89. Speed up the Start Menu

The Windows XP start menu has a built in delay time between your pointer landing on a menu and that menu being displayed. Using the registry, you can reduce the time it takes the start menu to unfold its menus:

Open REGEDIT

Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\

Edit the MenuShowDelay value. The default is 400, lower values will speed up the start menu. I would not recommend using 0, but experiment to find your favourite setting.

90. Display message on startup

If you'd like your computer to display a message when it starts up, there's a simple registry edit that can do the job for you:

Open REGEDIT.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/WindowsNT/CurrentVersion/Winlogon

Edit the key 'legalnoticecaption' with the name you wish to call the Window the message pops up in.

Edit the key 'legalnoticetext' with the test you want to put in the message window.

91. Set the default download directory for Internet Explorer

If you would like to change the default download target for Internet Explorer from 'my documents' to some other location on your system, the following quick registry change will do it.

Open REGEDIT

Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer

Edit the 'download directory' value to the full path of the directory you wish to use.

92. Change the size of thumbnail pictures

Windows XP can be set to display directories full of images as thumbnail pictures in an explorer window. With this handy registry edit, you can change the size of these thumbnails to make them easier to see:

Open REGEDIT

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

Create a new DWORD value called 'ThumbnailSize' and give it a value between 32 and 256 with 256 being the largest.