Screensavers are boring. The default ones that ship with Windows XP either show a static picture or animated text that quickly becomes boring. Would not it be much nicer to spice up the screensaver and create something fantastic, something that everyone else who would see it would want as well ? The Windows XP Video Screensaver is the solution; This freeware is able to play video files and / or audio files that function as a screensaver.

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What do you do if windows pops up saying the operating was aborted because of Error Code 32 ? Not really helpful is it ? Looking it up would be one solution but this is not the best one. A register with all error codes would be helpful and Gregory Brauns Error Messages for Windows is just that. Once installed you can either type in an error code or view the complete list of codes.

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The uninstallation of files does not always seem to work as intended on Windows XP, it is no secret that the system folder grows over time. If you delete a program directory by hand for example all dll files in the system directory remain where they are. There is also the case where you want to uninstall a program and a window pops up asking wether you want to delete a driver which could be used by other programs as well.

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What ? Part 3 ? You said that there would be only two parts in the top xp series. I know that I said that but I wanted to write a third part because of the nice comments that the other two parts recieved. (access part 1 and part 2) This time I will write about the lesser known tools, special purpose ones that most users do not need but some can’t live without. I thought it would be nice to give those tools some exposure as well, they are great and they deserve it.

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Using Windows XP without those nifty little freeware programs is not a good idea. When you run it out of the box it is slow, offers many features no one needs, lacks many that everyone needs and raises privacy concerns that can only be fixed using third party tools. This is basically a listing of programs that I install everytime I setup Windows XP on a computer, the must have freeware utilities in my opinion.

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