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35 Things Every PC User Should Know

Want to speed up your broadband connection? Diagnose mysterious crashes? Move massive files across the Internet? Sooner or later, you will--and you'll find step-by-step instructions for these and other common PC tasks right here.

Christopher Null

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Expand Your Collection of Windows-Tweaking Tools

Click here to view full-size image.Microsoft offers a sizable collection of useful yet unofficial and unsupported utilities called PowerToys. Following are the essential PowerToys for any serious computer user; all are downloadable from Microsoft's PowerToys for Windows XP page.

  • ClearType Tuner: Dramatically improves font legibility on some LCD screens.
  • Image Resizer: Adds a new menu when you right-click a photo on your PC. Just click Resize Pictures to change an image's dimensions without opening an editor.
  • Tweak UI: If you don't already have Tweak UI, get it. This essential OS tweaking tool offers more granular control over your privacy settings and operations, and even over the way you log in to your PC (plus much more). It should be one of the first things you install on any new computer.
  • Alt-Tab Replacement: Adds previews of each page when you switch between open applications using <Alt>-<Tab>.
  • SyncToy: Improves the task of synchronizing files among multiple machines, especially compared with Windows Briefcase.
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