At work I don't have a fixed Windows environment. So every time I need one I get a newly imaged machine and need to reconfigure it. These are the steps I always go through to configure my Windows XP environment to prepare it for development work.

• Create an OldIcons folder on the desktop and dump all icons into it (excluding MyComputer and the Trash). Icons such as IE which can't get moved get deleted.

• Unlock the taskbar, add the quicklaunch toolbar.

• Download a zip with essential utilities and unzip it to c:\mine. Make a link from c:\mine to the Desktop. The zip includes a subset of a larger set of free Windows software I normally keep with me.

• Open the start menu, right-click and configure it.
  • Check show clock
  • Uncheck hide inactive icons
  • Customize start menu
    • display admin tools
    • display control panel and my computer as menus
    • hide everything else

• Customize a command prompt icon and put it in the quick launcher.
  • Increase buffer size to 999
  • Turn on quick edit and insert modes
  • Lucida Console font, yellow screen text

• Change the default view to List, edit the folder options from the Tools menu - view everything, hide nothing.

• Run and configure Process Explorer (already included in the zip). Include username, handles, threads, working set size, remove company, description, lower pane.