You can take advantage of the Quick Launch toolbar to easily‘ hide all your desktop icons‘ in the taskbar. Here’s how.

Run Windows Explorer and locate

\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch. Now, still in Windows Explorer, open your Desktop folder. Press Ctrl-A to select all the desktop items. Next, use the right-mouse button to drag the selected files to \Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch. When you release the mouse button, you’ll get a pop-up menu. From this menu, select Create Shortcut(s) Here. Now all your desktop objects should appear on the taskbar. (Note: If you don’t see the desktop items on the taskbar, make sure you’ve got the Quick Launch toolbar activated: right-click in a blank area of the taskbar and, under Toolbars, select Quick Launch.)

Now, back in Windows Explorer, choose View, Folder Options and click the View tab. Select the check box labeled Hide Icons When Desktop Viewed as Web Page (it’s under Visual Settings). Click OK. Now your desktop objects will be in the taskbar, and the desktop will be blank. The only thing showing on the desktop should be your wallpaper.

Want instant access to all the contents of a folder,

without having to open that folder? If you have Internet Explorer 4.0 installed, you can turn any folder into a Taskbar toolbar. Simply click and drag a folder, such as My Computer, to a blank area on the Taskbar. (You’ll know it’s a "blank" area because the black circle-with-the-line-through-it icon will disappear from your mouse pointer.) Let go, and each item inside the folder now appears as a toolbar item.

Once the folder’s contents appear on your Taskbar, you can resize this new toolbar just like any other. Hold the mouse pointer over the vertical line on its left edge, and when the pointer changes to a double-pointed arrow, click and drag in either direction. To delete the toolbar, right-mouse-click this same vertical line (or any blank area on the Taskbar), select Toolbars, and deselect the folder name in the pop-out list.

In our last tip, we showed IE 4.0 users how to create a Taskbar toolbar from any folder:

Right-mouse-click and drag the folder to a blank area on the toolbar and let go.

If you followed the example we gave in this tip, and created a toolbar from your My Computer folder, you now have a handy list of My Computer icons on your Taskbar. The problem is, the toolbar’s so darn long that you have to scroll way over to get to the items that don’t fit on the Taskbar. The solution? Cut down on the amount of Taskbar real estate that the toolbar requires by getting rid of all of its text. Right-mouse-click the vertical bar on the left edge of the toolbar and deselect Show Title. Right-mouse click the same bar again, and this time select Show Text (to deselect this option). You’re left with the icons and nothing but the icons—and a much shorter toolbar!

(Tip in a tip: Hold your mouse pointer over any icon on your new toolbar, and a little box pops up with its name—or in some cases, full instructions—inside.)

Want your old File Manager back? You don't have to switch back to Windows 3.x to access this oldie but goodie. Just click the Start button, select Run, type

Winfile

and click OK. File management, the old-fashioned way! (Note: This utility is part of Windows 95, so you have it even if you've deleted all your old Windows 3.x files.)

A reader, M. Anderson, asks, "How about a table (cheat sheet that I can print out and paste to the wall) that lists the keyboard shortcuts to replace mouse functions?" PLACES, EVERYONE When naming folders or shortcuts, think twice before you start typing. Remember that by default, when you view the contents of a folder, Windows 95 lists these items in alphabetical order--folders first, then icons and shortcuts. If you want to be sure that a folder or shortcut tops the list, start it with an "A." Now let's take this one step further. If you want an item to precede the A's, try the Yellow Pages trick: Start it with "AA" or "AAA." But wait--there's more. A number at the beginning of the name will top any number of A's. And starting with an underscore, as in "_My Letters" tops 'em all. NOT-SO-STUPID FIND TRICKS Did you just navigate your way to a particular folder, within a folder, within a folder . . . in the Find: All Files window? As long as that Find window is still open, you can select the folder again without clicking the Browse button. Just click the down arrow on the Look In box, and there, at the bottom of the list, are all the folders to which you've navigated during the current Find session. Select the one you're after, and you've saved yourself some double-clicking! And by the way, the same goes for text you've typed into the Named box. Click the down arrow there to select a previously typed item. Windows keeps these around even after you close the Find window and reopen it. Without further ado, here are some of the handier shortcuts (in no particular order): Shift-F10: Right-mouse-click selected item Ctrl-Esc: Display Start menu Alt-[underlined letter]: Select menu command Alt-Esc: Switch to Taskbar's "next" open window Alt-Tab: Switch among open windows (hold Alt and continue to press Tab) Alt-F4: Close active window Alt-spacebar, N: Minimize active window Alt-spacebar, X: Maximize active window Alt-spacebar, R: Restore active window Alt-spacebar, C: Close active window Ctrl-F10: Switch focus to menu commands (in any Explorer window) Ctrl-Tab: Rotate through dialog box tabs Ctrl-Shift-Tab: Rotate through dialog box tabs in reverse Ctrl-Alt-Del: Display Close Program dialog box In our next tip, we'll give you some good keyboard combos to add to your cheat sheet.