Windows XP Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 10 Hack the Start Menu and Taskbar

XP Professional's Group Policy
Editor gives you instant access to changing more than three dozen
interface settings. Here's how to use it to create
your own personalized Start Menu and Taskbar.

XP Professional's Group
Policy Editor
does more
than just customize the Control Panel [Hack #9]; it gives you control over
many aspects of XP's interface as wellin
particular, the Start Menu and Taskbar. In fact, it gives you quick
access to over three dozen separate settings for them.

Run the Group Policy Editor by typing gpedit.msc
at the Run prompt or command line. Go to User
Configuration\Administrative
Templates\Start Menu and
Taskbar. As you can see in Figure 2-5, the right pane displays all the settings you
can change. If you click on the Extended tab at the bottom of the
screen, you'll be shown a description of the setting
that you've highlighted, along with an explanation
of each of the options. Settings you can customize include showing
the My Pictures icon, the Run menu, and the My Music icon on the
Start Menu; locking the Taskbar so that it can't be
customized; and many others. To change a setting, double-click on it
and choose the options from the menu it displays, as outlined in
[Hack #9].

Figure 2-5. Customizing the Start Menu and Taskbar in the group policy editor

There's not room in this hack to go into detail
about each of the settings you can change, so I'll
tell you about some of my favorites. I've never been
a big fan of My Documents, My Pictures, and My Music. In fact, I
never use those folders, so there's no point having
them on the Start Menu. The settings in the Group Policy Editor let
you get rid of them.

If you share your PC with other people, the Group Policy Editor is a
great way to make sure that no one can change the Start Menu and
Taskbar except you. So when you have the Start Menu and Taskbar
working the way you like, they'll stay that way
until you want to change them. Enable "Prevent
changes to Taskbar and Start Menu Settings," and no
one will be able to change their settings except you. Select
"Remove Drag-and-drop context menus on the Start
Menu," and no one except you will be able to remove
or reorder items on the Start Menu. You can even stop anyone else
from shutting down Windows by selecting "Remove and
prevent access to the Shut Down command." (Of
course, they can still shut down your PC the old-fashioned way: using
the power switch.)

Among the many entries here are a lot of pointless ones, by the way.
You can remove the Log Off entry on the Start Menu, for example,
which certainly isn't high on my list of must-haves.
But who knows, you may want to do that or any of the many other
changes the Group Policy Editor allows. Go in there yourself and muck
around; you'll find plenty to change.

2.4.1 Hack the Taskbar with TweakUI

TweakUI
[Hack #8]
can be used to hack the Taskbar to a limited degree. Go to its
Taskbar section, and you can disable or enable balloon tips, and
enable or disable warnings when you're low on disk
space. Underneath the Taskbar section, you'll find a
Grouping subsection that controls how Taskbar
"grouping" works. When you run too
many programs with too many files open, all can't
fit individually on the Taskbar. So, XP groups files from the same
application with each other. For example, if you have four Word files
open, it shows only a single icon for Word on the Taskbar, with the
number 4 inside it. Click on the icon, and a list of all four files
pops up. You can then choose which to open. TweakUI lets you control
how that grouping works; you can decide whether to first group
applications with the most windows, or instead first group
applications that you use the least. You can also choose to group all
applications with two or more windows open, three or more windows
open, and so on.