When you install a screensaver it gets into one of these folders. The screensaver simply copies itself over there. Some screensavers have more than one file. Usually they copy other files into a separate folder under your Program Files. But it makes no difference for purpose of our discussion.

The main idea behind all this is that your previous screensaver doesn't disappear. A new screensaver copies itself into one of mentioned folders. But copying is not removing. The previous screensaver is not removed unless you uninstall it manually. That is, if you install two or more screensavers, you can still enjoy all of them.

What exactly should you do to admire all screensavers installed on your system? The answer is simple and you could easily find it yourself by an accident. Try following. Right click anywhere on empty desktop and choose Properties. You will see Display Properties dialog. This dialog has many pages but you need one named Screen Saver. Activate it by clicking on its title. You should see a preview window with last installed screensaver. Now look below that window. There's a drop down list with name of that screensaver. This drop down list is answer to our question. You can select any screensaver installed on your system by clicking on list. After that Windows will launch only screensaver you have selected.

The described solution is perfect if you have two or three favorite screensavers and would like to change between them once in a week. But what if you have five or ten favorite screensavers and want to see them on a day-by-day basis? We will beat this problem next time by introducing a few quite useful tools. They can make switching between screensavers a lot easier and more entertaining. Stay tuned...

Safe mode lets you work with "bare bones" Windows. You have access to your drives, so you can copy or delete files. You can use Registry Editor to inspect or edit Registry. But Control Panel | System | Device Manager will return message "Status is not available when Windows is running in Safe Mode" for properties of every device, so you can't troubleshoot area that causes majority of Windows problems.

4. Step-by-step confirmation performs startup process one step at a time. Before each step a message is displayed on screen letting you select to run or bypass step. This lets you bypass steps that returned "failure" in bootlog.

Windows 95 and 98 may provide you with several additional startup options, for example "Command prompt only", "Previous version of MS-DOS", or "Safe Mode with Network Support". Windows Me does not contain an independent DOS command processor so these modes are not available.

Windows 2000 and XP also provide you with several additional startup options, for example "Enable VGA mode", "Last Known Good Configuration", and "Debugging mode",which can be used for specific troubleshooting purposes.

If Windows freezes up or display becomes unintelligible, you can bypass some of Windows complexity and bloat by choosing an alternate startup mode. One of these alternate startup modes may provide you some clues as to source of problem, or permit you to troubleshoot. ---------------------------------------------------------- Resource Box: Copyright(C)2002 Bucaro TecHelp. To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on Web visit http://bucarotechelp.com To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter Send a blank email to mailto:bucarotechelp-subscribe@topica.com ----------------------------------------------------------