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One of the best ‘power toys’ that’s available for Windows XP is Microsoft’s TweakUI utility, which provides a user with a very wide range of ways in which they can customize XP so that it acts just the way they want. 

It can even help deal with some of the XP issues that you might be having.

Tweak UI Main Screen

Clicking on each of the options in the sidebar on the left will open a number of options for that heading in the right hand pane.  Most changes will take effect when you close the application, but some will require you to reboot your machine.

For example, if you don’t want to see the shortcut arrows overlaid on your desktop’s icons, click on ‘Explorer’ and ‘Shortcut’.  Click the ‘None’ radio box, and you’ll never see the arrow again.  This is one of the very first things that I change when start working on an XP machine.

You can also change the settings that determine which applications show up as ‘Frequently Used’ when you click on XP’s Start button.  Applications that you never launch directly (ie, Acrobat Reader, which gets launched when you click on a PDF), can be removed from the list here if you wish.

Ever wondered what half the stuff in your Control Panel does, and why an application is there if you’re never going to use it?  This is where you can toggle whether or not applications show up in the Control Panel.  I’ll put up another post highlighting which apps are generally safe to remove in the near future, but this is one place where de-cluttering can really help.

Finally, if you’re tired of right clicking, selecting New, and getting a long list of options for new files to create for various applications, have a look at the rather shorter list that I’ve configured on my machine:

 

If you’re looking for a truly useful configuration tool for Windows XP, and one that’s free to boot, TweakUI is definitely worth a look.

Alas, Vista users don’t have the option of a free version (at least yet), but rest assured that one will probably be available before long.

Okay, the other day I posted a schedule for SP3 for Windows XP, with the promise that I was going to spend the weekend finding out what all was going into SP3.  As it turns out, SP3 is not going to be as dramatic a shift as SP2 was a couple of years ago.

Once again I turned to Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows for the details on what was going to be included in SP3.  Here’s essentially what it comes down to.

The first thing that SP3 is going to do is make your system as current as it can be, patch-wise, including everything that was in both SP1 and SP2.  Microsoft does require, however, that SP1 already be installed on your PC prior to adding the new service pack.  They also recommend, but not require, that SP2 also be installed prior to the upgrade.

There’s also four new minor features that Microsoft has included in SP3 that they’ve effectively drawn from Windows Vista, although these aren’t really ‘user end’ features.  In other words, they won’t affect your experience of using XP in any really noticeable ways.  They include:

1. Network Access Protection compatibility: allows Windows XP computers to interact with the NAP features built into Windows Server 2008.
2. No need to enter a Windows product key during setup.
3. Kernel Mode Cryptographics Module: this module will “encapsulate several different cryptographic algorithms”.  According to Microsoft.
4. Black Hole router detection: if your router drops certain types of networking packets, XP will now ignore it.  Not generally something you’ll need to worry about, though.

And that’s it.  Have I lost anyone yet?  Admittedly, there’s nothing particularly sexy about SP3, but if for no other reason than it’ll patch your machine to a state that’s as current as can be, get the update when it becomes available.  It’ll help deal with some of the XP issues you might be having.

At least according to this post on Ars Technica, which got its information from Neowin.  Apparently, this is the timetable that Microsoft is working on:

• April 14: Support is available for SP3
• April 21: OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers), Volume License customers, MSDN and Microsoft TechNet subscribers get access to SP3
• April 29: SP3 becomes available on Windows Update
• June 10: Automatic updates

So, by June 15 or so, unless you’ve got automatic updates turned off, you’ll soon be running Service Pack 3 for Windows XP.

I’m going to be doing a fair bit of digging this weekend to see what I can come up with regarding the upgrade and will have a post on Monday morning with the details of what I’ve found.