D.1. Inside TweakUI
TweakUI
is a handy tool that provides more control over a wide variety of
Windows settings than is available through the standard Windows XP
interface. The tips are arranged into the following categories:About
The Tips subsection lets you peruse the collection of Windows tips
that, by default, are displayed every time you start Windows XP.
These tips can be edited by opening the Registry Editor
(regedit.exe) and going to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Tips.The Policy subsection simply provides a link to the Group Policy
editor discussed in Chapter 4.
General
Among the more interesting settings in this category are options that
allow you to turn off the PC Speaker beep (which
doesn't always work), selectively disable certain
types of animation, and keep Windows from stealing the focus while
you're working.
Mouse
Move the Menu Speed control all the way to the left (Fast) to
eliminate the delay when opening menus. The other options allow you
to fine-tune how Windows responds to double-clicks, mouse hover, and
the mouse wheel.
Explorer
The settings in this category allow you to hide additional entries
from the Start menu, disable the Documents history, turn off the
"Shortcut to" prefix for new
shortcuts, program your keyboard's navigation keys,
and even revert the Search tool to the
"classic" style found in Windows
2000/Me.
Common Dialogs
This extremely useful category (see Figure D-1Figure D-1)
lets you customize the "Places Bar"
shown in most File Open and File Save dialog boxes. Just select
"Custom places bar" and type your
five most frequently used folders in the spaces provided.
Figure D-2. Common Dialogs

for a similar procedure involving Microsoft Office file dialogs.
Taskbar
Selectively hide certain applications from the Frequently Used
Programs section of the XP-style Start menu, as well as fine-tune the
grouping of similar Taskbar buttons.
Desktop
Selectively show or hide certain built-in Desktop icons, and choose
whether the My Documents or My Computer icon appears first when
auto-sorting Desktop icons.
My Computer
Show or hide drives and other icons in the My Computer window.
Additionally, the AutoPlay subcategory allows you to control or even
disable the feature that plays CDs and DVDs automatically when
they're inserted in your drive.
Control Panel
Hide unused icons in your Control Panel.
Templates
Selectively remove unwanted items from Explorer's
New menu, or add new entries and even specify blank files (templates)
to use.
Internet Explorer
Choose bitmap backgrounds for the toolbars in Internet Explorer and
Windows Explorer, add new web sites to search for keywords typed into
the Address Bar, and choose the text editor used for Internet
Explorer's View Source feature.
Command Prompt
Control the filename and directory completion for the Command Prompt
window.
Logon
The Autologon subcategory allows you to
save a username and password, eliminating the need to log in manually
every time you start Windows XP. This functionality was built into
Windows 2000, but removed in Windows XP.Note that using TweakUI to bypass the logon screen in Windows XP is
known to cause boot-up delays of up to several minutes on some
computers.
Repair
If you find that certain Desktop icons seem to be broken, your Fonts
folder (see Chapter 4) isn't
behaving, the unread mail count appears to be wrong, or certain
information is missing from the Registry Editor, use the options in
this category to affect repairs.