Top 7 Windows Xp Tricks You Never Knew

This is the list of top 7 windows xp tricks you probably never knew about. Although there are thousands of windows tips and tricks available but i have mentioned the tricks which are useful, interesting, and easy to use at the same time. Most of these will work in other versions of windows as well. So lets start:

1. Display your name in the taskbar:

Ever thought of displaying your name in the taskbar?? No?? Ya probably you didnt because you think its impossible. Believe me its really cool and very easy to do. Steps:

Go to control panel
open regional and language options
click on customize
click on the time tab
now just write anything in the in the AM symbol and PM symbol and click OK

thats it now see your taskbar and you will see whatever you typed in there after the time. cool huh..

2. Copy to:

By default if you have to copy something you have to first right click on the file you want to copy and then get to the desired location and paste it. Now with this simple registry hack you can add a copy to option in right click menu from which you can select the location where you want to copy it. It can save a lot of time.. Here are the steps:

Go to start, then run(or press windows key+R)
type regedit
Browse to the location HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
Right click on ContextMenuHandler and click on new and then key and name it copy to
Now double click on(Default) and add this "{C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}" to the value data without the ""
Now exit regedit and right click any file, a new copy to option will be there. You can remove it by deleting the key anytime

You can also add a move to option in the same way by creating a new key and adding the value "{C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}"

3. Single Click shutdown:

Instead of going to start, turn off computer and then clicking on turn off, you can create a simple shortcut on your desktop to turn off your pc in just 2 steps:

Right click on you desktop, then click new and then shortcut
In the location box type "shutdown -s -t 0" and name it anything like turn off or whatever

Here -s stand for shutdown and -t for the time. 0 means it will wait 0 seconds before turning off. You can change it to any number depending on the time you need to wait before it shuts down.

Also you can create a shortcut to "shutdown -a" and open it to abort the shutdown

4. Hide files in images:

To hide any secret file you can download various paid folder lock programs and encrypt it with a password. But that will surely make others suspicious. So why not just hide your file in something people can never expect like in a image. Sounds weird. Here's how to do this...

Note-Please make sure you have winrar installed in your computer before you follow the steps. If not then download it, its free..

Go to my computer, create a new folder and name it digital(any name will work)
Now in this folder paste the files you want to hide and also the image in which you want to hide these files. I chose image.jpg for this.
Now select the files you want to hide, right click and then click on add to archieve. Name it files.rar
Now go to start, then click on run
Type cmd and press enter. This will open dos command prompt
Now type "cd \" without the "" n press enter
Now type "cd C:/digital" without the "" n press enter
now type "copy /b files.rar + image.jpg new.jpg" without the "" n press enter

Now exit command prompt go to my computer and the folder digital. You will see a new file named new.jpg in there. This file is the image file with the hidden rar file in it. You can open the image and you won't see any difference. To extract the file hidden in this image, open this file with winrar and you will see the hidden file there... You can even hide songs and movies like this. But am sure having an image file of size 1 gb will look weird:D

Note- Make sure the files you want to hide doesn't have any space in their name or it may not work..

5. Windows secret song:

Go to C:/windows/system32/oobe/images folder. You will see an wma file there named title. This is full 5 minute windows song commonly knows as windows secret song. Listen to it, its amazing. I love that song..

Or if you are too lazy, just right click on your desktop, click on new, then shortcut and in the location type "C:\WINDOWS\system32\oobe\images\title.wma" without the quotes. And then open the newly created shortcut to windows secret song:D

6. Some cool facts:

Now some interesting windows facts:

Right click on desktop click new folder and name it CON or LPT1 or PRN

Tried. Did it work??? Am sure it didn't:D

Now create a new text document, name it anything, open it and type "bush hid the facts" without the quotes of course and save it.

Now open it and see what happens...

7. Some underused keyboard shortcuts

F3 - To find text in a browser(equivalent to ctrl+F)
Wk+R - Run command
Alt+Double click on any file - Properties menu
F2 after selecting any file- Rename
Ctrl+Tab - To switch to next tab
Wk+D or Wk+M - Minimizes all open windows(equivalent to show the desktop)

Apart from these keys you can create a shortcut key to any program. Just right click on any shortcut on the desktop, go to properties, click on the shortcut tab and click on the shortcut key. Here hold on Alt and Ctrl and press any key which you want to assign as a shortcut. Now press Alt+Ctrl+assigned key and it will will open the specified program..

Thats it for this article. I hope you enjoyed reading this and more importantly found something useful that you didn' t already know:D Post in the comments section if you have any doubts...

Thanks for reading.....