1. Hold down the shift key when switching to thumbnail view to hide the file names. Do it again to bring them back.
2. Press Right SHIFT for eight seconds Switch FilterKeys on and off. Filter keys causes Windows to ignore brief or repeated keystrokes and slows down the repeat rate.
3. Press Left ALT +left SHIFT +PRINT SCREEN Switch High Contrast on and off. High contrast improves readability for people with visual impairments by applying a special system color scheme and font size.
4. Press Left ALT +left SHIFT + NUM LOCK Switch MouseKeys on and off. Mouse Keys lets you control the mouse pointer with the numeric keypad in the keyboard.
5. Press SHIFT five times Switch Sticky Keys on and off. StickyKeys is designed for people who have difficulty holding down two or more keys simultaneously. When a shortcut requires a key combination, such as CTRL+P, StickyKeys will enable you to press a modifier key (CTRL, ALT, or SHIFT), or the Windows logo key, and have it remain active until another key is pressed.
6. Press NUM LOCK for five seconds Switch ToggleKeys on and off. Toggle key causes a sound when we press NUMLOCK, CAPSLOCK, or SCROLL LOCK.
7. Press Win + U to open Utility Manager.
   Press Win + BREAK to display the System Properties dialog box.
   Press Win + D show the desktop.
   Press Win + M minimize all windows.
   Press Win + Shift + M to restore minimized windows.
   Press Win + E to open My Computer.
   Press Win + F to search for a file or folder.
   Press Win + CTRL +F to search for computers.
   Press Win + F1 to display Windows Help.
   Press Win + L to switch to the Welcome screen or to lock your workstation(if a password is set for Windows logon).
   
8. In Internet Explorer, hold the Shift key while clicking on a link to open the Web page in a new window.
9. In Internet Explorer, hold the Shift key while turning the mouse wheel to go forwards or backwards.
10. To add or remove columns from Details mode, select 'Choose Details' from the 'View' menu, or just right-click the column header bar and uncheck the unwanted details.
11. To remove an AutoComplete entry from a Web form, highlight the item in the AutoComplete dropdown and press the Delete key. To remove all Web form AutoComplete entries, go to the Internet Explorer Tools menu, select Internet Options, Content, AutoComplete, then press the "Clear Forms" button.
12. To close several windows at once, hold down the Control key while clicking on the taskbar buttons of each window. Once you have selected all the windows you want to close, right-click the last button you selected and pick "Close Group".
13. Put a shortcut to your favorite editor in your 'Send To' folder and it will appear in your "Send To" menu. You can then right-click any file and send it to your editor.
14. To save a document with an extension other than the one a program wants to use, enclose the entire name in quotation marks. For example, if you run Notepad and save a file under the name Dr.Z it will actually be saved under the name Dr.Z.txt. But if you type "Dr.Z" then the document will be saved under the name Dr.Z.
15. If you hold down the shift key while clicking "No" in a Confirm File Operation dialog, the response will be interpreted as "No to All".
16. When dragging a file in Explorer, you can control the operation that will be performed when you release the mouse button:
    Hold the Control key to force a Copy.
    Hold the Shift key to force a Move.
    Hold the Alt key to force a Create Shortcut.
17. Press SHIFT when you insert a CD into the CD-ROM drive to prevent the CD from automatically playing.
18. Select 'Status Bar' from 'View' menu to display status bar in the explorer. File details are displayed on status bar when a file is selected.
19. Increase your system's performance: Right-Click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties'. On the 'Advavced' tab click on the 'Settings' and select the 'Adjust for best performance' radio button.
20. Windows XP has a really nice new sound scheme, but it's not loaded by default for some reason. To load the default sound scheme, open up Control Panel and navigate to 'Sounds and Audio Devices'. Then, choose the 'Sounds' tab and then select the 'Windows Default' from the 'Sound scheme' dropdown list and press OK.
    

Labels: Tips n Tricks, Windows XP Hacks