If you right-click a file in Windows Explorer, and then select Send To, you’ll see the standard list of Send To options.

To reveal a list of additional options on the Send To menu (in Windows 7), including often-used folders, hold down the SHIFT key before you right-click the file.

If you love music and computers, you probably have a lot of albums stored on your hard drive.

Here’s a cool tip that lets you show the album cover on the folder. The picture below shows some of the Tom Waits albums on my hard drive:

Windows XP has a feature that sometimes automatically puts a thumbnail of the album cover on the folder. In these cases, you don’t have to do anything! However, for some reason, Windows does not create the thumbnail automatically for every album.

To add the thumbnail of the album cover yourself:

1. First, download a jpg of the album cover. (You can do this by searching for the album on Amazon, then right-click on the picture, and save it in the folder containing the songs.)
2. In My Computer, right-click on the folder.
3. Select Properties.
4. Click the Customize tab at the top.



5. Click the Choose Picture button.
6. Select the JPG that you stored in the folder, and click the Open button.
7. Click OK.

Some programs automatically turn on an option during installation to open the program every time you turn on your computer. This annoying and arrogant feature can usually be disabled, sometimes by changing the Preferences within the program. If you can’t find this option within the program, you can usually prevent the program from starting automatically by changing your Windows configuration settings. (This is not as intimidating as it might sound, even for the novice user.)

Try the Easy Way First

The first thing to try is to open the program and look under Options or Preferences, etc. Most programs that start up automatically have a checkbox that says something like Start Automatically when Windows starts.

These instructions use Yahoo Messenger as an example:

1. Log in and then select Messenger | Preferences.
2. Select General from the category list.
3. The first item says: When I start up my computer | Automatically start Yahoo Messenger. Uncheck the check box.
4. Close Messenger and reboot your computer.

The Slightly More Complicated Way

These instructions assume you are running Windows XP:

1. Click the Start button, and then select Run…



2. Type msconfig in the Open text field.
3. The System Configuration Utility will appear. Select the Startup tab at the top, which will show a list of the programs that start automatically every time you boot up your computer.



4. Remove the checks from any programs you do not want to start automatically.
   Be sure not to uncheck an item unless you are absolutely sure what it does.

   In the example above, I have turned off the iTunes Helper, Windows Messenger, the Nokia cell phone utility, QuickTime movies, and the Yahoo Messenger Pager.

5. If you make changes, Windows will prompt you to restart your computer.



6. Restart your computer.
7. When you computer restarts, the following message will appear:



8. Check the box that says “Don’t show this message…” Otherwise, the System Configuration Utility will open every time you boot up your computer to remind you that you have changed your startup options.

We try to mention both of these shortcuts in most of our classes because everyone seems to love them!

Both shortcuts make use of the Windows key, the one between the left CTRL and left ALT keys on most keyboards. It looks like this:

The first one lets you get back to the Desktop with one keystroke. (Many people use the Show Desktop icon on the Quick Launch Toolbar for this purpose, but I think this short cut is quicker.)

To show the Desktop: + d.

The second opens My Computer in Explorer view, which means that the Folder list is open on the left. This is very handy if you have to do any kind of file management task, such as creating a folder, moving or copying files, deleting files, renaming files, etc.

To open a My Computer/Explorer window: + e.