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Windows XP - Change Appearance & Esthetics

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

"An ounce of appearance is worth a pound of production." OK, maybe not, but since I work for myself, I'm my own boss. What am I going to do, fire me? Not likely.

There are numerous options to dress up, customize and personalize WinXP that were not available in previous Windows versions. Here's a bunch of them. I'll add more as they're revealed to me.

Please note that appearance options are an antithesis to performance options. This is a personal choice, but if you've got the horsepower you can have both. A processor over over a gig with half a gig of RAM won't see much of a performance hit from dressing up the desktop, although you might want to drop some advanced graphic options for a fragfest.

One-Button Adjustment
To change the built-in functions for either speed or visual effects, right-click on the 'My Computer' icon, then 'Properties' and the 'Advanced' tab. Hit the 'Settings' button and choose either 'Adjust for best appearance' or 'Adjust for best performance' to flip the switch on all of the graphical enhancements.

Folder Icons
For all folders except Thumbnails, pictures may be added or different icons may be chose, either from those in SHELL32.dll (default) or from any icon collection on your hard drive. Just right-click on the folder, choose 'Properties' then the 'Customize' tab & browse away.

Clear Type Innovation
This little goody, originally developed for laptops, will enhance your experience, both on and off the Internet. Hey. don't take my word for it, go here, say 'Yes' for the little program install the tune and tweak to you heart's content. You will enjoy the results.

Change is Good and So Easy
The quickest way to change your user name and the picture that appears next to it on the Start Menu is to double-click on that picture. From the menu that appears, you can change lotsa stuff. Pick a new picture. The pictures are 48 X 48 by default, but Windows XP will resize whatever you choose. The closer to the default size (and square), the better your results will be. Scan your face. Have fun with it. You can also prevent the irritating highlighting of newly-installed programs. Leave the option 'Set up my account to use .NET Passport' alone 'cause it's a security nightmare.

Your Desktop - Your Choices
Right-click on the Desktop. select 'Properties' then the 'Desktop' tab.
Hit the 'Customize Desktop' button and select which icons you want to appear.

In order to allow items (like custom shortcuts) to be added to the Taskbar, just right-click on it, choose 'Toolbars' then 'Quick Launch.' Delete any icons you don't want, drag shortcuts from the desktop to this new area.

Folder Options
Each folder can use its own display properties, set from the 'View' drop-down menu. Thumbnails makes sense for folders that contain images, of course. To speed the loading of this option go to the Control Panel and click 'Folder Options.' Under the 'View' tab, be certain that 'Do not cache thumbnails' is not checked.

The Ultimate Appearance Tweak
Microsoft Sez: "You can connect up to 10 monitors to your Windows XP-based computer and display numerous programs or windows at one time. You can use your mouse to move items from one monitor to
another. You can open a different file on each monitor. Or several. Or you can stretch one item across several monitors; so for example, you can see more columns in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or the entire layout of a Web page, without scrolling." Consider it. Monitors and PCI video cards are pretty cheap now. Windows recognizes the addition & allows easy adjustments on the 'Display Properties/Settings' menu.

posted by Draven @ 11:37 PM

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