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REPLACE SCROLLING MENU FOR MULTIPLE COLUMNS FOR START MENU
When you clicked your Start menu in Win95, you got multiple columns of menus across your desktop side by side if needed. Win98 makes the Start menu a single column with a scrolling arrow at the bottom. Many people prefer the old way so if you have Win98 or Win2K and IE4 or 5, here's how to do it:
- Launch Regedit and drill down to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer.
- In the left pane, highlight the Advanced folder by clicking it once.
- Right-click a blank area of the right-hand pane. Click New, then String Value.
- Name it StartMenuScrollPrograms and press Enter.
- Right-click the name you just created and click Modify. In the Value Data box, type FALSE, then click OK.
- Enjoy!
OH DEAR! I'VE LOST MY WIN95 OR WIN98 PRODUCT KEY!
Plan to reinstall Win9x, but can't find the Product Key (serial number), that goes with the CD-ROM? Go to Start/Run, type in Regedit, then click OK. In the resulting window, look in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
While in CurrentVersion, look in the right pane for the 25 digit/letter Product Key. Write it down this time.
REMOVE "FIND" FROM THE START MENU
If you use it from time to time then you should skip this. If however, you rarely if ever use this option, or prefer to simply press F3 to bring up the Find applet, then read on. You can easily remove or replace the Find menu item from your Start menu in Win9x or NT with a simple Registry change. Here's what to do:
- Launch Regedit and drill down to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
- Look for a DWORD Value in the right pane called NoFind. If it isn't there you can create it by right clicking the free space below the other items under the "Name" column, and choosing New/DWORD Value and naming it NoFind
- Now right click the new value and Modify the Value data: from 0 (which will show the Find menu item) to 1 (which will hide the Find menu item).
- The setting change will not take effect until you reboot.
- Enjoy!
CHANGE YOUR DEFAULT SEARCH ENGINE TO GOOGLE IN IE OR NETSCAPE
Would you like to replace the default search engine used by IE5 or Netscape? Sick and tired of having MSN shoved down your throat at every turn? I prefer Google, and this information was lifted straight from their site. I believe in their product, so I feel I should pass this information on to my readers.
- Before you start this enhancement, check to see if you like the MSN search engine. If the search icon isn't displayed on your toolbar, you may add it by right-clicking a blank spot on the toolbar and choosing Customize.... Otherwise, click the View pull-down menu and select Search Ctrl+E.
- A sidebar window will appear displaying the standard MSN search page. If you're pleased with this search service, don't proceed. If you'd like to change it, read on.
- There are two variations for Internet Explorer 4.0 and 5.0 users. The first is as follows:
- This will display the results of your Google search in the search channel window, leaving the main window
available for browsing. To do this, download
this file to a temporary directory on your hard drive. Make
note of the location when you download it.
- Close Internet Explorer, find the file and double-click it.
Answer Yes to the prompt. You may delete the file when you are done. You may need to reboot for the changes to take effect.
- The second variation for IE users is for Google to display the results of its search in the main window, rather
than the left, search channel window. If you think you would prefer this option, the process is identical to what is
listed immediately above, but you'll use a different file.
- Again, download
this file to a temporary directory on your hard drive.
Make note of the location when you download it.
- Close Internet Explorer, find the file and
double-click it. Answer Yes to the prompt. You may delete the file when you are done. You may need to
reboot for the changes to take effect.
- Finally, if you change your mind (you won't), Google has provided a patch to change your settings back to the
default. And once again, the method for applying the patch is the same as above.
- Download
this file to a temporary directory on your hard drive.
Make note of the location when you download it.
- Close Internet Explorer, find the file and double-click it.
Answer Yes to the prompt. You may delete the file when you are done. You may need to reboot for the changes to take effect.
- This is what Netscape Communicator or Navigator 4.x users can do:
- Netscape's method for searching is a little simpler than IE's way. In Netscape, you enter the
"SEARCH TERMS" in the URL box instead of a URL. You can set the search engine
used in this case by directly editing the prefs file. Please note that this can be risky if you aren't careful
and meticulous. I suggest backing up the file before starting your editing session. See
the Unofficial Netscape FAQ for more
details.
- Before starting, quit any copies of Netscape that may be running.
- For Windows users: To edit the prefs file, use Notepad to load
...\Netscape\Users\{username}\prefs.js. ("..." is probably the "Programs" folder.)
- For Macintosh users: To edit the prefs file, use SimpleText or equivalent to load
...:preferences:netscape f:netscape preferences. ("..." is your system folder.)
- For UNIX users: Edit the file .netscape/preferences.js in your home directory.
- Regardless of operating system, the method is the same. Once you've loaded the preferences file, add the following line to the end of the file:
user_pref("network.search.url", "http://www.google.com/keyword/");
You must also place a hard carriage return (press Enter) after the last character of that line.
- Save and close prefs.js.
- You can find more information on this from Googles page, here.
- Enjoy!
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