Changing Your Click

How do you click? Do you like to double-click the icons on your desktop? Would you prefer to single-click your icons the same way you click hyperlinks on a Web page? Should the names of your icons be plain text or underlined like a hyperlink?

tip

If your system is running sluggishly, click the Best Performance button to turn off all the resource-draining visual effects.

Windows XP comes from the factory set up for traditional double-clicking. (This is where you single-click an item to select it and double-click to open it.) To change Windows's click mode, just follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button to display the Start menu.
   
   

2. Select Control Panel to open the Control Panel folder.
   
   

3. Select Appearance and Themes, and then Folder Options to display the Folder Options dialog box, shown in Figure 5.6.
   
   

   Figure 5.6. Change Windows XP to single-click operation.

   

   
   

4. Select the General tab.
   
   

5. If you want to use traditional double-clicking, check the Double-Click to Open an Item option. If you want to use Web-like single-clicking, check the Single-Click to Open an Item option. (In this mode, you select an item by hovering your cursor over it and open items with a single click.)
   
   

6. Click OK.
   
   

tip

If you select single clicking, you can choose to underline the titles of all desktop icons or only underline titles when an item is hovered over.