Create a file called autorun.inf and also place it at the top level of your hard drive. Inside the file, here's what you type:

[autorun]
icon=<icon filename here>

So, for the example I have below, my filename is lift-off.bmp. Save the .inf file and reboot. When your system comes back, you should have your new hard drive icon.

A look at Stardock's WindowBlinds for Windows XP Beta 6
Over the years, I think the term "Personal Computer" has changed. Originally, it meant that you had a computer that didn't take up a whole room. Since the days of Windows 95 and the Mac, people have been trying to make the user interface look the way they want it to, not how Apple or Microsoft tells them it should look. People want a little individuality with their computers rather than having it look like everyone else's.

Enter Stardock's WindowBlinds. For years, it allowed people to change the way Windows looked. Don't like the boring rectangular bar on the top of every window? No problem, you can have a frog there now. Want better definition in your buttons? Easy. You can have those yellow and black warning stripes on your windows? Cool! WindowBlinds uses skins, put together by artists on the internet which transforms your user interface into something that the Display Control Panel can never do. It extends the "Appearance" tab of the Display Control Panel to not only show the themes that XP installs, but also the ones added by WindowBlinds. This makes choosing a new skin very easy.

Now, as good as WindowBlinds itself is, there are some bad skins out there and this is where I started to get frustrated with the idea of skinning since I despised most of the skins I looked at. The skins that come with WindowBlinds are very nice, but the whole point of a custom desktop is that you want more, so I looked on the net for what I could find. Skins are graphics and color schemes that artists but together into a package that WindowBlinds uses to draw components on screen, everything from buttons to text. The problem with the skins is that if an artist isn't careful, they can set a color for an object be it text or a button, and in one instance where the two are the same color and draw together, essentially make a rectangle of a solid color. I found this in many skins. In particular, the skin for "Thug Life", one of my favorite LiteStep themes ported to WindowBlinds, drew whole buttons in dark gray, making it impossible to read. You can turn off drawing buttons in the "WB Settings", but that would defeat the purpose of having a skin in the first place. Another gripe I have about skins is that artists seem to assume that users know where the minimize, maximize, and close buttons are, and don't create separate icons for them. Instead, they create three icons, all identical with no way of distinguishing them. It might seem like a neat idea to do that, but it wasn't until I lost the distinction between the three that even after using Windows since version 1.0 (I still have the 5-1/4" floppies) that I asked myself "ok, is minimize on the right or the left?" Then there were one or two schemes that used sound effects. Cute, but I don't like audio intrusions every time I close a window. It boils down to two words: elegance and simplicity. I don't like skins that are too "busy", and I shouldn't have to feel like I'm fighting the skin to get a simple job done. My two favorite skins were Dinks Blue and Saphardana. They were perfectly designed, and I really felt like they were put together with a lot of thought.

So overall, I think I won't be using WindowBlinds on a regular basis. It's excellent in both idea and execution, and it's great to see co-workers say "ooh, how'd you do that?", but in the end it boils down to this - if I have to fight even one aspect of a skin, it's gone. When I have to fight the majority of them, then I wonder why I should install WindowBlinds at all. Still, I'm not faulting WindowBlinds itself unless there was some way of restricting how you can break the user interface and not allow artists to run rampant. The guys at Stardock did an excellent job in writing not only WindowBlinds, but the whole Object Desktop suite of applications. I hate to see it tainted by bad skins. I don't think I'm being unreasonable in my assesment of the skins.

I think that if anyone's even the least bit interested in customizing their desktop, they should run, not walk to the WindowBlinds web site and see for themselves what it offers. Also, check out wincustomize.com for more skins than you can think of downloading in a day. I know, I tried :).

Changing the look of the "Luna" Windows XP theme
Windows XP comes with two other color schemes besides the default "Blue" scheme - Olive and Silver. To change them, go to your "Display" Control Panel either from the Start menu, or by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting "Properties".

Selecting the "Classic" Windows Theme
If you don't like the new Windows XP theme, or any of its variations, you can select the Classic style by going into the "Display" Control Panel and selecting  "Windows Classic Style" from the "Windows and buttons:" drop-down menu.

Adding user icons to the XP Home Edition
Windows XP allows users to have small icons associated with their username. These icons are located in:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures

To add an image, it must be 48x48 pixels, 24-bit color, and in .BMP format. Place the new image in that directory and it will show up in the list of selectable icons.

Changing the desktop backgroup
If you installed the Home edition of XP, chances are you're seeing a desktop image of a rolling green hill with a blue sky. Windows XP comes with many images that you can use on your desktop. There are 20 full-screen images that you can use from tulips to a mountaintop to a desert moon.
The images are located in C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper. If you want to change your desktop image, right-click anywhere on the desktop (don't do it over a window or the taskbar), and click "Properties" and then select the "Desktop" tab. You should see an image of a monitor with your current desktop image inside it. On the bottom of the window is a list of images and patterns to select from. Peruse them and select the one you like the best.
You're not confined to just the images that come with XP. To the right of the list of images is a "Browse" button. You can now point to another directory to find desktop backgroup images you might have somewhere else on your hard drive.

Changing the screen saver to a slide show
By default, you get a very plain screen saver that turns the screen black and places a small "Windows XP" logo in andom spots on the screen at a set interval. If you'd like, you can change the screen saver to show images you have stored on your hard drive. Right-click anywhere on the desktop (don't do it over a window or the taskbar) and click "Properties". Select the "Screen Saver" tab. There's a drop-down menu of the screen savers currently installed on your system. Select "My Pictures Slideshow" and the pictures in your "My Pictures" folder will be used.
If you want to use a different directory, click the "Settings" button to bring up the options window, and click the "Browse" button to change the directory the screen saver should use. Bonus! If you don't want prying eyes to see your desktop once your screen saver starts up and you're away from the computer, click the "On resume, password protect" checkbox on the "Screen Saver" tab. Note: this option will not work if your password is empty.