Users of Windows XP will be familiar with the tool tips that appear when hovering over items such as the My Documents, My Pictures and My Computer entries in the start menu. These tips display text such as ‘Opens the My Documents folder, where you can store letters, reports, notes, and other kinds of documents’. New users may find this useful, but it doesn’t really offer much useful information to the seasoned Windows user. To disable these tool tips, go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ‘regedit’ (without the quotes). In the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced. In the right-hand pane, look for the value ‘ShowInfoTip’. Right-click on this value and select ‘Modify’. Change the value data to ‘0′. Click OK. Close the Registry Editor and reboot the computer. If you want to re-enable the tool tips, repeat the above procedure but change the value data back to ‘1′. (more…)

When using Windows Me I used PictureIt and saved quite a few pictures in the .MIX file format. Since then, I have upgraded to Windows XP which does not appear to have the ability to open .MIX files. On attempting to open these files a message appears that the files are unsupported, although the Windows displays a preview of the photo in Windows Explorer. How can I open these photos? (more…)

Since moving to broadband a logon box appears when starting Windows. While this doesn’t have any bad consequences, it does significantly slow down the startup procedure. The computer is running Windows 98 SE. (more…)

When attempting to run Clip Art in a Microsoft Office application (e.g. Powerpoint, Word, etc’¦) a message appears claiming the Clip Art gallery is already in use. The computer is running Windows XP Home Edition. (more…)

Is it possible to restore an accidentally deleted e-mail from Outlook Express 6? The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)