| Many Windows experts have become fond of an unsupported Microsoft product called Tweak UI, which is available and freely downloadable from the Microsoft site. Tweak UI is one of the Microsoft "Power Toys" developed by programmers at Camp Bill in Redmond, Washington. Tweak UI works fine on Windows XP as it did on Windows 2000 and Windows 98. Version 2.10.0.0 of Tweak UI is the newest available for download as of the time of this writing, and it has been fully optimized for usage on Windows XP. Tweak UI enables you to make more than 100 changes to the Windows XP user environment. For example, you can do the following: Scroll smoothly in Windows Explorer Enable the mouse wheel for scrolling Speed up the display rate of menus Add special folders to your operating system that have mouse setting refinements Add more types of "New" documents when you right-click a folder and choose New Add or remove installed programs from the list of available programs through the Add or Remove Programs applet. Repair Start menu and desktop hotkeys, font folders, and icons Cover your tracks by erasing temp files, document lists, and history files Control whether CDs play automatically when you insert a disk Add or remove drives from being displayed in My Computer Configure auto-logon
You can download the Tweak UI Power Toy from the Power Toys home page at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx 1. | Double-click on the TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe file. | 2. | Click Next to dismiss the opening page, acknowledging that you are about to install the Tweak UI power toy. | 3. | Accept the licensing agreement and click Next to continue. | 4. | Provide your username and organization information, and then click Next to continue. | 5. | The default installation type is Complete (which is really the only type since there are no installation options); click Next to continue. | 6. | Click Install to start the installation. | 7. | Click Finish to end the installation process. | 8. | You can now access the Tweak UI power toy from the Power Toys for Windows XP folder located on your Start menu. |
When you run it, you see the dialog box displayed in Figure 23.6. Figure 23.6. Tweak UI offers lots of fun stuff to play with here!
NOTE If you want to uninstall Tweak UI, be sure to read its Help file under "How to Uninstall." The following are issues with Tweak UI as it pertains to Windows XP: If you do not have permission to alter the list of drives that appear in My Computer, the My Computer tab is not shown. Depending on the security permissions granted to the current user, some Tweak UI features may not have any effect. For example, if the current user doesn't have permission to edit the part of the Registry that contains the desktop, then changes to the desktop don't have any result.
You might want to check out the other Power Toys too, not just Tweak UI. The following tools that tweak the user interface are available: Open Command Window Here | This PowerToy adds an "Open Command Window Here" context menu option on file system folders, giving you a quick way to open a command window (cmd.exe) pointing at the selected folder. | Alt-Tab Replacement | With this PowerToy, in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open. (See Figure 23.7.) | Virtual Desktop Manager | Manage up to four desktops from the Windows taskbar with this PowerToy. | Taskbar Magnifier | Use this PowerToy to magnify part of the screen from the taskbar. |
Figure 23.7. The Alt-Tab replacement in the XP Power Toys shows the page you are switching to, in a thumbnail. This is useful especially when switching between a large number of similar applications or documents, or images.
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