You are in the middle of writing your term paper and the deadline is in a few hours. All of a sudden your trusted mouse becomes unresponsive. What do you do? You shake it, nothing. You tap it, nothing. You unplug it and then plugged it back in, still nothing. All the effort to revive it is simply eating up your time. No worries, your mouse can wait. For now just be thankful you still have your keyboard because long before your mouse came, every input into a computer came from the keyboard. This series is dedicated to the secrets within your keyboard.

Are you planning install Netmeeting on Windows XP so that you and your classmates can have a lively group discussion? Well guess what? you don’t have really have to install it. Why? It is already pre-installed with Windows XP, but then b it isn’t linked to anywhere on your programs menu. Just follow the following instructions to load it:

1: Click START then click rRUN
2: Enter “conf” without the quotes

And that’s it! You can now start holding a conference with your classmates or officemates.

Here’s how you can customize your user account icon.

1) Single-click the start menu and choose Control Panel.
2) Single-click the User Accounts icon.
3) Find the user account you’d like to change the icon for and click on it.
4) Click the text that says “Change My Picture.”
5) You’ll have the option to either pick one of the predefined icons or choose your own.
6) If you like one of the predefined icons, just highlight the one you like and click the button labeled “Change Picture.”
7) If you’d like to use your own picture, just click the magnifying glass or the text labeled “Browse for more pictures.” This will launch a dialog box directing you to navigate to where your new picture is stored. After you find it, just click Open to save your new changes.

-FreePCTech Guide

If you’re having trouble running older programs originally developed for previous versions of Windows, you’re not out of luck. Here’s how to access a program’s Compatibility Mode in XP:

1) Find the executable or program shortcut icon you’d like to run.
2) Right-click the icon and select Properties.
3) Click the Compatibility tab and place a checkmark next to the text labeled “Run this program in compatibility mode.”
4) Select the operating system that the program was originally intended to run on.
5) You may need to fine-tune the three fields under “Display Settings” if an older program requires 640×480 resolution or 256 colors.
6) Click Apply.

Try starting the program after making these changes. If it still gives you trouble, try a different operating system. If the program was written for Win95 and worked fine in Win98, there’s nothing that says it still won’t work fine with Win98.

-FreePCTech Guide

This is useful when you are sharing a PC with someone at work or even at home. Here’s how to do it:

1) Open My Computer
2) Double-click the drive where Windows is installed (usually drive (C:), unless you have more than one drive on your computer).
3) If the contents of the drive are hidden, under System Tasks, click Show the contents of this drive.
4) Double-click the Documents and Settings folder.
5) Double-click your user folder.
6) Right-click any folder in your user profile, and then click Properties.
7) On the Sharing tab, select the Make this folder private so that only I have access to it check box.

-FreePCTech Guide

Each and everyone of us has our own secret. There are some information that are not for public reading and the best and most secured way is to make your folders private. But how?

Go to My Computer. Double-click the drive where Windows is installed. If the contents of the drive are hidden, under System Tasks, click Show the contents of this drive then double-click the Documents and Settings folder. Double-click your user folder. After that,
right-click any folder in your user profile, and then click Properties. Go to the Sharing tab and select the “Make this folder private so that only I have access to it” check box. You’re done!

When the XP prompt gives you the options to Standby, Turn Off or Restart, holding down the Shift key gives you another option instead of Standby: Hibernate. Should you Standby or Hibernate? It depends on how long you will be away from your computer. Standby is good if you won’t be gone for hours. It conserves energy by running your computer on low power. Hibernate is better if you will be away for a while but do not want to wait for a total restart. It writes the contents of the memory onto a file. Now that you know, you have no excuse to keep your screensaver running.

These DOS commands are very useful for Windows XP users when they cannot be bothered to manually shutdown the computer after downloading or after certain system scans or commands. To set automatic shutdown, go the the Run icon on the Start menu of Windows. Type in ‘cmd’ and press enter to open the window. Type ’shutdown’ to display all the commands if you are not familiar with them. The most useful commands are ’shutdown’ followed by -l to logoff, -r for restart, -t xx to set a time (xx standing for number of seconds) and -a to abort the shutdown.