Caution! Making changes to your operating system can cause problems. Backing up important data should be done periodically. Enhance Windows Look & Efficiency     1 Basic Windows Customizing           This section gives directions for Windows XP, some of the directions may also work on other versions of Windows.           Close any Explorer windows and open the Control Panel (Start > Settings)           Show Classic Control Panel           View > Status Bar           View > List           Tools > Folder Options                    General                              Use Windows classic folders                     View                               Check all the boxes before "Hidden files and folders"                               Show hidden files and folders                               Un-check the boxes down to "Show Control Panel in My Computer" and check the rest of the boxes.                               Click Apply > "Apply to All Folders" > OK           Load "Taskbar and Start Menu"                     Un-check "Group similar taskbar icons"                     Customize "Hide inactive icons" (show the icons you want to show and hide the icons you want hidden)                     "Start Menu" > "Classic Start Menu" > Customize > Check all boxes except for "Scroll Programs" > OK     2 Create a Customized Taskbar Menu           Create a new directory in My Documents & name it - .           Copy all of the shortcut icons that you use into this directory.           Sort the shortcut icons to new directories that suite your collection of programs.           Right click the Taskbar, choose Toolbar > New Toolbar > choose the directory that you created.           Erase the shortcuts from your desktop and start using your Customized Taskbar Menu!     3 XPize           Install XPize which replaces most of the non-XP icons, avis and bmps that Microsoft has always overlooked           XPize also contains UXTheme Multi-Patcher & TaskSwitchXP.           UXTheme Multi-Patcher lets you use 3rd-party windows visual styles.           You can download styles from Deviantart or Belchfire.           My favorite style: Greencomb Grace (replace the start button using Resource Hacker )           TaskSwitchXP is an excellent replacement for the system task-switcher (alt+tab). For more customization Freeware click on Customization on the navigation panel at the top of this page.