Options
Select the ShellToys XP item from the Start menu, or ShellToys XP Settings from the ShellToys menu, and choose the Options page.

Limit the number of items displayed on Zip/Jar/Cab and Folder Contents menus to...
The Zip/Jar/Cab Contents and Folder Contents tools display the contents of an archive or folder when right-clicked. If an archive or folder contains a very large number of files, the less stable Windows operating systems (Windows 98, 98 SE, Me) may crash. In addition (on any operating system) displaying thousands of items on a menu is impractical.

By checking this box, you can restrict the number of items that ShellToys will try to display on these menus. It's recommended that you set a maximum of around 300-500 to avoid crashes on the weaker systems, but a maximum of around 100 is more practical for any system. The Zip Contents (or similar) item on the menu will always tell you how many files the archive contains. We set this figure to 100 when ShellToys is first installed. When reinstalling or upgrading, your chosen setting will be retained.

Display image preview on menu for Image Size
If checked, the Image Size tool adds an extra flyout menu which displays a scaled (if necessary) version of the selected image and a 'Preview Image' menu item. You can click either the 'Preview Image' item or the image-preview itself to view the image at full size. If this option isn't checked, Image Size doesn't display a preview of the image on the menu, and you can click the 'Image Size' item to view the image at full size.

Display an icon beside the ShellToys XP menu
If checked, an icon will be placed beside the ShellToys XP menu item.

Display icons beside file and folder items
If checked, file and folder icons will be shown beside items on the Folder Contents, Zip/Jar/Cab Contents, New From Template and Go To Folder menus. If you regularly use ShellToys XP in a file manager other than Windows Explorer and the text displayed on these menus is missing or corrupted, removing the checkmark from this option should fix the problem.

Play media files automatically
If checked, MP3 and WMA files will play automatically when opened in the internal audio player by the Media Info tool. Remove the checkmark if you prefer that files do not auto-play.

Open In Notepad
These options let you change the action taken when you use the Open In Notepad tool. If you'd prefer that a different application opened the selected file, follow these steps:

  1. Check the Enable box.
  2. Click the Browse button to locate the program you want to use instead of Notepad.
  3. Type a friendly name for the program in the Caption box. This is the name that will appear on the menu.
Note that some programs don't support this option (although most do these days) - it's up to the program's developer whether to support file parameters. Another difference is that while Notepad will cheerfully try to open any type of file, many other programs check the file type and refuse to touch anything they don't recognize.

To revert to using Notepad, simply uncheck the Enable box.


After making all the changes you need on the pages of this window, click OK to confirm.