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The many Things You can Do With Tweakui |
Tweak UI PowerToy is there for the taking, right on your Windows 98 installation CD. In case you missed it, you'll find this handy utility in your CD's tools\reskit\powertoy folder. To install it, right-mouse-click tweakui.inf and select Install. To run it, open the Control Panel and double-click Tweak UI.
Wish you could hide a few Control Panel items, to keep meddling fingers from messing with these settings? Tweak UI has an entire tab for just this purpose. Select the Control Panel tab, then scroll through the list of items, deselecting those items you'd like to hide from view. The next time you (or more importantly, anyone else) open the Control Panel, those "hidden" items are nowhere in sight.
So the question then becomes, how do YOU access the hidden Control Panel items? Set up shortcuts to the hidden *.cpl files (as indicated on Tweak UI's Control Panel tab) and store them in your secret location of choice. (Tip: Use Find to locate all *.cpl files in the Windows\System folder; then right-mouse-click and drag the "hidden" *.cpl file(s) to your location of choice, let go, and select Create Shortcut(s) Here.)
Is there an item on the Install/Uninstall tab of the Add/Remove Programs Properties dialog box that shouldn't be in the list--either because you've already removed it or because selecting it and clicking Add/Remove doesn't accomplish a thing? You could always venture into the Registry to remove items from the list, but with Tweak UI around, you can clean out this list with a few quick clicks.
Open Tweak UI and select the Add/Remove tab. One at a time, select an item you'd like to remove from the list, click Remove, then click Yes to confirm. When you're finished, check out the real-life version, and you'll find a list that's clean as a whistle.
To be sure that Tweakui is not just masking an entry, go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
and look for applications that are not supposed to be there. If they
are there, trash them.
Oh, of course BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY 1st.
Tired of seeing that cloudy logo screen whenever you start Windows 98? There's an easy way to keep this image out of sight, for a logo-less startup. Open Tweak UI and click the Boot tab. Deselect Display Splash Screen While Booting, then click Apply or OK. All those startup details are more interesting than Microsoft's advertising anyway!
Remember the Windows 95 PowerToy, XMouse? With this feature turned on, Windows' focus followed your mouse pointer. (If you moved your mouse over any window, Windows switched its focus to that window.) The problem with XMouse, however, was that trying to turn it on and off was a bit complicated.
The PowerToys developers resolved this problem by making the new XMouse part of Tweak UI. Open Tweak UI, select the General tab, and select Activation Follows Mouse (X-Mouse). Click Apply or OK, and X-Mouse is on. To turn it off, simply deselect this same option.
Speaking of X-Mouse. With this feature on, Windows' focus follows your mouse pointer. (Move your mouse over any window, and Windows switches its focus to that window.) To turn X-Mouse on, open Tweak UI, select the General tab, and select Activation Follows Mouse (X-Mouse).
Want to take this whole focus-follows-the-mouse thing one step further? Select Tweak UI's General tab, and under Effects, select Auto-Raise. Now moving your mouse pointer over a window selects that window AND raises it up to the top of the open window pile.
You can remove the Documents folder from your Start menu altogether (to prevent other users from accessing a list of your most recently accessed documents). Of course, removing this folder means that you can't use it either. If you still want access to the Documents folder, but want a bit more privacy, ask Tweak UI to clear the Documents list (as well as the Run list and your IE 4.0 typed-URL history list) whenever you exit Windows.
Open Tweak UI and select the IE 4 tab. Under Settings, select Clear
Document, Run and Typed-URL History on Exit. Click OK, and the next time
you exit and restart Windows, all three lists will be wiped clean.
By Scot Finnie:
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Win98 Insider readers Harvey Greenberg and Philip Schmitt each wrote to ask the same question recently. They've just acquired Win98 SE with plans to upgrade Win95, and they're wondering why the Tweak UI 98 utility isn't on the Win98 SE CD, as it was under Windows 98. Microsoft yanked Tweak UI 98 from the Win98 SE disc at the last minute. It had been available in all the beta versions. The company hasn't said why it did that, but my guess is that they bowed to pressure from OEM PC makers who didn't want the unsupported Tweak UI software on the machines they sell to their customers because they would have to support it.
I'm going to tell you how to get Tweak UI 98 for Win98 SE. But before I do, be advised of some things. There are minor problems with Tweak UI. One bug I know about is something that only affects some PCs. Normally when you right-click the Start button, you get a Context menu that offers Open and Explore menu items. (These options open the C:\WINDOWS\START MENU folder, by the way.) The installation of Tweak UI may cause those same Open and Explore context menu items to be grayed out. And uninstalling Tweak UI doesn't fix the problem. If you check and find the problem on your PC, write to me at scot@cmpmail.com. I might be able to help you.
Back to Tweak UI for Win98 SE. The original Win98 version works fine under Win98 SE in our tests. Windows Magazine received permission from Microsoft last year to host Tweak UI for Win98 on our Web site. So if you want it, you can download it from WinMag.com's Windows 98 Free Software page (http://www.winmag.com/win98/software.htm). Please note that neither Winmag.com nor Microsoft supports this software, but if you run into any sort of problem, I will try to help.
** Related Tweak UI Problem **
I get a lot of e-mail about problems installing Tweak UI. One of the
most common problems is that people say the TWEAKUI.INF file (the file
you right-click to install the program) wasn't in the ZIP file they downloaded,
or in the PowerToy folder on the original Win98 CD. If this happens to
you, chances are it's because you have Win98 set to Hide System Files.
Open any folder, choose View/Folder Options/View, and change "Hidden Files"
so that it Shows All Files. Also, remove the check beside Hide File Extensions
for known file types.