E N H A N C E M E N T S
Computing should be fun and productive, and whenever possible, it should be both. You can repair or tailor your computer to suit your needs and come away with a sense of satisfaction from the endeavor itself. Many, if not all of the customizations described in this section require at least some degree of modification to your standard settings, so before you proceed, make absolutely certain that you know How To Back Up and Restore Your Registry. I suggest a complete backup before implementing any of these modifications.

I would like to thank all the contributors who have made this section, as well as the Fixes and Articles sections possible, however two people deserve special mention. Steve Yandl developed most of the programs you'll find in this section, all of which are designed to aid you in shaping a more enjoyable, reliable and efficient computing environment. All his scripts and programs are freeware. I'd also like to thank Alex Byron for his help with this site, and his efforts on behalf of computer users in need everywhere.

CUSTOMIZATIONS AND PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENTS
YOU CAN IMPROVE THE STANDARD SETUP.
I firmly believe that computing should be fun. Yes, it should be productive and all that, but why not get under the hood and make a few modifications. In addition to the satisfaction gained from modifying the look and feel of your working environment, many of the modifications described in this section should make your computer easier to use.

MAKE YOUR COMPUTER A POWERFUL PC
A great Registry tweak to give your PC a boost!

LAUNCH WINDOWS PROGRAMS WITH A TYPED COMMAND DONE THE EASY WAY
For true Power Users this is a must. Launch Notepad, or any program quickly.

IMPROVE YOUR DOS BOX
Add a red banner with white text across the top of your DOS box in Windows.

SHUT DOWN WIN9X WITH ONE CLICK
Another Power User tweak. Work more efficiently.

FASTER INTERNET CONNECTIONS
If you have a cable or DSL connection check out this speed tweak.

RENAME OUTLOOK EXPRESS
Just for giggles. That's a good reason, isn't it?

TAKE CONTROL OF SCAN DISK
Yes, you can control what Scandisk does.

GET THE SENDTO POWER TOY TO ACTUALLY WORK IN WIN9X AND WIN2K
This is one of the most useful power tweaks around. This really does improve your efficiency while working in Win9x or Win2K.

GO TO WINDOWS UPDATE ANONYMOUSLY
If you'd rather not register with Microsoft in order to use the Update site read this.

CHANGE YOUR REGISTERED USER INFORMATION
If you sell or purchase a computer with Win98 on it you can change the Registered user info to reflect the new legal owner.

ADD THE "Open With..." OPTION TO THE RIGHT CLICK CONTEXT MENU
This is a minor tweak for Power Users, but it's the little things that really help your productivity.

LIVE SCROLLING IN WORD97
Overcome the astoundingly annoying trait Word97 has of jumping around when you scroll your documents.

CONTROL PANEL ON YOUR START MENU
This should be a standard feature of every Windows OS. No problem, you can make it happen.

EASTER EGGS!
There are fun little surprises inside almost all major programs, if you know where to look.

OUTLOOK EXPRESS 5.0 TWEAKS
A couple of pure fun little tweaks for OE5 users.

ADD ANOTHER HTML EDITOR TO THE EDIT BUTTON ON THE IE5 TOOLBAR
If you use multiple HTML editors this is just what you need.

FORCE WINDOWS EXPLORER TO REFRESH CORRECTLY
It's a minor annoyance, but here's the solution in case you need it.

CONTROL WHICH PROGRAMS RUN AT STARTUP IN WIN2K
If you are annoyed by a program that starts every time you boot and you've already checked your Startup folder, try this.

REPLACE SCROLLING MENU FOR MULTIPLE COLUMNS FOR START MENU
If you like the old Win95 way that the Start menu showed multiple columns here's how you can do that in Win98.

OH DEAR! I'VE LOST MY WIN98 PRODUCT KEY!
If you've misplaced your Windows 98 Product Key and you need to re-install, look no further. There's a way to get your Win98 key as well.

REMOVE "Find" FROM THE START MENU
If you never use the Find shortcut on the Start menu here's how to eliminate it.

CHANGE YOUR BROWSERS DEFAULT SEARCH ENGINE TO GOOGLE
Change the default search engine your browser uses. Use Google instead. It's better.

AN ASTOUNDINGLY HUGE COLLECTION OF WIN9X TIPS
If you can't find what you're looking for anywhere else, look here. There are almost a million tips on this page. Almost.

TWEAK YOUR MEMORY USAGE FOR BETTER PERFORMANCE
Windows 98 users should see a real improvement in memory access speed with this tweak.

EASIER AND FASTER WORD SEARCHES
You can improve the search feature in Microsoft Word.

MAKE DLLS DISPLAY THEIR ICONS IN WINDOWS EXPLORER
A simple tweak to change the default icon for some DLLs in Windows Explorer.

THEMES IN WINDOWS 2000? BELIEVE IT. AND MORE ...
Microsoft threw in a few Win9x goodies when they shipped Win2K and didn't tell you about them.

ADD "Copy To Folder" AND "Move To Folder" TO THE RIGHT-CLICK CONTEXT MENU IN WIN2K
If "Copy" and "Move" see regular duty on your Win2K installation, this one's for you.

REGCLEAN 4.1-A AND NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR CAN LIVE TOGETHER
Can't we all just get along?! Well, Navigator and Microsoft RegClean can.

CREATE A WIN98 EMERGENCY RECOVERY DISK IN WIN2K OR DOS
So, you didn't make an Emergency Boot Disk when you installed Windows 98? Oh, you're so naughty.

USE THE IMPROVED WINME DEFRAG UTILITY IN WIN9X
WinME ships with an improved version of Defrag.

A WISE WINDOWS TWEAKER CREATES AN ERD
Create an Emergency Recovery Disk before you break Windows.

A WISE WINDOWS TWEAKER EXPORTS A COPY OF THE REGISTRY
A quick and dirty way to back up your entire Registry from within Regedit.

FORCE IE 5.5+ TO USE STANDARD NON-CUSTOM-COLORED SCROLLBARS
To force Internet Explorer 5.5+ to use standard non-custom-colored scrollbars, all you need to do is create a simple plain-text file and then tell IE to use it.

CREATE CUSTOM FOLDERS WITH A CUSTOM ICON
Create folders in Win9x or Win2K, and use a custom icon rather than the default yellow manila folder.

MICROSOFT CHARACTER MAP DISPLAY TOOL
Characters gives a much more readable display of symbol characters than the Microsoft Character map.

USE EXTENSION ANALYZER TO CHECK FILE ASSOCIATIONS AND MORE
Extenzion Analyzer tells you the file type as described in the Registry and as it is listed in Windows Explorer under the View/Folder Options/File Types tab in the Registered File types list.

RE-STRETCH YOUR WALLPAPER
Have you lost the ability to stretch your wallpaper in either Win9x or Win2K? No worries though, I have just what you need.

CHANGE THE DEFAULT SETTING FOR CHOOSING AN APPLICATION FOR "UNKNOWN FILE TYPE"
Win9x users, have you ever mistakenly established or changed a file association by forgetting to uncheck the Always use this program to open this type of file box? No problem, until you do that to an executable or a DLL file. Then you're in deep poo. Here's a way to help prevent that from happening.

WHAT IS YOUR COMPUTER'S NAME?
Would you like to quickly and easily find out the name of your computer on your network? This script allows you to do just that.

TEST YOUR E-MAIL DEFENSES AGAINST VIRUSES
Wouldn't it be nice to know for certain that your protection is working? Use this script to test your defenses.

WIN95 USERS CAN BACK UP AND RESTORE THEIR REGISTRY WITH WIN98 EASE
One of the advantages of Windows 98 over Windows 95 is the ease with which you can back up and then restore your Registry. With the help of some friends, I've put a package together with everything you need to have that same facility in Win95.

WINXP USERS: UNINSTALL WINDOWS MESSENGER EASILY
A common complaint heard by many new Windows XP owners is that Windows Messenger cannot be uninstalled. Well, we know how you can do just that, and very easily.

THE WORLD RENOWNED SHORTCUT BUILDER SCRIPT
What if, for some reason you wanted to access all files of one type on your hard drive all of a sudden? Would it help to have one central location for shortcuts to all files of a given type on your hard drive? Come on in.

THE REMOVABLE MEDIA SHORTCUTS SCRIPT
If you've been burning CDs or ZIP disks that have complex directory structures and many files, you may have trouble finding one of those files months later.

ENUMERATE FOLDER CONTENTS FROM THE RIGHT-CLICK CONTEXT MENU
This is a handy little script that adds a new command to the right-click context menu which allows you to see the number and type of files in a folder at a glance.

LAUNCH YOUR WINDOWS PROGRAMS WITH A TYPED COMMAND! THE WINKEY+R TWEAK
This only takes a few cautious moments to set up and the result is a significant improvement in the speed and ease with which you can launch your most used programs. This is a real favorite of mine.

EDIT OUT YOUR BLOOPERS FROM THE WINKEY+R RUN LIST
If you are a Windows Power User, you use the WinKey+R Run command prompt regularly. That Windows retains the typed commands for a period of about 28 days makes this method more user friendly. The problem is, if you mistype a command and hit Enter, the blooper will remain there for 28 days.

MOVE OR COPY ANY FILE OR FOLDER ANYWHERE ON YOUR HARD DRIVE OR EVEN ON YOUR NETWORK WITH A RIGHT-CLICK
Microsoft has the SendTo Any Folder Power Toy which will do basically exactly what this script will do, but unfortunately it has a bug that causes a problem with other items in your SendTo folder. This simple script will perform the same function without the bugs.

SEND A SHORTCUT FOR ANY FILE ANYWHERE
Shortcuts are one of the most powerful features of operating systems with a graphical user interface. This small, simple script is intended to allow you to use the SendTo menu to send a shortcut to a file anywhere on your system.

SPELL CHECK ANY TEXT WHICH YOU CAN HIGHLIGHT AND COPY WITH SPELLER
This script uses Microsoft Word's powerful spell checker utility to check any text you've copied to the clipboard.

SPELL CHECK TEXT IN INTERNET EXPLORER 5/6 WITH IE SPELLER
This is another version of the SPELLER script designed to be used with Internet Explorer 5.x and above from your right-click context menu.

REMOVE THE "BUILD ID" FROM US VERSION OF MOZILLA'S TITLE BAR
While Mozilla was in its rather extensive beta testing period, the "Build ID" shown in the title bar didn't bug me much, but now that it's final, some of us would like to see it gone.

Go_Moz: A SCRIPT FOR IE5+ AND MOZILLA USERS
Go_Moz is a small script that allows IE5+ users to right-click a link while surfing in Internet Explorer and launch it in Mozilla.