My problems solved (except for one!)

[Spike]

OK, firstly, here's how I solved my annoying little OS glitches.

I re-installed XP and my drivers, put my core programs back in, brought the windows updates up to date, and tweaked it to the way I wanted. I imaged the drive with Acronis TrueImage, and created a boot CD. It now takes me just 15 mins to reinstall an entire XP Pro O/S fully updated.

As for booting into DOS with access to all Win XP files, aquire a full retail version of NTFSPRO by Winternals, and create the boot disks. Take one Windows 98 startup disk and boot the machine with it. Take your NTFSPRO boot disks, and run the program. Voila! This will allow you to get rid of any annoying virii that your AV can't delet e(File in use), etc, etc. (NB: this will give you read access to your CD drives also, and access to the win98 setup utilities such as Fdisk. I'm pretty sure that Format will only be able to format a drive in FAT32 though.)

Now, here's my only problem. I'm trying to make my desktop pleaing to the eye . As you know, Dragging 'My Computer' to the edge of the desktop and releasing it creates a nice long toolbar on the side of the desktop with all your drives on it. However, it is currently a horrible grey colour on my machine. Is there any way in which I can change the colour to match the taskbar, and lock it so that the icons are unmoveable?

 

[Phantasm66]

Having read through most of your posting, I think I can safely say one thing.

I remember distinctly being at the stage with my computing that you are now.

All I really have to say is to keep doing things like that, working with the computer and enjoying solving these problems and you will find that it leads you on a very interesting journey. Keep experimenting and playing! Best wishes.

 

[Krugger]

the toolbar color is going to be the same as your taskbar and all other similar object. you can change them all by going into display properties, appearance, advanced, 3d objects, and select the color, but everything else that is that grey color (menus, address bars, etc) will change too.

 

[Spike]

I tried that, but I'm afraid to say that the My Computer toolbar on my desktop is still that horrible grey. I do like the effect it's had on other things though, So I'll keep it. Still looking to get rid of the grey.....

Oh, Phantasm, thank you for your kind comments. Half the task at the moment is finding out which apps I want to run to do things when I want to do them!

 

[Phantasm66]

Yeah... that's the stuff... messing with fdisk and stuff like that. Keep doing that.

Take your machine and the way it works all apart, when you are happy move on to the next stage, But for now, keep messing with the workstation stuff. You are going to find out lots of really interesting things. I won't spoil it.

 

[Krugger]

Originally posted by Spike
I tried that, but I'm afraid to say that the My Computer toolbar on my desktop is still that horrible grey. I do like the effect it's had on other things though, So I'll keep it. Still looking to get rid of the grey.....

Oh, Phantasm, thank you for your kind comments. Half the task at the moment is finding out which apps I want to run to do things when I want to do them!

really... hmm well i threw a my computer toolbar on the side and it changed color along with everything else too, so i thought it would work for you, sorry to hear it.

 

[Spike]

Uploaded a screendump of my desktop to illustrate how awful this is.

Krugger;
Thanks for trying! At least my context menus look better now!

Phantasm;
You may have come across it before. I can't remember the name of the file, but I've been wanting to change the HTML in the DLL file that contains the Page Not Found error message and such for IE. Problem is, do it with Notepad, and it doesn't work afterwards. I'm guessing it's the language it's written in or encryption. Any idea how to edit such files?

Oh, can't wait to find out what other interesting things I'll find out . I'm still trying to work out how the .HTT files in 98 were replaced in XP. I had fun editing those! I'll find it sooner or later. That's half the fun of a new OS. lol

 

[Spike]

Seems it worked for you Krugger because you are using the windows Classic interface. For aesthetic reasons, I want to use the XP interface. Does anybody know a way to solve this problem?

 

[Krugger]

aah, i see now from the screen shot. sorry, i dont even seem to have an option to go back to the xp theme anymore, i dont know why... one last tiny thought, did you try all the other settings, like maybe it wasnt 3d objects but one of the others... doubtful though. good luck,
-Krugger

 

[Nodsu]

Maybe you need to enable Active Desktop?

 

[Spike]

how do I do that under XP?????

 

[bradl]

(My first post here!)

I, too, would like to change the toolbar background color using XP default theme. I am using dual monitors and have Start toolbar on one side and custom toolbar on the other and they do not match and the grey looks horrible. I went searching for more than an hour solid and only found a few references on this subject and no real easy answer yet. That search is what lead me here. If you guys figure this out that would be great.

There are some third party app lauchers and the like but I don't want to go that route.

One very interesting method I found involves using html in the toolbar which would allow anything to be displayed there. Here is the link: (OK... forum won't let me insert a URL... how utterly weird and useless), Google a seach on this term and the numer one hit will be the right place:task_qlh

The instructions seemed a bit deep so I was going to revisit this approach another day, but if someone gets it working let me know!

Thanks

Brad