll32.exe User32.dll,LockWorkStation" (without quotes). Note there is no space between the comma and LockWorkStation, which is also one word. Click Next.

4. Call the shortcut something like "Lock PC" (without quotes) and click Finish.

5. To add the finishing touch, right click on the new icon, select Properties, click the Change Icon button and select an appropriate icon.

Now whenever you click this icon your PC will instantly be locked, and can only be accessed by the user entering a correct password in the Login box. Note you can also lock the computer at any time by press WINDOWS + L. Also note that if you have an account with no password, locking the desktop is a little pointless as anyone can login by just leaving the password field blank and clicking OK to log back in.

Save desktop icon positions

Tool: Two files from the MS Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit (26KB). Download them from here.

This is one of my favorite tweaks because I'm a real neatness freak about my desktop icons. Basically this tweak allows you to save the positions of your desktop icons, so you can restore the icons to their saved positions at any time in the future. To give you this added functionality in XP, do the following:

1. Download the file Layout.zip from the link under Tools above, and extract the contents to an empty directory.

2. Copy Layout.dll to the WindowsSystem32 directory on the hard drive which contains Windows XP.

3. Double click on the Layout.reg file to automatically make the appropriate changes to your registry.

4. Now go to your desktop and arrange the icons as you'd like them to be saved.

5. Once done, right click on the Recycle Bin and select 'Save Desktop Icon Layout'. The positions of all the icons are now saved. You can move the icons around freely, however whenever you want them restored to their original saved positions, right click on Recycle Bin again and select 'Restore Desktop Icon Layout'. Bingo!

This is particularly handy if you're installing new graphics card drivers for example and your desktop icons get messed up, or you change resolutions and they get bumped around, or if you accidentally move an icon while trying to double click on it.

Change desktop icon size

Tool: Regedit

[HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktopWindowMetrics]

Shell Icon Size=32 The value of this entry determines the size in pixels both for the height and width of desktop icons. The smaller the value, the smaller the desktop icon. Default value is 32, which is a 32 x 32 pixel icon. Create the entry as a new String if it doesn't exist, and reboot Windows (or use the Explorer trick under Before We Begin) to implement the new icon size.

Set spacing between desktop icons

Tool: Display Properties

To adjust the spaces between your desktop icons, you can manually move them. However if you've chosen automatic spacings (Right click on desktop and select Arrange Icons by>Auto Arrange) then you can adjust the vertical and horizontal spaces placed between each icon by right clicking on the desktop and choosing Properties to bring up the Display Properties box. Next select the Appearance tab, then the Advanced button. Under items select Icon Spacing (Horizontal) and Icon Spacing (Vertical) and edit the values to determine how many pixels are placed between the icons. The defaults are 43 pixels between icons. Smaller values squeeze them together, higher values spread them apart.

Remove 'Shortcut to...' from new shortcuts

Tool: Regedit

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorer]

Link=00 00 00 00 If this entry doesn't exist, create it as a new Binary value, and set it equal to 00 00 00 00 to remove the 'Shortcut to...' prefix in front of new shortcuts. Reboot Windows (or use the Explorer trick under Before We Begin) to implement the change.

Create a custom popup menu on the taskbar

Tool: Explorer, Taskbar

To put your favorite shortcuts all under one easy-to-access popup menu on the taskbar, do the following:

1. Open Explorer and create a new folder wherever you like.

2. Put shortcuts to all your favorite programs/pictures/do*****ents/songs in this folder.

3. Right-click on an empty area of your Taskbar, and choose Toolbars>New Toolbar.

4. In the New Toolbar dialog box, browse to where you created your new folder with all the shortcuts, highlight the folder and click OK.

You will now have a new item on your Taskbar with the name of the folder you created earlier. Click on the double arrows just above its name and you'll get a popup menu of all the programs you can now quickly access. If you want to remove this folder from the Taskbar, right click on an empty area of the Taskbar and select Toolbars, and untick the folder's name from the list.

Windows XP Themes

Tool: Display Properties, Various Utilities and Guides.

One of the biggest benefits of Windows XP over other Windows versions is that you can customize the Graphical User Interface (GUI) or "skin" as much as you want. By default XP comes with 2 main skins or "Visual Styles" as Microsoft calls them – Windows Classic Style and Windows XP Style. You can choose either of these by going to Control Panel>Display Properties>Appearance and selecting either under the Windows and Buttons section. Note that you must have Themes enabled. Do this by going to Control Panel>System>Advanced, click the Settings button under Performance and on the Visual Effects tab make sure there's a tick next to 'Use visual styles on windows and buttons'.

Microsoft has not made it easy to modify or install any styles beyond those it provides. You'll need special tools and some detailed information on how to download and install new themes, or to create your own. Rather than getting into those details here, I'll refer you to these websites which cover just that and much more, including a huge range of pre-made themes you can download and install:

ThemeXP.org

XPTheme.info

Wincustomize.com

Windowsblinds.net

These are the best sites for Windows XP customization. For an excellent guide which takes you through the steps required to change your Windows Bootup screen, Login screen and GUI, try this recent WinXP Customizing Guide.