The most stable "Desktop" I ran into years ago (Win95 and before) was Norton Desktop, but of course it wasn't free. There may(?) be something somewhat similar in some of the current "big package" Norton products, but I haven't bought one of the duzitall packs for some time.

TweakUI was/is a Ziff-Davis "goodie" and the current/latest version I think can still be downloaded there, although there's a (fairly modest) fee now - used to be free. Some spinoff and copycat programs have also used the name, so there may be some variation in what you may get from different download sites.

You can also maybe look at the Microsoft PowerToys stuff. They're on the Microsoft site, and are designed by Microsoft people, free downloads; but Mickey considers them "not market worthy" so they're considered a recreational outlet for the hired help and aren't realllllllly Microsoft products. (just so you don't feel guilty)

A lot of stuff you can do in Windows, especially WinXP, without any special tools is not very well documented, and usually gets "discovered," if at all, by user groups. Some of it is publicised well enough to be well known but other good stuff remains pretty arcane.

John