Change Desktop Properties:

right click on desktop–>Customize desktop

Change Taskbar Properties:

right click on empty area of taskbar–>click properties

Properties of Taskbar:

1. Lock the taskbar: To lock or unlock the position of taskbar. Unlocked taskbar can be moved or resized.
2. Auto-hide Taskbar: Automatically hides taskbar and shows again when mouse pointer hover
3. keep the taskbar on the top of windows: determines whether the taskbar should be keep upon always or not
4. Group similar taskbar icons: Groups taskbar icons based on their application program.
5. show Quick launch: show/hide quick launch toolbar beside start button to provide easy acces to program.
6. Show the clock: determines whether system clock should be shown or not
7. Hide inactive icons: determines whether notification area to hide inactive icons or not.

Commands in Taskbar Context menu:

1. Toolbars: show/hide specified toolbar on taskbar
2. Cascade Windows: arranges all opened windows one upon another
3. Tile Windows Horizontally/Vertically: arranges all opened windows adjacent either in horizontal or vertical manner
4. Show the Desktop: used to quickly minimize all opened windows.
5. Task Manager: used to show currently running programs and it is useful when some program is not responding (ctrl+alt+delete)

Changing Startmenu Propeties:

1. right click on empty area of taskbar–>click properties–>Startmenu tab
2. to view start menu in WinXP style :select Startmenu–>Customize
3. to view start menu in Classic windows style: select Classic startmenu–>customize