Make Shift Turn Off Caps Lock

I find it a lot more convenient to have the Shift key release the Caps Lock function, as typewriters do. Windows 2000 offers this option during installation, but most people never notice it. With Windows XP, the feature is available from the Control Panel, but only when you install another keyboard layout during installation. I have tracked down a way to control this setting after the fact by manipulating the Registry.

In the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Keyboard Layout, create a DWORD value named Attributes, if it isn't already present. Double-click on it, then choose Hexadecimal, and set its value to 00010000. Now, when you press and release the Shift key while the Caps Lock is active, Caps Lock will turn off.

This tip applies to both Windows 2000 and XP. But it won't take effect until you restart the computer. After you make this change, the Caps Lock key always turns Caps Lock on; you can no longer use it to turn Caps Lock off. You must turn Caps Lock off by tapping either Shift key. This tip reduces the chances of looking up at your screen only to find that you've typed a whole paragraph in uppercase.

Manage File Associations

A file association specifies which application is the default for a particular file type. When you open a file—an MP3, for example—the associated program launches. To change the current file association for a file type, or to create an association, right-click on a file with the appropriate extension, and select Open with. (In Windows 98, you need to hold down the Shift key when right-clicking.)

In Windows 98, Me, or 2000, select the program you want to use from the list that appears, or Browse for another application. Windows XP will show you a short list of recommended programs or let you Choose Program. Check the box labeled Always use the selected program to open this kind of file, and choose OK.

If you're using Win XP and not sure which program to use, and you are connected to the Internet, click on the link called Look for the appropriate program on the Web to go to a Web page that may help you find out the correct program to use.

Manage your music license with Backup and Restore

When you use Windows Media Player 8 in Windows XP to copy music from a CD to the hard drive, the sound files are protected unless you disable the Protect Content option, located in Tools | Options | Copy Music | Copy Settings. However, with this feature enabled, you won't be able to play the sound files on other computers.

In addition, this music can only be played if you have the special license that's created when you copy it to the hard drive. By default, these licenses are stored in your user profile. Since they're extremely important, it's recommended that you back them up regularly. Here's how:

1. Go to Start | Accessories | Entertainment | Windows Media Player.

2. From the Tools menu, select License Management.

3. Click the Browse button and specify the backup location.

4. Select Backup Now.

Note: Microsoft tracks the number of times you restore the license and only allows it to be restored on four different computers.

Maximize Battery Life

Careful use of power management tools and decreasing screen brightness can stretch battery life by 30 to 45 minutes. Go to the Control Panel and open Power Options. You'll see half a dozen tabs (the layout varies slightly among notebooks). Make sure that your notebook can go into Standby mode (in the Power Schemes tab), meaning that the system stops most activity and uses the battery to refresh system memory.

A computer in Standby loses 10 to 15 percent of its charge each day. You should set your system to go into Hibernate mode after Standby, meaning that it writes an image of the memory contents to the hard drive and then shuts down. (Windows 98 doesn't offer Hibernate.) In Hibernate, there's no loss beyond the battery's own gradual discharge.

Maximize Task Manager's dynamic graphs

The Performance and Networking tabs in Windows Task Manager offer dynamic graphs, such as CPU usage and network usage, respectively. Not only do they display usage information, but they also provide CPU history and the amount of network traffic.

While these graphs are relatively simple in nature, they're extremely useful when gathering information during a troubleshooting expedition. However, the actual graphs are so small that it's difficult to analyze information over time.

Fortunately, Windows XP allows you to enlarge the graphs. When you double-click in the middle of a graph, it expands to fill the entire Task Manager dialog box. (Keep in mind that no matter where you double-click on the Performance tab, the only graph you'll see is the CPU usage.)

If you want an even larger graph, maximize the Task Manager dialog box before you double-click the graph. To return the graph to normal size, double-click it again.

Media Player Shortcut Keys

Ctrl-P: Play or pause a file.

Ctrl-S: Stop playback.

Ctrl-B: Play previous item.

Ctrl-F: Play next item.

Ctrl-Shift-B: Rewind (only for DVDs).

Ctrl-Shift-F: Fast-forward (only for DVDs).

Ctrl-E: Eject CD or DVD (does not work if computer has multiple CD-ROM or DVD drives attached).

Ctrl-U: Open a URL or file.

Alt-Enter: Display video in full-screen mode.

Ctrl-1: Switch to Full mode from Skin mode.

Ctrl-2: Switch to Skin mode from Full mode.

Ctrl-M: Display menu bar during full-screen playback.

Alt-S: Search Media Library.

F8: Mute.

F9: Decrease volume.

F10: Increase volume.

Missing Files

Windows XP is designed to make it easy to set up more than one user account, so that several people can use the same computer; each user sees his own customized version of the desktop. A by-product of this capability is that Win XP stores your documents differently than previous versions.

When you look at My Documents on the desktop or in Windows Explorer, the layout looks the same as it did in earlier versions of Windows, because Win XP is pointing you at your personal-documents folder. But that folder is no longer stored at the physical path C:\My Documents, so any program that tries to use that filepath is going to give you an error message.

The top-level documents folder in Win XP is now C:\Documents and Settings. Within that folder is a subfolder named for each user account that you've created for Win XP. And each user's subfolder has its own My Documents folder. So to get the application to access your files successfully under Win XP, look in the program's preferences for paths that start with C:\My Documents, and change them to C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents.

Modify the Open With list

If you open certain types of files in more than one application, you probably use the Open With command. To do so, right-click a file, and select Open With from the resulting shortcut menu. This displays a secondary menu listing the programs that can open this type of file.

In most cases, the Open With list presents only those programs that you'll want to use. But if the list contains programs that you never want to use, you can remove them with a simple registry edit.

Follow these steps:

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

2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts.

3. Double-click the key associated with the file extension of the file type whose Open With list you want to modify.

4. When that key opens, double-click the OpenWithList key.

5. Delete the value associated with the program that you want to remove from the list.

Note: Editing the registry is risky, so be sure you have a verified backup before making any changes.

Monitor system performance

Task Manager is not the only utility in Windows XP that displays information about system performance. A great deal of information is also available within the Performance Monitor, located in the Administrative Tools folder.

When you open the Performance Monitor console, select the System Monitor node. You'll see the following three predefined counters that are monitored by default:

• Pages/sec: This counter displays the number of times per second the OS had to read or write to the paging file. If this number is constantly high--over 150, depending on the system--you most likely don't have enough RAM.
• Avg. Disk Queue Length: This counter monitors the length of queue with disk requests waiting to be serviced. If this number is frequently over two, it indicates a slow hard drive or high paging activity, which is a consequence of lacking RAM.
• % Processor Time: This counter displays the percentage of time that the processor spends executing a snippet of code. In other words, it shows you how busy the CPU is at that particular moment.

These three counters provide you with basic performance information. To monitor the network for more detailed information, click the Add [+] button. This will allow you to select from several hundred different performance counters.

Monitor the performance of a remote system

The Performance Monitor in Windows XP allows you to monitor the performance of remote computers. Here's how:

1. Open the Performance Monitor console, located within the Administrative Tools folder.

2. Select the System Monitor node and click the Add [+] button.

3. Select the counters that you want to monitor from the Add Counters dialog box.

4. To monitor a remote system, click Select Counters From Computer and type the computer name or IP address in the box that's provided.

5. Click Add to add the counter.

6. When you're done adding counters, select Close.

If you monitor a lot of counters, you can easily get lost on the graph. In this case, select the individual counter and click the Highlight button or [Ctrl]H, which will highlight the counter on the graph and make it more visible.

MouseKeys

Another accessibility feature that you may want to explore is MouseKeys, which lets you control the mouse pointer with the numeric keypad. This gives you much finer control over the mouse pointer. To turn this feature on, go to the Accessibility Options applet, choose the Mouse tab, and check the Use MouseKeys check box. Here again, you'll want to explore the available settings.

Mysteriously Colored Filenames

This phenomenon is not new, but for some reason quite a few readers have written about it recently. The blue color is not harmful in any way. Windows XP supports the NTFS file system, which in turn supports NTFS file compression. By default, NTFS-compressed files are displayed in a color, specifically the bright blue you mention.

You say you haven't compressed any files, but if you've used the Disk Cleanup applet, you've probably done so without realizing it. The Disk Cleanup applet includes an option called Compress old files, which saves space. You probably selected that option without realizing that it would change the appearance of the filenames in Windows Explorer.

If you prefer, you can select Folder Options from Windows Explorer's Tools menu, click on the View tab, and uncheck the item that says Display compressed files and folders with alternate color. But now that you know the cause of the color change, you may want to retain this visual indication that a file is compressed.

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Navigate the Network Setup Wizard

Setting up a network can be challenging. To help you configure computers on the network, check out Microsoft's Network Setup Wizard. This wizard guides admins through the setup of a network and can configure all the computers to use one Internet connection, enable a firewall, and/or enable a network bridge.

The Network Setup Wizard is installed by default on Windows XP Professional. To activate the wizard, select Set Up A Home Or Small Office Network, which is located in the Network Tasks section of the Network Connection folder. You can also use the wizard on other OSs, such as XP Home Edition, Windows 98/SE, and Windows Me by running the Netsetup.exe file from the i386 folder in the XP CD-ROM.

Before you run the wizard, make sure all of the network hardware is installed and working properly. Run it first on the computer that has the Internet connection that you want to share with others--the Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) host computer. Then run the wizard on all the computers that you want to network. It may not provide a solution for every possible scenario, but it's still useful for most networks.

Net Diagnostics

Hidden in Windows XP's System Information utility is a very good tool for getting a lot more information about what's going on. Go to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | System Information. Then choose Net Diagnostics from the Tools menu. The program will ping your DNS servers, gateways, SMTP and POP3 mail servers, and proxies; test your modem and network adapters; and supply very detailed reports about your settings, as well as which tests passed and which failed.

Networking with FireWire

Although FireWire was originally designed to connect high-speed peripherals such as hard drives and CD-ROM drives, it can also be used as a very fast (400-Mbps) way to network two PCs. In fact, Windows XP automatically creates a network connection for FireWire adapters. The connection appears in the Network Connections control panel as 1394 Connection, and it works much like any Ethernet connection.

Unlike USB (which requires a special crossover cable to connect two PCs together), a FireWire connection requires no special cables, hubs, or adapters. Be aware that there are two types of FireWire connectors in common use. The larger, six-pin connector is most often used for external hard drives, CD drives, and other AC-powered equipment, while the smaller four-pin connector is used on DV camcorders and small, portable equipment. Be sure to get a cable with the appropriate connections.