What to get rid of that expandable Start Menu, so you can see all your programs?
Right-click on the taskbar in an empty space and select Properties.
Deselect Use Personalized Menus Voila, now you can see all your programs.
If you check the Win2K help, it states that selecting the Use Personalized Menus lets you hide programs you haven't used in a while, making them accessible through a down arrow at the bottom of the Programs group. Deselecting it shows all your programs.
Have you noticed it takes Win2K absolutely ages to recover from application crashes, especially when they're big ones
like IE5? That's because an irritating system tool called Dr. Watson (remember him from Win 3.11?!) makes a huge
error log, which is almost useless unless you're a developer.
Here's what to do
about it.
Go to WIN2000\system32 and rename drwtsn32.exe and drwatson.exe to *.exx (or some other easy-to-remember
munge). Do the same in WIN2000\system32\dllcache. [Substitute WIN2000 for whatever your install folder is
called, e.g. WINNT or whatever.]
You should now find that apps crash really quickly!! The first couple of times you'll get a dialogue saying that
important system files have changed--just decline to update them!! That's it.
What hardware have you got?
To find out hardware stats, go to Run and type winmsd.
Undo your last action
So you renamed a file in Windows Explorer, but you've changed your mind and now you aren't sure exactly what the
old name was? Oops, now what? It's easy to fix this with the little-known key combination Ctrl+Z. This automatically undoes whatever name change you made and restores the original file name. You can also right-click an unoccupied space in Windows Explorer and the shortcut menu will show Undo (your last action) as a choice you can select. This is a multiple-level undo, too, which lets you go back several steps. It works in a surprising number of situations.
Shortcut to Computer Management
To quickly get to the oft-used Computer Management MMC (Microsoft Management Console), right-click the My
Computer icon on the desktop and choose Manage.
Love the stability of Windows 2000 but hate how it doesn't come with msconfig?
It can! Just extract a copy of msconfig from your Windows 98 CD and run it. It'll work flawlessly and you can get rid
of those pesky programs that load at startup.
Changing Dual-Boot Options under Windows 2000 NT
If you installed Windows 2000 after Windows 9x, you may have opted for Dual-Boot. By default, Windows 2000
makes itself the default option when booting, and displays the menu for 30 seconds.
To change these settings, right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Select the Advanced tab, then click the
Startup & Recovery button. From there, you can select which menu item is the default and how long before that default is automatically selected.
Win2K Boot Disks
If you are installing Windows 2000 and can't boot from the CD-ROM, then you'll need the boot diskettes. A set ships in
the retail boxed copy of Windows 2000, but you can also create them from the Windows 2000 CD-ROM.
To do so, insert the CD-ROM into any computer running Windows 95, 98, NT, or Windows 2000. Click Start >> Run
(or open a Command Prompt) and type:
d:\bootdisk\makeboot.bat a: You'll be prompted for a blank diskette and the process will begin. You'll need a total of four blank diskettes to make all of the boot diskettes for Windows 2000.
Easier Cascading
Control Panel
There's an even easier way to expand the Control Panel with Win2K.
Right-click on an empty area of the task bar and click on Properties, then go to Advanced. Place a checkmark in Expand Control Panel. No need to mess with that Registry! You can also expand My Documents, Network and Dialup,
and Printers and make it scroll the Programs menu instead of opening up in panels, as well as displaying favorites and
administrative tools, too.
Cascading Control Panel
You can add a cascading Control Panel to your Windows 2000 Start Menu with ease.
Just right-click the Start button and click on Explore. In the right Explorer window, right-click and select New then
Folder. Name the folder exactly as below:
Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
Then click on your Start button and voilá!