Customizing Your Windows XP Interface
Learning to make
Windows adjust to you
indows XP is the operating system St. Margaret’s has
chosen to use for the year of 2002/2003 in three of the labs as well as for
many of the faculty and staff and their classrooms. The following paper
discusses the basics of customizing windows.
How to Customize Your Start Menu
One of the first things you will notice that is different
about Windows XP is the Start Menu. It looks very different than in previous
versions of Windows but fortunately it is also much more dynamic and useful. At
first you may not like what is available on the Start Menu, but after you learn
to customize it you will find it is all you need to navigate your computer. All
the customization of the Start Menu can be done through right clicking the
Start Menu button and choosing “properties”. The choices you are given are very
straightforward and can also be undone very easily.
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The start menu in Windows XP is really all you need to navigate your
computer. If you look at the graphic on the left side you will see that the
Start Menu is build into 3 basic parts. On the left you have your favorite programs as well as the most
recently used programs you have opened. Underneath that you have the All Programs button which allows you
to see all the programs installed on your computer. The right side of the
Start Menu shows you the system and
user folders.
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How to Customize
As I said earlier, the start menu can be customized by
right clicking the start menu and choosing properties which will bring up the
following initial choices
o
Start menu
§
This
option is selected by default and provides you with the start menu in the
picture above
o
Classic Start
Menu
§
This
option changes the appearance of the start menu so that it looks like the start
menu you have used in earlier versions of Windows 98
The other option displayed is 
which is
where you can modify what you would like to be on your start menu. The picture
directly below displays the choices you will be offered
Under Gerneral
you are given some options about icon sizes. “this would be changed to Small
Icons if you wish to view more programs. Programs allows you to change how
many recently used programs to display on your menu. Click Clear List to
reset the recently used programs. Show on Start menu allows you to
change which program to associate with internet and email or remove the item
from the start menu all together. For example if you like to use Netscape
Navigator as your internet browser you could choose that here, if it is
installed. Most of the items we see here
are related to the favorites portion of the start menu, but by clicking on advanced we are given options to
change the system and user folders area
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Advanced Start Menu Customizations
The word advanced often scares people when it comes to
computers, but in this case the advanced options are actually rather simple and
cannot cause any harm to the computer. Here are the options we will be given
with explanations
To the left you will notice a check box. When
this is checked it means yes and by un-checking it means no. This item only
allows for one of two options, in the case of the start menu it usually means
“show item” or “remove from start menu” for example the following would make My
Network Places appear
o
The item to the left now is a radio button which
allows for more than two choices. The following graphic shows you the choices
you will be offered by the radio buttons.
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 Display
as a link
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This
option tells the computer to open the folder when the item is clicked. j
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Display
as a menu
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This
option tells the computer to unfold the item on the start menu to display
it’s contents
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Do not
display this item
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This
option removes the item from the start menu
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For
example, If we choose to show My Documents as a menu when we position the mouse
over it we will see the contents of the My Documents folder as shown below
Pinning Favorite Programs
Well now that we know how to change what appears on the
Start Menu let’s go ahead and add our favorite programs.
The following is the procedure
used to Pin a program to your Start Menu
1.
Click
Start, and then click All Programs.
2.
Click
Accessories and point to Calculator or whichever program you would
like to make readily available.
3.
Right-click
your program and click Pin to Start menu.
4.
Click
anywhere on the desktop to quit the Start menu.
That's all there is to it. The
above works for any program on your computer, putting those programs on the
Start menu until you decide to remove them. By the way, removing programs from
the Start menu is even easier. Here's how:
To remove A Program from the Start
menu
1.
Click
Start, and then point to the program you want to remove
2.
Right-click
Your Program and click Unpin from Start menu.
3.
Click
anywhere on the desktop to quit the Start menu.
Simpler Navigation
With the Windows XP Start menu your favorite programs as
well as recently used programs, your system folders such as My Computer and My
Network Places and also User Folders like My Documents are all available in one
place with just some simple customizations. So now when you have other windows
open and need to access something right away there is no need to minimize what
you are working on, because with one click of the start menu you have access to
everything on your computer.
Customizing Folders
The folders in Windows XP are also easily customized and
offer many great features.
Using
your folders
Windows XP folders are very similar to previous versions
of windows in that they are still a place to organize your files and folders; however
there are now many new options available that allow you to choose how you would
like them to be organized. Most of the customization is done through the
folder’s properties as well as the “view” button on your toolbar.
Changing
the view
Changing the view of your folder in Windows XP allows you
the following options
You will notice that these are the same options you had in
Windows 98, but by expanding the “Arrange Icons by” tab you will see a new
option called Arrange by Group which allows you to view your files and folders
by group
As you can see from the above picture, the folder is
organized in groups based on the type of item. HTML documents are listed
together as well as Acrobat files and folders. This can be a great tool when
you are viewing items for lessons or looking for handouts for your students.
Customizing the Folder
The real folder customization fun begins in customizing
individual folders. By right clicking a folder and choosing properties we will
find that we now have a customize tab at the top
Here we have six folder option templates
§
Documents (for any file type)
§
Pictures (best for many files) “pictures”
§
Photo Album (best for fewer files)
§
Music (best for audio files and playlists)
§
Music Artist (best for works by one artist)
§
Music Album (best for tracks from one album)
§
Videos
For this exercise we are going to create a new Photo Album
folder. To create the photo album go ahead and right click the folder that
contains the pictures for your album and choose properties, and then customize.
Under the template type choose Photo Album, click ok and then open the folder
You now have the photos displayed along the bottom of the
window with the pictures displayed in the main area. If you look to the left
toolbar you will notice that you also have more options of what you can do with
the pictures in your photo album. You can view the pictures full screen in a
Slide Show, you can have these pictures printed professionally, or you can
print them yourselves with a printing program built into XP that makes printing
pictures very simple. That is all I am going to cover on customizing folders,
but I am sure that you will have a lot of fun exploring what you can do with
this great tool.
Network Folders
A Windows XP network folder is another feature built in to
Windows with the intention of making items easily accessible to you. Whether
you want to add a document to your ftp folder, edit a file in your web page or
add a document to your SharePoint Team Services web, this can all be easily
accomplished through network Folders.
To open your network folders as with anything on your
computer, you are going to click the start button and then choose My Network
Places. Note, if it is not available read the beginning
section on customizing the Start Menu.
As
you can see from my folders above that I have folders here for my FTP folder,
my web page, my work web site, and my SharePoint web for this lesson. Adding
these folders is done by clicking the “add network place” on the left column.
When you click this button a wizard will appear to ask you some questions about
what folder or place that you would like to add. Click the next button on the
first screen and then it will ask you if you would like to add an MSN place or
another web. Choose another web here. Next you will type in the location of the
web you would like to add, for example; http://www.smes.org/classes/jesse
will add a shortcut to my web page. You also have the option to remember your
password and username, so that you will not be prompted to enter them each time
you open the folder. Now you can work with items on your web page just as you
do with you’re My Document’s or other folders.
User Profiles
You might be wondering now that you have created your user
interface, what will happen if you are sharing the computer with another
teacher and whether he will change your setup or how he/she will add their own
Network Places and customize their folders. Well with Windows XP each user has
their own profile and therefore all customizations are only made based on the
user who is logged on. When the teacher for the following block logs onto the
computer he/she will get their own customizations and will not be aware of your
profile at all. They will have their own My Documents, Network Folders, Start
Menu, Application Data “such as outlook setup”, desktop picture and so on.
Summary
Well that sums up the lesson on creating the User
Interface for Windows XP. You should now be able to change what appears on the
Start Menu, pin your own favorite programs, create customized folders and add
your network places. Be sure to check out the discussion board at http://classes.smes.org/training/discussion
if you have any questions or would like to offer tips to other users. There is
a lot more that can be done to customize windows, but hopefully this will get
you started