Use Your Own Graphic for Your User Account

This one isn't a Registry hack, but I couldn't resist putting it in here since it's one of the more useful ways to customize the interface. The Windows XP graphic for your user account on the Start Menu may not be to your taste, and your choice of other graphics to display there isn't particularly inspiring, either. After all, not everyone wants to be pictured as a rubber ducky, a snowflake, or a pair of horses.
But you're not limited to XP-supplied pictures for your user account: you can use any picture in .gif, .jpg, .png, or .bmp format. In this hack, I'll show you how to use your own picture.
To change your User Account picture to any one that you want, from Control Panel choose User Accounts, then pick the account you want to change and choose "Change my picture" → "Browse for more pictures." Navigate to the picture you want to use and click on OK. Figure 2-17 shows the screen you'll use to change your picture; it also shows the customized User Account picture I use during the winter holiday season.
If you have a digital camera or scanner attached to your PC, a button will show up on the screen shown in Figure 2-17 that lets you take a picture with the camera, or scan a picture with the scanner, and then immediately use that picture for your user account.
For those interested in saving keystrokes, there's a quicker way to get to the screen letting you customize your picture. From the Windows XP-style Start menu, click on your picture, and the screen appears.
Check back to this space next week for hacks on improving the Context Menu, surfing anonymously (without a trace), and tweaking DNS settings for faster Internet access.