Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

Clear history from notification area In Windows XP

This task contains steps that helps you  modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs.


To clear the Past Items list, perform the following steps:

1. Delete the IconStreams and PastIconsStream values from the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify


2. Open Task Manager–> click the Processes tab–> click Explorer.exe–> and then click End Process.


3. In Task Manager–> click File–> click New Task–> type explorer–> and then click OK.

To verify that the fix worked, restart your computer. Right click on the system tray–> click on properties–> Scrool down and check if the past items has been cleared.

Enable Administrator Account during Log On

We can easily get the administrator account by just pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete during log on screen where we see different accounts. But If we want to see the Administrator account along with all the other user accounts during log on we need to follow the following steps: 

1. Open command prompt by typing the command CMD in Run window

2. Type net user Administrator /active:yes at the prompt C:\> and press enter then we will see the administrator account in addition to other user accounts.

This works even for windows 7.

Windows XP Explorer Tips

Display Folder Path in Explorer Title Bar

When you open a subfolder from Explorer in Windows XP, such as C:\Downloads\Graphics or C:\Multimedia Files\Graphics,
only the name of the subfolder, i.e. “Graphics“, appears in the folder’s title bar. If you have multiple folders on your computer with the same name, it may prove confusing to determine the full path of a particular opened folder. For
example, if the Taskbar contains two buttons representing a folder “Graphics“, which button relates to which folder?

You can configure Explorer to show the full path in the folder’s title bar. This way you can quickly glance at the window, or the folder’s button on the Windows Taskbar, to see exactly which path is represented by a particular Explorer window.

• Open My Computer.

• Choose “Tools” then “Folder Options“.

• When the multi-tabbed dialog box appears, select the “View” tab.

• Check “Display the full path in the title bar“.

• Click “OK” to close the dialog box.

Take ownership of a file

If you must access a file or a folder that you do not have rights to, you must take ownership of that file or folder. When you do this, you replace the security permissions that were originally created for the file or folder.

To take ownership of a file, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the file that you want to take ownership of–> and then click Properties.

2. Click the Security tab–> and then click OK on the Security message (if one appears).

3. Click Advanced–> and then click the Owner tab.

4. In the Name list–> click Administrator–> or click the Administrators group–> and then click OK.

The administrator or the administrators group now owns the file.

customizing icons on Windows XP

     

    My friend asked me the other day how to customize icons on Windows XP. How can you change the Icon picture? We have 2 ways to change the icons, both by using the built-in methods and also with additional software in Windows XP.

Icon customization is usually used because of multiple folder and Sub folders  and through this you can easily Identify what folder contains say you can mark your personal files with your picture so that you can Identify folder instead of looking inside the folder

Changing My Computer, My Documents, and Recycle Bin Icons Manually

Right-click on the desktop and choose Properties, then on the Desktop tab you should choose the Customize Desktop button.

In the Desktop Items dialog you can select one of the icons and click the Change Icon button.

Now just click the Browse button, and pick whichever icon file you would prefer.

Change Icons for Specific Folders Manually

You can change the icon for many folders by right-clicking the folder and choosing Properties, and then clicking Change Icon on the Customize tab.

You could manually create or edit the file if you choose, instead of using the dialogs. The IconFile line can be adjusted to point to a custom icon file. If you are pointing to a .ico file you should change the IconIndex line to 0 instead.

Note: This isn’t available for all folders, for instance you can’t use this to change the icon for the Windows folder. 

Schedule Tasks in Windows XP

With Scheduled Tasks, you can schedule any script, program, or document to run at a time that is most convenient for you. Scheduled Tasks starts every time that you start Windows XP and runs in the background, and it starts each task that you schedule at the time that you specify when you create the task.

To open Scheduled Tasks:

1. click Start–> click All Programs–> point to Accessories–> point to System Tools–> and then click Scheduled Tasks.

To schedule a new task:

1. Double-click Add Scheduled Task to start the Scheduled Task Wizard, and then click Next in the first dialog box.

2. The next dialog box displays a list of programs that are installed on your computer, either as part of the Windows XP operating system, or as a result of software installation.

Use one of the following procedures:

• If the program that you want to run is listed, click the program, and then click Next.
• If you want to run a program, script, or document that is not listed, click Browse, click the folder and file that you want to schedule, and then click Open.

3. Type a name for the task, and then choose one of the following options:

• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• One time only
• When my computer starts (before a user logs on)
• When I log on (only after the current user logs on)

4. Click Next–> specify the information about the day and time to run the task–> and then click Next.

Note that the information about the day and time to run the task vary depending on the selection that you made in the previous wizard dialog box. For example, if you chose Weekly, you must indicate the day of the week, the time, and if the task should run every week, every 2 weeks, every 3 weeks, and so on.

5. Type the name and password of the user who is associated with this task. Make sure that you choose a user with sufficient permissions to run the program. By default, the wizard selects the name of the user who is currently logged on.

6. Click Next–> and then click Finish after you verify the choices that you have made. 

Set Higher Priority to Certain Applications

If you do a lot of multitasking in Windows XP or in any operating system like Windows 7, you might find that some programs are faster than the others running simultaneously.

For instance, if you are using Adobe Photoshop or SQL alongside Microsoft Outlook you might find that Outlook works faster than the other two.

Know why? It is because the processor time has equal priority on all running applications. But in reality, huge programs need a higher priority time.

Let’s see how you can set higher priority to certain applications

1. First open the applications that you use simultaneously and then right click on the “Task Bar” and open “Task Manager”

You will find the list of applications running

2. Right click on the application that you think needs higher priority and then click on “Go To Process”

3. Once you are in the process–> right click on it and highlight “Set Priority” and choose a higher priority

4. Close the task manager

Now the application will have a higher priority and a better performance!!

Remove Handwriting Recognition Text Service In Windows XP

To remove handwriting recognition as a text service, follow these steps:

1. Click Start–> click Control Panel–> click Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options–> and then click Regional and Language Options.

2. Click the Languages tab.

3. Under Text services and input languages–> click Details.

4. Under Installed services–> click Handwriting Recognition under the language that you want it removed from–> click Remove–> and then click OK twice.

Handwriting recognition is removed for the language that you specified.

NOTE: If you remove handwriting recognition, it is not deleted from your hard disk. It is removed as a text service and is no longer loaded into memory. You can add (and remove) handwriting recognition again at any time. To completely remove the handwriting-recognition engine from your hard disk–> use the Add/Remove Programs feature in Control Panel.

Create a Shortcut to Shut Down the Computer

Have you ever wondered if there is a tool to close all the open programs and then shut the computer down automatically?

The answer is “YOU DON’T NEED A TOOL”

Yes. All you need is a simple shortcut.

Here’s how:

1. Right click on some empty area of your desktop, then select “New” and “Shortcut” to open the new shortcut wizard.

2. When asked for the location of the item, enter “SHUTDOWN -s -t 01” and click on “Next”

3. Name the shortcut as “Shutdown” and click on “Finish”

Now double click on the icon to shut the computer down.