Introduction

Hundreds of millions of people use Windows every day, and it’s a safe bet that some of them would not describe themselves as happy Windows campers. Regardless of skill level, most people have something they dislike about Windows, and they often have a whole laundry list of gripes. “Why can’t Windows do this rather than that?” “Why does Windows do X instead of Y?” “Wouldn’t it be great if Windows could do Z?” Scratch the surface of most Windows users and you’ll come upon a seething cauldron of unmet needs, unrequited desires, and unending frustration at being stuck with Windows the way it is.

However, a funny thing happens when you tell people that it doesn’t have to be this way, that they don’t have to put up with the out-of-the-box Windows experience: An initial skepticism soon gives way and their eyes light up with an almost forgotten feeling—hope. Specifically, the hope that they really can make Windows smarter, safer, faster, more flexible, and more aligned to their needs.

The secret behind this hope? Tweaks, tweaks, and more tweaks! Most people think that Windows is set in stone, but that apparently solid surface is really just a thin veneer that Microsoft slaps onto Windows to ensure that new and fumble-fingered users don’t get into trouble. Strip off that veneer and a whole world comes into view, one that’s eminently tweakable, moddable, hackable, customizable, and personalizable. Within this world lie tools and technologies that anyone can use to tweak and tune almost every aspect of Windows, from startup to shutdown, from the interface to the Internet, from security to scripting.

Tweak It and Freak It!

Tweak It and Freak It: A Killer Guide to Making Windows Run Your Way is your guide to this tweakable Windows landscape. With a lighthearted and lightly irreverent tone, and with a bare minimum of jargon and technical claptrap, this book takes you through hundreds of useful, unique, and easy tweaks designed to improve Windows Vista and Windows XP. The key words here are useful, unique, and easy:

• Useful—Any monkey can, say, reverse the interface shadows, but what’s the point of doing that? In this book, if a hack doesn’t help you get your work done, solve a problem, or make Windows more secure or reliable, it didn’t make the cut.

• Unique—There are lots of Windows tweaks available on the Internet and in other books, so you certainly don’t want another conglomeration of the same old Registry hacks. Instead, this book presents a fresh collection of tweaks that include many custom hacks that I’ve built over the years.

• Easy—A tweak that takes you an hour to implement and yet saves only a few seconds a day isn’t much of a tweak. This book focuses on tweaks that you can implement with a few steps, or with easy-to-understand plug-and-play scripts.

My goal with this book is to empower you to take a hands-on, do-it-yourself approach to tweaking Windows. In the end, you’ll no longer have a version of Windows that Microsoft thinks you should have, but rather a tweaked and tuned version that suits the way you work and play.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is aimed at Windows users who have a gripe, a beef, or an ax to grind and are looking for ways to overcome their Windows woes and shortcomings with targeted, easy-to-implement tweaks and tune-ups. This book will also appeal to curious users who want to travel down different Windows roads, rebellious users who want to thumb their noses at standard-issue Windows techniques, and power users who want to get the most of Windows.

To that end, this book includes the following features:

• A focus on practical, useful tweaks rather than mere tricks.

• Tweaks for both Windows Vista and Windows XP.

• Icons that show you which operating systems the tweak works with and the difficulty level of each tweak.

• Unique tweaks, many of which have never been seen before.

• Explanations of key concepts for novice users.

• In-depth coverage of the inner workings of each hack for more experienced users.

• A friendly and lightly humorous tone that I trust will make you feel at home with the subject and keep boredom at bay.

Conventions Used in This Book

To make your life easier, this book includes various features and conventions that help you get the most out of this book:

This book also uses the following boxes to draw your attention to important (or merely interesting) information:

Online Chapters

I had such a good time writing this book that I actually ended up writing too much! Way too much, in fact, but that’s not a problem in this day and age because what wouldn’t fit between the covers of the book can easily fit between the covers of my website. And that’s just what I’ve done: Six of this book’s chapters are available online at my site. Just point your favorite web browser to www.mcfedries.com/TweakItFreakIt.

These files are also freely available from Que Publishing at www.informit.com/title/0789738228. There, you’ll also find information on Que’s other products.