1.Change your boring Mouse Pointers
If you are tired of seeing the same old mouse pointers all the time (hourglass, arrow, etc.) Windows offers a lot of really nice pointer schemes, such as Conductor, Dinosaur, Old Fashioned many others.
For Windows XP users -Click “Start” then “Control Panel”. Switch to “Category View” in Control Panel, select Appearance and Themes, then click Mouse Pointers under “See Also.” on the left. Next to Schemes, click the down arrow and select a scheme to preview its pointers. If you use the “Classic View” Control Panel, double-click Mouse, and select the Pointers tab. Click OK to apply the scheme to your desktop. You can easily revert back to the Windows default pointer scheme by selecting “Default” from the above dialogs.
For Windows Vista & Windows 7 users – Click “Start” then “Control Panel”, the click “Classic View” (on the left side of the dialog). Now click “Personalization”, then “Mouse Pointers”. Use the drop-down arrow to browse the numerous mouse pointer schemes available. If you choose one, you will see a small preview of the pointers representative of the that particular theme. To apply a new theme, click “Apply” “OK”.
2. Hide your desktop icons – a clean desktop all the time!
Tired of the all the icons on your desktop, but you need them and don’t want to delete or move them?
Windows XP users – Right-click on an open area of your desktop, look under “Arrange Desktop Icons” and uncheck “Show Desktop Icons”. If you want an easy way to access your desktop icons, shortcuts, and folders, when they’re hidden, just right-click on a blank section of your taskbar and select “Toolbars” and check “Desktop”. Now you have a clean desktop and all your icons are listed neatly in when you click on the new “Desktop” toolbar on your task bar. You can always revert back to showing your icons on your desktop at anytime by reversing the above steps.
Windows Vista and Windows 7 users- Right-click an open area of your desktop, click “View” and remove the bullet next to “View desktop icons” by clicking on it. If you want an easy way to access your desktop icons, shortcuts, and folders, when they’re hidden, just right-click on a blank section of your taskbar and select “Toolbars” and check “Desktop”. Now you have a clean desktop and all your icons are listed neatly in when you click on the new “Desktop” toolbar on your task bar. You can always revert back to showing your icons on your desktop at anytime by reversing the above steps.
3. Hide that pesky and almost useless “Safely remove hardware” icon
The Safely Remove Hardware Icon is one of the most annoying things to us. We hate it. We seldom ever use it yet sits there day after day taking up space in our System Tray. But, no more. We’ve conquered this nuisance and you can too! If you’ve added USB hardware to your computer you may have noticed this little icon in your tray called “Safely Remove Hardware”. After awhile this icon will start bothering you like it did us. If it bothers you too, here’s how you can safely remove (or hide at least) the pesky “Safely Remove Hardware” icon:
Windows XP users – Right click within the taskbar, outside of specific icons (at the margin edge). Select Properties. In the Customize Notifications dialog box, scroll down to the Safely Remove Hardware entry. Click the entry in the “Behavior” column for the icon. In the dropdown box, and select “Always hide” this icon. Click OK.
Windows Vista users- Right-click “Start” and choose “Properties”. Click the “Notification area” tab, then select “Customize”. Find “Safely remove hardware” and click it to select it. Then, click on the right where it says “Hide when inactive” or “Show” and change it to “Hide” and click OK. Then click “Apply” and then “OK” again.
Windows 7 users – have no fear – you have nothing to remove. There is no safely remove hardware icon showing by default.
You can use these tips on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 (32/64bit), just in case you wanted to know 🙂