How to change the picture on the Start menu
Note: this doesn’t apply to XP computers that belong to a Windows domain. On non-domain systems, XP displays a photo on the Start menu that’s associated with the logged on user account. You can set this photo through the User Accounts applet in Control Panel, but there’s also another, faster way:
- Click Start to open the Start menu.
- Click on the picture itself. This opens the User Account settings option.
- Choose a new picture from the ones displayed, or click Browse to use a picture located anywhere on your computer.
- After you’ve changed the picture, close the User Accounts dialog box.
How to Start the Shared Folder Wizard
The XP Shared Folder Wizard lets you create one or multiple shared folders. The quickest way to start it is to click Start | Run and type shrpubw.exe.
Vista: Using check boxes to select items
It’s a small thing, but it can make a big difference to users who have to type with one hand. Now instead of holding down the CTRL key to select multiple items, you have the option of enabling checkboxes.
By default, files in Explorer don’t have the checkboxes, but it’s easy to enable it: just click Tools | Folder Options and click the View tab. Scroll down in the Advanced Settings list to “Use check boxes to select items” and select it. Now in Explorer you can just check the boxes to select multiple items without holding down CTRL.
What happened to the option to make pictures smaller?
QUESTION: Once upon a time, when I would attach a picture to email in Outlook Express, a dialog box would pop up, offering to make them smaller. I almost always said “no” – but somewhere along the way I stopped getting asked and recently I did have some photos taken at very high resolution that I wanted to make smaller before sending. Do you know how I can get this option back? – Judy D.
ANSWER: The lack of the “make pictures smaller” dialog box usually means a DLL has become corrupted or unregistered. To fix the problem, try registering the DDL. Here’s how:
- Click Start | Run
- Type regsvr32 shimgvw.dll
Let us know if this doesn’t work.
Current folder settings are not applied to other open folders
You can set all the folders in Windows Explorer to display in the same View (List, Details, Thumbnails, etc.) as the one you have currently selected. However, if you have other folders open when you apply the setting, those folders may not get the new setting applied. For the solution, see KB article 307116.
Access Denied error message
If you try to open a folder and receive a message that says “
System Restore is suspended
If you try to start System Restore, you might get an error message that says “System Restore is suspended because there is not enough disk space available on the system drive.” This can happen even when you do have plenty of available disk space on that drive. There are two workarounds for this problem; to find out how to fix it, see KB article 299904.
TechTool: The psTools list of sysinternals command line tools are very handy in some occasions. Here is an overview of all these gems.
TechTool #2: ShortKeys is a utility that allows you to set up replacement text or paragraphs for any given number of user defined keystrokes. A free version is available.
Deb Shinder, MVP