Microsoft’s subverting the Rolling Stones classic Start Me Up for advertising may be ancient history by now, but the royal road to Windows XP still starts at the Start button. Click it, and you get the Start menu.

The Start menu looks like it’s etched in granite, but it isn’t. You can change almost anything on it:

 -  To change the name or picture of the current user..  -  To remove a program from the “pinned” programs list or the recently used programs list, right-click on it and from the shortcut menu that appears, choose Remove from This List.  

-  To add a program to the “pinned” programs list, use Windows Explorer to find the program, right-click on the program and from the shortcut menu that appears, choose Pin to Start Menu.

If you bought a new computer with Windows XP installed, the people who make the computer may have sold one of the spots on the Start menu. Think of it as an electronic billboard on your desktop. Nope, I’m not exaggerating. I keep expecting to bump into a Windows XP machine with fly-out Start menu entries that read, oh, “Surveys have shown -> Near and far -> That people who drive like crazy -> Are -> Burma Shave.” You can always delete those pesky Start menu billboards by right-clicking on them and choosing Remove from This List. Don’t expect a whole lot of consistency in the way adjacent Start menu items behave. You may expect that the recently used program part of the Start menu would list the programs you’ve used most recently. And it does. Sorta. Partly. Now and then. Microsoft stacks the deck, so MSN Explorer (which connects to Microsoft’s for-pay MSN service) may stay on the list a whole lot longer than other programs. Some programs are more equal than others, eh? Internet Windows XP ships with Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), Microsoft’s flagship Web browser. To bring up IE6, choose Start -> Internet/Internet Explorer. The articles in describe how to surf the Internet with Internet Explorer. E-mail Windows XP ships with a versatile e-mail program called Outlook Express. Outlook Express also handles newsgroups, the places on the Internet where people can freely exchange ideas, gossip, tips, and fertilizer. Choose Start -> E-mail/Outlook Express and it appears.

Media Player Windows XP includes Microsoft’s Media Player, a multi-faceted tool for playing, organizing, ripping, and burning audio and video files. My Documents, Pictures, Music Within the My Documents folder sit two more folders that you can get to directly from the Start menu. If you choose Start -> My Pictures, the Windows Explorer appears with the My Pictures folder open. Choose View -> Filmstrip and your pictures. Double-click on a picture and it appears in the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. At that point, you can easily zoom in and out on the picture, print it, copy it to a floppy, or even change the picture. If you choose Start -> My Music, and then choose View -> Thumbnails, you see the My Music folder, which appears with its own special set of actions in the pane on the left. If you use the Windows Media Player to rip audio CDs, it places all the songs from a single CD into a folder, tucks each of those folders into a big folder for each artist, and puts the artists’ folders into My Music. The covers appear, up to four on a folder, when you use Thumbnail view. My Recent Documents Windows keeps track of documents as you open them, maintaining a list of documents that you have opened most recently. Taking a leaf from the “HUH?” School of Computer Design, Microsoft’s Usability Lab decided that Windows XP Professional users should see the list on the Start menu, whereas Windows XP Home users should not. If you like, you can tell Windows that you want to be able to get at that list. Here’s how:

1. Right-click Start and click Properties.

2. Click the Customize button.

3. Click the Advanced tab.

4. Select the List My Most Recently Opened Documents check box, and then click OK twice. When the Most Recently Opened Documents list is enabled, an entry called My Recent Documents appears on your Start menu. If you choose Start -> My Recent Documents, Windows presents you with a list of the 15 documents that you opened most recent. If you want to open a listed document again, pick it from the list, and Windows does the rest.

Take this list with a grain of salt. Windows doesn’t always get all of the files listed correctly. If you want to wipe out the list of files that you’ve opened recently hey, ain’t nobody’s business but your own try this:

1. Right-click Start and choose Properties.

2. Click the Customize button.

3. Click the Advanced tab.

4. Click Clear List, and then click OK twice. All of the entries in your My Recent Documents menu disappear. My Computer Choose Start -> My Computer, and Windows shows you the highest level of folders on your machine, in addition to a list of all the drives. You can use this bird’s-eye view to “drill down” to various nooks and crannies in your folders and in the folders of all the other people who use your PC. For a traditional (that is, pre-Windows XP) view of the contents of your computer that enables you to easily navigate down to the lowest level, click the Folders icon. You see all of your folders and how they’re interrelated in the pane on the left. Control Panel The inner workings of Windows XP reveal themselves inside the mysterious (and somewhat haughtily named) Control Panel. Choose Start -> Control Panel to plug away at the innards The main components of the Control Panel are as follows:

 -  Appearance and Themes: Change what your desktop looks like wallpaper, colors, mouse pointers, screen saver, icon size and spacing, and so on. Set screen resolution (for example, 1024 x 768 or 800 x 600) so that you can pack more information onto your screen assuming your eyes can handle it. Make the Windows taskbar hide when you’re not using it, and change the items on your Start menu. Change what Windows Explorer shows when you’re looking at folders.  

-  Printers and Other Hardware: Add or remove printers and connect to other printers on your network. Troubleshoot printers. Set up and modify Windows faxing. Install, remove, and set the options for scanners and digital cameras. Control the options on mice, game controllers, joysticks, and keyboards. Set up dialing rules and other modem arcana. If you use a modem for your Internet connection, Windows faxing may not do what you expect. You may have to disconnect from the Internet before you send or receive a fax, for example. Many people like J2 fax (www.j2.com) because it treats faxes like e-mail. Outbound faxes are converted to e-mail on your PC using J2’s programs, and then they are sent to J2, which routes the fax to a local fax machine at your destination, thus bypassing long-distance telephone charges. Inbound faxes get delivered to your e-mail inbox.

 -  Network and Internet Connections: Set up a network. Configure Internet Explorer and its startup page, history files, cookies, AutoComplete, and so on. Set up Internet connections, particularly if you’re sharing an Internet connection across a network, or if you have a cable modem or DSL.

 -  User Accounts: Add or remove users from the Windows welcome screen. Enable the “Guest” account. . Change account characteristics, such as the picture, password requirement, direct connection with .NET Passport, and so on.

 -  Add or Remove Programs: Add and remove specific features in some programs (most notably Windows XP).

 -  Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options: Set the time and date although double-clicking the clock on the Windows taskbar is much simpler or tell Windows to synchronize the clock automatically. Here you can also add support for complex languages (such as Thai) and right-to-left languages, and change how dates, times, currency, and numbers appear.

 -  Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices: Control volume, muting, and so on, but those functions are usually better performed inside the Windows Media Player. You can also choose a Sound scheme, which is something like a desktop theme, except that it involves the pings and pongs you associate with Windows events (for example, the music that plays when Windows starts, or the cling! you hear when you try to click on something you shouldn’t). Speech choices cover only text-to-speech output the “Danger, Will Robinson!” voice you hear when the computer tries to read something out loud.

 -  Accessibility Options: Change settings to help you see the screen, use the keyboard or mouse, or have Windows flash part of your screen when the speaker would play a sound.

 -  Performance and Maintenance: Use an enormous array of tools for troubleshooting and adjusting your PC, and making it work when it doesn’t want to. Unfortunately, it also includes all the tools you need to shoot yourself in the foot, consistently and reliably, day in and day out. Use this part of the Control Panel with discretion and respect.

Help and Support

Windows XP includes an online help system that’s quite good in places, marginal in some areas, and very, uh, in tune with the Microsoft Party Line everywhere. To bring up the system, choose Start -> Help and Support. Search Windows XP jumbles an odd assortment of “searchables” in the Search feature. Choose Start -> Search and you see what I mean. Run Harkening back to a kinder, gentler age, where you had to type (and type and type and type) to get anything done at a computer, the Run box lets you type program names and have Windows run the programs. It also recognizes Web addresses. All Programs Almost all of the programs on your computer are accessible through the All Programs menu. To see it, choose Start -> All Programs.

Those right arrowheads that you can see to the right of Accessories, Games, Microsoft Office Tools, and Startup simply indicate that you have more choices to make. You can let your mouse pointer hover over an arrowhead-endowed Start menu entry and the pop-out menu appears. Or if you’re the impatient type, you can click on the menu entry to make the popout appear faster. Are you an inveterate Windows 98/ME/NT/2000 user who misses her old Start menu the single-column menu, with its little icons, that automatically tucked away menu items you didn’t use very often? You can bring the old buzzard back to life, if you insist, and have it replace this new-fangled version of the Start menu. Here’s how:

1. Right-click Start and from the shortcut menu that appears, choose Properties.

2. Click the Start Menu tab.

3. Click the Classic Start Menu button, and then click OK. Personally, I prefer the new Start menu to the old one, but it’s nice to know that you can go back to the classic version, if you like. Organizing the contents of the All Programs menu is very easy:

 -  To copy or move an item on the All Programs menu to a different location on the All Programs menu, right-click it, drag it to the new location (you can navigate anywhere on the menu, even into the pop-out menus), release the right mouse button, and choose Copy or Move.  

-  To sort all of the items on the All Programs menu alphabetically (with folders sorting higher than programs), right-click on any folder or program and choose Sort by Name.