FIFA 09

The game is a massive 6GB installation on the PC, after which I had to please the EA DRM gods, first by entering the license key and then in the form of online activation. After successfully installing and activating the game, getting it to start was anything but easy, and it took several tries before the game authenticated and validated the installation online. All this happened without any messages or visual cues on the screen; the only way to get the game running was to repeatedly hit the FIFA 09 icon till the game actually ran – not the best way to start.

Having played FIFA 09 on the PS3 and well as the Xbox360, I was expecting something similar on the PC, if not better. However, as soon as I fired up the PC version, I was bitterly surprised to see that the game interface and controls are like the PS2 port of this year. This means no custom formation or team tactics at the team management screen. In my experience, the only way to use custom formations was to first create one at the main screen and then use it at the team management screen. The similarities with the PS2 port further extended to the actual matches, as I discovered the controls are also significantly different, which all but nullified my past experience and familiarity with the game on the current generation of consoles.

Speed up the Start Menu

The default speed of the Start Menu is pretty slow, but you can fix that by editing a Registry Key. Fire up the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ MenuShowDelay

By default, the value is 400. Change this to a smaller value, such as 0, to speed it up.

Speed up the Start Menu (Part two)

If your confounded by the slow speed of the Start Menu, even after using the tip above, then you might try the following: Navigate to Display Properties then Appearance then Advanced and turn off the option titled Show menu shadow . You will get much better overall performance.

Add album art to any music folder

One of the coolest new features in Windows XP is its album thumbnail generator, which automatically places the appropriate album cover art on the folder to which you are copying music (generally in WMA format). But what about those people that have already copied their CDs to the hard drive using MP3 format? You can download album cover art from sites such as cdnow.com or amguide.com, and then use the new Windows XP folder customize feature to display the proper image for each folder. But this takes time--you have to manually edit the folder properties for every single folder--and you will lose customizations if you have to reinstall the OS. There's an excellent fix, however.

When you download the album cover art from the Web, just save the images as folder.jpg each time and place them in the appropriate folder. Then, Windows XP will automatically use that image as the thumbnail for that folder and, best of all, will use that image in Windows Media Player for Windows XP (MPXP) if you choose to display album cover art instead of a visualization. And the folder customization is automatic, so it survives an OS reinstallation as well. Your music folders never looked so good!


Album cover art makes music folder thumbnails look better than ever!