Friday, October 12, 2007

Useful PowerToys Software for XP

Althought I have been switching to Vista but my office PC is still using XP. So for those who are still using XP, the PowerToys is the additional software add-on into XP to improve the windows experience. However not every softwares from PowerToys are useful. Sadly that most of the softwares are useless (to me) or I already have a solution.

These are the software I have tried as I think they're useful (to me):

  1. ClearType Tuner (Recommended)
  2. Open Command Window Here (Recommended)
  3. Virtual Desktop Manager (Not Recommended)
ClearType Tuner
This is the most useful PowerToy in my opinion. This is especially for those who are using the LCD screen and has difficulty read the fonts (i.e. not clear enough). You can give it a try.
After installed, you can run the ClearType Tuner and it appears some kind of Wizard to allow you to choose the best font that best suit you. After the Wizard, your font will be configured and looks clear.

If you're using CRT monitor, I don't think it gives you huge improvement but you can give it a try.

Click here to download

Open Command Window Here
If you're the Unix user, you probably get used to running command from console. Installing this PowerToy, it allows you to access to the command prompt directly from the explorer. I personally find this useful as I don't need to CD to the directory every time I open the command prompt window. I can use the Windows Explorer to browse to the directory and "Right Click" and click "Open Command Window Here" to open the command window. The command window shows the same current directory where I "Right Click" from the Explorer.

Click here to download

Virtual Desktop Manager
I love virtual desktop. Therefore, I have been trying many virtual desktop software tools in Windows platform. I tried the Open Source and also this one but none of them satisfy me. The reason is all of them are somehow unstable. It ether cause my PC hang, or my things in Desktop 1 move to Desktop 2, or my whole Application's UI is missing and many more. Therefore I do not recommend to try this. If you have ever known any "Stable" Virtual Desktop in Windows platform, feel free to let me know.


Click here to download
(If you still want to try)

To see the full list of software provided by PowerToys, click here.

1 Comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the Command Window tip. I am loving it.


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