To begin with, try right clicking the toolbar at the bottom. Then, click properties. This will bring up the taskbar properties screen. Here you can make changes, like hide the clock or lock the task bar in place by clicking the boxes.

Also, try selecting the adjacent tab. The start menu tab will allow you to select from two, the default and a classic style, which will be more like older versions. You can also select the customize button which will allow for further customization. You can change the icon sizes, make the smaller by selecting that option or reduce the number of programs on the start menu.

A simple short cut key, to access the start menu is on the keyboard. Usually it is located on left side and has a window icon on it. Press it, and the start menu will appear for you.

To get to the display properties quickly, first right click on the desktop. Then, on the small menu you can click on the properties tab. This will present the various display tabs and options available.

I would recommend you try downloading some skins. This will change the appearance of the desktop, and icons, like switching to the classic style. Try a Vista skin, to make XP seem like a more recent version!

At any rate, you can try out some effects by using the appearance tab, in the display box. Visit the display properties again, and select the appearance tab. Here, clicking on effects will bring up a few options that can be checked. Try changing the font to clear type. Alternatively, you can change the transition effects for menus by using the effect options available.

Another tip, make use of the system restore. For example, if you end up accidentally uninstalling an application of some sort. Instead of installing the whole program again, just restore the system to when it was installed.

There are of course, many more tips, tricks and short cuts available. There are a number of keyboard shortcuts that will access menus of some description, which you can try. The final tip, you can use the help guide on the OS to get more tips on customisation and shortcuts (windows key + f1). Overall, these are a few that you can use, to customize some aspects of the windows and desktop.

Type-Regedit.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control.

Click on the "Control" Folder.

Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"

Right click on it and select Modify.

Set it a value lower than 2000 (Mine is set to 500).

That’s it people, just do it and see the difference when u shut down your PC.

Disclaimer - This is just a little tweak I want to share. Perform at your own risk as I am not a computer software expert. I am just a nerd. Don't meddle with your windows registry unless you are an expert.

Advanced Windows Care is an excellent software and free for personal use. It can Scan and Remove Spywares, Prevent Spyware from installing on your PC, Search and Fix Registry entries and values, Optimize your system, Control and Optimize Startup items, Erase your Surfing traces and Clean up Junk files from hard disk. Additional Tools like memory optimizer, startup manager and disk manager are also provided.

Avast Antivirus

Antivirus = Bloatware. This is the equation which most of us have in mind. After all, these softwares are biggest memory consumers. But have you ever heared of light antivirus. If not, this is the one and that too free. It is pretty fast and consumes very less memory. It provides all round protection from viruses. It is perhaps the only antivirus with support for skins. Yes, you read it right, you can easily skin it. And by skins, I do not mean the just changing colors like some other softwares, the skins change whole the interface. Just see the screenshots above, they show the skinability of Avast! First one is Avast's Default interface and second is a Skin Downloaded from avast.com.

CCleaner

Advanced Windows Care will automatically fix registry issues for you but what if you are left with a nasty installer? Many times, uninstalling a program does not remove all the data from registry and you are left with the program still showing up in the Add/Remove Programs. CCleaner can help you at such times. It can Run Uninstallers, Rename Entry and Remove junk Entries. Additionally, it can clear you history, optimize registry and manage Startup Items.

IOBit Smart Defrag

PC slowness is mostly caused due to fragmentation. You have to manually defrag the drives using Windows Defrag and this takes too much time. It would be nice if you had a software that could automatically defrag your hard disk! So, here is IOBit Smart Defrag. It is free or personal use and automatically defrags your hard disk when the computer is idle. Manual defrag is also available and you can schedule a defrag. It is an install and forget solution to end your problems.

The XP Operating System has a system restore partition in the main drive which allows the restoration of the system files to any desired point.  This is particularly handy in case of a virus attack which cannot be fixed by anti-virus programs.  It is like going back time to correct a mistake.  It can be done relatively simply by following the instructions in XP itself but the following has explained this process even more.

1. Save and exit all programs that are being currently used.  Ensure that you have saved any work that you are doing, for example, on Word or other programs. You do not need any programs opened on the desktop of your computer so point your mouse to the X at the right hand top corner and close them. 
2. Point mouse to the bottom left of the computer screen to [Start] and when the menu opens upwards slide the pointer then to [|Accessories], and another menu will open and then you should click on [System tools].  
3. Another menu will open and from this next menu select [Restore my computer to an earlier time]. Then click [Next]
4. When you have clicked on [Next] another window opens and you should Select the day from the next menu, a calendar, to which to restore your system.  Then click [Next]
5. The computer will ask you to confirm that this is the Restore point (in red), confirm this on the buttons supplied and ensure all programs are closed, then click [Next], and this will begin the Restoring.

Tips to ensure smooth working

• Back up all programs.
• Word Files are not affected, and if a file is saved it will not change.
• The process can be completely reversed.
• Read ALL the instructions during the System Restore.

IExpress

A neat little install creator that lets you create installation programmes for anything. It is a simple setup creator wizard, just follow the steps. The setup programe can be .inf or an executable

Go to start and click Run. Type in : iexpress

Follow the wizard.

MS Paint

In Ms paint, you can magnify 10 *. Just click the line below the 8* magnify and there you have it, 10 *!

Telnet

This is a application that lets you connect to the internet via the command prompt. A funny sight to connect to is this starwars sight: towel.blinkenlights.nl

Clicking on the sight will not work. Go to windows, and press run
Type in : telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

Enjoy the show!

Msg box

This is pretty fun to mess around with. It will display a message box.

Go to notepad
Type in:
msgbox "your message here. whatever you want",20,"put message box title here"

Save it to "anything".vbs

A fun thing to type is, "windows is getting tired of you, please purchase a new windows that will like you" or something like that.

Shutdown Code

This is just basically a shortcut to a computer shutdown. It is easily done. However, the shutdown can only be aborted one way so do not try to do it until you have fully read this.

Right click on your desktop. Press new link.

Type in :

shutdown -s -t 20 -c "anything here"

Press ok twice.

This will now create a shutdown exe on your desktop. Once you have opened it the computer will shutdown in 20 seconds. If you go to windows run and type

Shutdown -a

The thing will go away.

Desktop Prank

You can use this to prank your friend. When he is no looking, press the PrntScrn Button on your keyboard.

Open up paint.
Press cntrl +v
Save to picture somewhere

Now right click on your desktop and press arrange icons.
Untick: Show desktop icons

Right click on your desktop and press properties
Press wall paper
Change the wall paper to the picture you saved earlier.

Now the picture will look like a desktop but it is not clickable! Watch as your friend gets confused!

Note pad trick

There is a glitch in notepad that changes the words you typed into random Chinese syllables.

Type in any word that starts with 4 letters in notepad,

press space type a three letter word,

space again and another three letter word, space again,

finally type a five letter word. Save it to anything. Close it, and open it again.

Just remember it has to be 4-3-3-5

Cool wall paper trick (MsPaint)

To make a very cool wall paper:
Open up Ms Paint
In picture go to properties.
Type in 5 for width and 1 for height.
Magnify it 8 *
Color the pixelswith a pencil.

1 pixel a color.(you should have 5 colors)
Save it to be your desktop. MAKE SURE IT IS CENTERED.
(note: you can do more than 5)
See how cool it is?

Create a invisible folder

Create a folder
Rename it
While rename it, hold alt and type 0610 ON THE NUMPAD
Now right click on the folder
Go to properties.
Go to the third tab along.
Select a blank picture.

Hehehe! Secret files!

Windows hidden theme song

Go to My computer
C:
Windows
System 32
oobe
images
title.wma

Listen to it, its relaxing!

Vista offers the following controls, in addition to Internet Explorer's built-in Parental Controls:

• Windows Vista Web Filter

This controls what websites, downloads and other miscellaneous web usage is allowed.

• Time limits

This controls time curfews on computer usage, in case you are not around to enforce it.

• Games

This setting allows you to limit what type of games can be played on this particular user account.

• Allow and Block Specific Programs

This setting allows you to prevent any other activity in case it doesn't fall in Vista's guidelines, and for other manual fine-tuning.

Vista also has a feature called Activity Viewer, which will show you the top-ten websites visited, blocked, as well as file downloads and attempted (blocked) downloads, any games played (though web-based games have to be managed through the Vista Web Filter), e-mail and instant-messaging events as well. This feature can be engaged independantly of all other parental controls.

To begin using Parental Controls in Vista, simply:

1. Click the Start Orb and left-click on Control Panel. This will bring up a new window.
2. Within this window, double-left click on User Accounts. The window will change into the User Controls window.
3. On the left hand pane, single left-click Parental Controls. (this is usually found under See Also: Parental Controls at the bottom-left corner of your screen) This may take a minute to load, so be patient. A "User Access Control" window may come up as well, if it does, click Continue.
4. From the Parental Controls window, click on the account you wish to apply new controls to. If one does not exist, here is your opportunity to create a new one via the control at the bottom labeled Create a new user account. Otherwise, click on the account you wish to work on.
5. The controls for that specific account will come up. Most of them will be grayed out, to start. To enable the other controls, simply click On, enforce current settings under Parental Controls.
6. Once On, enforce current settings is enabled, the rest of the window lights up. To go into the details of each feature, simply click on the words that are lit up for that option, and to enable, disable, and customize the strength of each setting to your liking. Also, note that you can come back here any time to customize filtering if it is too strict, not strict enough or if your teenager has just been grounded!

A quick summary of available features:

Vista Web Filter

Beneath this setting you will find the ability to block all, or only some specific, web content. If you choose to block only some, you can then edit a block list to add and remove blocked content. If you choose not to block specific content, you can utilize a built-in web restriction level which will attempt to sort out content for you. If you choose "Custom", you will get a front end that allows you to choose what content the user of this account should and should not be seeing. Note that this is not foolproof as new websites come out every day, but it should block a very high degree of them. Lastly, you can choose to block or allow downloads on this account.

Time Limit

This option will give you a week-style calendar in which you can click to block a specific time period (in increments of one hour). Click that square again to unblock it. This account will not be able to log on during the blocked periods!

Games

This option allows you to choose which installed software may be launched from this user account. You can block all games, or a varying setting based on user age. This works with Vista-capable software to judge what that game's setting is. If you are concerned about a piece of software in particular, you can also block it using this section of parental controls.

Allow and Block Specific Programs

This section defines whether the user can use all programs (with the exception of those listed above), or ones that are specifically allowed, also known as a whitelist.

View Activity Reports

If you've enabled this feature for this user account, you may come back to this section under your profile to view activity reports. This will give you a summary of that user's latest activity, such as web sites visited, attempted downloads, logon times, and programs that have been run.

I sincerely hope that this introduction to Vista's Parental Controls has been helpful to you. If you believe it has, please consider forwarding this website to your friends, so that they too might get the most out of their computer!

My nephew laughed at me, saying that he keeps his computers running all the time. He never turns them off. Yes, but a laptop? That did not sound right to me, so I checked on line to see whether any of the geeks out there had anything to say about this. Oddly enough, computers that refuse to turn off are fairly common. It seems to happen a lot with Windows XP. Now, I have used this operating system almost since it first came out, and I have never seen or heard of that problem before.

One of he experts from Microsoft said that Windows XP needs to be updated to solve this problem. Someone else said that maybe something is running that you don't know about. I talked with my programming wizard nephew and my geek son, and they both said that I should take the battery out of the laptop when I want to turn it off. Neither one of them could see anything else to do with it.

I looked at all those alternatives and decided that I did not want to take my chances on an update from Microsoft, and I could not figure out what program might still be running, though I suspect it may have been an instant messenger program. I did not want to open up the computer to try to figure out which piece inside it was the battery, so the advice from my son and nephew wasn't very practical.

The silly thing stayed on all night, even though I had turned it off at least a dozen times. The next morning, I looked at everything that was plugged into it, and thought about all those automatic updates and all the stories I've read about back doors being installed on our computers so that the government can keep track of what we do online, and I unplugged it from the internet. This time, when I turned the computer off, it stayed off until I turned it on again. Now, when I want to turn the computer off, I unplug it from the Internet. It has worked fine ever since.

"Tux" in geekdom implies penguins. And penguins in the computer world could only mean LINUX!

A "Distro" is an abbreviation of "Distribution" meaning one of either:

• 1) A package of the Linux kernel with a desktop interface and numerous programs
• 2) A set of software components, typically (but not necessarily) open source components, that have been packaged into a larger product or component

Dating Linux distros

I started out using a Linux distro called "Puppy". It was fun, fast, a very small download. I learned a little bit about Linux and became hooked. It reminded me of the good ol' carefree days of DOS. I lived in DOS, the pre-WINDOWS "Disk Operating System" that was the only way to do anything in a computer back in the day of i286 and earlier

I was liking it. Linux can be fun and you get a sense of "being involved" with what is happening with your computer.

I switched to "DSL" ("Damn Small Linux") for a while. Then, -what did I try next? I forget. I casually dated a few available Linux distros but I ended up almost going steady with a relatively newcomer, "PCLinuxOS". We had an off and on relationship for several months. More off-&-on, I'm afraid. My ex, -that's "XP" to most people, still had a strong hold over me.

Then, I switched to Ubuntu. I don't why or what inspired me to try Ubuntu. I just have this secret crush on Linux and good things were being said about Ubuntu. More than an anti-MS diatribe, the whole concept of "open source" appeals to me on some primary level and I wanted some. The same could be argued of any Linux Distro but the Ubuntu mantra of "It Just Works" appealed deeply and isn't that the Holy Grail of a computer's Operating Systems? That they "just work"?

Growing pains

But with Ubuntu I had this nagging problem that it returned errors on start-up trying to mount ("install drivers" for) my USB ports. It "searched" for about a minute to find an appropriate driver I guess before failing, returning an error message and then moving on to the NEXT USB port, etc. I have six USB ports. So, to boot Ubuntu took about 6 or 7 minutes it seemed (probably a bit less than, but easily 3X longer than XP!)

I could not really get any "help" with this, -even in the Ubuntu forums the best answer that anyone could provide was a sincere "...what a wonderful opportunity for you to learn something new!" And yeah, their glass really is half-full. I didn't really NEED my USB ports as much as I needed Ubuntu to start-up in under 7-minutes. That is what I needed.

These people were of course, completely and undeniable correct about the "you could learn" bit. But I wasn't after a learning experience, I wanted a faster boot and solving the USB error messages was how to achieve this. What I wanted (and let's be brutally honest) was a handout FIX. A "download this and run it" solver patch. Whatever. Even a "cheat sheet" would suffice. A 'do this, this and then do this, and voilá! FIXED!'

-Wasn't happening' folks. I should have figured this out. Yes, I may have missed an important opportunity to LEARN something useful. Ubuntu is an awesome distro but that it was not working right pained me too much. I wanted it to, well, keep it's vows and ...just work

Little sister Kubuntu

So, just over a week ago I switched to KUBUNTU. I have heard that is is very easy to learn, etc.

Well, the USB ports were now being recognized and the interface was pretty awesome, beautiful and pristine. Yet, it is seemed MORE confusing than even UBUNTU! There are just too many choices. KDE has been around longer than GNOME so there's more support for it just because there are more programs for it. But that isn't necessarily a GOOD thing, is it, -too many choices? (A rhetorical question. I am not expecting any challenges and they will go un-answered if there are any). It just felt to me that KUBUNTU has this "clunkiness" about it. That it seemingly struggled to do anything. For example, for two days I played around with the CD-player AMORAK trying to get something in the way of music out of my CD-player. Come to find out, it was working, -I just had to turn the sound up to 100% to actually HEAR anything! Rather faint, but there was sound. Granted, my sound card is a cheapie but it WORKS and it should be quite audible at even 50%...

So, in desperation, I found and installed old flame http://www.pclinuxos.com/ PCLinuxOS 2007. Okay... WOW!!!! They changed a LOT of things with PCLinuxOS! A new desktop, faster load-time, -a new attitude! The whole experience is slipstreamed

PCLinuxOS is still KDE, the "K-Desktop Environment" and while I am the most comfortable using the other environment "GNOME", this has a welcoming feeling about it. I can learn this

I have read that PCLinuxOS was originally based upon Mandrake 9.2 but later changed to Mandriva 2007. Maybe this is the notable change I mentioned? I'm pretty sure that this isn't the same distro that I used over a year ago. It is better!

More Praise for PCLinuxOS

It's very slick, smooth, -even more so than before. Easy to use, intuitive, almost sublime! For me it loads in about one-minute fifteen seconds to the "log-on" screen and another 15-seconds for me to type my phat-def password in and then, I'm using Linux again. A "under 2-minute start-up" beats Ubuntu/Kubuntu's 3 and 5+minute respectively start-up times!

In fairness, the faults here are probably all mine. Other people have not had the difficulty with the Ubuntu/Kubuntu distros as I have. Or, -maybe they have? I don't know. I have not been to the Ubuntu forum in awhile. But I'm definitely going to drop by the PCLinuxOS boards. I like my new Operating System. A lot

Instead of 'It just works' and "It just works, barely", I've gone back to "PCLinuxOS" and likely here I shall stay for a long, long time. They herald PCLinuxOS as "the distro-hopper stopper". I readily concur

The opinions expressed in this article, while biased and probably to be taken somewhat lightly, are free to become your own. That is "open source". I recommend anyone interested in trying Linux to give PCLinuxOS a chance.

What was the solution?

Before installing Internet again, I installed AVG Antivirus. I used to buy computer magazines so it was easy to install it without Internet access. I installed Zone Alarm firewall as well as Spybot Search and Destroy.

Zone Alarm stops more than 1000 attacks a day. As soon as I turn off Zone Alarm and I surf the Internet, I see the lights flashing even if I am not using the Internet anymore. I turn on Zone Alarm and I see the insane amounts of programs that are trying to access the Internet and were not supposed too.

It's very difficult to keep XP secure and running properly without spending so much money on extra software. It's more profitable to buy Vista instead.

When I bought my laptop with Vista I saw the diference. Vista already has firewall and anti spyware integrated. It was built on security and a free anti virus such as AVG is more than good enough for it.

If you can afford I really recomend you to upgrade your operating system immediately. The only problem is you need at least 2.5 GB of RAM for it to run properly. Even with that amount of RAM I press CTRL+ALT+DEL and I see that there is less than 32 MB of Free RAM left...