One of my most missed Windows XP utilities since moving to Windows Vista has been the Image Resizer PowerToy released by Microsoft a few years back. They released a whole bunch of PowerToys and this was hands-down the most useful out of them all.

This tool allowed you to select a bunch of images then just right-click on one and select resize to create smaller copies of them alongside the originals. I found this tool extremely useful when wanting to send high-quality photos I’d taken to friends over an Instant Messaging client like MSN.

Windows Vista comes with a handful of simple photo editing tools built into Windows Photo Gallery including tools to fix exposure, colour and red eye and it even comes with a tool to crop your picture, but an image resizing tool is nowhere to be found. Why they would skip such a fundamental photo editing tool I don’t know.

However, a quick search tonight has come up with an application that very closely mimics the operation of the original Microsoft PowerToy, and also adds a couple of extra features on top. The name of this application is VSO Image Resizer and it is available as a free download from their site, VSO Software.

Once installed it really does act just like the Microsoft PowerToy. Select a photo or two, right-click and select VSO Image Resizer from the context-menu then select the size you want and hit “OK”, it will create your resized images alongside the old ones.

Take a look at VSO’s website for some screenshots and more information and of course to download the application.

If you’re still using Windows XP and want the Image Resizer PowerToy you can still find it on Microsoft’s PowerToys page.

When I first updated from my old wired keyboard to a Microsoft Wireless Desktop Elite I experienced a problem where random keys would seem to “stick” and I’d get an unwanted string of repeated characters across the screen.

The problem, it turns out, was having my Key Repeat Delay set too short. Due to my impatient nature I would always turn this to the shortest setting so I wouldn’t have to wait if I wanted a string of repeated keys.
To fix the issue, open up Control Panel (Start -> Control Panel) and open the Keyboard item (Select “Classic View” in the left bar if you have trouble finding it). In the dialog that opens, select the “Speed” tab and move the Repeat Delay slider one notch closer to “Long”. Refer to the following screenshot of the dialog.

I’m really not sure of why having this set short causes keys to get “stuck”. I guess that due to the nature of wireless, some interference may distort the signal and tell the OS that the key has been held down longer than it has. Making the delay a little longer will have it wait out this corrupt signal before leaving a string of characters across the screen.

I’ve been using Windows Vista Ultimate since it was released and ever since installing there had been one small ‘glitch’ that’d been annoying me constantly. Any folder I opened in an Explorer window had a small green arrow coming out of the folder icon for it on its taskbar button. You can see what I mean in the following screenshot.

I purchased a subscription to Microsoft’s TechNet earlier in the year and so decided to make use of it and asked why this was happening in their Managed Newsgroups. Just over 12 hours later I got a solution from a user called “dean-dean”.

“What you’re seeing is normal, depending on whether or not you have the Navigation Pane open or not. If you are using the Pane, you’ll see the green-arrow icon. If you close the Pane (under Organize >Layout), and open a folder, you will see the normal folder icon (without the arrow). In other words, the default command for “no navigation pane” folders is Open, and the default command for “show navigation pane” folders is Explore, (which then uses the green arrow icon in the taskbar, just to let you know you’re Exploring, I guess). Try it both ways…”

Basically what he’s referring to is the “Folders” pane that is in the left bar underneath “Favourite Links”. This pane is collapsed by default but can be expanded by clicking on the “Folders” heading for it at the bottom of the bar. The Folders pane shows a treeview of all the folders just like in Windows XP. Having this pane open changes the icon to the one with the arrow. Closing it reverts the icon back to the normal folder icon. Strange behaviour I know but some people probably find this useful.

So thank you dean-dean, you saved me from almost reformatting just to get rid of that stupid icon.