Tired of the boring screensavers in Windows? Why not use your photos as your screensaver to display pictures of your pet, family members or your last vacation?

1. Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel

2. Double click the Display icon.

3. The Display Properties box will pop up. Click the Screen Saver tab.

4. Under Screensaver click the down arrow button and select My Picture Slideshow

5. Windows will look for the photos in the My Pictures folder by default. To change the My Pictures folder to another folder click Settings.

6. The My Pictures Screen Saver Options box will appear. Click Browse and locate the folder where your pictures are stored. You can also change other options about the slideshow here such as the length the photos are shown, size of the photos, etc.

Annoyed by the balloon tips that pop up in the taskbar in Windows XP? Well you can stop them with a registry hack!

Note: ALWAYS backup the registry BEFORE making changes.

1. Click Start -> Run

2. In the Run dialog box type regedit

3. The Registry Editor will appear.

4. Find HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

5. Right Click an empty section of the Registry Editor and select New –>DWORD Value

6. Type EnableBalloonTips. Hit Enter

7. Right click the EnableBalloonTips DWORD Value and select Modify.

8. Give it a value of 0.

Now no more annoying Balloon Tips!

Have you ever had an application crash or other system problem that required a reboot of Windows? There is a shortcut to a faster reboot of Windows:

1. Hit Ctrl + Alt + Delete

2. The Windows Task Manager window will appear.

3. Click the Processes tab.

4. Scroll and find explorer.exe

5. Click End Process.

6. You will receive a warning message. Click OK

7. After Windows stops - Click File -> New Task on the Task Manager toolbar.

8. Type explorer.exe in the Create New Task window.

Windows will have actually “rebooted” since Windows Explorer was restarted.

Want to change the color scheme in Microsoft Office 2007 to another color?

1. Open a Microsoft Office 2007 Application ( Word, Excel, etc.)

2. At the top left corner of the window next to the Office button - click the small arrow pointing down next to the Quick Access Toolbar.

3. Once open, click More Commands

4. When the Options window opens, select Popular.

5. You will see a drop down box to select a color scheme.

The Windows Recycle Bin can take up a large part of your hard drive space - 10% by default. To reclaim some of that disk space:

1. Right click the Recycle Bin icon.

2. Click Properties

Next to Custom Size you can set the size of the Recycle Bin in megabytes, 200 megabytes should be suitable for most drives.

If you prefer that deleted files not go into the Recycle Bin and instead be deleted immediately:

Click the radio button next to Do not move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted.

You can add Copy To Folder and Move To Folder options to the Windows right click menu with a quick registry hack.

Note: ALWAYS backup the registry before making changes!

To create the Copy To Folder option:

1. Click Start -> Run

2. Type regedit into the Run dialog box.

3. In the registry editor, browse down to the key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

4. While at the key, right click and select the New Key option.

5. Now double click on the Default value and enter: {C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

6. Click OK

To create the Move To Folder option:

1. Follow steps 1 thru 5 above.

2. At step 5 enter: {C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

3. Click OK

Now you should see the Copy To Folder and Move To Folder options when you right click a file or folder.

By default, Windows Vista has the “sleep” option at the top of the Shut Down Windows box. To change the setting to shutdown as in previous Windows versions:

1. Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel

2. Select System and Maintenance -> Power Options

3. Click change plan settings under the power plan in use.

4. Click change advance power settings.

5. In the Power Options box, scroll down to Power Buttons and Lid

6. Expand the Power Buttons and Lid tree.

7. Expand the Start menu power button option.

8. In the Settings dropdown box, change to Shutdown

9. Click OK and the change will take effect.

It takes several clicks to put your computer in the “suspend” state. If you use this feature as often as I do, you can create a shortcut on your desktop to do this in just one click!

1. Right click an empty part of the desktop.

2. Select New -> Shortcut

3. Type: rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState

4. Name the shortcut Suspend or whatever name you wish.

Now when you wish to put your computer in the suspend state, just click the shortcut on your desktop.

Are the desktop icons in Windows Vista too large? Well there are a couple of steps to reduce the size of them.

Method 1:

1. Right click an empty part of the desktop.

2. Select the “View” option from the menu.

3. Click one of the options in the View menu - Large Icons, Medium Icons or Classic Icons

Note: The Classic icons selection will reduce the size of the icons the most.

Method 2:

1. Place the mouse pointer on an empty part of the desktop.

2. Press and hold the Ctrl key.

3. Use the scroll wheel on the mouse to resize the icons to the desired size.

4. Release the Ctrl key.