There are a number of things you can do to and from your desktop. This page will tell you how.

 

Change your screen resolution

Change resolution without restart

Hide the task bar

Move program shortcuts to the Taskbar

 

Resolution

 

The screen resolution is easy to change from your desktop just follow these steps:

1.    Right-click anywhere on your desktop.

2.    Select properties from the popup menu that appears.

3.    Click the settings tab in the top right.

4.    In the lower right there is a box that says screen area. This box has a little slider bar with an arrow that says Less on the left and More on the Right, and little tick marks below the arrow.

5.    Click and hold the arrow and drag it left or right to the screen size that you want. You will notice that there are changing numbers below the tick marks, this is the screen size. Example: 640 X 480, this is the default screen size. The first number represents the width of the screen and the second number represents the height. The larger the numbers the more viewing area you will have. More is better.

6.    When you have the resolution that you want click ok. Depending on your settings you may have to reboot your computer. Just click yes or ok when prompted to. If you want to change the resolution without rebooting then go here.

 

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No reboot on resolution change.

 

To setup windows so that you don’t have to reboot after changing your screen resolution follow these steps.

1.    Right-click anywhere on your desktop.

2.    Select properties from the popup menu.

3.    Click the settings tab in the top right.

4.    Just below the screen area slider bar there should be a button that says advanced.

5.    Select the radio button that says Apply color settings without restarting.

6.    Click ok.

 

You should now be able to change your screen resolution without restarting you computer; however, this is not always the case as each computer has different display adapters (also called video cards). Most of the modern display adaptors will support this feature.

 

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Hide the task bar

 

You can hide the task bar (sometimes called start bar) just follow these steps:

1.    Click the Start button.

2.    Move the mouse over to Settings then to Taskbar & Start Menu.

3.    If the Taskbar Options tab is not selected, do so now.

4.    Click the Auto Hide checkbox and click OK.

5.    Your Taskbar is now hidden; if not just click any where on your desktop. The taskbar will reappear when you move your mouse over the area where it occupies.

 

This is very handy if you like to have more space albeit very little. I on the other hand find it annoying, especially when I’m trying to click something in that area and the Taskbar appears. So I just leave it visible.

 

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Move shortcuts to the Taskbar

 

Follow these steps to move program short cuts onto the Taskbar:

1.    With your RIGHT-MOUSE button click and hold the shortcut.

2.    Now drag it up to the Taskbar until a cursor that looks like an capital letter I.

3.    Release the mouse button.

4.    Select move from the popup menu.

 

This saves you the trouble of having to delete the shortcut from the desktop, cool huh?

 

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