Windows XP Tips and Tricks

Here are some useful and neat Windows XP tips and tricks I have gleaned from various sources.

Pinning items to the start menu
You may have noticed that in Windows XP, when you open your Start menu, your most recently used programs are "pinned" to the very first menu that opens...you can actually add or remove shortcuts to this area by right clicking on the desired shortcut and choosing "pin to start menu", or dragging the shortcut from a folder in the start menu over to the pinned items area. (NOTE - if you use the context menu method, the shortcut is not moved to pin items - it is merely copied into the pinned items area. To remove the shortcut from the pinned area, either right-click and choose "unpin this item", or choose "remove this item" [appears for shortcuts that are automatically placed there]) - this is obviously much more convenient than navigating through a maze of program groups, and you can free up your desktop by placing frequently used programs here instead.

Creating a desktop shortcut for a website
You have probably gleaned how to create these from the occasional program that creates a URL shortcut on your desktop when you install a program, but just in case, here it is: Simply right click on the desktop, choose NEW->SHORTCUT, then in the file or folder field, type the full address of the web page, starting with HTTP://(Acronym for Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol, by the way), or FTP (File Transfer Protocol - if you want to connect to a file server) - you then simply type a name for the shortcut, and you are done.

Optimizing CPU time for programs
Sometimes you wish you could give a program more CPU time (especially if you run many programs in the background), such as when you are playing a game, running a virus-scan or defragging a hard-drive, well you can do this to some extent in Windows XP. First, press CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up the task manager, then right click on the running program you would like to give more CPU time and click "Go to process", then RIGHT-CLICK on the process selected and choose "Set priority" from the context menu and choose the desired priority from the Low to Realtime (Realtime is not recommended, as it can cause system stability problems - giving one process all the CPU time is really not a good idea).


	Windows XP Tips and Tricks Here are some useful and neat Windows XP tips and tricks I have gleaned from various sources. Pinning items to the start menu You may have noticed that in Windows XP, when you open your Start menu, your most recently used programs are "pinned" to the very first menu that opens...you can actually add or remove shortcuts to this area by right clicking on the desired shortcut and choosing "pin to start menu", or dragging the shortcut from a folder in the start menu over to the pinned items area. (NOTE - if you use the context menu method, the shortcut is not moved to pin items - it is merely copied into the pinned items area. To remove the shortcut from the pinned area, either right-click and choose "unpin this item", or choose "remove this item" [appears for shortcuts that are automatically placed there]) - this is obviously much more convenient than navigating through a maze of program groups, and you can free up your desktop by placing frequently used programs here instead. Creating a desktop shortcut for a website You have probably gleaned how to create these from the occasional program that creates a URL shortcut on your desktop when you install a program, but just in case, here it is: Simply right click on the desktop, choose NEW->SHORTCUT, then in the file or folder field, type the full address of the web page, starting with HTTP://(Acronym for Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol, by the way), or FTP (File Transfer Protocol - if you want to connect to a file server) - you then simply type a name for the shortcut, and you are done. Optimizing CPU time for programs Sometimes you wish you could give a program more CPU time (especially if you run many programs in the background), such as when you are playing a game, running a virus-scan or defragging a hard-drive, well you can do this to some extent in Windows XP. First, press CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up the task manager, then right click on the running program you would like to give more CPU time and click "Go to process", then RIGHT-CLICK on the process selected and choose "Set priority" from the context menu and choose the desired priority from the Low to Realtime (Realtime is not recommended, as it can cause system stability problems - giving one process all the CPU time is really not a good idea).