BOOT CAMP 407 (17/01/06)

Tweak UI for XP, part 2

In part one of this short series we looked at the suite of freeware add-ons and utilities for Windows XP known collectively as Microsoft PowerToys. Most of them are fairly specialised but one, Tweak UI, is a multi-purpose tool that allows PC users to make detailed changes to the way Windows looks and behaves, without delving into the dreaded Registry.

In the next two instalments of Boot Camp we’ll take a close look at what Tweak UI can do for you and your PC; see also the notes this weeks Top Tip.

If you followed last week’s instructions PowerToys should now show up on the All Programs list on the Start menu so let’s begin by clicking the on the Tweak UI icon and the main dialogue box will open showing the various options in the left hand pane.

The first item ‘About’ has two options Tips and Policy. If you click Tips you can step through a selection of handy hints and if you see one you want to refer back to just click the Save button and it will be saved as a text file in the location of your choice. Clicking Policy open the Windows XP Group Policy Editor. This is a powerful tool that provides access to a number of key settings in Windows, it’s really meant for experts and system administrators so unless you know what you are doing I strongly suggest that you look but don’t touch!

The next item ‘General’ is a lot more user-friendly and if you click on the General icon you will see a list of things that you can switch on and off, including error bleeps, cursor shadows, dialogue box animations, hard disc optimisation and a facility to display details of your Windows installation in the bottom left hand corner of the desktop. In general switching off animation effects will improve your PC’s performance, especially if you have a slower processor (1GHz or lower) and less than 512Mb of RAM, so they are worth experimenting with.

Also under General are two more items, Focus and Alt + Tab. Focus makes an application’s title bar or taskbar icon flash when it is trying to get your attention. For example, you might be working on a word processor document and a web page you have called up fails to load. Alt + Tab lets you choose the size and shape of the Alt + Tab window, which lets you switch between running applications. Not exactly Earth shattering but still handy to have…

There are four items listed under Mouse’. The first screen lets you control the speed at which menus appear -- the faster the better in my opinion -- and there’s also a facility to adjust double-click sensitivity (this is also available in Control Panel) and change the mouse ‘drag’ setting. Basically this determines how ‘sticky’ you mouse pointer is, in other words how quickly you can pick up move an icon or something you’ve highlighted after you’ve clicked on it and started to move the pointer. The default setting seems about right but if you find that you are clicking and moving things by accident increase the value.

Still with the Mouse options the next one on the list is ‘Hover’. This lets you control icon sensitivity and how long they take to react to the presence of your mouse pointer. Personally I don’t like blinking icons and little labels appearing every time my mouse passes over them so I’ve set the Hover Time to 1000ms. If you have a wheel mouse the next item will let you change the way it works, by scrolling a page at a time, or by a set number of lines; mine is set to 5 lines per click but you may find a higher or lower setting suits the way you work and the size of your screen. The last Mouse option is ‘X-Mouse’ and this makes the mouse pointer switch window or dialogue box focus as soon it passes over it. I find it quite distracting and prefer to click on a window or box if I want to use it but again, try it for size and see what you think.     

Explorer covers a lot of ground. The opening checklist contains more than 20 selections for enabling or disabling items on the Start menu, clearing Document History on Exit, removing the ‘Shortcut’ prefix on newly created desktop shortcuts and so on. It’s well worth investigating as it lets you switch off a number of minor irritants and if you’re not sure what each one does there’s a helpful description in the box below when you select an item.

The first item on the Explorer sub menu is an old favourite and this lets you remove the annoying little arrow that appears in desktop shortcut icons. ‘Colors’ is used to change the colour of compressed and encrypted folders in Windows Explorer, and the ‘hover’ colour when the mouse pointer moves over them, but only if you’ve enabled single-click’ mode.

Moving down the Explorer sub menu ‘Thumbnails’ sets the size and quality of thumbnail images. ‘Command Keys’ is used to configure the extra function and navigation keys on fancy keyboards. Customizations is for power users who have made a lot of changes to the appearance of individual folders in Windows Explorer. Reducing the value should theoretically help to improve performance by saving memory; mine is set to 200 but I can’t say I have noticed any difference.  Finally under Explorer there is ‘Slideshow’ and this controls the time images are displayed when you use the slideshow feature to display images stored in the My Pictures folder and it is variable between 1 and 10,000 milliseconds.

NEXT WEEK - Tweak UI for XP, part 3

JARGON FILTER

FOCUS

The way Windows indicates that an application or dialogue box has been selected or is ‘active’ by lighting up its title bar

HOVER

Placing a mouse pointer or cursor over an icon or link, causing it to react by changing colour or appearance

POLICY EDITOR

A set of controls for system administrators that determines which features and configuration settings will be available to users.

TOP TIP

Tweak UI is very safe; nevertheless it’s a good idea to set a new Restore Point before using it for the first time. Note also that Microsoft does not support it so it’s no good asking them any technical question or complaining if anything goes wrong.

Although Tweak UI is only available in English it should run on other language versions of Windows

Changes made by Tweak UI are mostly on a ‘per user’ basis, which means they are individually applied to each users account. 

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© R. Maybury 2006, 1101

Part 1, 3