Windows XP Help!!! *Resolved*

[mendhak]

Alright, my brand new laptop's here, so congratulate me on that!

In accordance with my luck, I'm having a bunch of problems already. The people who sold me this notebook installed Windows XP Home version on this, and to tell you the truth, this is the absolute crappiest operating system I've ever seen. I don't have the funds to buy Windows 2000 right now, so I'd like to ask you guys a couple questions, which would really help me:


1) I've heard that this godawful skin on Windows XP can be removed, giving it the look and feel of Windows 2000. Is this true? If so, how can I go about doing this?

2) In Windows 98, I had "Network Neighborhood". What do I have here?

3) I want to make the name of this machine "FROG", and in Win98 I just had to right click on Network Neighborhood, choose properties, and simply rename it. How can I name this machine in Windows XP?

4) Why is it that everytime I open up a folder (or anything for that matter), I have a whole list of "user friendly" options on the left side? I don't want that. How do I get rid of it?

5) Is there anything about Windows XP that I should know which will become an annoyance for me later on?

Hope you guys can answer these questions (any).

Thanks.