Icon Line Up
If shortcuts and other icons are scattered all over your desktop and you can’t stand the way it looks, straighten them up. Make sure the cursor is somewhere on the desktop and then right-click the mouse. Up pops a menu. Click “Line Up Icons” for a real quick cleanup.

Creation
To create a personal touch for a desktop, create your own icons by opening Paint, clicking Image, Attributes, making the height 32 pixels, and clicking OK. Next click View, Zoom and select the "Show Grid" option. Then click View, Zoom, Custom, go to 800%, and click OK. Now, you can create your own icons. Save the file as .BMP, and then in Explorer, rename it to an .ICO file. 

Damaged Icons
If, after installing a program, WinMe alters your desktop icons, you can fix them easily by starting TweakUI, a free Microsoft utility, from within the Control Panel and selecting the Repair Tab. Find the “Rebuild Icons” in the drop-down box and click Repair Now.

Display Icon in System Tray
For those computer users who frequently adjust their display settings in Win98, they can make the settings easier to adjust by placing a Display icon in the system tray. For this feature, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. Double-click the “Display” icon, choose the Settings tab and click the Advanced button. Finally place a check mark next to “Show Settings Icon on Taskbar” and click OK twice.

Folder Icons
Unfortunately, Win95 doesn't allow you to change folder icons unless they're shortcuts, but there is a shareware program that will do it for you. With AnyFolder, you can assign different icons to each folder. 

To obtain this program, go to PCworld and download afolderx.zip. Extract the contents of this file to your location of choice, then right-click folders.inf and select Install. Once you've installed AnyFolder, you can change the icon used to represent a folder by right-clicking the folder, selecting Properties, and clicking the new Icon tab. Finally select Closed or Open depending on which one you want to change, click “Change Icon,” select a new icon, and click OK twice.

HyperTerminal Icon
In Win 98 if you want to remove the little icon that blinks from your taskbar when the HyperTerminal is running, open a connection in HyperTerminal. Select Properties from the File menu and click Configure from within the Connect Using area. Next click the Options tab and turn off the “Display Modem Status” in the status control area. You will need to repeat these steps for each HyperTerminal connection.

Icon Problems
Use Windows long enough and you will probably run into a situation where an icon on your desktop doesn't perform its task. You double-click it, nothing happens, and an error message appears on your screen. Most icons on the Windows desktops are shortcuts to other files. They do little more than point Windows in the right direction. The file that the shortcut icon points to is called the target. Many, but not all, shortcut icons have a little curving arrow on them. Broken shortcuts can be fixed using several different methods. Windows tries to conduct a search for the target, and if it is located, the shortcut is automatically revised. You can manually revise the shortcut by right-clicking the icon and choosing Properties. If you know the correct file path for the target, type it in the Target field and click OK. Get rid of the shortcut, especially if it points to a file that has been deleted or a program you have uninstalled. You can safely delete shortcut icons without affecting the target file or program.

Important Icons
In Windows you must go through extra steps to use the Control Panel and Floppy Disk Drive. To save time and effort, put their icons on the desktop by opening My Computer and locating the Control Panel icon. Click and drag this icon out to the desktop, release the mouse button, and click Yes to confirm that you want to create a shortcut. Repeat the same steps with your Floppy Disk Drive icon and then close My Computer. Henceforth accessing the Control Panel or the Floppy Disk Drive is a one-step operation of double-clicking them.

Large Icons
If you have Internet Explorer 4.x or higher and want to apply viewing options, such as large icons, to every folder, select View, Large Icons, and then View, Arrange Icons, Auto Arrange. In the same window, select View, Folder Options and click the View tab. Now click Like Current Folder followed by Yes to confirm and then OK. From this point forward, any folder window you open will display the same View options.

My Computer Icon
You can change the My Computer Icon to reflect your individual taste by clicking on the Display icon in the Control Panel and choosing the Effects tab. Select in this order the My Computer icon, Change Icon Now, and Browse to pick your icon. When happy, click OK. Or, there are sites all over the Internet with thousands of files that are designed to be Icons. Here are some web sites where you can find them. All Icons is an organized collection of over 4000 full-color icons. Game Icons has a collection of 77 game icons. The Best Icons is a utility containing over 5000 icons. 256 Color Collection Icons has an eclectic group of icons ranging from multicolored American Online logos to Nine Inch Nails album covers.  3D Folder Icons has a collection of shaded folder icons with seven different colors. If you want icons that whirl or are partially transparent, check out IconForte, shareware from CursorArts, or PCComputing .

Find a site with icons you like and download them to your PC to a file folder. The folder doesn't have to be a Windows System folder. Now, go to the Control Panel, select Display, choose the Effects tab, and then select the My Computer icon. Click the “Change Icon” button and Browse. Now, go to the file folder to which you saved your icon(s), select the icon, and click Apply.

My Computer Shortcut
Drag and drop the My Computer icon onto your Start button. Not only do you get a shortcut to My Computer, but this is also expandable. Click Start, My Computer, and it expands. Each drive gets its own menu entry, which expands to show the folders or files it contains. With this shortcut, everything in your computer is accessible from the Start menu.

Outlook Bar
The Outlook Bar comes set up with the icons that Microsoft thinks you'll use most often. You may disagree with Microsoft and add, remove, or move around icons on your desktop. You can add nearly anything to the Outlook Bar, such as folders, documents, network drives, and even icons that launch other programs. To add an icon to the Outlook Bar, choose File, New, Outlook Bar Shortcut so that the “Add to Outlook Bar” dialog box appears. Click the folder or drive in the box on the bottom that you want to add to the Outlook Bar and click OK. The “Look In” text box lets you choose between two different types of folders that you can add: Outlook folders that contain only Outlook items, or Windows file system folders that contain all the other types of files you create in Windows as well as disk drives. You will need to install Integrated File Management tools before you can install an icon for a floppy drive or for any folder from the Windows file system. You may want to create more icons on the Outlook 98/2000 bar. Because each icon on the Outlook bar is a shortcut to a folder or resource on your computer, you can save some time by adding a few well-chosen icons by choosing View, Folder List. Next right-click a folder for which you want to add an icon to the Outlook bar. Now a shortcut menu appears so choose “Add to the Outlook Bar” from the shortcut menu.

Printer Icon
Document files in Word can be printed by dragging and then dropping them on the Printer icon in the Printers folder. These files can be dragged from a folder window, the Windows Explorer, or the Desktop to the printer's icon of its queue window. The queue window appears when you double-click the Printer icon, and shows the status of any printing jobs. If you drag more than one file to the Printer icon, a message box appears and asks if you're sure that you want to print multiple files. Click Yes, if you do.

If you create a shortcut on the desktop for your printer, you can quickly print files by dragging and dropping those files on the Printer shortcut icon. To place the printer icon on your Desktop, drag the printer icon from the Printers folder to the Desktop. When you release your mouse button to drop the icon, a message box appears and asks if you want to make a shortcut. If so, click Yes.

Small Icons
If you want to see all of your icons for programs in your Start menu, choose Start, Settings, Taskbar & Start Menu. Now check the “Show small icons in Start menu box.” Henceforth you should see all of your Start programs on one screen. This tip may not appeal to anyone with weak eyesight.

Every icon on your computer’s system tray represents a program that may be using system resources. The lower your computer’s resources the worse its performance. To remove a program's icon from the system tray, use the application's “remove-icon” option. You can find this feature by right- or left-clicking the icon and/or opening the application and looking for Options or Preferences. If the application offers a choice similar to Show Icon on Taskbar, uncheck that option. If it does not have this selection, select Start, Run, type msconfig, press Enter, and click the Startup tab. Uncheck all the items you won’t use in your computer operations. Then click OK and restart your computer. To block new icons from taking up space in your system tray, you can use the utility StartupMonitor. It will tell you when a program is about to load an icon into the tray and gives you the option of preventing this action. On the other hand, if you must keep many items in your system tray, minimize the clutter by using TraySaver another clever tool that selectively hides icons. You can also eliminate icons by right-clicking them, choosing Preferences, selecting Settings on the General tab, and either deselecting “Enable Start Center” or choosing to show the icon only when you receive a message. During installation of a program, you can prevent icon installation problems by closing all other applications.