Text from the E-Book: The following text is kept just so that someone searching for words in this tip finds this e-book. Also, it does not include any pictures. Instead, please download the e-book and read it. It is absolutely FREE.

Topic: Windows desktop

When you install Windows on a new 
PC, you see a big screen with very 
few icons such as "Computer," 
"Recycle Bin," etc. This is called 
Windows desktop.

  

When you install a new software, 
such as ShowSize, it also creates 
an icon on the desktop from where 
you can start it. 
 

But what about often used programs 
like NotePad, Wordpad and 
Windows Explorer that come with 
Windows?  Do you always start 
them from the Start Menu? If so, you 
are missing out on the very useful 
features of the Desktop.

   Start Menu on Windows XP

  Start Menu on Windows Vista

Understand that the start menu is 
only one way to start programs. In 
fact, you can think of the start menu 
as a big list that contains the names 
of all the software programs installed 
on your system. For most of the 
programs, it is ok. But for often used 
stuff, it is the Windows desktop 
which is more useful.

To know the importance of Windows 
Desktop, imagine a situation like 
this:
You are sitting at a table. The table 
is empty. To start working, you open 
a drawer on the left and look through 
the things there. You find some 
tools and some files. You take out a 
few of them on the table and start 
working with them. If you plan on 
working more on a file, you keep it 
on the table and return the rest to 
the drawer. In this case, the drawer 
is equivalent to the start menu and 
the table is our Windows desktop. 
Get the point?

When you install new software, it 
most often places an icon to start 
itself on the desktop. You can of 
course remove that icon if you don't 
plan on using that software too often 
and would like to get rid of its icon 
from the desktop. Simply right-click 
on it and delete it. Understand that 
this does not remove the software 
and it is still available on the Start 
Menu. So go on and delete all those 
unused icons from your desktop to 
make it clutter-free.

It would have been nice had 
Microsoft designers left more useful 
things on the desktop to start with. 
For example, everyone uses 
Notepad, and it should have been on 
the desktop. But I will show you how 
to put that on the desktop yourself. 
Let me show you how to  put items 
on the desktop.


Topic: Putting items on the desktop

How do you start Windows 
Notepad? You click on the Start--All 
Programs--Accessories--Notepad.

Now, if you use Notepad very often, 
it makes sense to put it on Windows 
desktop. 

 

To do that, click in the same order 
as given above but don't click on 
Notepad. Instead, right-click on it 
and drag it to the desktop and 
release the mouse button. You will 
see a menu with the choices 
"Create shortcut" or "Copy here" (on 
Windows XP).
  
Click on one of the above menu 
items, and it will create an icon to 
start Notepad right there. 

 
Isn't that great! You can now start 
Notepad directly by double-clicking 
on this icon. You can move this icon 
to any suitable place on the desktop 
where you can easily see it.

Let's put other useful Accessories 
on the desktop too.
I would recommend that you also 
put the following Accessories items 
from the Start menu on the desktop:

Notepad--to make quick notes
Windows Explorer--to manage files 
and folders on the system
Calculator
Wordpad--to make better documents 
than simple notes
Paint--if your child often demands to 
play with this

Once you know how this works, you 
can do it for other start menu items 
that you use most often.

Great Tip!
Did you know that you can also put 
desktop icons to open your own 
documents! Let's see how to put 
documents on the desktop.


Topic: Documents on the desktop

Mind you, I am not telling you to 
create documents on the desktop 
itself. While many do that, I don't 
recommend that. If you start 
creating each and every new 
document on Windows desktop, it 
only increases the clutter. You may 
not use all of those documents 
frequently. Desktop is meant for the 
most used stuff only.

So create your documents in the 
regular documents folder of your 
choice but only put an icon to open 
some of them on the desktop. What 
I am going to show you is to put 
only the icon to open your document 
from the desktop.

Suppose you made a text file 
"Things to do" with Notepad in "My 
Documents" folder. You find that you 
need to edit this file very often. 
Normally, you will start Notepad and 
then open this file. But can it be 
made simpler? You bet.

If you find "My Documents" folder on 
your desktop, double-click to open 
it. Or if the above file is in some 
other folder, locate it in Windows 
Explorer (a program that you should 
always keep on your desktop). Once 
you have located the file "Things to 
do.txt," right-click and drag it to the 
Windows desktop. A menu will 
appear that will allow you to "Create 
a shortcut" on the desktop. You are 
done. Just click and rename it as we 
did here.

 

Once you create that shortcut or 
icon, you can move that to any 
convenient place on the desktop so 
that you can access your "Things to 
do" list quickly.

Similarly, you can create desktop 
shortcuts for other types of 
documents--Microsoft Word 
documents, Excel spreadsheets, 
etc.

Also see Putting a folder on the 
desktop.

Topic: Hibernate and Sleep

What is Hibernate on Windows XP? It 
is better than a Turn Off operation 
because before turning off, it 
remembers all your programs that are 
running along with their positions on the 
desktop. It is much quicker than a 
normal turn off and restart. On my 
system, it was sitting there all along 
and I never used it. I tried it and it 
works like a charm.

When you go to turn off Windows XP, 
you see a "Hibernate" button on the 
left. (If you see the "Standby" instead, 
you can turn on Hibernate from Control 
Panel's Power options. But you need 
enough disk space for Hibernate. The 
Control Panel will show you how much 
when you go to turn it on.)

Sleep on Windows Vista

This is quite like Hibernate but it 
doesn't actually turn off the computer. 
Instead, it almost cuts off the power 
usage to the minimum. But if you pull 
the plug, it won't save anything and the 
next reboot will take the same time. It 
is mainly meant for laptops.


Topic: Quick Launch

The Quick Launch area is located to 
the right of the start menu. It looks like 
this on Windows Vista:

 

This is my most used area on the 
Windows Desktop throughout the day. 
It contains very useful tools and the >> 
button on the right shows more of 
them. if all are not visible.

However, some software installers add 
their own icons to this area and clutter 
it. I'd suggest that you only keep most 
used tools or programs on this and 
remove the rest by right-clicking on 
them. You can also rearrange them by 
a drag and drop. 

Here are the most used ones for me.
 

The first is to launch the browser, the 
second to switch between windows in 
Vista, the third to Show Desktop and 
the last is the Snipping tool to capture 
a part of the screen as a picture. A 
description of the last three of them 
follows.

Topic: Show Desktop

This is the most useful feature of 
Windows desktop that I use many 
times a day.

The "Show Desktop" button is located 
on the Quick Launch area of the task 
bar.

 

If you haven't tried it, you should. 
Suppose, you have too many windows 
open and you want to see the desktop 
behind them to launch another program 
by its icon. Just click on "show 
desktop" and it will minimize all the 
windows so that the desktop will be 
visible. If you change your mind then 
click on it again to restore the windows 
as they were. Cool! isn't it?

On Windows Vista, it looks like this:
  This rightmost button is Show 
Desktop.

You can also press the Windows Logo 
key on the keyboard with 'D' to Show 
the Desktop.

Topic: Snipping Tool

This is one of my favorite tools in 
Windows Vista. Using it, I can quickly 
copy a picture of any part of the 
desktop or a running program. In fact, 
most of the pictures that you see in 
this e-book are copied using this tool.

You will find it on the quick launch 
toolbar.

 

The snipping tool is on the right. Click it 
and the screen goes dim where you 
can draw a rectangle with your mouse 
to copy the desired part of the screen 
to the snipping tool. From there, you 
can either save it as JPG or other 
formats or copy and paste in some 
other application.

Topic: Switch applications

This is a very useful feature of 
Windows Vista that allows you to 
see the running programs on your 
system at a glance, in a 3-D like 
manner. It's a cool feature.

 

It is the second tool from left on the 
Quick Launch icon. However, to use 
it, you must have Windows Aero 
theme enabled on your Windows 
Vista. 

For example, here is what I see 
when I click on "Switch between 
Windows:"

 

This is a 3-D list of programs running 
on my system:
at the front is WhizFolders with 
which I am writing this e-book. 
behind that is Windows Explorer
next is WhizNote, my freeware 
notepad that I often use to edit web 
pages
next is ShowSize, a tool to look up 
folder sizes and file types 
(http://showsize.com/?did=wib)
finally, Paint Shop Pro with which I 
captured this screen.

To bring one of these to the front, I 
just need to click on its picture. 
Now, this is much better than Alt-
Tab that was the only way to switch 
applications earlier. This is one of 
the most popular features of 
Windows Vista.





Topic: Another Vista goodie

Vista has another magic up its sleeve 
that has been long on my wish list. I 
use it very often.

Many times, I want to open up the 
"parent" file system folder that contains 
a desktop or start menu icon. Why 
would I want to do that? To quickly see 
other files included with the program or 
document that I want to start up. 

In previous version of Windows, there 
was no way to do that. But in Windows 
Vista, you can right-click on the menu 
"Open Folder Location." Very 
convenient indeed.

Two useful operations still missing:

When I saw the above feature, I 
thought, they should also include two 
more items on my wish list. 

When I select a file in Windows 
Explorer, I often want to copy the full 
file name of the selected file to the 
clipboard so that I can paste it in a 
Open File dialog in some program. 
There is no such feature in Windows 
Explorer. 
I often want to start a DOS command 
prompt on a folder in Windows 
Explorer. Again, no such item on the 
right-click menu. In Windows Vista, I 
also often need to start an 
Administrative Command Prompt on a 
folder.

I wanted these features so badly that I 
finally put them in my own developed 
program ShowSize which is basically a 
folder size reporter and a file types 
exploring tool. You can download a trial 
copy of ShowSize from 
http://showsize.com/?did=wib.


Topic: Files and folders

In Windows XP, if you double-click 
on My Computer desktop icon to 
open it, you should see a list of disk 
drives on your system. If you then 
double-click a drive, the window will 
expand to show the list of files and 
folders on that drive, and so on. 
Before I explain the difference 
between files and folders, let me 
show you how to see the files and 
folders in Windows Explorer.

Windows Vista is better in this 
respect. It directly shows the files 
and folders.

Topic: Windows Explorer

Instead of the one pane display in 
"My Computer," I like Windows 
Explorer better. You will find 
Windows Explorer on the 
Programs--Accessories menu of the 
start menu. You can create a 
desktop shortcut for Windows 
Explorer as described in Putting 
items on the desktop.

Once you start Windows Explorer, 
on the left you see a list of drives on 
your system. The contents of the 
selected drive or folder appear on the 
right. This view is more convenient, 
and I like it. Windows Explorer is 
nothing but a file manager for 
Windows that will allow you to move 
or copy files easily. You just need to 
select an item and right-click on it to 
see what all operations are available 
for it.

You can also select multiple items 
by pressing the Ctrl key along with 
the mouse click. Then, when you 
right-click, the operations on the 
Windows Explorer menu would 
apply to all the selected items. For 
example, you can select multiple 
files, right-click, copy them and then 
paste them in some other place.

Next, we will show you how you 
manipulate your own files and 
folders in the system. But before 
that, let me explain the file and 
folder sizes and the terms 
associated with them.

Topic: How much is a KB, GB or MB?

This looks like a geek topic but many 
of us often uses the terms kilobytes, 
megabytes, gigabytes without knowing 
exactly the numbers that add up to 
these. 

Let me ask you a question: how much 
is a kilobyte? If you say a thousand 
bytes, you are ok but not correct. Here 
are the exact numbers:

The basic unit in the computer 
(memory or disk space) is a byte.

A kilobyte is 1024 bytes.

A megabyte is 1024 kilobytes (1024 X 
1024 bytes)

A gigabyte is 1024 megabytes (1024 X 
1024 X 1024 bytes)

Do you think that is enough? What will 
happen when the disks approach the 
size of 1000 gigabytes? What is the 
next step?

It is called a terabyte.

A terabyte is 1024 gigabytes (1024 X 
1024 X 1024 X 1024 bytes).

It's not so difficult when you understand 
the concept. Now you are competent 
enough to argue with that geek next 
door on file sizes.

Topic: Your own files

When you install Windows, it 
installs lots of files and folders on 
your system. You don't need to 
understand and know about all these 
files. Instead, you do all your work 
from the start menu and the desktop 
and that's all you need to know.

When you use application software 
such as Notepad, you create your 
own file having your own data or 
text. For example, with Notepad you 
create text files; with Microsoft Word 
or Wordpad, you create documents, 
and so on.

Where do you keep your own files? 
The often used place to keep them 
is within "My Documents" folder that 
Windows automatically makes for 
you. But suppose you create 
hundreds of files. Won't it become 
difficult to locate and manage your 
files in one large list of "My 
Documents" folder? The list of files 
there will be big and finding stuff in a 
big list is inconvenient. How do you 
organize your files then? The 
solution is to use your own folders 
as we will see next.

My documents and the risks 
associated with it: Recently, when I 
thought about it, the My Documents 
concept in Windows, although 
simple, has its own risks. I have an 
article on My Documents further 
down in this e-book. Please be sure 
to read it.

Topic: Your own folders

To better organize your files, you 
can create your own folders within 
My Documents. The most 
convenient time to create a folder is 
when saving a file. For example, 
suppose I created a new file in 
notepad. When I click on the File 
Save menu, it presents me with the 
following dialog:
 
In this case, before I type the new 
file name, I decide what folder I use 
within my documents. If a suitable 
folder already exists, I double-click 
to open it and then type the file 
name to save it. If I think a new 
folder is required, I click on the new 
folder button shown above, make the 
new folder, double-click on it to go to 
that folder and then type the file 
name. Just do it a few times and 
you will get the hang of it.

So eventually, you will have your 
own folders within my documents, 
each for a specific purpose--"My 
notes," "My reports," "My 
expenses," etc.

You can create new folders in 
Windows Explorer too by the File 
New menu.

You are not restricted to keeping 
your stuff only in "My documents." 
In fact, I advise you to choose your 
own locations. See My documents 
and associated problems.

Topic: My documents and associated problems

Are you keeping your documents in 
the "My Documents" location?

It is very important to understand 
that a My Documents location is 
very much related to your User 
Name on Windows. So when you 
keep any of your document files in 
My Documents, the actual disk 
location of the documents is usually 
somewhere deep inside your 
Windows disk drive. When you log 
off and another user logs in, your 
files no longer appear in My 
Documents. Instead, what is listed 
there are the documents of that 
user. This also means that if you 
reinstall Windows or accidentally 
delete your user name, your My 
Documents files may be lost. This 
may be confusing for many users. 
We have seen several instances 
where the users reinstalled Windows 
and accidentally deleted the user 
name to create another one and 
then lost their documents. They 
don't understand what happened and 
it is very difficult to explain the above 
to them.

The My Documents feature was 
originally designed in Windows for 
corporate users who might move 
from machine to machine on their 
computer network and always want 
to see their files in My Documents 
when they login. While this My 
Documents concept is convenient 
for them and may look like a simple 
name to use for new users, it also 
has its risks. If you don't really keep 
a backup copy of your documents in 
My Documents, you won't be able to 
restore them in the event something 
wrong happens during a Windows 
reinstall or other computer 
management operations related to 
use rids. 

A better solution for the non-
corporate, personal, home users

Hence, I want to stress this point: 
know where your documents are 
actually located and regularly copy 
them to a safe location as a backup. 
For personal (non corporate) users, I 
suggest that instead of My 
Documents, you keep your 
documents in a known folder on a 
known drive, for example, H:
\mydocs. This way, they are least 
likely to be disturbed if you reinstall 
Windows and your user name and 
associated stuff is disturbed. I can 
even create a desktop icon to open 
"H:\mydocs" by using the same 
right-click drag for the folder that I 
described in Putting a folder on the 
desktop.

If you must keep your documents in 
"My Documents," regularly use a 
good backup program to back up 
documents from your My 
Documents folder so that you can 
restore them in case of a failure. 
You can even use Windows Explorer 
to copy the files to a safe location. 

Wherever you decide to keep your 
documents, don't forget to regularly 
back them up to a safe location.

Corporate users on a network

They must follow the rules that their 
system administrators have defined. 
They are usually advised to keep all 
the documents in My Documents so 
that they can get to them from any 
computer on the network. The 
backup of these folders is often the 
responsibility of the network 
administrators. But still, knowing the 
concept of My Documents and 
keeping a backup yourself would be 
helpful even for a corporate user.

Topic: Preserving your work

This is the single most important thing 
about using computers. Many new 
users don't even know that they are 
supposed to keep a backup or safe 
copy of their work.

Let's assume that you have done 
considerable work and stored lots of 
documents in a folder "H:\My 
documents."

What if the hard disk crashes? You will 
lose all your data. How do you back up 
your stuff to a safe place? To prepare 
for this, you need to understand two 
types of data that you have on your 
system:

Windows and other installed software
Your own data in the form of 
documents and files

The first kind of data is "recoverable" 
and can be installed again from 
Windows and other Software 
Installation disks. For this type of data, 
I do recommend that you use a good 
backup or disk image software. Often, 
restoring a disk image works for such 
recoverable stuff. And if it doesn't work, 
you can always reinstall the software 
from its original disks.

But the second type of data, your own 
stuff, can not be reinstalled from the 
Windows or Software Installation disks. 
It is your own work, and you created it. 
It never came with Windows. You 
should have definite ideas on where and 
how you keep copies of your own data 
files so that you can recover them when 
the time comes.

I will assume that you know how to 
copy folders in Windows Explorer to 
another place. In earlier days, the disk 
space was limited and you had to 
depend on backup software to back up 
your data to an external tape or a 
diskette in compressed form. But 
nowadays, backing up by a simple 
copy is convenient too, thanks to the 
cheap disk space. 

Disks, drives and partitions: Before you 
read the following, you must 
understand what I call a disk and what I 
call a drive. A disk is a hard disk device 
that is on your system. A drive is one 
of the partitions on that hard disk. 
There may be several drives on a hard 
disk. You see the drives only when you 
open My Computer or Windows 
Explorer. To see which drive is on 
which disk, right-click on My 
Computer--Manage and click on "Disk 
Management" on the left. 

Backup software vs a straight copy 
operation:
I like to do a simple copy of my 
important folders using Windows 
Explorer to a drive on another hard 
disk. But this simple copy is not 
suggested for people who have lots of 
folders and might have trouble 
remembering which folders to copy. In 
such cases, special backup software is 
useful to maintain a list of folders to 
back up. The only complaint I have 
against backup software is that they 
usually insist on putting everything in 
their own file format, often compressed. 
I am not comfortable with that. Who 
knows, a backup software might fail on 
a future version of Windows to restore 
my stuff from that special compressed 
file? Hence, I usually keep all the 
important stuff on one drive and by 
using Windows Explorer, do a simple 
copy of all the folders from that drive to 
a drive on another hard disk. This saves 
me the trouble of remembering what 
folders to back up. Of course, I do use 
a disk imaging software to keep full 
images of disks too. I am extra careful 
when it comes to backing up the 
documents and programs that I have 
worked for years to create, and you 
should be careful too if you do serious 
work on computers.

Keep a simple, straight copy in addition 
to the backup software: I always like to 
copy full folders, no archiving and no 
compression. I feel safer that way. I 
recommend that even if you use special 
software for backup, always keep a 
simple copy of all your important data 
that you can restore on any Windows 
system without any special software. In 
addition to the above, use some disk 
imaging or backup software. Once you 
take the basic precautions, you can at 
last have peace of mind that you will be 
able to recover your work when your 
machine crashes on you.

A "copy" backup strategy using two 
hard disks: First of all, it makes sense 
to have two separate hard disks on 
your system. Keep all the stuff that you 
work on in the drives of one disk. On a 
drive of the second disk, make a 
suitable top level folder, say "My 
backup." Using Windows Explorer, 
copy all your work folders to this "My 
backup" folder on the second disk. 
Repeat this copy as often as you feel 
comfortable with. If you have lots of 
disk space, you may even rename "My 
backup" to "My backup for July, 2008" 
and then start copying from the next 
month to a fresh "My backup." This 
way, you can even preserve progressive 
stages of your work.

You can use the above strategy very 
often, whenever you think you have 
done enough work that justifies saving. 
But it is not enough. From time to time, 
you should also look at copying the 
stuff to an external disk such as a USB 
pen drive or a CD/DVD. Nowadays, you 
can even get large capacity USB hard 
disks of 200 GB and more. Always 
label such disks and CDs, and avoid 
reusing the same CD too soon again. 
Even they can fail. So you must keep 
two sets if you are really careful.

The kind of backup utility I need: Since 
I didn't find any backup utility that does 
a straight copy, I have written one for 
my own use. That is the advantage of 
being a developer, you can create stuff 
that you don't find. However, this utility 
is not yet ready for giving to others 
because I have many good ideas still 
pending on refining and improving it. 




Topic: Printing list of files

Surprisingly, if you want to print the 
contents of a folder or the list of files, 
Windows Explorer doesn't help. You 
might find software utilities to do this on 
the web. But I will show you a simple 
method to do this from the command 
line.

On the start menu, start the command 
prompt by clicking on Start--Programs--
Accessories--Command prompt. (or on 
the keyboard, press "Windows Logo 
Key-R-Enter" in that order)
Go to the desired drive and folder. For 
example, if you want to go to D:\My 
documents then type these commands 
one by one on the command prompt:
D:
cd "my documents"
Now you are ready to see the contents 
of this folder by a "Dir" command. Next, 
to capture the listing of files to a text 
file, type this:
dir >mylist.txt
To open the file mylist.txt in Notepad, 
just type:
start mylist.txt
You will see that this file contains a 
complete list of files from the dir 
command on your "my documents" 
folder. You can now print this file like 
any other Notepad file.

My own product ShowSize

This seems like a long way to do a 
simple thing like printing a list of files. I 
wonder why Windows Explorer was not 
programmed to do it. I am a developer, 
and I often want to print a list of files 
and folders. Hence, I developed my own 
product that not only can print list of 
files but can do much more. For 
example, you can right-click and copy 
the full file name to the clipboard. 
Check ShowSize out at 
http://showsize.com/?did=wib

Topic: Tuning Recycle Bin

Everyone uses Recycle Bin. But have 
you ever wondered whether you can 
change its behavior? Recently, I got 
annoyed with its Delete Confirmation 
during a massive cleanup operation on 
my drive. I thought I should put this 
confirmation off temporarily. I right-
clicked on Recycle Bin and clicked on 
its "Properties." The option to put off 
the delete confirmation was right there 
along with other options that I had never 
known before.

Topic: Folders and details

I always like to see Folders in "details" 
view in Windows Explorer. But I have to 
change to "details" view each time for a 
new folder. On Windows XP, I 
discovered that such a viewing option 
can be applied to all the folders so that 
you don't have to do it again and again.

In Windows Explorer, first select a 
folder and a view that you are 
comfortable with, say "details." Then, 
click on the menu "Tools--Folder 
Options" and select the page "View." 
Click on the button "Apply to all the 
folders." That's it. Now any folder that 
you see in Windows Explorer will be 
shown in the style that you selected 
first.

But I couldn't find such an option in 
Windows Vista. If anyone knows better, 
please send me hints.

Topic: Sorting files in Explorer

When you list files in Windows 
Explorer, they are normally ordered 
by their name, alphabetically. But 
you can always sort them in more 
meaningful ways by simply clicking 
at the top on Size, Type, etc. First 
you have to make sure that you are 
viewing the list in Details mode. 
Click on the menu View--Details if it 
is not showing the Details view. Now 
you can do the following:

Click on "Size" and you will see the 
files ordered by their size, the 
smallest file at the top. If you click 
on "Size" again, the order will be 
reversed and the biggest file will 
appear at the top.
Click on "File Type" and you can 
see all similar files together. For 
example, you can see all Word 
Documents together.
Click on the "Modified date" twice 
and you will see the most recently 
used file at the top.

These tricks can be very useful in 
finding the file of your choice. 
Windows Vista has some more 
features on this which I have not had 
time to explore. I will do that soon.

My ShowSize product helps in some 
areas

I am a developer, and I wanted to go 
one step further. Windows Explorer 
shows only the top most files in a 
folder at one time. You can not see 
the files within subfolders unless you 
actually go to a subfolder by clicking 
on it. But then you lose sight of the 
higher level files. I wanted a scheme 
whereby I could see "ALL" the files 
of a certain type in a given folder and 
its subfolders. For example, if I click 
on a disk, I wanted to see all the zip 
files on that disk together. 

This is not an easy job for a 
developer and that's why Windows 
Explorer doesn't have this feature to 
show items from within subfolders in 
a single list. If you were to list all the 
files on a disk, it might be a huge 
list with millions of entries on today's 
high capacity hard drives. Utilities 
like Windows Explorer can not or do 
not want to handle that at least at 
the time of this writing. Hence, I 
developed my own product 
ShowSize that can do this. It has 
many more reports like these. You 
can get all the details at 
http://showsize.com/?did=wib.

Note that ShowSize is not a 
Windows Explorer replacement. 
Rather it extends the usefulness of 
Windows file system by integrating 
with Windows Explorer and has 
menu items to invoke Windows 
Explorer on a given item within its 
reports or vice-versa from the 
Explorer to invoke itself on a folder.



Topic: Putting a folder on the desktop

In most Windows XP systems, there is 
a My Documents folder icon on the 
desktop to let you quickly see your 
files. But what if you have kept your 
stuff in other folders on other disks? If 
you want to have an icon for such an 
often used folder on your desktop, it's 
easy to do. Just follow the same 
procedure outlined in Documents on 
the desktop to drag a folder shortcut to 
the desktop.

Topic: Disk space

Suppose you run out of disk space on 
a drive, say D:. You know that you 
regularly download stuff from Internet to 
that drive and finally there is no more 
space left. How can you quickly find 
out which are the largest folders so that 
you can clean them up if necessary?

Windows Explorer gives you no way to 
directly see the total size of folders. 
You need to select a folder, right-click 
on it and see the properties. That will 
show you the total size taken up by 
that folder including all its children--
folders and files. But this "properties" 
method is inconvenient to find out large 
folders. Let's say you have 20 folders 
on drive D: at the top level. You will 
need to see "properties" for each of 
them and note the sizes down on a 
paper. Only then will you be able to 
know which ones are the larger folders.

It is much more convenient to make 
use of disk space utilities which are 
developed specifically for this purpose. 
For an example, please download 
ShowSize from http://showsize.com/?
did=wib. This works much like Explorer 
but on the right, you can see the total 
size taken up by each of the 
subfolders. This helps a lot when 
cleaning up.

Topic: Productivity tips



Topic: Using Notepad as a time log

You probably know that there is a 
"Time/Date" operation on the Edit 
menu of Notepad that lets you insert 
the current date and time in your 
text. But you may not know that you 
can use Notepad to automatically 
insert the date and time when you 
open a file. To do that, simply put 
the following on the first line of the 
file:

.LOG

Now whenever you open this file with 
Notepad, it will open with the date 
and time inserted, ready to go for 
your next entry. 

If you use my earlier tip Documents 
on the desktop to create a shortcut 
for the above file on the desktop, it 
becomes even more convenient. 
Just double-click on the file icon and 
it comes up ready for next entry in 
your log or journal.

If you are using our product 
WhizFolders Organizer, that too has 
a feature for journal recording. Just 
click on the "Tools--File Options" 
and the page "New Topics." There 
you can select any date and time 
prefix for any new topics. You can 
even select long date formats. The 
advantage of WhizFolders is that 
you can enter rich text in your note 
items, can outline them in a 
hierarchy and insert links between 
them.

Download a free trial of WhizFolders 
as described in How this e-book was 
created.

Topic: Keyboard tips



Topic: Windows Logo key

Till now, I had been using Windows 
Logo key at the bottom of the keyboard 
only for bringing up the start menu. But 
in Windows XP Help, I discovered some 
nice uses of it! 

Use it with Break key to bring up 
System Properties 
Use it with D to show the desktop 
Use it with M to minimize all the 
windows 
Use it with F to search 
Use it with R to open the run dialog 

The nice thing is that all of this also 
works on Windows Vista.

You will find a complete list in Windows 
XP help if you search for "logo key." 
However, I couldn't find this in Windows 
Vista help. I will have to search it a bit 
more.

Topic: Caps Lock sound

Many times, I accidentally press Caps 
Lock and have to redo some typing. 
This is irritating. Recently, I discovered 
an option in Windows that warns me 
with a sound when Caps Lock is turned 
on. Just click on the menu "Start--
Settings--Control Panel" to bring up the 
Control Panel. Then double-click on 
Accessibility options.

Turn on the option "Toggle keys" under 
Keyboard and click on Apply. Now 
whenever you press Caps Lock 
accidentally, it will warn you with a 
sound.

This also works in Windows Vista.

Topic: Hot key to start a program

You must have seen my earlier tip 
Putting items on the desktop that 
shows you how you can put the 
icons for often used programs on the 
desktop so that you can quickly 
start them.

Also, you can specify special key 
combinations (called a hot key) to 
start these programs from the 
keyboard. For example, we will 
specify a hot key Ctrl-Alt-N to start 
Notepad.

On the desktop, select the Notepad 
shortcut that you created earlier. 
Right-click and select Properties. 
Click on the box Shortcut Key and 
press the key combination you 
want: Ctrl-Alt-N. See that it appears 
in that box.
Click OK.

From now on, whenever you press 
these three keys, Notepad will start 
automatically. This works on 
Windows Vista too.

Topic: Finding more software

You must have already seen that 
Windows comes installed with 
useful software like Notepad. But 
how do you find more software, 
perhaps, a better Notepad? You 
might think that the only solution is 
to visit the nearest software retail 
store. But the problem with retail 
software is that you will need to 
guess from its box whether it is 
useful for you. You will need to pay 
the price upfront and then you are 
stuck if it doesn't live up to its 
promise.

If you have access to Internet, then 
there is a whole world of try-before-
you-buy software waiting for you.

Topic: try-before-you-buy software

For example, this e-book that you are 
reading was prepared with a note 
organizer called WhizFolders 
Organizer. It's a great tool to organize 
notes, links, and all those bits of 
information and to make such e-books 
from your notes.

There are many software download 
sites on Internet where you can 
download the trial version of similar 
useful and innovative software 
programs. Just type "download 
software" in google and you will see a 
lot of such web sites that keep trial 
copies of different software 
applications.

Precautions: There is a precaution that 
you must take when downloading 
software for trial. Download only when 
you trust that web site from its general 
appearance and from other information 
about the company. Otherwise, you 
may get surprises in the form of virus 
attacks. Hence, if you make it a rule to 
download software only from trusted 
sites, you won't be in trouble.

Starting with Windows XP SP2, 
Windows does have a feature to warn 
you on certain downloads. Please read 
the next topic.




Topic: Running downloaded programs

On Windows XP SP2 or better, when 
you download a program from Internet 
and try to run it, a security dialog 
comes up. Here is such a screen that 
comes up when you download and run 
WhizFolders Trial Edition (my own 
developed software).

 

Notice that it gives the name of the 
publisher, shows a yellow shield icon at 
the bottom and says "Only run software 
from publishers you trust." This usually 
means that the software is safe to 
install, provided you trust the publisher 
company. Such a dialog appears when 
the file is electronically signed by the 
publisher. That means, if anybody (say 
a virus) alters the file, the check will fail 
and Windows will give a serious 
warning. 

If you try to run an "unsigned" 
downloaded file, you get this screen:

 

Notice the message "The publisher 
could not be verified" and the red shield 
icon. This does not mean that the file is 
unsafe, but that the file is unsigned. 
Small developers may not afford to buy 
the security certificate to sign files. 
Now, here you need to use your 
judgment based on where you 
downloaded this file from. If you trust 
the web site and the developer who 
published this application, you may 
decide to go ahead and ignore the 
warning.

Windows Vista

Similar screens appear on Windows 
Vista but there is a difference I found 
(see the note at the end).

Signed downloaded file:

 

Unsigned downloaded file:

 

My own little test: I did a little test. I 
modified a signed downloaded file by 
using a hex editor and then ran it. 
Surprisingly, Windows XP SP2 gave no 
error and started the installation 
program directly. At this point, had the 
file contained a virus, it would have 
invaded the system.

However, when I did the same thing on 
Windows Vista, it complained with a 
serious looking screen having an 
orange shield icon and an orange 
header with the words "An unidentified 
program wants access to your 
computer" with a choice to cancel or 
allow the access. At the same time, it 
disabled the full screen which became 
dim. This Vista security feature is 
called User Account Control (UAC) and 
it ensures that the running program can 
do no harm if you cancel out at this 
point. Vista pops up such screens even 
when you are trying to run unsigned 
programs from network paths or are 
trying to run programs that require 
administrator access. 

All the UAC stuff seems to be for your 
protection. Naturally, Windows Vista 
looks more secure to me in identifying 
changes in the digitally signed files. 
But it's just my opinion. Some people 
are irritated with UAC prompts and turn 
off UAC completely in the options 
somewhere. I didn't research this any 
further because I want the UAC to be 
running.



Topic: Organize your downloads

Nowadays, it is easier to download 
software, sounds, pictures from the 
Internet. But if you do not have a plan, 
you may soon have lots of downloads 
taking space on your disk.

I will give you a simple idea to make it 
simple to clean up afterwards. Just 
create a folder "Evaluate" somewhere 
on your disks. Always download stuff to 
this folder. After you have used the stuff 
to install software, simply delete it from 
this evaluate folder. When you are 
evaluating software, you may also use 
another folder "Trial software" on some 
other drive instead of "Program files" to 
install software to. This way, you can 
easily find the stuff that you 
downloaded or installed for temporary 
use and can delete the unneeded stuff 
when you no longer need it.

Topic: Installing software

You might be wondering why you need 
to install some software before you can 
use it. I will try to explain it here. When 
you download software from Internet, it 
is mostly in the form of an exe file that 
you can run straightaway to install that 
software.

If it is a zip file, you should first unzip it 
if it contains lots of files in addition to 
the setup or install exe file. If you don't 
understand what a zip file is, please do 
write to me so that I will add an article 
on that. 

Why is an installation necessary?
Technically, many programs can be run 
without installing. But installation 
makes sure that the software creates 
some entries on your system. This is 
for your own convenience.

A proper installation adds an entry into 
Add/Remove programs section of the 
control panel so that you can uninstall 
the software when you don't need it any 
more
Installation also adds menu entries to 
the start menu and to the Windows 
desktop so that you can locate and 
start the program quickly
Some software programs require the 
use of special drivers or DLL files which 
can only be installed with a proper 
installation. Sometimes you need to 
reboot windows after the installation.

In any case, after you have installed a 
program, you should delete the file that 
you downloaded and used to install the 
software. If you don't do that, the file 
will just sit there occupying precious 
disk space. Hence, you should make it 
a habit to delete the installer exe (or 
zip) files after installing a software 
program.

Portable software: For software that 
does not need to install special DLLs or 
drivers, it is possible to design it such 
that it doesn't require an installation. 
This is gradually becoming popular 
because people want to carry useful 
software on a USB hard disk and then 
use it on any PC that they connect it 
to. In fact, I had to make such a 
portable version of my popular software 
WhizFolders so that the customers can 
carry WhizFolders along with its 
documents on a portable drive.


Topic: Microsoft power toys

Internet is great for finding utilities that 
troubleshoot problems. For example, I 
discovered this set of utilities for 
Windows XP when troubleshooting the 
problem Running out of space in C 
drive.

Please see 
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d
ownloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.msp
x.

Topic: Internet Explorer tips



Topic: Revisiting web pages

You probably already know that in 
Internet Explorer, you can move back 
and forward between viewed web pages 
by clicking on Back and Forward 
buttons on the toolbar. But have you 
tried the Down arrow next to the Back 
and Forward buttons?

 

You will see several recently visited 
pages listed there. This is certainly 
more convenient than using Back and 
Forward to go several pages back.

In Internet Explorer 7, the down arrow is 
next to the forward button only that 
shows the recently visited pages.


Topic: Safe browsing in cyber cafe

Occasionally, all of us have to visit a 
cyber cafe to access the Internet. It is 
quite possible that they have software 
installed to capture your keystrokes 
and passwords. Many web sites, such 
as banking or credit card companies, 
now show a virtual keyboard on the 
browser itself so that some "sneaky" 
software can't see it because you 
would be using the mouse on such a 
keyboard and the keys are always 
randomly arranged so that even a 
mouse capture software can't sneak in. 
This is clever and you should use such 
a feature whenever it is possible.

But if the web site or the software that 
you use doesn't provide such a virtual 
keyboard, you can at least take some 
basic precautions as far as Internet 
Explorer (IE) is concerned.

Before you start surfing, click on the 
menu "Tools--Internet Options" in 
Internet Explorer. Click on the page 
"Content" and on the button "Auto 
complete." Put off the options "Forms" 
and "User names and passwords on 
forms." This will avoid capturing your 
entries into the auto complete database 
for login names and passwords.
In some places, you will find these 
options switched on but disabled so 
that you can't change them. Get out of 
such a place and don't use the Internet 
there.
Later, when you have finished surfing 
and are ready to go home, you may 
restore the above settings to what they 
were. If you are extra cautious like me, 
you can even go to the "General" page 
and "Delete Files" and "Clear History" 
so that all the traces of web sites you 
surfed are removed from the explorer's 
temporary area. Again, do a little test 
to see if this can be done and get out of 
that cyber cafe if you can't do that.

Topic: Searching on Internet

You might already know that you can 
type one or more words in the search 
box at http://google.com to search for 
pages containing those keywords. 
What you might not know are these 
tricks:

You can install a Google Toolbar so 
that the box is always there whether 
you are at google.com or not. Here is a 
picture:
 
You can type the words to search for in 
the box on the left and hit on Go.

When you are looking at the Google 
search results, do not click directly on 
a page link. A better thing to do is to 
right-click on the link and open the 
target in a New Window (see tip below). 
This way, your search result page 
remains open to refer to. It also saves 
time so that you can open many pages 
and do not have to wait for one result to 
open before going to next.

Tip: A quick way to quickly open a link 
in a new window is to press Shift when 
you click on the link.

Topic: Taking your favorites with you

Have you used the Favorites 
bookmarking feature in Internet 
Explorer? If not, you should try it. It's 
quite easy to learn and helps you 
remember links to the web sites that 
you wish to revisit in the future with a 
simple click on the links that you 
remembered in Favorites. But I am not 
going to teach you Favorites here. This 
e-book does not discuss things which 
are too simple to learn on your own. 
Rather, I want to tell about carrying 
your Favorites with you.

When you move to another place and 
computer, you can take your Internet 
Explorer favorites with you. To do that 
first, export your favorites from Internet 
Explorer by the menu "File--Import and 
Export." A wizard appears. Just follow 
the prompts and you will have a .HTM 
file created that you can carry with you.

To use this file on another computer, 
just double-click it in another computer 
and you will see a page from where you 
can use your links. Always use Shift 
key when clicking so that the target 
page opens in another IE window and 
your links window is not disturbed.
The above method is easier as it does 
not disturb the existing Favorites on the 
other computer's Internet Explorer. But 
if you want to have your favorites to be 
added into the favorites of that browser, 
just do an Import from the same menu 
as described above.

I, myself, don't use Favorites much. 
Instead, I organize links in my own 
developed software called WhizFolders. 
Why? Because, I always like to keep 
some notes around my links to 
remember why I am keeping them and 
what is remaining to be done with the 
links. WhizFolders allows all that. 
Moreover, I can carry my WhizFolder 
documents and the software on a USB 
hard disk and can use my WhizFolders 
links on any PC I connect to. 
WhizFolders also has import features 
to import your Internet Explorer 
favorites into its own link format in an 
hierarchical list. You can download a 
trial edition of WhizFolders from 
http://whizfoldres.com/?did=wib

Topic: Troubleshooting problems

I will try to keep some notes in this 
section on how I solved some problems 
on my copy of Windows.

Topic: Finding your Windows version

Many times, you may have to tell your 
exact Windows version when obtaining 
technical support from software 
companies. If you want to see exactly 
what Windows version and build you 
are using, here is what you can do:

Click on Start--Run.
Type "winver" and press OK button.

This will show you the information. The 
System Information in Control Panel 
also shows that but it requires multiple 
steps to bring it up.

Topic: CD Writing and disk space on XP

I encountered this problem many 
times when I was using Windows 
XP. Often I ran out of space on C 
drive while making up a CD. Many 
times, I was able to avoid it by doing 
a disk cleanup as prompted on XP 
hint bar. But one day, I was stuck. It 
didn't help. I researched this problem 
and finally found a solution.

Download tweakui power toy from 
this Microsoft web site. 
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsx
p/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp
Download tweakui.exe and run it to 
install.
After install, you will find it on 
"Start--Programs--Power toys for 
Windows XP" menu.
Run it. You will see a list on the left. 
Click on My Computer--Special 
Folders.
It will show the folder property CD 
Burning on the right. Click on 
"Change location" button and 
change it to point to a folder on one 
of your larger drives. For example, i:
\cdtemp.
You are done. Now you won't face 
the irritating problem of C running 
out of space when writing CD.

If you want to know how I 
researched and solved this problem, 
please see How I solved the CD 
writing problem.

Topic: How I solved the CD writing problem

I want to show you how you can 
solve problems provided you know 
how to use the right tools. Let's take 
the example of my CD writing 
problem mentioned in Running out of 
space in C drive.

Once I found that I couldn't free up 
enough space on drive C by 
traditional Windows disk cleanup, I 
used my own developed tool 
ShowSize (http://showsize.com/?
did=wib) to scan the drive C. In its 
Folder Sizes report, I clicked on the 
column "Size" to sort it by the folder 
sizes. I found that "C:\documents 
and settings" was taking unusually 
high space. I knew that this folder is 
only used to keep my user settings 
and some temp files. With 
ShowSize, I went deeper into this 
folder and found that a folder called 
"CD Burning" was taking lot of 
space.

Looking at the contents of the CD 
Burning folder, I found that this folder 
was actually being used by 
Windows to keep the image of the 
files to be written to the CD. No 
wonder, the C drive was running out 
of space. If only I could change the 
location of this folder.

Here comes my next tool to the 
rescue. I went to 
"http://groups.google.com" and 
typed the words "+xp +change +cd 
+burning +folder" in the search box 
and hit the Search button. I got a list 
of message threads. On looking at 
them one by one, I finally found the 
answer in the thread "How to 
Change CD Burning Folder."

You can also solve problems this 
way. Have proper software tools on 
your system and then research the 
problem on groups.google.com.