These tiny toys will add missing functionality or features to your Windows XP installation. While not full fledged applications, these add-ons are pure bang-for-the-buck since they're completely free and almost always very useful. Check out this list of Windows XP PowerToys.
Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP are a set of add-on applications released by Microsoft to fill some tiny gaps in the functionality of the OS or add features which aren't necessarily important for the general public. If you are a power user though, some of these applications can be very useful in performing tasks which would otherwise require you to pay for third-party applications. Here is a list of PowerToys released by Microsoft for Windows XP:
- Color Control Panel Applet
- SyncToy
- RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer
- ClearType Tuner
- HTML Slideshow Wizard
- Open Command Window Here
- Alt-Tab Replacement
- Tweak UI
- Power Calculator
- Image Resizer
- CD Slide Show Generator
- Virtual Desktop Manager
- Taskbar Magnifier
- Webcam Timershot
Color Control Panel Applet: Professional and Hobbyist designers tend to work with multiple color profiles while designing. Changing between these color profiles, setting different profiles for different hardware like printers and monitors, and helping you calibrate your devices to recognize/show colors as per your requirements are some of the features provided by this applet. Once installed, you can find this applet in the Control Panel.
Image Resizer: Forget having to download special tools to resize your images. This PowerToy will allow you to do that from the right-click menu. Just choose one of the preset sizes or specify your own. This tool also resizes multiple images simultaneously.
RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer: If you own an expensive camera, you're surely heard of RAW images. This special image format cannot be edited in a graphics application directly, since you first have to convert/develop the RAW image into a bitmap image format like JPG or BMP. This PowerToy allows you to view thumbnails, previews, metadata and print these RAW images.
CD Slide Show Generator: If you're burning a CD full of images, you can use this slide show generator so that users on other computers will get to view a slideshow when they insert the CD inside their computers. It integrates into XP's CD Burning Wizard to provide this functionality seamlessly. The slideshow CD will work on old Windows computers too.
HTML Slide Show Wizard: If you'd like to put your photographs/images online instead of on a CD, this tool will come in handy. It will generate a complete HTML gallery for you that you can put online without having to code the pages yourself. Very handy!
Continue on to the next page for a description of other Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP.
