[prashant]

Removing all icons from the desktop

No matter how hard I try, I always end up with a lot of junk on my desktop. From programs that I download and documents that I was too lazy to save elsewhere as well as new program links that seem to pop up from nowhere, there is never an end to the war that I fight with my desktop to keep it clutter-free. I like to be able to see my desktop wallpaper and not have my view of the wallpaper blocked by useless icons. One great way to win the never-ending desktop war is to just disable the desktop’s ability to show the icons and instead place the most common desktop icons, such as My Computer and the Recycle Bin, on the Quick Launch bar.

Disabling the icons on the desktop is actually a very simple task. Most people never know about this feature, because it is placed where you would really never expect it. To get started, just right-click Desktop. Then expand Arrange Icons By and select Show Desktop Icons to unselect it. After a few seconds, the icons will disappear.

Don’t worry the icons and folders on your desktop were not deleted. If you ever want to turn the icons back on, just repeat the preceding steps once more.

This is a very simple way to quickly clean up the desktop. It’s sort of like sweeping the dirt under a rug. The desktop clutter is still there, but you just can’t see it.

Customizing the icon drop shadow effect

One cool new feature of Windows XP is the Use Drop Shadows for Icon Labels on the Desktop. This new effect really makes the icons stand out from your wallpaper and makes them much easier to read when you are using a background, such as a photo, that has both light and dark spots. Unfortunately, depending on your computer’s hardware configuration, you may or may not be able to experience this cool new effect. If you have a newer computer that has an average graphics card, you will have no problem using this feature. But if you have an older graphics card, then you may be out of luck.

The Use Drop Shadows for Icon Labels on the Desktop can be turned on or off. Depending on the wallpaper that you are using, you may like or dislike the feature. I really like the new effect, but if you like having a clean and crisp interface, I recommend disabling the effect. Follow these steps to turn the feature on or off:

1. Click the Start button, and select Run.

2. Key in sysdm.cpl and click OK to launch system properties.

3. Click the Advanced tab, and then click the Settings button under the Performance section.

4. While on the Visual Effects tab, scroll down to the bottom of the box.

5. Locate Use Drop Shadows for Icon Labels on the Desktop, as shown in Figure 3-1, and check or uncheck the value, depending on what you would like to do.

6. Click OK to save your changes.

7. Click OK once more to close the System Properties window.



FIGURE 3-1: Turning the drop shadow effect on and off for icons on the desktop.

If you enable the effect by checking the box and the effect still does not show up after you reboot your computer, this is a sign that your computer does not support the feature.

Displaying the traditional Windows icons

Now that Windows XP includes the new Start panel with shortcuts to My Computer, My Documents, My Network Places, and Internet Explorer, the shortcuts on the desktop are less important and Microsoft decided to remove them. If you are a user that doesn’t like clutter on your desktop, then this feature is great for you. But if you like the old way of using Windows, and like the desktop to be the center of your navigation instead of the Start panel, then you are out of luck.



FIGURE 3-2: Selecting which icons to display on the desktop.

However, just as with other new features in Windows XP, with the desktop you can revert to the old way of doing things. Turning the desktop icons back on involves a little more effort than just switching back to the classic Start Menu, but doing so still is not very difficult. Follow these steps and you will be able to select which icons you want back:

1. Right-click the desktop and select Properties.

2. Click the Desktop tab and then click the Customize Desktop button at the bottom of the window.

3. Then, on the General tab, just select the check box next to the icons you want to display, as shown in Figure 3-2.

4. Click OK to save your changes.

5. Click OK once more to close display properties.

You will see the icons on your desktop immediately after you complete the steps.

Enabling large icons on the desktop

Windows XP has support for larger and more colorful icons than any other previous Windows version. The support for high-quality graphics is one of the reasons why Windows XP looks so much better than previous versions of Windows. This section will show you how to take advantage of the new graphical enhancements to make your desktop look cool.

Two different sizes of icons are used on the Windows XP desktop. The normal size for icons in Windows XP is 32X32 pixels. Windows XP also has support for larger icons, which are 48X48 pixels. Figure 3-3 shows the difference in size between the two icons. Use of the larger icons will not only helps your vision but will also make your desktop look more visually pleasing, because the larger icons are more detailed. If you have a large monitor, chances are that you will love the large icons. Some of you, however, may not like them because they take up more space than the smaller icons and decrease the amount of icons that can fit on your desktop. Although this is a tradeoff, I feel the high-resolution icons are worth it. To get started, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the desktop and select Properties.

2. Click the Appearance tab and then click the Effects button.

3. Check the Use Large Icons box, as shown in Figure 3-4.

4. Click OK to save your changes.

5. Click the OK button again to close display properties.



FIGURE 3-3: Large and normal size icons.



FIGURE 3-4: Enabling large icons.


The large icons should be displayed immediately after the change. You will notice that some other icons will also enlarge. This is a side effect of using this tip, because it is impossible to adjust just the size of the icons on the desktop. However, only the icons that you see when you browse your computer and use the Control Panel are slightly larger. None of the other icons are changed.

To revert to the normal-sized icons, just repeat the preceding step and uncheck Use Large Icons.

Removing the text below the icons

Icons and text always go together. Every single icon on your desktop has to have a label below it. If you have a lot of icons on your desktop, the text under the icon is very valuable. However, if you have few icons on your desktop, you can get away with just using the icons alone. Doing so will result in a much cleaner interface. Amazingly, your desktop will look much simpler and cleaner without the labels below the icons. Actually you are not really removing the text under the icons. Instead, you are replacing the name of the icon with some characters that the computer will not display. Renaming the icons would be very easy if all that was involved was clicking the name and pressing the spacebar a few times. Unfortunately, that is not the case, because Windows does not allow you to enter in a space with the spacebar. Instead, you can use the ASCII code for a space. Every character that is used in the computer is stored in the PC as a code for a character. For example, the ASCII code for an s is 0115, the ASCII code for a copyright sign is 0169, and so on. You will be interested in the ASCII code for a character that shows up as a blank space, which is 0160. Now that you know the basics of ASCII, let’s rename some files.

1. Start with the first icon that you want to rename: right-click it and select Rename.

2. Select all of the text, and erase it with the Backspace key.

3. Now, enter in the ASCII code for the space, so make sure your Numlock is on, and just press and hold the Alt key while typing in 0 1 6 0 on the numpad on the right of the keyboard.

4. When you have finished typing in 0 1 6 0, let go of the Alt key and the blank space will be inserted.

5. Then, just press Enter to save the new name.

If you want to remove the text of multiple icons, then you will have a problem with the instructions because each shortcut or item must still have a unique name. One easy workaround is to enter in the ASCII code as the previous directions indicate, and then add a space using the spacebar after it. The first icons will have the ASCII space code +one space, the second icon will have the ASCII space code +two spaces, and so on. Removing the text below the icons also allows you to do some fun things with the placement of your icons. Try removing the name of several icons. Then, turn on large icons, if you have not already done so, and line them up just above the taskbar, as shown in Figure 3-5. This will give you a setup that is similar to the bar on Apple’s OS X. Although your icons won’t be animated and bounce around, you will be able to set up your interface so that it looks like the OS X setup.

Renaming the Recycle Bin

The Recycle Bin is a great feature of Windows, but it is very difficult to customize the name. Unlike other system icons on the desktop, you cannot just right-click it and select Rename. The only way to rename the Recycle Bin is to hack the Registry. This is not as simple as the method for the other icons, but you can easily get through it. To get started, let’s assume that you want to rename the Recycle Bin as Trash Compactor:

1. Click the Start button and select Run.

2. Then type regedit in the box and click OK.

3. When the Registry Editor is started, you will want to expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Explorer, CLSID, and {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} folders.



FIGURE 3-5: Icons placed to look like the OS X bar.


4. When you have expanded the last folder, you should see an entry called (Default) that has no value. Right-click that entry and select Modify.

5. Next, just type Trash Compactor, or any other name, in the box and click OK. If you want to hide the text under the Recycle Bin icon, you will still have to specify a name. Instead of typing in a word, just click the spacebar once and then click OK. You do not have to worry about entering in the ASCII code for a space when editing the registry.

6. Close the Registry Editor and press F5 when viewing your desktop to see your changes. If that does not work for your computer, then you will have to log out and log in to activate the changes.

Now your Recycle Bin is no more. Hello Trash Compactor!

Removing the shortcut arrow from icons on the desktop

One thing that I always hate about Windows is the shortcut arrow. Sure, it is good to be able to tell if a shortcut is actually a shortcut, but I think I know that the applications that I put on my desktop are already shortcuts. This feature can be annoying as well as problematic. One example of this is when you use the large icons. Any icon that is a shortcut has a stretched version of the arrow in the lower-left corner of the icon, making the icon look pixelated.

A number of different solutions to the shortcut arrow problem are available. You can replace the big white square with a smaller semi-transparent arrow, use your own icon file, or you can disable it completely. The best way to change the shortcut arrow setting is to use the most popular Microsoft PowerToy, Tweak UI. You can get a copy of it from the PowerToys Web page, located at Windows XP: Home Page. Follow these steps to change the shortcut arrow settings:

1. Click the Start Menu and expand All Programs, PowerToys for Windows XP, and then select Tweak UI to start it up.

2. Once Tweak UI is started, expand the Explorer entry and select Shortcut.

3. You will now see four different icon Shortcut Overlay options. I recommend you try using the light arrow options first. Then if you still don’t like it, click None, as shown in Figure 3-6, to remove the shortcut arrows.

4. Once you have made up your mind and selected the Overlay option, click OK to save your changes.

You may now close Tweak UI. Your changes will show up after you reboot.



FIGURE 3-6: Using Tweak UI to customize the shortcut overlay.


Changing the icons on the desktop

The new icons that come with Windows XP provide a much-needed change from the boring low-resolution icons of previous Windows versions. The new icons have started a whole breed of icons, known as the XP-style icons. There are now hundreds of Web sites started by artists where you can download their personal XP-style icon creations. My favorite site is FOOOD's Icons has moved..., which offers hundreds of very well-designed XP icons for free. Changing the desktop icons is very simple in Windows XP. The most difficult part of the process is finding good XP icons. To help you out on your hunt for cool XP icons, I have created the following list of some of my favorite icon Web sites:



Iconica: Iconica Custom Icons-Custom Windows Vista icons, XP icons for software developers and web design

I heart NY: www.iheartny.com/xicons

WBC Icons: wbc images

Foood’s Icons: FOOOD's Icons has moved...

I-cons: i-cons.tk

xIcons: http://xp.xicons.com

Now that you have a few good sites to start your search, it is time to actually change the icons on the desktop. As already noted, changing the icons is easy. But if you want to change the icon of one of the system shortcuts, such as the My Computer, My Documents, and My Network Places icons, as well as the Internet Explorer and Recycle Bin icons, then you have to follow a special procedure. Follow these steps to change any of the system icons:

1. Right-click the Desktop and select Properties.

2. When Display Properties loads, click the Desktop tab and click the Customize Desktop button at the bottom of the window.

3. Just click the icon that you want to change, as shown in Figure 3-7, and then click the Change Icon button.

4. When the change icon screen shows up, click the Browse button and navigate to the icon that you want to use.

5. Once you have selected the icon that you want to use, just click OK and your icon should change in the preview box.

6. When you are finished changing all of the icons, click OK to save your icon modifications and return to the Display Properties window.

7. Now, just click OK once more to save your changes.

Changing the system icons is pretty simple, but changing other icons on your desktop, such as program shortcuts and folders, is even easier. Just follow these steps:

1. Right-click the item for which you want to change the icon and select Properties.

2. If you right-clicked an application shortcut, then you will see the Change Icon button at the bottom of the window. If you are trying to change the icon of a folder on your desktop, you will have to click the Customize tab first and then you will see the Change Icon button at the bottom of the window as well.

3. Once you are finished changing the icon, click OK to save your changes.

If you want to change other system icons, such as the Internet Explorer icon, Drive icons, or the Folder icons, you will have to use a special utility. Many programs on the Web will allow you to do so, but the two that I like to use are called Microangelo (Home of Microangelo: The Grand Daddy of Icon Software) and Icon Packager (Stardock.com - Your Edge In Software).



FIGURE 3-7: Changing the My Computer icon.

Now you will be able to benefit from all of the cool icons that are available for free on the Web. Because you have now finished customizing the look of your desktop icons.


Customizing the Behavior of the Desktop

The desktop is a pretty simple part of Windows XP. You really can’t do much to customize its looks besides changing the wallpaper. However, several different tools are available that you can use to add features to the desktop and to take advantage of some of its lesser known features. These next few sections will show you how you can use these tools to do cool things such as use multiple desktops or create a special Web page that will display live data, such as a weather report, from the Internet on your desktop.



FIGURE 3-8: The Windows XP Virtual Desktop Manager PowerToy.


Using the Virtual Desktop Manager PowerToy

Throughout my computing career, I have used several different computing platforms that run all sorts of different window environments. Of all of them, KDE, which is a window environment for Unix and Linux, has become my favorite because of its implementation of the virtual desktop feature. If you are like me and do several different things at once on your computer, you can use virtual desktops to switch between groups of open programs rather than relying on the taskbar. A couple of months after Windows XP was released, Microsoft released a Virtual Desktop Manager PowerToy. I was extremely happy to be able to get this feature on Windows XP. Although it is not exactly the same as the KDE version because it does not show a preview of what is going on in the window, it allows you to switch between desktops. The Windows XP Virtual Desktop PowerToy works by adding a new toolbar to the taskbar, as shown in Figure 3-8. You can easily switch between your desktops by clicking the numbered buttons. Also, you can click the Preview button to see a four way split-screen of all of your desktops so that you can view what is open on all of them at once, as shown in Figure 3-9.



FIGURE 3-9: The Virtual Desktop Manager PowerToy split-screen preview.


Let’s get started with setting up the Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager (MSVDM) on your computer. First, download a copy of the Virtual Desktop Manager from the Windows XP PowerToys Web site, located at Windows XP: Home Page. Once you have a copy of the PowerToys installed, follow these steps to get it up and running:

1. Once you have installed the PowerToy, you will want to unlock your taskbar so that you can place the Virtual Desktop Manager on it. Right-click your taskbar and select Lock the Taskbar Item only if there is a check next to the text. Otherwise, your taskbar is already unlocked.

2. When you have your taskbar unlocked, right-click the taskbar again, in the general location that you want the Virtual Desktop Manager to appear, and select Toolbars and then Desktop Manager.

3. This will make the Virtual Desktop buttons appear on your taskbar. I always like to get rid of the label to the left of the buttons. To do this, right-click the Virtual Desktop Manager and select Show Title to disable the label. This will only work when the taskbar is unlocked.

4. Now that you have the Virtual Desktop Manager set up on the taskbar, customize the way it works. Set up the background for your different virtual desktops so that you can easily determine which one you are on. To do this, right-click the Virtual Desktop toolbar and select Configure Desktop Images. Then, on the MSVDM Settings window, just select the desktop number with your mouse and then select the background image you want to use. Click OK when you are finished to save your changes.

5. The next feature of the Virtual Desktop Manager that I always like to customize is the shared desktop feature. This allows you to access the same taskbar on every desktop. There are times when it is nice to have this feature disabled so that your taskbar on the different desktop is nice and tidy, but that makes moving windows that you already have open on one desktop to another impossible because there is no way to right-click a window and send it to a specific desktop like with other Virtual Desktop Managers in different window environments. You can easily enable or disable the shared desktop feature by right-clicking the Virtual Desktop Manager and selecting Shared Desktops. I suggest you experiment with this feature to find the best setting for your personal taste.

6. The last feature that I like to modify is the animation feature of the preview screen. Every time you click the preview screen, your screen will slowly shrink up into the four way split-screen preview. Then, when you select a desktop, it will slowly expand to full screen. This is a nice feature, but unfortunately the quality of the animation is not very high. On computers that have larger monitors, the animation looks pretty bad and just becomes a delay that you have to wait for every time you want to use the preview screen. One easy way around this is to simply disable animations by right-clicking the Virtual Desktop Manager and selecting Use Animations.


Fun with Active Desktop

Active Desktop has been a feature of Windows ever since Windows 98. Over time, it has changed a lot and has become a very powerful feature when it is used to its full potential. I use the ability to display a Web page file as my background feature of Active Desktop to customize the way that I use my computer. Because you are able to display a Web page, the kind of information that you can display on your desktop is only limited to your knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), which is the language used to create Web pages. If you are new to HTML, then I suggest you get a book on it, such as Creating Web Pages For Dummies, or at least read a lot about HTML on the Web. For the purpose of this section, I am going to assume that you know a little HTML, or at least know how to use an HTML editor such as Microsoft FrontPage.

There are actually even cooler things that you can do with your Web page if you know HTML well enough. You can add links to your Web page that you can access on your desktop to launch programs or visit Web sites. Additionally, if you are very talented in HTML and other Web technologies such as ASP, you could write a Web page that is one big frame that points to an Active Server Page on an external Web server. Then you can program that external page to do almost anything you can think of, such as gathering news headlines or other data.

The advantage of this is, the first part of using this feature is coming up with a Web page to set as your background. The following is the source code for my Web page that I am using to display my weather radar:



FIGURE 3-10: Using Active Desktop to display a Web page as the desktop.

<html>
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV “Refresh” CONTENT “10”>
</head>
<body bgcolor “#0066CC”>
<p align “center”>
<font color “#FFFFFF” size “5” face “Verdana”>
Hacking Windows XP Active Desktop Demonstration
</font>
<br>
<img src ” http://weather.123india.com/karnataka/bangalore.html”>
</p>
</body>
</html>


This is the content of my Web page file that is saved as radarpage.htm. Basically, the most important line in the code above is the META Refresh line. This is the line that automatically tells my browser, or Active Desktop, to refresh the page every 10 seconds. That way, I will always have an up-to-date radar image displayed on my desktop. All of the other lines are just standard HTML tags.

If you want to create a file like this, just open up Notepad and type in your HTML code and then save the file with an .htm extension.

Now, once you have your Web page made in either Notepad or a nice HTML editor, you are ready to set it up to be used as your desktop. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Right-click your Desktop and select Properties.

2. Next, click the Desktop tab and then click the Browse button that is located on the middle-right side of the window.

3. Navigate through your computer and select the Web page that you created to use as your background and then click OK to select it.

4. Click OK once more to save your changes and you are finished.

You will have to wait a few seconds as Active Desktop loads your desktop for the first time. After that, the display properties window will go away and you should see your new desktop.


Using the wallpaper PowerToy

We all like changing our wallpaper every once in a while. We get tired of staring at the same old photo or pattern and like to select a new image that we downloaded on the Web or made ourselves. Back in April of 2003, Microsoft released a series of creativity fun packs that included all sorts of neat things, such as different types of themed templates as well as a few new PowerToys. One of those PowerToys was called the Wallpaper Changer. This PowerToy is an application that will automatically rotate your wallpaper over a given period of time that you
set. Additionally, you can specify a folder of images to use so that you can control which images are rotated.



FIGURE 3-11: Using the Wallpaper Changer PowerToy to customize the desktop by adding rotating wallpapers.


I like to use the Wallpaper Changer to change my wallpaper weekly, although it is possible to set it up to change your wallpaper every 15 minutes. If the Wallpaper Changer is something that interests you, visit Windows XP: Home Page to download a copy yourself. Then, follow these steps to configure it:

1. Once you have installed the Wallpaper Changer PowerToy, you can start it up by clicking the Start Menu, navigating to All Programs, expanding PowerToys for Windows XP, and then selecting Wallpaper Changer.

2. When the Wallpaper Changer has loaded, select the folder that you want to use as your source of the images using the browsing box.

3. Then, just set the interval between wallpaper changes by sliding the marker across the line, as shown in
Figure 3-11.

4. Once you have the interval set, just click OK and your settings will be saved.

The Wallpaper Changer will allow you to customize your desktop like never before. Now you will always have a nice-looking desktop that is always new.