Gadget's Tips

Sometimes Gadget wants to select or open a number of files or folders. That's easy if they're all grouped together - just shift and drag. But suppose they aren't...?

No problem for Gadget, because in Vista you can add a tick-box to all your icons!

Open a folder, and go to Organize, then 'Folder and Search Options'. Move to the View tab and tick the box labelled 'Use check boxes to select them'. Click OK.

And now when Gadget wants to open his top ten choices for dog treat recipes he can select all of them together! (Paws up whoever wants one...)

Gadget was complaining the other day that his home PC only has one user account - The Gadget Man. He reckons it's silly to type in a password every time he starts it up. Now he's discovered a way to avoid this...

Click Start, then Run and type control userpasswards2 before pressing Enter. Select your account and untick the box labelled 'Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer'. Click OK, enter the password when prompted and click OK again.

Great, straight onto DoggyChat^TM for a woofing big natter with his chums.

Want to hear Gadget growl? He does - loudly - when he's in the middle of updating his website, has loads of folders open in Windows XP, and one of them crashes.

Meaning they all close...

Luckily for his humans (and the contents insurance) Gadget has discovered a way to avoid this particular nuisance.

Open Control Panel, choose Folder Options, move to the view tab and scroll down till you find an option called 'Launch folder windows in a separate process'. Put a tick next to it, and click OK.

The other day, Gadget got a Skype call from his friend Gizmo, whining that he'd somehow managed to lose his Desktop Recycle Bin. Luckily Gadget could tell him how to get it back.

If you right-click the Recycle Bin you'll notice there'e a Delete option. Obviously Gizmo had used that instead of Empty Recycle Bin and wiped it off his screen.

Gadget has discovered a very cool way of getting to everything in his 'My Documents' folder.

Right-click an empty section of the Taskbar and select Toolbars, then New Toolbar. Navigate to the My Documents (XP) or Documents (Vista) folder and click the OK or Select Folder button. This adds 'My Documents' to the taskbar.

Result? Gadget has menu access to everything in the folder direct from the toolbar.

Just what a dog needs to dig out folders and files with a single paw-click - leaving him plenty of time to stop and smell the flowers...