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Spiff Up Your Software

Streamline your Windows XP start-up: XP is the Switzerland of operating systems--it tries to accommodate all comers (especially if they have gold). XP loads all sorts of network-related and other services you don't need. Keep them from loading, and you'll save RAM and boost system performance. To do this, select Start, Run, type services.msc, and press Enter. Click the Extended tab and look for likely loiterers. To prevent a service from starting automatically, double-click it and choose Disabled from the General tab's 'Startup type' drop-down menu. The services you can safely disable vary from configuration to configuration, but one good candidate is Messenger (this isn't MSN or Windows Messenger). You can find more-detailed descriptions of XP services at BlackViper.com. And be sure to check out BlackViper's install guides if you plan to move to XP.

Build a better virus trap: For a leaner system, consider shutting off your antivirus program's heuristics feature (it probably doesn't work very well anyway). Or better yet, give one of the new, superspeedy antivirus tools a try; your options include Grisoft's free AVG and Hauri's $40 ViRobot Expert. Both are faster than and as effective as Norton AntiVirus and other antivirus packages. Download AVG or a trial version of ViRobot Expert. Bonus tip: Save money and disk space by going to Hauri's site or to Housecall.antivirus.com to scan your system for free over the Web.

Take Excel to a new level: Excel has more options than a 1999 dot-com CEO. As Excel maven and former PC World Contributing Editor John Walkenbach says on his site, "the Options dialog box is essentially Excel's junk drawer...a prime candidate for the cover of the Journal of Bad User Interface Design."

Tame the beast with his $40 PUP program. PUP is no whelp--it clearly organizes Excel's options, and its 60+ utilities enhance menus, add dozens of range tools,and permit batch printing. Download a fully working 30-day demo with no nag screens.

Try a free Office alternative: Are you so cheap the condiments shelf in your fridge consists entirely of little packets swiped from fast-food outlets? You'll be happy to learn that you can read and print files and perform other basic Office functions without any disk overhead--and without taking a big bite out of your wallet. Simply download the various free Office app viewers that let you view, print, and/or play files created by Access (97 and 2000 report snapshots), Excel (97 to 2000), PowerPoint (95 to 2002), and Word (97 to 2000). You'll see all the file's fonts, colors, charts, and animations. And it won't cost you a nickel. Go to Downloads for May's "Cheap Tweaks" to download the viewers.

Don't take Office menus personally: Microsoft may have liquidated the deplorable Clippy animated assistant in Office, but other enhancements still irk, such as "personalized" menus, which hide some options you haven't used recently. If you sometimes like this and sometimes hate it, you can have it both ways. Double-click any of the menu titles (such as File or Tools) to display all of your options on the spot.

Speed up your files by quashing links: Are your Excel worksheets sluggish and your Word docs dilatory? OLE may be to blame. Object Linking and Embedding lets you add dynamic data to a file, such as placing live Excel spreadsheet cells into a Word document. If the data you plugged into your document no longer requires active updating, make it static: Right-click the object and select Hyperlink, Remove Hyperlink. Now your PC won't waste CPU cycles updating these fallow links.

Avoid your local print shop: Why trudge to the print shop or hire a desktop publishing pro to print your brochures, newsletters, leaflets, and catalogs? Blue Squirrel's $50 ClickBook 6 application makes it easy to design and print booklets, Day Planner pages, business cards, brochures, and other material. And you can do it all from within just about any Office app. We're talking more than 40 booklet styles, multipage/double-sided printing, automatic sizing, watermarks, and custom layouts. ClickBook's learning curve is a little daunting, but once you set up the program, printing custom documents is a snap. Go to ClickBook v 6.0 to download a trial version.

Faster than a speeding mouse: Inveterate mousers may sneer at keyboard shortcuts, but these feats of prestidigitation save PC users oodles of time. For example, pressing Ctrl-D creates a bookmark in Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, shortcuts can be tough to remember, and that's where Office 2000 and XP can help: In any Office app (except Excel and Publisher), select Tools, Customize, Options, and check the Show ScreenTips on Toolbars and Show shortcut keys in ScreenTips boxes.

Thereafter, when you pass the pointer over any toolbar button, up pops its keyboard shortcut. Note that when you change this option in one Office application, you change it in all of them that support it. See this month's Answer Line for more on keyboard shortcuts. Bonus tip: To see all of the keyboard shortcuts in Word, select Tools, Macro, Macros. From the 'Macros in' dialog box, select Word Commands; then scroll down to and double-click ListCommands. Select Current menu and keyboard settings, and click OK. Word will instantly create a document listing all the keyboard commands.

Put Windows XP's PowerToys to work: Some people love Windows XP's marzipan look and tail-wagging search mascot. Others (like me) just want to scream when exposed to all that cuteness. But instead of howling, I fire up Microsoft's free PowerToys. One of my favorite PowerToys tools is Tweak UI, which lets me change my mouse-click speed, turn off IE's annoying AutoPlay feature, and perform other interface modifications. Two other winners are the Image Resizer, for zooming in on or out of an image with one click, and the Taskbar Magnifier. (I like the Alt-Tab Replacement tool's view of my active apps, too, but it makes switching between your open windows slower, so you may want to skip this toy.) Download a copy of PowerToys for Windows XP.

Start XP faster, Microsoft style: Ah, the instant boot--the dream of Windows users everywhere. This may be centuries away, but at least Windows XP users can try to shorten their current boot-up time by installing Microsoft's free BootVis tool.

First the program identifies everything that Windows loads at start-up; then it relocates the files and rearranges their start order to maximize load speeds. You may be able to shave between 15 and 45 seconds off your start-ups with BootVis. Then again, you may not notice any change at all. Is it worth the time and effort? Steve Bass gave the program a try and answered "yes." Read his take on BootVis from the March issue's Home Office (with a link to the download).

Add foreign punctuation in an instant: If you need foreign-language characters in Word, drop-kick the character map and add them from your keyboard. For acute accents, press Ctrl-' (apostrophe) and then the letter you want accented, such as the á in "no más." For grave or left-leaning accents, press Ctrl-` (the left single-quotation mark on the key located above the Tab key on most keyboards). You can generate letters with a tilde by pressing Ctrl-Shift-~, letters with a circumflex accent by entering Ctrl-Shift-^ (the ^ mark shares the 6 key), and letters with an umlaut by typing Ctrl-Shift-:. Bonus tip: If you go to Word help and type foreign punctuation, the program will give you the option of seeing all such keyboard shortcuts.

Sort everything out in Outlook: By default, Outlook sorts mail by date and time, but you have other choices. If you're looking for e-mail messages with mondo attachments, for example, click the Size button at the top of the window to make those messages move to the top of the list. To sort by sender's name, click the From button and type the first letter or two of the name you want; you'll jump to that person's most recent correspondence.