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Disabling new program highlights

One of the features I thought was a great idea when I first started to use Windows XP was the program highlight feature. This feature will automatically highlight any new programs that you install so that you can easily find them on the Start Menu the first few times that you want to run the application. After I started to use XP for a few months, I noticed that this feature did not always work correctly. Some programs that I install never get highlighted, although others seem to be highlighted for weeks after I have installed them.

After a while, I decided that I had enough of this highlighting, so I decided to turn the feature off. Thankfully, Microsoft has made turning off this feature fairly simple. Just follow these steps to get rid of those annoying highlights:

1. Right-click the Start button and select Properties.

2. Click the top Customize button for the Start panel.

3. Click the Advanced tab.

4. Uncheck Highlight Newly Installed Programs.

5. Click OK to save your changes.

6. Click OK once more to close the Properties window.

Now you will not have to worry about the programs that sometimes seem to be highlighted randomly.

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