Tips and Tricks-September 2004

I enjoy reading a number of magazines that include tips and tricks for Windows users. Lately I have found a couple that are published in the UK that are exceptionally good. They are published by different companies, but have some things in common. They provide a lot of screen shots and a lot of step by step recipes for accomplishing tasks. They seem to have more substantive articles that some magazines published in the U.S., and they all include a CD that is filled by demos, shareware and free ware.

They are not cheap ($10.99 to $14.99) and have just as much advertising as PC World and PC Magazine, but they feel like they have a lot more content. Two of the more general ones are PC Answers and PC Utilities. There are several others aimed more at graphics and web designers, including one devoted entirely to Dreamweaver. I have found them at Fry’s and Borders.

PC Utilities has a web site at http://www.pc-utilities.co.uk that includes a message board. Anything else requires a subscription. PC Answers is at http://www.pcanswers.co.uk. It is also loaded with articles and has an “Ask the Experts” section.

From PC Answers, March 2004, I found these tips and tricks.

They require editing the registry, so remember to back up the registry before you try any of these changes by exporting it to a file from within RegEdit. You may even want to do a system restore.

To run RegEdit, go to the Start Menu, click on “Run” and type “regedit” into the dialog box and click “OK.”

Context Menus

You all know how much I love the right-click (context) menus. If you use them, you have seen the “Send To” command on the right-click menu, but suppose your would like to add a few more options. You can add “Copy To” and “Move To” to the menu.

Find HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTS\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers. You should see an entry for SendTo. Right click and select “New” and “Key” from the menu. Name the key, “Copy To.” Open the Copy To folder and double-click on the default string. In the dialog box, for “Value Data,” enter {C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}.

Exit Regedit and right click on an icon on your desktop. You will see new entry in the list “Copy to Folder...”

Do the same for “Move To,” but use the string {C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}.). Now your right click (context menu) will have two new entries.

The Start Menu

I have a huge number of programs installed on my computer, at least partly because I like to try lots of different programs. The Start Menu can take a while to display as a result. You can speed up the display with another registry edit. This time go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Find “MenuShowDelay” in the right pane. Double-click to open the dialog box. This sets the time delay for the menu. Whatever is displayed (the magazine said the default was 400, my system was already set for 200), reduce the number, even as far as 0. It does make a difference even though we are talking milliseconds here.

One more for the Start Menu. You already know that you can sort the Start Menu by right-clicking on an open area and selecting “Sort By Name” from the menu. You can edit the Registry to automatically sort the Start Menu when programs are added. Go to:

HKEY_CURRENTUSER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder\Start Menu\Programs.

Right-click on the value “Order” and choose delete. There will probably be a string of number pairs in the value already and you are deleting the entire value. You will have to re-start your computer and install something before you will know for sure that this is working.

These are pretty easy changes to make (except that it took me three tries to get the string correctly entered for the Copy To and the Move To values). Try them. See you at the main meeting.

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Copyright 2005

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