In Windows XP, the Start menu is divided into two columns. The left column, by default, contains links to your default browser and e-mail program. You can add shortcuts to this menu as well, giving you easy access to your favorite programs, file folders, drives, documents, and Web pages.

To add a new item to the Start menu, use either of the following techniques:

1. Right-click any shortcut on the All Programs menu and then click Pin to Start Menu. (This menu choice is only available for shortcuts to executable programs.)
2. Drag a shortcut from the desktop or from Windows Explorer and drop it on the Start button. You can also drag the icon for a program or a document and drop it here, in which case Windows will create a shortcut for you.

The new shortcut appears below any existing shortcuts. Drag shortcuts up or down to rearrange them in the list. (To remove an item from the list

The default setting for the Start menu uses large icons. That makes this menu easy to read, but it also limits the number of shortcuts you can add here. If your list of Start menu shortcuts is bumping up against the top of the screen, switch to small icons, using these steps:

1. Right-click the Start button and click Properties.
2. On the Start Menu tab of the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, click the Customize button to the right of the Start menu option.
3. In the Customize Start Menu dialog box, click Small Icons under the Select an icon size for programs heading.

Click OK twice to close both dialog boxes and go back to the Start menu, where you’ll now find much more room.

Every so often, I discover that a window has decided it doesn’t want to appear on my desktop anymore. Its taskbar button is still there, but clicking it doesn’t bring the window to the foreground, and the right-click menu doesn’t do any good either. In my case, this happens most often when I’ve changed desktop resolutions or switched from multiple-monitors to a single-monitor setup.

If you know how to work the keyboard, you can bring back the lost window. Here’s how:

1. Click the lost window’s taskbar button to give it the focus.
2. Press Alt_Spacebar. This keyboard shortcut opens the Control menu, which normally drops down from the top left corner of any window.
3. Press M – the keyboard shortcut for the Move option on this menu.
4. Tap any arrow key to begin moving the lost window around. (Don’t skip this step.)
5. Continue using the arrow keys or use the mouse to move the window back onto the main desktop. The mouse will not work until you’ve used at least one arrow key.)
6. When the window is in the correct position, press Escape or click the left mouse button to stop moving it.
7. If the window appears ultra-small, with none of its contents visible, click and drag the right and bottom borders to make the window the correct size.

Doug Klippert published a similar tip the other day. By coincidence, this same topic has been on my list for some time.

A few weeks ago, I explained how to relocate the My Documents folder. I’ve had lots of positive feedback to that tip, so it seems like a good time to talk about (in my best Paul Harvey voice) the rest of your data.

If you only back up your My Documents folder, you’re in for a rude shock if you ever have to restore that backup. Any files you had saved on your desktop will be gone. Your e-mail files (Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and Mozilla Thunderbird, for instance) will have disappeared. Your address book will be missing in action, as will the settings for most programs. And your Internet Explorer Favorites and your Firefox bookmarks. And your Word document templates. And so on and on and on.

To learn where these “other” data files are stored, it helps to understand how Windows XP organizes your personal data. Everything starts with your user profile, which consists of a set of subfolders within a folder in the Documents And Settings folder. Your user profile folder normally has the same name as your logon name. Two exceptions: First, if you’re creating a domain profile, your name and the domain name are both part of the folder name, with a dot separating the two elements. Second, if your Documents And Settings folder already contains a folder whose name is the same as your user name, Windows will tack a number onto the end of your profile folder.

Inside your user profile folder are a number of subfolders whose purpose is to store data that you and only you will use. The two most important are Application Data and Local Settings\Application Data, both of which are hidden by default. (For details on how to work with hidden folders, see this tip.) Well-written Windows programs store user-specific data in these locations, which is why you’ll find your Outlook data files in Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. Your Outlook Express folders are in Local Settings\Application Data\Identities, with each identity getting its own subfolder and a cryptic 32-character alphanumeric name. And your Mozilla Thunderbird mail files are in a randomly named subfolder of Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles.

Confused? Your best strategy is to back up your entire user profile folder. If you use the Windows XP Backup program (click that link to learn how to install and use this great hidden utility), this option is the default choice in the What to Back Up screen when you start in wizard mode. If you use any other backup program, be sure to point it to the top-level folder for your user profile.

An alternate strategy (one I don’t recommend) is to configure your most important programs to store their data in the My Documents folder rather than in your user profile. This process is cumbersome for most programs, and there’s no guarantee you’ll get it right.

Update: If you’re looking for advice on how to actually use the backup program after it’s installed, see this article I wrote in 2003, which is still accurate: Windows XP Backup Made Easy. Thanks to Frank for the comment suggesting I add this information.

By default, the Windows Recycle Bin sets aside 10 percent of the space on each disk partition in your system for storage of deleted files, up to a maximum of 3.99 GB. If you have a 400GB hard drive divided into four partitions, the Recycle Bin could be using up 16 gigabytes of storage. To adjust its appetite to a more manageable level, right-click on the Recycle Bin icon and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. The resulting dialog box contains a Global tab and an additional tab for each hard disk partition that has a drive letter.

Use the slider controls on the Global tab to decrease the percentage of space allotted to the Recycle Bin for all drives on your system. Unless you routinely work with very large files, setting aside a maximum of 1 GB per drive letter should be sufficient to prevent waste and still allow you to recover a file you delete accidentally.

If you shoot lots of digital pictures, learn how to take advantage of information called metadata to keep track of extra details. Image metadata is nonpicture information that’s captured and stored within a picture file. Most digital cameras use the Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) format to store metadata when saving pictures; images may also include metadata that conforms to the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) and Adobe’s Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) standards. (To learn more about the EXIF standard, visit http://www.exif.org; for more details about XMP, see http://www.adobe.com/products/xmp/overview.html.)

EXIF metadata typically includes the date and time the picture was taken, the width and height of the image (in pixels), the resolution (in dpi), and the color depth. Depending on the camera you use, metadata can also include technical information such as the camera model, flash mode, aperture, and exposure time. Some high-end devices even allow you to add audio annotations to images and store them in the same file.

A few bits of metadata are available in the ScreenTip that appears when you pause the mouse pointer over an image file.

Windows XP doesn’t allow you to edit image metadata. But you can use it to sort and organize image files in Windows Explorer. To see all available metadata for an individual image file, right-click the file icon and then choose Properties. On the Summary tab, click Advanced to display a scrolling list of available metadata properties and values. Image data appears above the Description data, as shown here.

To really take advantage of metadata, you need to customize the Windows Explorer window so that metadata information is visible. To do so, switch to Details view, right-click any column heading, and then select the names of available fields to make those columns visible. Click More at the bottom of the list to see all possible fields. If you add the Date Picture Taken column, for instance, you can then click the column heading to sort by this field and gather pictures that were taken around the same time.

[Note: This tip is adapted from Windows XP Inside Out, Second Edition.]

If you regularly use Explorer’s Details view, here’s a convenient keyboard shortcut you should know about. After opening an Explorer window in Details view, hold down the Ctrl key and press the Plus (+) key on the numeric keypad. This shortcut instantly and automatically resizes each column based on the width of the longest entry in that column, so you can see all the file details.

You’re doing a fresh installation of Windows XP. Is there a way to download service packs and updates so that you don’t have to go through a long, long update process before you can use your computer? Yes. In fact, this method is especially useful if the new computer has only a dial-up connection but you have access to a high-speed computer elsewhere.

The Windows Update Catalog allows you to search for specific updates depending on the version of Windows you currently have installed. If you only have the original release of Windows XP, choose Windows XP RTM (Home Edition) or Windows XP Professional RTM from the list. If you have downloaded and installed Service Pack 2 separately, choose the SP2 option for your version of Windows. (If you’re looking for drivers, click Find driver updates for hardware devices and search by category.)

After you click Search, you’ll see a list of available downloads, arranged by category: Critical Updates and Service Packs, Multi-Language Features, Recommended Updates, and so on. Click the Add button for an individual update to make it part of your download basket. Click the Download Now button to fetch the files you’ve tagged. You can then burn the files to CD or other media to make them available for installation.

One of the options available on the Screen Saver tab of Windows XP’s Display Control Panel is the My Pictures Slideshow.

It’s a great alternative to the bouncing Windows logo. Select this screen saver and click the Settings button to specify which pictures you want to use (hint: it helps to copy your favorite pictures into their own folder and use just that location), how often you want the images to change, how big the pictures should be, and so on.