bookworm_2005 (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bookworm_2005) wrote,@ 2007-01-23 21:43:00 |
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| Entry tags: | software recs |
Tweak UI
Today's software is Tweak UI XP from Microsoft. While I'll be talking about the version for Windows XP in this post, Microsoft also has a version for 95/98/2k. Just search for "Tweak UI" on the Microsoft website.
What is Tweak UI? It's a little program that allows you to take advantage of many hidden settings in Windows. It allows you to do things like Safely remove all or some of the Icons from the Desktop (and get them back later), Prevent some programs from showing up in the "Recently Used Programs" panel on the Start Menu, etc. But the two features I like best are the Control Panel Tweaks & the Command Keys Tweaks.
The Control Panel tweaks allow you to safely hide some options on the control panel. This is especially nice if you have your control panel set to expand on the Start Menu like a Folder. You can hide the options you never access, so that it's easy to find the ones you do use. And if you need to use one of the options you've hidden, just reopen Tweak UI and unhide it. It's made the Control Panel a much more pleasant experience for me.
The Command Key Tweaks are by far my favorites. This allows you to reset some of those useless hotkeys on your keyboard to do useful things. You will probably get the most functionality out of this feature if you have a keyboard with One-Touch Launch buttons, designed to launch certain programs with the touch of a button. I have the buttons, but the driver provided with my keyboard doesn't allow me to change the default functions, so I use Tweak UI XP to do it instead. Right now, I have the Taskmanager, Notepad, Screensaver, and Calculator set up to use launch buttons. So handy. Getting to the Taskmanager when I need it takes less then a minute now, compared to the 3-10 min. it took before.
Tweak UI is pretty "idiot proof". You can easily undo any changes you make, and no truly dangerous changes are offered.
There are so many tweaks available to make your Computer experience more comfortable for you, so download it now. It's FREE (yes, it really is). Tweak UI XP. (Partway down the page of PowerToys.)