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10 Windows XP tricks and timesavers June 9, 2008

By Greg Shultz

Table of contents
Change the font Windows XP displays in Windows Explorer.................................................................................... 2

Prevent a shutdown of a Windows XP system.......................................................................................................... 2

Off hours: Put your name in the Windows XP notification area ................................................................................ 2

Create your own special characters in Windows XP................................................................................................. 3

Automatically generate and assign strong passwords in Windows XP..................................................................... 3

Quickly gather MAC addresses in Windows XP with ARP........................................................................................ 4

Create an old-time monochrome command prompt in Windows XP ........................................................................ 4

Taking a fresh look at the Windows XP Task pane................................................................................................... 5

Removing unused device drivers from Windows XP machines ................................................................................ 5

Using the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility ............................................................................................................. 6

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10 Windows XP tricks and timesavers

Change the font Windows XP displays in Windows Explorer

Note: This tip is for both Windows XP Home and Professional.

Windows Explorer and My Computer display the same font that Windows XP uses for icon titles on your desktop:
8-point Tahoma. If you want to change the font or font size used in Windows Explorer, follow these steps:

1. Access the Display Properties dialog box by right-clicking the desktop and selecting the Properties
command.

2. Select the Appearance tab and click the Advanced button.

3. Select Icon from the Item drop-down list.

4. Use the Font drop-down arrow to select a font from the list.

5. Click OK twice—once to close the Advanced Appearance dialog box and once to close the Display
Properties dialog box.

You can see the new font by launching Windows Explorer or My Computer. If you don't like what you see, simply
repeat the steps and select a different font.

Prevent a shutdown of a Windows XP system

This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional. Since editing the registry is risky, be
sure you have a verified backup before saving any changes.
By default, at three o’clock every morning Windows XP’s Automatic Updates tool contacts the Windows Update
site and automatically downloads and installs updates for your system. However, that can't happen if other people
who use the computer shut it down at the end of the day. Fortunately, you can prevent anyone from shutting down
Windows XP with a little registry tweak. Here’s how:

1. Launch the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe).

2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.

3. Right-click the Explorer subkey and select New | DWORD Value.

4. Name the key NoClose and press Enter twice.

5. Type 1 in the Value Data text box and click OK.

To enable the setting, close the Registry Editor and restart your system. Once your system restarts, you will not
be able to it shut down by clicking the Shutdown button on the Start menu. This will prevent most users from
inadvertently shutting down the computer.
When you do want to shut down your system, just access Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete, then pull
down the Shut Down menu and select the Turn Off command.

Off hours: Put your name in the Windows XP notification area

During those times when the urgent need for high-powered technical intelligence wanes a bit—especially on a
slow Friday afternoon—try this fun trick and amaze your colleagues. Here’s how to make your “own” time by
putting your name in the notification area:
1. Access the Control Panel from the Start menu.

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10 Windows XP tricks and timesavers

2. Double-click Regional And Language Options.

3. Click the Customize button in the Standards And Formats panel of the Regional Options tab.

4. When the Customize Regional Options dialog box appears, select the Time tab.

5. In the AM Symbol and PM Symbol boxes, you can replace that text with your name or whatever word you
want, as long as it's no longer than 12 characters.

6. To complete the operation, click OK twice—once to close the Customize Regional Options dialog box and
once to close the Regional And Language Options dialog box.

You’ll instantly see your name appear in the notification area right next to the time.

Create your own special characters in Windows XP

Have you ever wanted to create your own font or maybe just a special character—for example, a character
showing your initials for approving documents with your “signature”? You can easily create your own characters
using a hidden Windows XP tool called the Private Character Editor. Here’s how:
1. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box.

2. Type eudcedit in the Open text box and click OK.

3. When the Private Character Editor launches, you’ll see the Select Code dialog box. Click OK.

4. A user interface that looks and works very much like Paint will appear. Here, you can use standard tools
to create your characters.

5. When you finish, select the Save Character command on the Edit menu.

Once you save your new character, you can access it using the Character Map tool. Here’s how:

1. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box.

2. Type charmap in the Open text box and click OK.

3. When the Character Map appears, select the Font drop-down list and select All Fonts (Private
Characters).

4. Select your character, click the Select button, and then click the Copy button.

You can now paste your font character into any document that you want.

Automatically generate and assign strong passwords in Windows XP

This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional systems in either a stand-alone or
peer-to-peer workgroup configuration.
Computer users consistently use very simplistic logic when creating passwords. For example, many of us choose
meaningful words, personal dates, or a word commonly found in the dictionary because it makes the password
easy to remember. These common practices cause us to sacrifice the security that passwords are intended to
provide.
If you’re really at a loss when it comes to thinking of a strong password, you can let Windows XP create and
assign a random password to your account. To let Windows XP generate your password, follow these steps.

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10 Windows XP tricks and timesavers

Warning: Before you follow these steps, please be sure that you are paying careful attention and are ready to
actually use a password that might not be as memorable as you’re accustomed to! Also, you cannot use this tip
on a Windows Server domain.
1. Open a Command Prompt window and type:

net user username /random (username is your login account name)

2. Press Enter. Windows XP will randomly generate a secure password, as well as assign that strong
password to your account. Windows XP will also display the strong password so you can remember it.

At your discretion, you may want to create a Password Reset Disk at this point. This disk will allow you to gain
access to your computer in the event you forget your password. Here’s how to create the disk:
1. Open the Control Panel and double-click the User Accounts tool.

2. Click your account icon.

3. Select Prevent A Forgotten Password under Related Tasks.

4. Follow the instructions provided by the wizard.

Quickly gather MAC addresses in Windows XP with ARP

This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Professional.

When securing a wireless Windows XP network, in addition to using Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi
Protected Access (WPA) encryption, you can use Media Access Control (MAC) address filtering.
When you enable MAC address filtering, the wireless access point or wireless router verifies that the network card
in the computer requesting access has a MAC address in its filter list before allowing the computer to access the
network. This means that you must first obtain the MAC addresses of each client computer. To do so, you might
think that you have to manually visit each computer and use the Getmac command.
An easier way to gather MAC addresses is to take advantage of the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
command. Here’s how:
1. From one computer, use the Ping command to ping each of the other client computers that will connect to
the wireless access point or wireless router.

2. Type the ARP command along with the -a parameter:

Arp -a
When used with the -a parameter, the ARP command displays the ARP cache, which stores the IP and MAC
addresses of the computers that most recently accessed the system—or in this case, those computers that
responded to the Ping command.

Create an old-time monochrome command prompt in Windows XP

This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional.

In what some may call the olden days, before there were fancy graphical user interfaces and RGB monitors, early
computer monitors were monochrome, meaning that they displayed only one color on a black background.
Monochrome monitors were available in three colors: green, amber, and white.
When you open up a Command prompt in its default configuration, it comes up in a white monochrome
configuration with white text on a black background. If you’re like most command line users, you’ve changed the
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10 Windows XP tricks and timesavers

color scheme from the Color tab on the Command Prompt Properties dialog box to make the screen more
appealing.
However, if you’re ever feeling nostalgic when working from a Command Prompt, you can change the settings on
the Color tab to emulate the old green monochrome or amber monochrome monitors. Here’s how:
1. Open a Command Prompt window.

2. Right the title bar and select the Properties command.

3. Select the Colors tab.

4. Select the Screen Background button and select the black box in the color palette.

5. Select the Screen Text button.

6. To emulate an old green monochrome monitor, select the green box in the color palette, and then in the
Selected Color Values panel use the spin button for the Green setting to move the number up to 255.
Make sure that the settings for the Red and Blue remain at 0.

7. To emulate an old amber monochrome monitor, select the green box in the color palette, and then in the
Selected Color Values panel use the spin button for the Red setting to move the number up to 185. Make
sure that the settings for the Green remains at 128 and Blue remains at 0.

Taking a fresh look at the Windows XP Task pane

This tip applies to Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional.

If you’re like most Windows XP aficionados, chances are good that you prefer the Folders pane in Windows
Explorer to the Task pane that displays by default in My Computer. As a result, you probably avoid My Computer
or simply click the Folders button on the toolbar each time you open My Computer. If this is the case, you’ve
probably never spent much time looking at the commands on the Task pane and may be missing many handy
command shortcuts.
For example, how many times have you dug into the Control Panel to access Add/Remove Programs? If you use
the Task pane in My Computer, you can simply click Add Or Remove Programs in the System Tasks section. And
if you open a drive from My Computer, you will find another command that you frequently use in the Files And
Folders section of the Task pane: the Make A New folder command.
When you select a folder, you can copy and move folders anywhere on your hard disk easily by selecting the
Copy This Folder or Move This Folder command. When you do, a Browse dialog box will appear. This essentially
serves as an alternate version of the Folders pane in Windows Explorer.
When you select a file, you can choose either the Copy This File or Move This File command and get the same
Browse dialog box with a Folders pane.

Removing unused device drivers from Windows XP machines

When you install a device driver on a Windows XP machine, the operating system loads that driver each time the
computer boots regardless of whether the device is present—unless you specifically uninstall the driver. This
means that drivers from devices that you have long since removed from your system may be wasting valuable
system resources.
Follow these steps to view and remove these unnecessary device drivers:
1. Press Windows + Break to bring up the System Properties dialog box.

2. Select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.

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10 Windows XP tricks and timesavers

3. Click the New button below the System Variables panel.

4. In the New System Variable dialog box, type devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices in the Variable Name
text box and 1 in the Variable Value text box.

5. Click OK to return to the System Properties dialog box and then click OK again.

6. Select the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button.

7. In Device Manager, go to View | Show Hidden Devices.

8. Expand the various branches in the device tree and look for the washed out icons, which indicate unused
device drivers.

9. To remove an unused device driver, right-click the icon and select Uninstall.

Using the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

Not able to remove or uninstall an application in Windows XP using either the Uninstall option or the Add/Remove
Programs tool? Try using the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. As long as you installed the application using the
Windows Installer, this utility will remove all the folders, files, registry keys, and entries from your system and
allow you to start over with a clean slate.
Here's how:
1. Download the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility from the Microsoft Download Center.

2. Locate and run msicuu2.exe to install the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility.

3. Locate and launch the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility on the Start menu.

4. From the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility window, locate the application in the list and click the Remove
button.

5. Once the application has been removed, click the Exit button to close the utility.

You can now reinstall the application.

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10 Windows XP tricks and timesavers

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