How to Remove a Background from the Desktop Background List

Want to know how to delete wallpapers from your Windows machine? If you have ever changed your wallpaper in Windows, you’ve probably noticed the ridiculous number of useless wallpapers that are already stored in the system. I have NEVER used any of the built in wallpapers and therefore wanted to figure out how to delete them permanently!
If you right-click on the Desktop and go to Properties to open the Display Properties and then click on Desktop, you’ll get a list of all the backgrounds you can use for your desktop:

I hate the fact that it’s preloaded with 20 IBM ThinkPad wallpapers of various resolutions! They all look terrible and I only need one anyway, not 20! Too bad there is no delete button to quickly remove desktop wallpapers from the list.
So how do you delete wallpapers and clear up your background list? Well, you can go to the folder where the files are stored and manually delete them! Here’s how.

How to remove desktop wallpapers

In Windows XP, there are a few locations where these annoying wallpapers are stored. The first place is

C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper

Once you are there, you’ll see the typical wallpapers that come with XP, i.e. Ascent, Autumn, Bliss, etc. Change the view to Thubmnails to see the pictures.

Now you can happily press the DELETE button and wipe out all of these images. If you think you may actually want to use them again, you can also just cut them and paste them into some other location. Just copy them back later on to have them show up on the list again.
But that’s not all! I realized that after doing this there were still a bunch more wallpapers that dated back to Windows 2000, i.e. Feature Texture, Greenstone, Sante Fe Stucco, and other horrible looking wallpapers.
These are store in the following location and have to be deleted manually also:

C:\Windows

Yes there are a bunch that are simply in the Windows directory. Make sure to be careful here are there are also many important files stored in the Windows directory and you don’t want to delete them. Note that you are only wanting to delete .BMP files, so everything else should be left alone.
I would suggest viewing the directory in Thumbnails mode and then slowly browsing through and deleting the wallpapers as you see them.

As you can see above, there are four wallpapers with a .BMP file extension and I am sure because I am in thumbnail view and can see the designs. If you have an IBM laptop, all of those ”Think Americas” wallpapers are stored in this same directory.
And just for the sake of knowledge, you can also manipulate or delete the Internet Explorer Wallpaper, which is located in

C:\Documents and Settings\akishore\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer

There’s really no reason to mess with that wallpaper, but I figured you just might want to know where it is stored. So that’s how you can delete the wallpapers from your Windows machine so that they don’t appear in your Backgrounds list anymore. Enjoy!

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How to Force Windows Explorer to Start in the Folder You Want

Few things in Windows are more irritating than the way that Explorer always opens in the same folder (C:\ for Windows 95/98, My Documents for Windows Me/2000/XP). If you have an entry in your Start Menu to run Explorer, you can change it to "Explore" at the folder of your choice:

• Open Explorer, and go to your Start Menu folder.
• Find the shortcut for Explorer, right click on it, and select Properties.
• Click on the Shortcut tab, and change the Target so it reads: c:\windows\EXPLORER.EXE /n, /e, d:\myfolder (where c:\windows is your Windows directory, and d:\myfolder is the directory in which you want Explorer to start.)
• Tip: To have Explorer start with My Computer, so no branches are initially expanded, use the following command line options: /n, /e, /select, c:\

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How to Avoid Getting a Computer Virus or Worm on Your Windows PC

1. Be careful about using MS Outlook. Outlook is more susceptible to worms than other e-mail programs, unless you have efficient Anti-Virus programs running. Use Pegasus or Thunderbird (by Mozilla), or a web-based program such as Hotmail or Yahoo or 'Outlook Express'.
2. Install an Anti-Virus program(ex. Norton, F-Secure, Sophos or McAfee.) Also available is the free AntiVir virus scanner. Make sure you keep your virus definitions updated and run a full system scan weekly.
3. Install an Anti-Spyware program(ex. Adaware SE, Microsoft Defender), that operates against internet malware and spyware. Just like Anti-Virus, keep it updated, and do a full system scan weekly.
4. If someone sends you an attachment in e-mail or instant messaging, do not open it. If it is a picture, text or sound file (these attachments end in the extensions .txt, .jpeg, .gif, .bmp, .tif, .mp3, .htm, .html, and .avi), you are probably safe. If someone you know very well sends you a Word attachment or other type of file, e-mail them to ask them if they meant to send it to you. If they say yes, you can open it, but you might still be at risk if they are not good about running Anti-Virus scans or careful about what they download. Be wary of attachments with a double extension, such as .txt.vb or .jpg.exe, as the system will only recognize the extension to the extreme right, and run the file as such. Double extensions are often a good indicator that the file is malicious.
5. Do not use disks that other people gave you, even from work. The disk could be infected with a virus. Of course, you can run a virus scan on it first to check it out, but AV programs are not 100% effective.
6. Do not download software from just any old website. If it is a reputable site that you trust, you are probably safe. The threat is not only from software; don't download Word documents or other non-HTML files that have something other than one of the extensions listed above, either.
7. Set up your Windows Update to automatically download patches and upgrades. This will allow your computer to automatically download any updates to both the operating system in Internet Explorer. These updates fix security holes in both pieces of software.
8. Consider switching to a different web browser. Other web browsers (such as Firefox or Opera) are considered to have better security than Internet Explorer; some people also see them as more flexible and extensible browsers.
9. Be careful when surfing. You can get a malicious script from a webpage and not know it. If you have your IE set up for the maximum security settings, you are probably safe. You can try disabling javascript, but I'm not sure if this will entirely help, and it will make your web browsing pretty boring. If you ever get a window asking if you want to allow an automatic install, say "No" unless you know the site requesting the install. Also, don't go to any porn sites. Those are almost always viruses.
10. Read about the latest virus threats so you are aware of the potential danger. Go to Symantec's page to read about them daily.
11. Try to balance paranoia with common sense. Some people get really weird about viruses, spyware, etc. It's just a computer! Back up your data and follow these steps, and it shouldn't be a big problem. Some people would suggest that you make sure you have a firewall and run anti-spyware programs as well. I'm not sure either of those will protect you from viruses, but they will protect you from hacking and from spyware. Microsoft's Antispyware and Ad-Aware are the best anti-spyware/virus programs I have found. Good luck!
12. Use a software firewall! Even if you have a hardware firewall, always use a software firewall (ex. Norton, Mcafee, there's also free ones- ZoneLabs ZoneAlarm).
13. Scan things you download! Now don't be a total nut with this. But if you download something from a site that you don't know/trust, then scan it before opening it. Anything you get from P2P software you should scan, as you are getting it from a stranger. Balance scanning things with number 11, don't go nuts scanning everything you download.
14. View the files in a Sandbox[1]

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How to Make Windows XP Startup Faster

Windows seems to be getting slower in its old age. Especially when you first switch it on. We just clocked a brand new laptop at a shade under 2 minutes from pressing the "on" switch to it finally deciding that it was OK to be used.

Windows will never be ultra fast booting up because of everything it needs to do. Just look at the stuff Windows Vista has to go through every time it boots up:

• Bios - the real prehistoric stuff that's been around since before PCs
• Master Boot Record - stores the stuff that normally happens when your PC boots up
• Boot Sector - a special area of your hard drive, reserved for booting up Windows
• Windows Boot Manager - a program that reads the main Windows booting file
• Read from Boot Configuration Data - instructions on what to actually do on booting up Windows
• Search for hibernation file - just in case Windows didn't shut down completely and instead just went into hibernation (especially on a laptop)
• Start winload.exe - the program that actually starts to load Windows
• Start the operating system itself
• Start Session Manager Subsystem (whatever that is!)
• Gets ready to ask you to log in to Windows itself
• Start all the necessary services and asks you to login (at last)

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How to Defragment Your Disk Drive Volumes in Windows XP

Disk Defragmenter MMC is based on the full retail version of Executive Software Diskeeper. The version that is included with Windows XP and later provides limited functionality in maintaining disk performance by defragmenting volumes that use the FAT, FAT32, or NTFS file system.

To start Disk Defragmenter MMC, use one of the methods that is described in this article.

Method 1: Use the Properties of Your Local Disk

1. Open My Computer.
2. Right-click the local disk volume that you want to defragment, and then click Properties.
3. On the Tools tab, click Defragment Now.
4. Click Defragment.

Method 2: Use Computer Management MMC

1. Start Computer Management MMC (Compmgmt.msc).
2. Click Disk Defragmenter.
3. Click the volume that you want to defragment, and then click Defragment.

Method 3: Use Disk Defragmenter MMC.

1. Start Disk Defragmenter MMC (Dfrg.msc).
2. Click the volume that you want to defragment, and then click Defragment.

The version of Disk Defragmenter MMC that is included with Windows XP has the following limitations:

• It can defragment only local volumes.
• It can defragment only one volume at a time.
• It cannot defragment one volume while it is scanning another.
• It cannot be scheduled. If you need to schedule disk defragmentation, use the Defrag.exe command line tool. For additional information about using the command line Defrag.exe tool, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
  283080  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283080/EN-US/ ) Description of the New Command Line Defrag.exe Included with Windows XP
• It can run only one MMC snap-in at a time.

The third-party products that are discussed in this article are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.

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How to Speed up a Windows XP Computer

Clear Out Forgotten Programs

The first step in tuning up your computer's performance is to remove any unnecessary programs. I install new programs all the time. Sometimes I'm thrilled with the new program and I continue to use it. Other times, it doesn't do what I hoped, and the program sits on my computer consuming resources and hurting performance.
Follow these steps to remove unneeded programs:

1.	Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2.	Click Add or Remove Programs.
3.	Scroll through the list and examine each program. Windows XP lists how often you use a program and what day you last started it. As shown in Figure 1, the Age of Mythology Trial is a good candidate for removal from my computer. Though I liked the game, I haven't used it recently and it's consuming a lot of disk space. You shouldn't remove anything labeled as an Update or Hotfix, however, because they improve the security of your computer. Figure 1: The Add or Remove Programs window.
4.	Click each program you no longer need, click the Remove button, and then follow the prompts to uninstall it.

You may have to restart your computer after removing a program. After your computer restarts, repeat the steps above to remove more programs.

Free Up Wasted Space

Removing unused programs is a great way to free up disk space, which will speed up your computer. Another way to find wasted disk space is to use the Disk Cleanup tool by following these steps:

1.	Open My Computer, right-click Local Disk, and then click Properties.
2.	On the General tab, click the Disk Cleanup button. Disk Cleanup will spend a few minutes examining your disk.
3.	The Disk Cleanup dialog box opens. As you can see in Figure 2, it found almost three gigs of space on my computer that it could free up! Figure 2: The Disk Cleanup tool.
4.	Select the desired check boxes in the Files to Delete list, and then click OK. Disk Cleanup will spend several minutes clearing space.
5.	If you have more than one hard disk, repeat this process for each hard disk listed in My Computer.

You can save yourself some time by automating the disk cleanup process. For more information, read the Microsoft Knowledge Basic article, How to Automate the Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows XP.

Defragment Your Computer

I hate newspaper articles that start on the front page but continue somewhere in the middle of the newspaper. I could get through the article much faster if it was printed on consecutive pages like a magazine article. Files on your computer can either be fragmented like a newspaper, or unfragmented like a magazine. Over time, more and more files become fragmented. When a file is fragmented, it takes longer for the computer to read it because it has to skip to different sections of the hard disk—just like it takes me a few seconds to find a page in the middle of a newspaper. Figure 3 compares how a computer reads unfragmented and fragmented files.

Figure 3: Fragmented and unfragmented files compared.

You need administrator privileges to defragment a drive or volume. Although fragmentation is complicated, it's easy to defragment your computer by following these steps:

1.	Open My Computer, right-click Local Disk, and then click Properties.
2.	On the Tools tab, click Defragment Now. The Disk Defragmenter opens.
3.	Click your first hard disk, and then click Defragment. As shown in Figure 4, Disk Defragmenter will work for at least several minutes, though it may take several hours. Figure 4: The Disk Defragmenter tool.
4.	If you have more than one hard disk, repeat this process for each hard disk listed starting at Step 3.

My laptop's files were not terribly fragmented, so defragmenting them didn't speed it up much. However, after defragmenting the hard drive on my desktop computer, Windows and other programs started about 20% faster!

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Disconnect Unused Network Connections

If you've ever had a network with more than one computer, you probably found it useful to share files between the computers by mapping a network drive. Network drives allow one computer to read and write files to another computer's hard disk as if it were directly connected. I use network drives all the time, and for me, they were the most significant source of slowness.
The problem with network drives is that Windows XP will attempt to connect to the network drives when Windows starts. If the remote computers don't respond immediately, Windows will wait patiently. Additionally, some programs will attempt to connect to the network drives when you browse for files and folders. If you've ever tried to open a file and had to wait several seconds (or minutes!), it's probably because the program was trying to establish a network connection—even if the file you are opening is on your local computer.
I am not as patient as Windows, and I'd rather not wait for unused network connections to respond. To reduce this problem, disconnect any unused drives by following these steps:

1.	Open My Computer.
2.	On the Tools menu, click Disconnect Network Drive.
3.	Select the network drives that you no longer need, and then click OK.

After I disconnected the network drives on my computer, my computer was able to restart in 1 minute, 45 seconds—about 40% faster!

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Remove Autostart Programs

The next step in restoring your computer's performance is to identify any unnecessary programs that start automatically. Often, programs configure themselves to run in the background so that they appear to start quickly when needed. Some of these programs show an icon on your taskbar to let you know that they're running, while others are completely hidden. These autostart programs probably won't noticeably slow down your computer as it starts up, but they will steal away trace amounts of memory and processing time as your computer runs.
Windows XP comes with the System Configurationtool (Msconfig.exe), an excellent way to manage the startup process. To start it:

1.	Click Start, click Run, type Msconfig, and then press Enter.
2.	On the Startup tab, you'll see a list of all the programs and processes that are set to run when Windows XP loads.
3.	Speed up your overall start time by clearing the check box next to any item you think you don't need.
4.	Click Apply, and then restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

My favorite way to examine autostart programs is to use the Autoruns freeware tool from Sysinternals. Autoruns lists every program that will automatically start and allows you to quickly delete the link to the program. Many autostart entries are important parts of Windows XP, including Userinit.exe and Explorer.exe. So you should not simply delete everything that you don't recognize. Instead, you should look up each entry at Paul Collins' Startup Applications List to determine whether you want it to start automatically.
For example, Figure 5 shows Autoruns revealing a file called nwiz.exe that is set to start automatically. I visited The Startup Applications List, typed in nwiz and discovered that it's used to set my desktop layout preferences. I'd like to keep this functionality, so I won't delete it.

Figure 5: The Autoruns freeware tool.

I also found a file named Wzqkpick.exe. After reading the description at The Startup Applications List, I decided I don't need to load that file automatically. I deleted the link using Autoruns by right-clicking it and then clicking Delete. This procedure works best for advanced users of Windows XP. If you aren't sure a program is unneeded—leave it!
The Startup Applications List may provide instructions for removing the startup program. If available, you should follow those instructions instead of deleting the link by using Autoruns.

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How to Change a Windows XP Product Key

Here's How:

1. Click on Start and then Run.
2. In the text box in the Run window, type regedit and click OK. This will open the Registry Editor program.
3. Locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder under My Computer and click on the (+) sign next the folder name to expand the folder.
4. Continue to expand folders until you reach the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents registry key.
5. Click on the WPAEvents folder.
6. In the results that appear in the window on the right, locate OOBETimer.
7. Right-click on the OOBETimer entry and choose Modify from the resulting menu.
8. Change at least one digit in the Value data text box and click OK. This will deactivate Windows XP.
   Feel free to close Registry Editor at this point.
9. Click on Start and then Run.
10. In the text box in the Run window, type the following command and click OK.
    %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a
11. When the Let's activate Windows window appears, choose Yes, I want to telephone a customer service representative to activate Windows and then click Next.
12. Click the Change Product Key button at the bottom of the window.
    Don't worry about filling anything out on this screen.
13. Type your new, valid Windows XP product key in the New key: text boxes and then click the Update button.
14. You should now reactivate Windows XP by following the instructions on the Activate Windows by phone window which you should now be seeing or via the Internet by clicking the Back button and following the instructions on that screen.
    If you'd rather postpone activating Windows XP until a later date, you can click the Remind me later button.
15. After activating Windows XP, you can verify that activation was successful by repeating steps 9 and 10 above.
    The Windows Product Activation window that appears should say "Windows is already activated. Click OK to exit."
    

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How to Remove Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications

Remove Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications

Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) notifications occur when your computer hasn't passed the validation test. The validation test can be failed due to being sold a pirated (non-genuine) copy of XP, or because you have changed your XP product key to a software-generated key, or sometimes it just happens for no reason at all. The failed validation installs three types of notifications on your computer: one on the log in screen, one log in timer, and one balloon. It also stops updates from Microsoft and disables your ability to install IE7 and Windows Media Player 11. This solution can get rid of all three notifications, even though you will still not be able to update through Windows Update. You will not be able to download things from Microsoft that requires a valid license either.

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How To reducing the file size of a picture

can dramatically increase the file size of your 2007 Microsoft Office system document. To save room on your hard disk drive and to reduce download times, you can reduce image resolution (resolution: The fineness of detail in an image or text produced by a monitor or printer.), apply compression with no loss of quality, and discard unwanted information, such as the cropped (crop: To trim vertical or horizontal edges of an object. Pictures are often cropped to focus attention on a particular area.) parts of an image.
Only certain image types can be optimized, or reduced in file size with minimal loss in quality, and they have to be inserted in your 2007 Office release document in a way that makes them editable by Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, or Microsoft Office Word 2007. To insert a picture or other image, on the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, use the buttons to store the image as a picture file in the 2007 Office release document.
When you do not need every single pixel (pixel: A single unit of measurement that your computer's display hardware uses to paint images on your screen. These units, which often appear as tiny dots, compose the pictures displayed by your screen.) in an image to get an acceptable version of it for your target destination, you can reduce or change the resolution. Reducing or changing the resolution can be effective with images that you have scaled to be smaller, because their dots per inch (dpi) actually increase in that case. Changing the resolution can affect image quality.
 Tip   You may be able to optimize or resize your images by using an external graphics-editing program, such as Adobe Photoshop. For more information, see your graphics program Help.

File type information

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You cannot optimize pictures that have a drawing type of format (vector graphics (vector graphics: The representation of graphic objects such as lines, arcs, and squares by using geometrical formulas. By contrast, bitmapped graphics (also called raster graphics) are stored as a collection of pixels.)) and file extensions such as .wmf (Windows Metafile Format (WMF): A vector graphics format for Windows-compatible computers used mostly as a clip art format in word-processing documents.), .emf, and .eps.
High-resolution images, such as photographs, are good candidates for optimization. Eligible file types include .png (PNG: A graphic file format that is supported by some Web browsers. Short for Portable Network Graphics, PNG supports variable transparency of images and control of image brightness on different computers. PNG files are compressed bitmaps.), .jpeg or .jpg (JPEG: A graphics file format (.jpg extension in Microsoft Windows) supported by many Web browsers that was developed for compressing and storing photographic images. It's best used for graphics with many colors, such as scanned photos.), .tiff (Tagged Image File Format (TIFF): A high-resolution, tag-based graphics format. TIFF is used for the universal interchange of digital graphics.), .bmp (bitmap: A picture made from a series of small dots, much like a piece of graph paper with certain squares filled in to form shapes and lines. When stored as files, bitmaps usually have the extension .bmp.), and .gif (GIF: A graphics file format (.gif extension in Windows) used to display indexed-color graphics on the World Wide Web. It supports up to 256 colors and uses lossless compression, meaning that no image data is lost when the file is compressed.).
 Tip   If you insert a picture from clip art (clip art: A single piece of ready-made art, often appearing as a bitmap or a combination of drawn shapes.), only the Photographs media type of clip art can be optimized, because other types of clip art tend to be vector graphics.

Change the resolution of a picture

1. Click the picture that you want to change the resolution (resolution: The fineness of detail in an image or text produced by a monitor or printer.) for.
2. Under Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Adjust group, click Compress Pictures.

 Note   If you do not see the Picture Tools and Format tabs, make sure that you selected a picture. You may have to double-click the picture to select it and open the Format tab. If you see the Drawing Tools tab, rather than the Picture Tools tab, see When I click a picture, the Drawing Tools tab rather than the Picture Tools tab appears.

3. To change the resolution for the selected picture only and not all of the pictures in the document, select the Apply to selected pictures only check box.
4. Click Options, and then under Target Output, click the resolution that you want.

Compress a picture

Depending on how many colors are used in a picture, you can reduce the color format of the image (compress) to make its file size smaller. Compressing a picture makes the color take up fewer bits per pixel, with no loss of quality.

1. Click the picture that you want to compress.
2. Under Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Adjust group, click Compress Pictures.

 Note   If you do not see the Picture Tools and Format tabs, make sure that you selected a picture. You may have to double-click the picture to select it and open the Format tab. If you see the Drawing Tools tab, rather than the Picture Tools tab, see When I click a picture, the Drawing Tools tab rather than the Picture Tools tab appears.

3. To compress the selected picture only and not all of the pictures in the document, select the Apply to selected pictures only check box.
4. Click Options, and then under Compression options, select the Automatically perform basic compression on save check box.

 Note   The Automatically perform basic compression on save option applies only to the document that is open in the current program. All of the other options in the Compression Settings dialog box apply to all documents in Office Excel 2007, Office PowerPoint 2007, Office Word 2007, and Office Outlook 2007.

Crop a picture

Cropping reduces the size of a picture (picture: A file (such as a metafile) that you can ungroup and manipulate as two or more objects or a file that stays as a single object (such as bitmaps).) by removing vertical or horizontal edges. Cropping is often used to hide or trim a part of a picture, either for emphasis or to remove unwanted portions.

You can always restore a resized or a cropped picture to its original appearance. You can also outcrop a picture, which adds a margin (margin: The blank space outside the printing area on a page.).
You can crop (crop: To trim vertical or horizontal edges of an object. Pictures are often cropped to focus attention on a particular area.) any picture, except an animated GIF (animated GIF: A file that contains a series of Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) images that are displayed in rapid sequence by some Web browsers to produce an animated effect.) picture, by using the Crop feature. To crop an animated GIF, trim the picture in an animated-GIF editing program, and then insert the picture again.

1. Select the picture that you want to crop.
2. Under Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Size group, click Crop.

 Note   If you do not see the Picture Tools and Format tabs, make sure that you selected a picture. You may have to double-click the picture to select it and open the Format tab. If you see the Drawing Tools tab, rather than the Picture Tools tab, see When I click a picture, the Drawing Tools tab rather than the Picture Tools tab appears.

3. Do one of the following:
• To crop one side, drag the center cropping handle on that side inward.
• To crop equally on two sides at once, press and hold CTRL while you drag the center cropping handle on either side inward.
• To crop equally on all four sides at once, press and hold CTRL while you drag a corner cropping handle inward.

 One of the six cropping handles

 Notes 

• To crop your picture to exact dimensions, do the following:
1. Under Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Size group, click the Dialog Box Launcher .
2. On the Size tab, under Crop from, enter the size numbers that you want in the Left, Right, Top, and Bottom boxes.
• To reduce the file size of your picture and delete the cropped parts of the picture from the file, under Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Adjust group, click Compress Pictures. If you want to keep the cropped parts, you can change the automatic setting.
• To undo a crop before you save your document, click Reset Picture in the Adjust group or Undo on the Quick Access Toolbar.
• To outcrop (or add a margin (margin: The blank space outside the printing area on a page.) around a picture) drag the cropping handles away from the center of the picture.

Remove cropped areas of a picture

Even after you crop (crop: To trim vertical or horizontal edges of an object. Pictures are often cropped to focus attention on a particular area.) parts of a picture, the cropped parts remain as part of the picture file. The following procedure reduces file size by removing the croppings from the picture file.

1. Click the picture that you want to discard unwanted information from.
2. Under Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Adjust group, click Compress Pictures.

 Note   If you do not see the Picture Tools and Format tabs, make sure that you selected a picture. You may have to double-click the picture to select it and open the Format tab. If you see the Drawing Tools tab, rather than the Picture Tools tab, see When I click a picture, the Drawing Tools tab rather than the Picture Tools tab appears.

3. To remove croppings for the selected picture only and not all of the pictures in the document, select the Apply to selected pictures only check box.
4. Click Options, and then under Compression options, select the Delete cropped areas of pictures check box.

Change the Compress Pictures default settings

The Compress Pictures feature automatically reduces the file size of pictures when you save your document. You can also delete the cropped parts of pictures from a file by using this feature.
The Automatically perform basic compression on save option applies only to the document that is open in the current program. All of the other options in the Compression Settings dialog box apply to all documents in Office Excel 2007, Office PowerPoint 2007, Office Word 2007, and Office Outlook 2007.

1. Select a picture in the document.
2. Under Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Adjust group, click Compress Pictures.

 Note   If you do not see the Picture Tools and Format tabs, make sure that you selected a picture. You may have to double-click the picture to select it and open the Format tab. If you see the Drawing Tools tab, rather than the Picture Tools tab, see When I click a picture, the Drawing Tools tab rather than the Picture Tools tab appears.

3. Click Options, and then do one or more of the following:
• To stop automatic reduction of picture file size when you save the document, clear the Automatically perform basic compression on save check box.
• To automatically delete cropped areas of pictures when you save the document, select the Delete cropped areas of pictures check box, and then click OK.
• To automatically save cropped areas of pictures, clear the Delete cropped areas of pictures check box.

 Tip   To use a shortcut to the compress pictures options in the Save As dialog box, click the Microsoft Office Button , point to Save As, and then click the file format for the Office document that you want. In the lower left corner of the dialog box, click Tools, and then click Compress Pictures.

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How To Transfer Data Between Two Hard Drives

Method 1

1. Open the computer case and unscrew the hard drive from the computer that you will not be using to transfer the files.
2. Unplug the power, keyboard, mouse, etc. from the computer you will be using to transfer the files.
3. Open the case of the computer that you will be using to transfer the files.
4. With the hard drive you just took out in your hand, search the exterior for a diagram showing the different jumper settings for the modes.
5. On the rear of the hard drive, remove the jumper and fit it over the two pins that match the diagram for the 'Cable Select' or 'Slave' setting.
6. Find the wide cable that the hard drive in the computer case is connected to.
7. Connect this cable to the hard drive you have in your hand. The colored strip (usually red) should be on the side nearest the power connector.
8. Find a power connector that is not hooked into anything. It will usually have 4 female pins.
9. Plug the power connector into the power slot in the rear of the hard drive
10. Plug the power, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and anything else you unplugged back into the back of the case.
11. Turn on the computer.
12. The hard drive should be displayed in 'My Computer' as another drive if you are using Windows.
13. Drag & drop the files from one hard drive to the other.
14. Wait for the transfer to complete.

Method 2

1. Determine what type of harddrive you have. There are many interface variations, IDE, SATA, SCSI and they come in many varieties (some may not be possible by this method).
2. If available: Purchase a USB 2.0 External Disk Housing that is suitable for your hard drive (See Image). In this example we have a good old IDE drive. 
3. Ensure your drive is set to master or single drive, on IDE interfaces there is usually a small jumper. Consult your hard drive manual.
4. Open the case of the housing, plug in the drive power and data leads, note these are keyed. You can only put them in one way around. If you need to force it, you are probably wrong. Check and check again before doing up housing. The assembly varies but for the type shown there are two plastic runners that fit over the screw holes.
5. Plug the external power block into the housing and switch on the power. Note; for small notebook drives the housing usually gets its power from the USB lead.
6. Plug the USB lead into the housing.
7. Power up your PC and login if you have not already done so.
8. Plug the other end of the USB lead into your PC.
9. Wait for your system to find the USB device. If using Microsoft Windows, check in My Computer, you should find the device listed as a removable drive. It will have a drive letter, for example your PC's harddisk is usually C: and the CD/DVD drive D: so it may be shown as E: (Remember when finished, before removing click the safe to remove drive icon on the task bar near the clock). If using SuSE Linux check My Computer, although you might get a screen pop up with the device listed.
10. In My Computer open the drive to list its contents.
11. Open a second Windows Explorer window to find the data you wish to copy from. In SuSE Linux click on the blue house icon or open a Konqueror window and browse the directories to the data to be copied.
12. Copy the data to the external second drive

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How to Back Up Your Computer Hard Drive

If your computer has ever suffered a computer virus or crashed unexpectedly, you may understand the importance of backing up your important computer data. If you have never performed this task, then read on to learn how to back up your computer hard drive. You will learn what the three things that you need to do to ensure that you never lose data again.

This How-To guide will show you how to use online backup and backup software to protect your data. This guide is intended for home users as well as small and medium sized businesses that do not have a dedicated IT department. Losing the data on your personal or business computer can be costly and can result in downtime for the company. Backing up that data will save the user unnecessary aggravation. This backup procedure will use free software wherever possible and strive to create a process that is easy to maintain.

The first step will illustrate how to create a clean starting point of your operating system. The second step shows how to backup your files locally onto a large USB disk drive. Finally, the last step makes sure important files are backed up online or on compact discs.

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