For this week’s Freeware Frenzy, I’m going to take a look at TweakUI Powertoys for Windows XP and Server 2003. This is a set of extras from Microsoft for us so-called power users that opens up custom settings not normally found in Windows. Depending on how particular you are, you could find these to be the answers to your prayers, or just a useless bunch of extras. But for those of you who demand personalization and productivity down to the last millisecond, read on.
Installation is super quick, thanks to the programs mere 150k size. TweakUI will install a “Powertoys for Windows XP” folder in your start menu and within, a shortcut to TweakUI. The program is very simple, you choose your area of customization on the left and edit on the right. For every setting, TweakUI gives a description of how it works, and how your changes will affect that setting. Barring some settings that require a restart, you can usually see your changes immediately. So it is very easy to see if a certain change is beneficial to you. TweakUI has too many options to list them all, but each one is unique and can be quite handy. I’ll mention the ones that I found personally useful.
The first setting I changed was to Prevent Apps from Stealing Focus. This is especially helpful if I load Word, but I jump back to IE, and Word forces me back. My second change was menu speed. When I’m multitasking, I need things to open immediately, even cascading menus. A few milliseconds might not matter most of the time, but I have a need for speed. Next up was mouse scrolling. Microsoft’s default speed for the mouse wheel is only three lines at a time. For those of us who read fast or need to find something on a page in a hurry, three lines jus won’t cut it. I upped mine to six. Next, I edited Explorer. TweakUI allows you to change what menus are present on the Start Menu, both Classic and XP. I like to remove Recent Documents, because I never use it, and most things listed are items I’m not going to use again. Finally, I chose to Rebuild Icons. It can be frustrating to uninstall some old program and see that an icon somewhere else now loads incorrectly. This setting will rebuild all Explorer Icons and remove all unused icons, thus restoring your system back to pristine (icon) condition.
In my exploring, I came across some interesting other settings which you may find useful. First was what Microsoft called “X-Mouse”. With this setting activated, you only need to move your pointer onto a window to give it focus. Normally you would have to click on it. I personally would find this annoying, since I tend to move my mouse pointer out of my way when I’m working, but I can see how it would speed up multitasking. The next setting I found was Shortcut Arrows. Windows adds a little arrow to the corner of shortcut icons, which some of us find silly. Well now you can easily remove them. Another interesting setting was one for customizing your keyboard command keys. These days, you can’t find a keyboard that isn’t covered with shortcut keys and now you don’t need the extra software to use them, just bind them through TweakUI. And lastly, Access Control lets you customize which users have what abilities when it comes to files and printing.
That is in no way a full list of the options you find in TweakUI, there are plenty of others. And I realize that some of the settings you find in TweakUI can be found other places in Windows if you know where to look, but having them all conveniently located in one program is a great plus. I encourage anyone who is looking for some extra personalization in their computing experience to check it out. Pick up TweakUI and other Powertoys from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
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