Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP Tweaking

PowerToys add fun and functionality to the Windows experience. What are they? PowerToys are additional programs that developers work on after a product has been released.

Note: We take great care to ensure that PowerToys work as they should, but they are not part of Windows and are not supported by Microsoft. For this reason, Microsoft Technical Support is unable to answer questions about PowerToys. PowerToys are for Windows XP only and will not work with Windows Vista.

Important

•If you installed PowerToys prior to April 23, 2002, you must uninstall your old PowerToys before installing the versions available here.

•PowerToys only work with U.S. English regional settings.

Current PowerToy options:

Color Control Panel Applet

Professional-level photographers and designers know that getting consistent, accurate color from file to screen to print and beyond is a requirement for great results. This new tool helps you manage Windows color settings in one place. Download or learn more.

SyncToy

With new sources of files coming from every direction (such as digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops), SyncToy can help you copy, move, and synchronize different directories. Download or learn more.

RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer

Are you a serious photographer? Now you can organize and work with digital RAW files in Windows Explorer (much as you can with JPEG images). This tool provides thumbnails, previews, printing, and metadata display for RAW images. Download or learn more.

ClearType Tuner

This PowerToy lets you use ClearType technology to make it easier to read text on your screen, and installs in the Control Panel for easy access.

HTML Slide Show Wizard

This wizard helps you create an HTML slide show of your digital pictures, ready to place on your Web site.

Open Command Window Here

This PowerToy adds an "Open Command Window Here" context menu option on file system folders, giving you a quick way to open a command window (cmd.exe) pointing at the selected folder.

Alt-Tab Replacement

With this PowerToy, in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open.

Tweak UI

This PowerToy gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more.

Version 2.10 requires Windows XP Service Pack 1 or Windows Server 2003.

Power Calculator

With this PowerToy you can graph and evaluate functions as well as perform many different types of conversions.

Image Resizer

This PowerToy enables you to resize one or many image files with a right-click.

CD Slide Show Generator

With this PowerToy you can view images burned to a CD as a slide show. The Generator works downlevel on Windows 9x machines as well.

Virtual Desktop Manager

Manage up to four desktops from the Windows taskbar with this PowerToy.

Taskbar Magnifier

Use this PowerToy to magnify part of the screen from the taskbar.

Webcam Timershot

This PowerToy lets you take pictures at specified time intervals from a Webcam connected to your computer and save them to a location that you designate.

Note : Goto http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx for more information

Ultimate Windows Tweaker, Free Windows 7 / Vista Tweaking program

If you use Windows 7 or Windows Vista, and want to change some hidden setting in it, you can use a software call Ultimate Windows Tweaker. This portable free tool serve as optimizing and tweaking tool, which make your operating system faster, stable and saver in a few click.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker will detect automatically your operating system, whether it’s Windows 7 or Vista, and the interface will change based on the operating system.

The feature of this nice small program include:

System Information :
– Showing Operating System Information, Version and built number, system rating, Processor, RAM, computer description etc.

Personalization
– Windows Explorer, many options related to menus in Windows Explorer.
– Customize Start Menu, such as hide some menu items etc.
– Taskbar Appearance such as Disable Aero Peek preview, lock taskbar, disable windows preview (thumbnails), remove some icons etc.

User Account & UAC
– Change some menu in Welcome Screen
– Change text effect in Welcome Screen, as well as its background
– Some arrangement in User Account Control

System Performance
– Change Tooltip, showing actual value in milisecond.
– “Action Menu”
– Tweaking system performance, such as auto end non-responding applications, restart shell automatic, Unload DLL from memory, etc.
– Services Optimization, such as Disable Superfetch service, Windows Security Center, Windows Time service, Printer spooling, Tablet PC, Windows Update and Windows Aero user interface.

Security Settigs
– Administrative restriction, such as disable Registry editor, command prompt, Task manager, MMC snap-ins, WinKey Control, System Restore, change appearance and color, Control panel, auto play etc.
– Windows Explorer Restriction : Disable folder options, removing  tab security, CD burn feature and removing context menu from explorer.
– Windows Application Restriction, such as disable Windows media center, sound recorder, Windows Defender, sidebar, error reporting and windows mobility center.
– Windows Update Setting

Network Tweaks
– Many networking tweaks
– Bandwidth Optimization

Internet Explorer
– IE Reset to default setting
– General, such as changing windows title, download directory and else
– Many settings in Tab and Advanced configuration

Additional Tweaks
– Showing context menu for drive and folder, as well as drive and file folder
– Many other tweaks, like disable Hibernation, windows startup sound, pagefile, encryption and others.

Download
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-v2-a-tweak-ui-for-windows-7-vista(zip 139 KB, exe around 345 KB)

Note :

This Program cannot be run in Windows XP tweaking.

How to Find Unknown Device Driver in our Windows

Sometimes, when we have to reinstall our operating system, especially windows, we’re bothered on unknown devices. Maybe we had device installer, but it’s not automatically detects our devices while there’s many devices name it. What’s to choose if we don’t know our device name?

With the internet, nothing can’t be solved. Here’s a way to know your device name manually, and then you can install or download correspond devices.

Text Mining Tool, Freeware to directly open PDF and Word in Text Mode

It’s sometimes useful to open pdf file or word file directly in text mode. For example, when Adobe or MS Word is not available, or we just need to copy and paste some phrase in one document. And again, copying a a text in pdf is time consuming and sometimes “restricted” too.

19 Software Download Center site to Check

If you looking for software to download, here’s some download center sites for you