TIPS THAT WILL OPTIMIZE YOUR
WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM
Original by Bill Wilkinson, Sun City Summerlin
Updated by Doug Willoughby
Presentation Part 2 March 23, 2006
11. Are Your Windows Settings Optimal?
Microsoft sets several parameters to what they believe should be optimal for all users
of Windows XP. Those settings may not be optimal for your situation.
Some are set to be a percentage of the size of the hard drive. Others are set to very
large sizes almost arbitrarily.
The parameters are:
System Restore space of 12 % of hard drive space. For an 80 GB hard drive that can
be 9.6 GB and may hold about 100 restore points or over 3 months worth. I
recommend only 1.5 to 2.0 GB which about 20 restore points.
To change: Start button to my Computer right click, select properties item in menu;
Under properties tab select C: hard drive and settings; in Settings window select new
setting.
Temporary internet file space can also be many megabytes to hold the parts of
websites you have visited in case you return to them. You will not have to download
them again (unless they have changed in the meantime). Initially set to 252 MB; it
can be set to under 5 MB.
To Change: Open Internet Explorer, select Tools item in menu, then internet
options; Under Temporary internet files portion of window select settings and in the
window that opens change the setting.
Recycle Bin is set to 10% of the hard drive size by default. It can be set to 1.0 GB.
To change: right click on the recycle bin and select Properties. In the window select
the C: hard drive and settings and in the window change the setting to percent
closest to 1 GB.
12. Do You Want Your Windows to Open as Full
Screens?
To make each new window open maximized when you click its icon, right click the
icon, choose Properties, Shortcut, select Maximized from the Run drop-down list,
and click OK.
To toggle between a window's maximized and normal sizes, simply doubleclick the
window's title bar.
Unfortunately, Microsoft does not have a setting that permits you to
maximize all windows when you open them. However, a free program called
AutoSizer lets you open these windows at full size: Just set AutoSizer to
make certain programs always open maximized. AutoSizer sits quietly in
your PC's system tray and will be loaded automatically at startup. To
download and install this utility, go to AutoSizer.
13. Have You Tamed Your Toolbars to Make Them
More Useful?
The toolbars that grace the top of Windows Explorer, Outlook Express,
Internet Explorer, and Word (as well as many other popular applications) are
great time-savers, but sometimes they take up too much space and have
icons posted that you never use.
Many of these programs allow you to determine what toolbars or menus
you'll see at the top of the screen.
To change the toolbar icons in Internet Explorer, go to View on the
Menu Bar, click on Toolbars, then click on Customize. The resulting
dialogue box is easy to use in manipulating the icons around on the
Toolbar. While you're in the Customize Toolbar dialog box, select
Small icons in the "Icon options" drop-down menu near the bottom to
give yourself even more work room.
To change the toolbar icons in Outlook Express, go to View on the
Menu Bar, click on Layout, select the Basic Layout, and then click on
Customize Toolbar. The resulting dialogue box is easy to use in
manipulating the icons around on the Toolbar. While you're in the
Customize Toolbar dialog box, select Small icons in the "Icon
options" drop-down menu near the bottom to give yourself even more
work room.
To change the toolbar icons in Windows Explorer (My Computer),
go to View on the Menu Bar, click on Toolbars, then click on
Customize. The resulting dialogue box is easy to use in manipulating
the icons around on the Toolbar. While you're in the Customize
Toolbar dialog box, select Small icons in the "Icon options" dropdown
menu near the bottom to give yourself even more work room.
To change the toolbar icons in Microsoft Word, click on View from
the Menu Bar, move down to Toolbars, and confirm that both
Standard and Formatting have been selected by default. If either one
has not been checked, then select it by clicking on it. Now click on the
down arrow (inverted triangle) that appears at the extreme right corner
of the toolbar (if there are two rows of tools, look for the arrow at the
end of the second row), hover over Add or Remove Buttons, and
then hover over the Standard button until a drop down menu of all
the Standard Toolbar options appears. From this menu, you can select
and deselect the icons of your choice. Use the same procedure to add
or remove buttons from the Formatting button.
To make your work window bigger, put several toolbars on the same line.
(Sometimes you can even have a toolbar share a line with the menu bar.) In
most toolbars, buttons that run off the edge of the screen remain available
via a menu that appears when you click the double chevron. Try a few
toolbar arrangements until you find one with the buttons and menus you use
frequently.
If you just want to move your toolbars out of the way now and then,
Windows Explorer, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer offer a quick way
to collapse them: Position your pointer below the toolbars until you see the
direction arrows, and drag upward to compact them (and the menu bar) into
one or two rows. Just drag back down to expand them.
For the biggest possible view of any Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer
window, press F11. Press that key again to return to normal view
14. Do You Really Need to See a Large Title Bar for
Each Window?
To shrink the title bars at the top of every window on your system, rightclick
the desktop and choose Properties, then Appearance. Click the
Advanced button. Now click the “Active Window” bar in the picture. In the
Size box to the right, reduce the number to shrink the title bar (you might
also want to lower the size of the title's font to keep the title bar from
reverting to its default size). Some fonts are unreadable at small sizes, so you
may need to choose another typeface as well (MS Sans Serif looks good
even at a point size of 8). Other options in this dialog box let you shrink
scrollbars and reduce icon spacing.
15. Do You Want to Have a Larger View of a Word
Document?
Microsoft Word offers a super-maximized mode for viewing word
processing documents. From the Menu Bar, click View, then Full Screen to
have the program’s workspace fill the entire screen . In this mode, Word
even hides its scrollbars, so it helps to have a mouse with a scrolling wheel.
If you don't see a menu bar at the top of the screen, move your pointer up
there to make it pop back into view. To go back to regular view, click the
floating Close Full Screen button or choose View, Full Screen again.
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The keyboard shortcut toggle to move from standard view to full screen
view is Alt + V, followed by the U key. Pressing these keys again will return
you to the previous setting.
16. While You Enjoy Your Easy Listening Music, Do
You Want to Miniaturize Your Media Player Controls?
If you use Windows Media Player to enjoy your music while you work on
your computer, you can move the player window out of the way by placing
it in the taskbar. Right-click an empty area of the taskbar and choose
Toolbars, then Windows Media Player. Now when you minimize the
program, its player controls appear in the taskbar. To restore the main player
window, click the restore or full-mode icon on the mini-mode controls.
17. Would You Like to See a Large Screen While
Viewing an Adobe Acrobat Document?
You can toggle Adobe Acrobat's full-screen mode by activating the
keyboard shortcut Ctrl + L. In full-screen mode, press the right arrow button
to change to the next page, and the left arrow button to go back to the
previous page. If you simply want to get all the toolbars out of the way
quickly, press F8 (press it again to return them).
18. Would You Like to Stop a Program from Hogging
Your System Resources?
If you have ever closed all but one application to devote all your system
resources to a task, but discovered that Windows still performs in a sluggish
manner, then the likely culprit is a program or service that has malfunctioned
and continues to run, even though it may not show an icon on the Taskbar
that you can use to close it. To find and close these system resource hogs,
first close all running applications, right-click on the Taskbar at the bottom
of your screen and left-click on Task Manager. Select the Processes tab.
After maximizing the window, scroll down the list of processes until you
come to the one that's gobbling up the resources. (Look in the CPU column.)
Select it and click End Process. Don't worry about System Idle Process--that
simply shows the percentage of processor resources that remain unused.
19. Would You Like to Always Have Instant Access to
Your Desktop?
If you keep important files and folders that you frequently use on your
Desktop, you will want to have ready access to your desktop from any
location from within your computer or on the Internet.
Fortunately, you have several options for quickly getting back to your
desktop.
First, you can add an icon to your taskbar that will show the desktop in
one easy click. To do this, you must enable the Quick Launch toolbar.
Right-click an empty spot on the taskbar, and select Toolbars, Quick
Launch. The Quick Launch toolbar should display the Show Desktop
button by default. If the Show Desktop button in Quick Launch doesn't
appear, it may have been pushed off onto the menu's pop-up overflow
(indicated by the double-arrow icon) to the right. To keep it handy,
drag and drop it onto the visible part of the menu.
Second, you can also get instant access to all your desktop icons by
adding the Desktop toolbar to the taskbar. Right-click a vacant area of
the taskbar and choose Toolbars, Desktop. This action will cause a
Desktop button to appear on the Taskbar. If you click on the button, a
popup menu will appear that lists all the icons that you have displayed
on your desktop.
Third, you can press the Windows key together with the D key (think
Windows Desktop). This action will cause all open windows to be
minimized so that you can see your desktop. Press the two keys again
and you will return to your previous location.
20. Do You Want to Uncover Hidden File Name
Extensions?
Windows XP thinks you don't need to see file name extensions. However,
there are good reasons why you might want to know this information. For
one thing, it's just good information as you browse through your files--are
those images JPEG or BMP files? Additionally, virus writers use the defaultto-
hidden setting to try to trick you into launching their code. With no file
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extensions showing, you might launch SafePic.jpg.exe, because all you saw
in your e-mail program was an icon labeled SafePic.jpg.
To display all file name extensions, open Windows Explorer, select Tools,
Folder Options, View, uncheck Hide extensions for known file types, and
click OK.
Optional Topic
21. Have You Checked the Size of Your Font Folder
Recently?
Having too many fonts can really slow down how fast programs start up.
Some Microsoft engineers suggest that you should have no more than 500
fonts installed on WinXP, but many gurus try to keep the number of fonts
below 200. The fewer you have the faster your programs that use them will
load.
Click on Start, click on the Control Panel, and then click on Fonts. You
can move (do not delete!) the fonts you don't use from this location.
It’s easy to view a font by double-clicking its icon. The font will be
displayed in several different sizes. Here is where you will most likely find
the expression: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” This
sentence contains all 26 letters of the alphabet.
It is also possible to look at all of the fonts at once. That's handy if you want
to compare them. There are a number of shareware and freeware programs
available. Try the free Font Glancer. You will find the download nearly twothirds of
the way down the Web page. Most of the fonts will be identified with the icon
symbol TT. This indicates a TrueType font, which have been especially designed
for Windows. These fonts are scalable (they can be printed or displayed on-screen at
any size), and they can be embedded in a document for use on another computer.
You also will see font icons that contain the letter A (Adobe). These are not
TrueType fonts. Many of these are not scalable and work in only a few point sizes.
A third type, the OpenType standard (indicated by an O icon symbol), recognizes
both TrueType and Postscript fonts and is supported by Windows XP.
Fortunately, you can move extra fonts from the fonts folder to another folder
long before you get overloaded with choices. To begin this process, create a
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file folder called “Fonts, Other” and place it in your Windows folder. (The
creation of a nested folder within the Windows folder by using Windows
Explorer will be demonstrated during the BKK session.)
Then, rather than deleting your unwanted fonts, you can right drag them
from the Fonts folder and move them into the Fonts, Other folder. By using
this method, you will be able to retrieve any fonts that you may wish to use
in the future.
Multiple files can be selected by using the SHIFT key (contiguous files) or
the CTRL key (non-contiguous files.)
But before you stampede to move fonts, make sure they’re not fonts you
don’t think you need but actually do. See the list that follows.
CAUTION: Do not move any of the following fonts out of the fonts
folder. They are system fonts:
Any fonts that begin with MS
Arial (including Black, Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic)
Book Antiqua
Calisto MT
Copperplate Gothic Bold
Copperplate Gothic Light
Courier (New, New Bold, New Bold Italic, New Italic and Courier 10,
12, 15)
Century (Gothic, Gothic Bold, Gothic Bold Italic, Gothic Italic)
Fixedsys
Georgia
Impact
Lucinda (Handwriting Italic, Sans Italic, Sans Unicode, Console
Marlett
Matisse ITC
Modern
MS-DOS CP 437
MS Serif 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, 24
MS Sans Serif 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, 24
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News Gothic (MT, MT Bold, MT Italic)
OCR A Extended
QuickType
Symbol
System
Small Fonts
Tahoma
Tempus Sans ITT
Times New Roman (including Bold, Bold Italic, Italic)
Trebuchet
Verdana (including Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
Terminal
Webdings
Westminster
Wingdings.