29. Thaw out your desktop

Every version of Windows has suffered from occasional 'desktop freezing.' You know the symptoms... You tell Windows to do something it doesn't like and everything except your mouse pointer slows to a c-r-a-w-l. You can open the start menu but applications won't load or close. Very frustrating.

Fortunately there can be a cure for desktop freeze, at least in Windows 2000 and XP, and it's an easy one. First, save any data you are working on, the press CRTL + ALT + DEL to bring up the task manager.

Select the 'processes' tab and highlight 'explorer.exe' then click 'end process'.

Without exiting from task manager, click 'file\New Task' and type 'explorer.exe.'

You should find that your computer has thawed itself out again.

30. Speed up mouse movement, part 1

Windows XP applies an acceleration curve to the mouse by default, meaning that every time you move the pointer, it starts out slowly and accelerates with continual movement. If you like a really fast and precise mouse setting, you may find that even increasing the mouse speed in the 'pointer options' tab of the mouse entry in the control panel does not get you the speed you want. A good partial solution is to uncheck the 'enhance pointer precision' box below the mouse speed setting in the 'pointer options' tab.

While this does not completely remove the acceleration curve, it mostly does, allowing your mouse to reach much higher speeds in normal operation.

31. Speed up mouse movement, part 2
As stated in the previous tip, Windows XP applies an acceleration curve to the mouse which can be disabled for better overall mouse performance, especially during games. Unfortunately, the option in the control panel as detailed above does not fully disable mouse acceleration. To do this, it is necessary to make some registry changes.

First, open up REGEDIT and navigate to 'hkey_current_user\control panel\mouse'

Change the value of 'smoothmouseXcurve' to the following:

00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
00,a0,00,00,00,00,00,00
00,40,01,00,00,00,00,00
00,80,02,00,00,00,00,00
00,00,05,00,00,00,00,00

Then change the value of 'SmoothMouseYCurve' to the following:

00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
66,a6,02,00,00,00,00,00
cd,4c,05,00,00,00,00,00
a0,99,0a,00,00,00,00,00
38,33,15,00,00,00,00,00

This should eliminate the acceleration curve of the mouse once and for all.