Displaying An Image In The Background Of A Folder In Windows XP

1. Open Notepad.
2. Type the following in it :
3. [ExtShellFolderViews]
   [{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
   Attributes=1
   IconArea_Image=D:\Images\Pattern.jpg
   IconArea_Text=0x00FFFFFF
4. Save the file as Desktop.ini in the folder whose background you want to change.
5. Refresh. You picture is being displayed in the background of the folder.

You can replace  D:\Images\Pattern.jpg with a desired image path. 0x00FFFFFF can be replaced with any other colour's hexadecimal value.
It's funny to find softwares that simply write this file and change the background and funnier is seeing people admiring these softwares... Enjoy.!

Creating A Self Extracting Package In Windows XP

There is no need search for softwares on internet which can create self extracting packages. Windows comes with a default software that can do this job perfectly. Try it...
C:\WINDOWS\System32\IExpress.exe

Displaying A Notice Before Your Computer Completes Its Booting Process

1. Open Registry Editor. This can be done by clicking on Start button, selecting Run, inputting regedit and clicking on OK button.
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Policies/System
3. Right click on the pane on right and create 2 new REG_SZ and rename them to legalnoticecaption and legalnoticetext and put their values to the caption text and the notice text you want to be displayed.
4. Restart your computer and see your own notice being displayed while your computer boots.

Tired Of Seeing Names Below Your Files And Folder Icons?

Have you tried renaming a file to something that displays no name below its icon? It doesn't work if you rename a file or folder to a blank with no characters. To do it, while renaming your file or folder, delete the highlighted old name, press Alt and type 0 1 6 0 and then press Enter. To rename other files in same folder, repeat the given process twice separated by a space and so on. Your computer will look cleaner....
The reason for this happening is that the unicode for no character is 0160. You may try other combination of numbers to get characters that do not exist on your keyboard. Enjoy!

Hiding The Contents Of A Folder By Renaming It

I don't really know what this should be called. But if we rename a folder in the following manner, it becomes a shortcut to control panel...
Rename it from FolderName to FolderName.{21EC2020-3AEA_1069_A2DD-08002B30309D}.
To rename it back to a normal folder, I suggest use of a Batch File. To do it, use Notepad and type the following..
ren FolderName.{21EC2020-3AEA_1069_A2DD-08002B30309D} FolderName
Save it in the folder where the folder FolderName exists with an extension of .bat. Double click on it to execute this batch file. Your folder is back to normal condition.

Note : FolderName is just a sample name that I have used. this could be replaced with any desired name.

Similarly, if we add .{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} to a folder name, it starts acting as a shortcut to My Computer.

Disabling Drives From My Computer

1. Open Registry Editor. This can be done by clicking on Start button, selecting Run, inputting regedit and clicking on OK button.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Policies/Explorer.
3. Right click on the pane on right and create a new REG_DWORD. Rename it to NoDrives and put its value to 3FFFFFF.
4. Go to Task Manager.
5. End the process named Explorer.exe under the Processes tab.
6. Under Applications tab, select new process and type Explorer.exe in the dialog box that appears and click on OK.
7. Your Drives in My Computer has been disabled.
8. To enable Drives again, change the value of NoDrive to 0 and restart Explorer.exe. 

Disabling Run Command From Start Button

1. Open Registry Editor. This can be done by clicking on Start button, selecting Run, inputting regedit and clicking on OK button.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Policies/Explorer.
3. Right click on the pane on right and create a new String Value. Rename it to NoRun and put its value to 1.
4. Go to Task Manager.
5. End the process named Explorer.exe under the Processes tab.
6. Under Applications tab, select new process and type Explorer.exe in the dialog box that appears and click on OK.
7. Your Run in start menu or New Task in task manager button has been disabled.
8. To enable Run again, change the value of NoRun to 0 and restart the computer (since  New Task option will be disabled). 

Disabling Shutdown In Windows XP

1. Open Registry Editor. This can be done by clicking on Start button, selecting Run, inputting regedit and clicking on OK button.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Policies/Explorer.
3. Right click on the pane on right and create a new String Value. Rename it to NoClose and put its value to 1.
4. Go to Task Manager.
5. End the process named Explorer.exe under the Processes tab.
6. Under Applications tab, select new process and type Explorer.exe in the dialog box that appears and click on OK.
7. Your Shut Down button has been disabled and your computer wont close until you do something drastic.
8. To enable shut down again, change the value of NoClose to 0 and restart the Explorer.exe process again.