How to navigate the taskbar without a mouse

If you find yourself using Windows without a mouse or simply prefer using the keyboard for task switching, here are the keyboard combinations you'll need:
CTRL+ESC
ESC
TAB
Now you can navigate the taskbar using LEFT, RIGHT and TAB keys

Faster way to get to your desktop

To get to your desktop in a hurry, you can either:
Right click on the taskbar and select "Minimize All Windows," or
Press CTRL+ESC and then ALT+M.

Creating logical drives on the fly

If you have very deep directories (directories with many sub directories inside sub directories), you may find it easier to create a logical drive that points to the directory you want to work in. On the other hand, you may want to simply create aliases to existing drives for those programs looking for a particular drive. Whichever the reason you want to create a logical drive, you can do so using the SUBST command.

For example, to create an alias called D for your C drive, run following command from the "Command Prompt" (or the "DOS Prompt"):

SUBST D: C:\

To create a logical drive called E, that points to your C:\WORK directory:

SUBST E: C:\WORK

To delete the aliases or logical drives that you create using SUBST command, run SUBST with the drive name to delete and the parameter "/D"

SUBST D: /D

SUBST E: /D

How to connect two computers and access their drives through the Internet

You can connect two computers over the Internet and use a given computer's drives just like you'd use local drives -- run programs, copy, get a list of files, etc. Here's how:
Make sure that both computers (computer A and B) have "TCP/IP" and "NetBEUI" protocols installed and properly functioning.
 
Make sure that the "Remote Access Serives" are setup and properly functioning.
 
Find out the IP address of computer A.
You can do this by going to the network icon in the "Control Panel"

For example, let's assume that "205.159.67.4" is the IP address of computer A.
 
Enable file sharing and share a path of your choice on computer A.

For example, share "C:\" as "INTERNET_DRIVE" 
 
Log both computers on to the Internet (dial and connect to your internet service provider for example). If you're on an Intranet, you don't have to connect to the Internet.
 
Go to computer B's "DOS/Command Prompt" and type:

NET USE X: \\205.159.67.4\INTERNET_DRIVE


If you get an user name/password or logon error, use the following command instead (after replacing uname with the actual user name and pword with the matching password):

NET USE X: \\205.159.67.4\INTERNET_DRIVE /USER:uname pword

This will map computer B's drive X to computer A's shared path INTERNET_DRIVE, which is computer A's C: drive.

Now you can use drive X over the Internet just like any other drive on your local computer.

Screen savers are programs too!

Did you know that screen savers are "executable programs?" They are; which means, you can create short cuts to them just like you'd create short cuts to other executable programs. When you create the short cut, instead of looking for "Program files" look for files with the SCR extension (*.SCR). If you're using Windows 95, you'll find these files in C:\Windows\System (default directory) and if you're using Windows NT, you can find screen saver files under C:\WinNT\System32. 

Now you can start your favorite screen saver just by double clicking on it's short cut without having to setup a default screen saver! Not only that, you can setup screen savers by right clicking on them and selecting "Configure."

CMD.EXE or COMMAND.COM

Windows NT comes with two "command line shells" -- one called CMD.EXE and the other called COMMAND.COM. If you're wondering which one to use, following information might help:

CMD.EXE is the Windows NT's native command prompt (or shell), which means it is more portable among different hardware platforms. For example, if you type SET and press ENTER inside a CMD.EXE prompt, you'll notice that CMD.EXE exposes more environment variables than COMMAND.COM. On the other hand, COMMAND.COM is the more "MS-DOS compatible" version of the two shells. For example, this shell will call AUTOEXEC.NT and CONFIG.NT (located in the SYSTEM32 directory inside your Windows NT directory) just like MS-DOS used to call AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS.

So, if you're having trouble running your old DOS command line programs from Windows NT, try running them inside a COMMAND.COM shell, not CMD.EXE.

Find out if it's time to upgrade your processor

If you're not sure if you need to upgrade your processor speed, here's a way to find out:
Run Performance Monitor -- "Start | Programs | Administrative Tools | Performance Monitor"
Press CTRL+I to add a counter to the chart.
Set "Object" to "System" and "Counter" to "Processor Que Length"
Click on "Add"

Now, run your day to day programs and watch the "Processor Que Length" counter which you just added to the Performance Monitor. If this counter is greater than 20 for long periods of time, this suggests that your computer is waiting that long until your processor is ready handle next set of instructions -- it's time for a processor upgrade!

You know how to change the wallpaper; here's a way to change the startup and exit screens

Don't like those exit screens that you see when you shutdown your computer? Well, change them!
Edit LOGOS.SYS and LOGOW.SYS files in your Windows directory (C:\Windows for example) using Paint Brush or any other bitmap editor. Once you edit them, don't forget to save them as LOGOS.SYS and LOGOW.SYS (notice the SYS extension instead of the normal BMP extension).

So you're thinking, it wouldn't look right if you change exit screens without changing the startup screen...
Load LOGOS.SYS file in your Windows directory (C:\Windows for example) into Paint Brush or any other bitmap editor. Once you finish editing, save it as LOGO.SYS in your Windows directory.

Who's connected to you?

If you're running any TCP/IP services (such as WWW service, FTP service, POP3/SMTP services, or even just NetBIOS over TCP/IP) on your computer, you may want to find out who's connected to your computer and from where at a given time. This information is easy to obtain using NETSTAT command.
Go to the "DOS Prompt" or "Command Prompt"
Type

NETSTAT

For example, if you want to redisplay the TCP/IP connections every 10 seconds, type:

NETSTAT 10

Press ENTER

True size of a directory

One of the quickest ways to find out the size of a directory (or a folder) -- including the size of the files and directories inside it -- is to press ALT+ENTER on it.

For example, to find out how much space your Windows directory is occupying:
Run "Windows Explorer"
Select "C:\Windows" (or whatever your Windows directory is)
Press ALT+ENTER or right click and select "Properties..."