Windows Tweaks Tips

Win XP Tweaks and Tips

Created By:- Roshan Pratihast

Lock your folder without any software Suppose you want to lock the folder movies in d: which has the path D:\movies.In the same drive create a text file and type ren movies movies.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} Now save this text file as loc. bat Create another text file and type in it ren movies.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} movies Now save this text file as key. bat you can see 2 batch files loc and key. Press loc and the folder movies will change to control panel and you cannot view its contents. Press key and you will get back your original folder. How to Hide the drives(c,d....etc) in MY COMPUTER This is a great trick you can play on your friends. To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer. 1.Go to start->run.Type regedit.Now go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Now in the right pane create a new DWORD item and name it NoDrives(it is case sensitive). Now modify it's value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal) .Now restart your computer. So, now when you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown(all gone...). To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item that you created.Again restart your computer.You can now see all the drives again. Magic........lol.... Way to get xp product code from cd It really works There is a way to get the xp product code from the cd just explorer the cd then open the folder I386 then open the file UNATTEND.TXT and scroll down to the last line and it goes to show what dumbasses microsoft are u have a product code. Have fun u never need to search for a product code for xp again...!!!! Hack Admin Password From User Mode Disclaimer: Use this article for eductational purpose ONLY. Follow these steps: 1. Open command prompt (Start->Run->cmd), 2. Enter the following command, then press ENTER 3. Enter the followin command, then press ENTER: compmgmt.msc This should open the computer management console. 4. Go to local users & groups->users. Right click on any user and select "set password". If you get a "access denied" do the following:

start>run>cmd then use following commands 1) net user test /add (this command will make test named user) 2) net localgroup administrators test /add (this command will make test user as administrators rights) and use net user command to reset your admin. Password Speed up your internet by 20% Microsoft reserves 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes like Windows Updates and interrogating your PC etc You can get it back: Click Start then Run and type "gpedit.msc" without quotes.This opens the group policy editor. Then go to: Local Computer Policy then Computer Configuration then Administrative Templates then Network then QOS Packet Scheduler and then to Limit Reservable Bandwidth. Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab i.e."By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default." So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO. This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.It works on Win 2000 as well. How to make your Desktop Icons Transparent How to make your Desktop Icons Transparent Go to ontrol Panel > System, > Advanced > Performance area > Settings button Visual Effects tab "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the Desktop" Speed up browsing of Windows 2000 & XP machines Here's a great tip to speed up your browsing of Windows XP machines. Its actually a fix to a bug installed as default in Windows 2000 that scans shared files for Scheduled Tasks. And it turns out that you can experience a delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network because Windows 2000 is using the extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Note that though the fix is originally intended for only those affected, Windows 2000 users will experience that the actual browsing speed of both the Internet & Windows Explorers improve significantly after applying it since it doesn't search for Scheduled Tasks anymore. Here's how : Open up the Registry and go to : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace Under that branch, select the key : {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF} and delete it. This is key that instructs Windows to search for Scheduled Tasks. If you like you may want to

export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary. This fix is so effective that it doesn't require a reboot and you can almost immediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes. Secrets Behind The Run Registry key Secrets Behind The Run Registry key You can start or stop programs from executing at bootup by adding or deleting them to/from the run Keys in the Registry. Windows loads programs to start in the following order; Program listed in the Local Machine hive, then the Current User hive, then theWin.ini Run= and Load = lines and then finally programs in your Start Up folder. To add or remove programs in the Registry.Open RegEdit. .Go to the desired Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Micrsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices Add a new String Value and name it anything you like. For the value data, enter the path and executable for the program you want to run. By adding the value to the KEY_CURRENT_USER hive instead allows the program to start only when that user is logged on. If you add the value to the RunOnce key the program will run once and be removed from the key by Windows. Change “AM” and “PM” Change “AM” and “PM” Displayed Near the System Clock to Any Text You want You can add your name or anything you like that consists of 8 characters or less. This will replace the AM or PM next to the system time. Do not use this tip if you are using any software during the trial period as it will corrupt the trial license. Open the RegEdit and navigate to the following registry key: KEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\International. Add two new String values, "s1159" and "s2359". Most probably those keys will be already present. If it is not there then create them. Right click the value name and modify. Enter anything you like up to 8 characters. If you enter two different values when modifying, you can have the system tray display the two different values in the AM and PM Create a drive menu for My Computer Windows XP makes it easy for you to configure My Computer so it works like a menu, with each drive listed as a menu item. Here's how. Right-click the Start button, and select Properties.Click Customize, which is adjacent to the Start Menu radio button, and select Advanced. Scroll through the Start Menu Items list box until you see My Computer. Select Display As A Menu, and click OK twice. Now, when you select My Computer from the Start menu, you'll see a menu of individual drives. To access the contents of that drive, just select the drive letter from the menu Add a program to the Right Click Menu Add a program to the Right Click Menu So as to Use it Everywhere by just doing a Right-Clicking When you right click on any folder, you can have access to that application, the same as using Sent To and New. Open Registry Editor. Navigate and choose: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell. Add a new Key to the "Shell" Key and name it anything you like. Give it a default value that will appear when you right click a folder, i.e. NewKey (use an "&" without the quotes, in front of any character and it will allow you to use the keyboard). Navigate and click on the registry key

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\NewKey. Now you have to add a New Key named Command and Set the (Default) value of the application you want to run. For example: c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe (Include the full path) Turn Off Window Animation You can shut off the animation displayed when you minimize and maximize Windows. Open Registry Editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control panel \Desktop\WindowMetrics. Create a new string value "MinAnimate". Set the value data of 0 for Off or 1 for On Remove the Desktop Item Icons Remove the Desktop Item Icons (My Computer, Recycle Bin…) Run the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE \Microsoft \Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace. Here's where you'll find various special desktop icons. They're not listed by name, but instead by CLSID. Check the tip number 5 for the CLSIDs of common desktop objects. To remove an icon from the desktop, simply delete the key and then exit the Registry, go to your desktop, and press F5 to refresh the screen. If it still doesn’t work, system needs a restart. Un-install Wordpad, Automatic Update,pinball etc [grey]Un-install Wordpad, Automatic Update, Messenger, Pinball etc Use Notepad or another text editor to open the Setup Information file, sysoc.inf, which is generally found in the C:\WINDOWS\INF folder. For this folder to be visible, you will have to enable hidden folders by going into Windows Explorer and choosing Tools Folder Options View Show Hidden Files and Folders. The lines in the file follow the format: program=program.dll,OcEntry,program.inf,,numeral The Pinball game entry, as an example, looks like this: Pinball=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,pinball.inf,HIDE,7. Remove the word HIDE from the entry that refers to the component you want to remove. Save the sysoc.inf file, and run the Windows Components Wizard under Add/Remove programs. The component will now show up in the wizard. Remove it as you would any other component.[grey]

Add “Copy To Folder” and “Move To folder" Add “Copy To Folder” and “Move To Folder” in a Right-Click Menu Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers. Shellex. It tells you it's a shell extension key that lets you customize the user shell or the interface. Create a new key called Copy To. Set the value to {C2FBB630-2971-11d1A18C-00C04FD75D13}. Create another new key called Move To. Set the value to {C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}. Exit the Registry. The changes should take effect immediately. The Copy To Folder and Move To Folder options will appear. When you right-click a file and choose one of the options, you'll be able to move or copy the file using a dialog box. Tune Your Browsing- Tricks on DNS By default, XP caches negative entries for five minutes. Negative entries are those in which

no match was found, and you end up getting a "Cannot find server or DNS" error in your browser.After five minutes, they're cleared from your cache. But if you'd like, you can force XP not to cache these negative entries so that you'll never run into this problem. Run the Registry Editor and go to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM \CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters. Create a new DWORD value with the name NegativeCacheTime and give it a value of 0. The DWORD determines how much time, in seconds, to keep negative entries in the DNS cache. If you like, you can have the entries stay alive for one second by giving the DWORD a value of 1.After you're done editing, exit the Registry. To make the change take effect, restart your computer, or flush your cache by issuing the command ipconfig /flushdns at a command prompt. You can also use the Registry to control the amount of time positive entries are kept in the DNS cache. By default, they are kept for 24 hours. To change the default, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameter again and create a DWORD value called MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit. (If it's already present, just edit the value.) For the value, enter the amount of time you want the entry to remain, in seconds, making sure to use Decimal as the base Customize the “Send To” Option Adding new locations and programs and taking away existing ones that you never use from this menu is very simple. It's easy to hack. Go to C:\Documents and Settings\ \Send To, where is your username with which you login to your system. The folder will be filled with shortcuts to all the locations you find on your “Send To” context menu. To remove an item from the Send To menu, delete the shortcut from the folder. To add an item to the menu, add a shortcut to the folder by highlighting the folder, choosing File New Shortcut, and follow the instructions for creating a shortcut. The new setting will take effect immediately. SURF ORKUT WHEN IT IS BLOCKED www.mathtunnel.com www.gravitywars.com www.kproxy.com www.calculatepie.com http://www.anonymizer.com/ Open the above sites and just type in http://www.orkut.com in companies or colleges where its blocked n enjoy Block USB in Windows Xp 1. Start -> Run -> regedit ->Find the Hkey_Local_Machine>System>Current Control set>Services>USBStor. Look at the right pain and find out the Start where value of the start would be 0000000(3) edit the value by double mouse click and type 4 and save. 2. Restart ur pc

Makin Firefox faster.... 1. Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs – true network.http.max-connections – 48 network.http.max-connections-per-server – 16 network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy – 8 network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server – 4 network.http.pipelining – true network.http.pipelining.maxrequests – 100 network.http.proxy.pipelining – true network.http.request.timeout – 300 Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves. If you're using a brodband connection you'll load pages 2-25 times faster now. Remove virus manually..... Cuz some virus can't be removed by using any anti-virus. Even NOD32 is a best anti I have ever found but on some occasions it failed to remove those virus which is been discused here. I will show u guys how to treat them.... here u go....... 1. RAVMON.EXE Ravmon is a highly risky worm when it hurts ur system then it creates some kind of chinese writen instead of Open and explorer. This can be removed by this Steps: ==== 1- Open "Windows File Explorer". 2- Goto Tools --> Options --> Folder Options. 3- Check "Hidden Files and Folders". 4- Click OK. 5- Double Click "My Computer" and then open C Drive. 6- See files named "RavMon.exe" and "autorun.exe". 7- Shift+Del those files. 8- Repeat 6th and 7th step for all your drives. 9- Open c:\windows and see SVHOST or SVCHOST written in CAPS and Shift+Del this file as well. 10- This is Done but you can search "RavMon" in registry editor for double check and if you find that anywhere in registry simply delete it.. 11- After that restart your PC.

2. Autorun.inf Autorun.inf itself is a simple text-based configuration file that tells the operating system which executable to start, which icon to use, and which additional menu commands to make available. But sometimes this creates the big problem. Follow the steps to get the rid of it. Firstly go to Tools> Folder Options> View>Show hidden files and folders option check this before proceding on the steps STEPS ==== 1. Go to Start-->run and type cmd then click ok 2. If u want to remove the infected file from c drive then type C: in command prompt and press enter 3. Type autorun.inf and press enter autorun.inf file is opened 4. Now type "attrib autorun.inf -s -h -r" and press enter 5. Now delete the file by typing "del autorun.inf" and press enter 6.Now type autorun.inf and press enter now, u will find no infected autorun.inf file. 7. same way do for all other drives then restart ur pc Faster Network Access When you use My Network Places to browse for other machines on your network, Windows XP first checks for the scheduled tasks on the target machine before listing the shared resources present on the computer. We can do a registry hack to avoid this delay. Invoke the Registry Editor by typing regedit at the command line. Open the following Registrykey:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Explorer\RemoteComputer\NameSpace. Delete the following key {D6277990-4C6A-11CF8D87-00AA0060F5BF}. Now close the Registry and reboot.

Switch to Windows' basic search tool Open the Registry Editor. Now Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software \Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer \ Cabinet State. Go to Edit New String Value. Name the new value. Double-click the new value, type no in the Value Data text box, and click OK. Close the Registry Editor, and restart the system. To switch back to the Search Companion, just go back to the Registry Editor, and change the Value Data to yes. All About Your Recycle Bin Add rename to the menu: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ShellFolder

"Attributes"=hex:50,01,00,20 Add delete to the menu: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ShellFolder "Attributes"=hex:60,01,00,20 Add rename and delete to the menu: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ShellFolder "Attributes"=hex:70,01,00,20 Restore the recycle bin to Windows defaults including un-deleting the icon after deletion: Restore the icon. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer \Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} @="Recycle Bin" Reset Windows defaults. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ShellFolder "Attributes"=hex:40,01,00,20 Other edits to the recycle bin icon: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ShellFolder "Attributes"=hex:40,01,01,20 ... standard shortcut arrow "Attributes"=hex:40,01,02,20 ... a different shortcut arrow "Attributes"=hex:40,01,04,20 ... and still another shortcut arrow "Attributes"=hex:40,01,08,20 ... make it look disabled (like it's been cut) For Windows XP and 2000 you have to also edit the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID\{645 F F040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} Display Your Own Error Messages When you try to delete Microsoft Outlook from the desktop, you get the warning message "The Outlook Desktop icon provides special functionality and we recommend that you do not remove it." If you like, you can edit that message to display whatever you want. In the CLSID's subkeyfor example, {00020D75-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} for Microsoft Outlook you'll find the value Removal Message. Edit this value to whatever text you want, and your warning message will appear whenever someone tries to delete the icon. This is just an example. Follow the suit for customizing the error messages for other icons too! Improved Use of System cache Open registry by going to START-RUN and entering regedit. Navigate to the registry key that is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager \MemoryManagement . Look for value of "LargeSystemCache". If available, do one of the following: If the computer is a workstation, set its value to 0. If it is a server set a value of 1. Clean Up the “Open With” Menu When you right-click a file, you see the menu option “Open With”, which provides a list of programs for you to open the file with. You can clean up the Open With list by using a Registry hack. Run the Registry Editor (Start Run Regedit) and go to the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer \FileExts. Look for the file extension whose Open With list you want to edit and find its OpenWithList subkey. The subkey will have an alphabetical list of String values. Open each value and examine the value data. It will be the name of one of the programs on the Open With list . Delete any entry you don't want to appear. Don't delete the value data; delete the String value listing. In other words, if the value data for the String value is Winword.exe, delete the entire string rather than just the value data. Exit the Registry.

Remove Menu Items from Explorer Explorer's menus can get messy at times. But you can use a Registry hack to clean it up a bit by removing some items from the Tools menu. Map Network Drive, Disconnect Network Drive etc can be stopped from displaying. Run the Registry Editor and go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Create the following DWORD entry and set the values correspondingly. If the values are already there, then just check the values: NoNetConnectDisconnect. 1 NoAutoUpdate 1 NoNetHood 1 NoOnlinePrintsWizard 1 NoPublishingWizard 1 NoWebServices 1 NoWelcomeScreen 1 NoInternetOpenWith 1 NoWindowsUpdate 1 Restart your computer and see the explorer window with changes. Command Prompt on Right-Clicking a folder With this tip, you can right-click any folder in your windows and open a command prompt at that folder. It is a very old hack and I am mentioning it here because of compulsion.Run the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Classes/Folder/Shell. Create a new key called Command Prompt. For the default value, enter whatever text you want to appear when you right-click a folder.. Create a new key beneath the Command Prompt key called Command. Set the default value to Cmd.exe /k pushd %L. That value will launch Cmd.exe, which is the XP command prompt. The “/k” switch puts the prompt into interactive mode. That is, it lets you issue commands from the command prompt; the command prompt isn't being used to issue only a single command and then exit. The “pushd” command stores the name of the current directory, and “%L” uses that name to start the command prompt at it. Exit the Registry. Don’t want the “Open With” Option..? Each application's subkey in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications controls whether that particular application will show up on the dialog box. If you want to ban a particular program from the Open With dialog box, look for the application's subkey underneath HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications, add a String value named NoOpenWith, and leave the value blank. There will be no more “Open With” menu for that item. Activate “ClearType” for Better Display Microsoft states, “With Windows XP, ClearType delivers improved font display resolution over traditional anti-aliasing. It improves readability on color LCD monitors with a digital interface, such as those in laptops and high-quality flat desktop displays. Readability on CRT screens can also be somewhat improved. Open the Registry Editor and navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/ControlPanel/Desktop. Right Click on the right window pane and create a string value with the name FontSmoothing and set a value to 2.Once again right click and this time create a Dword with the name FontSmoothingType. Set the value to 2. Exit Registry and Reboot. This will enable the ClearType for all users on the computer. Activate/De-activate Intelligent menu When the Intelligent Menu is activated in Internet Explorer, a message pops up that states it

can be turned of using the Internet Options, but while using the Classic Windows mode, that option is unavailable. Create the following keys if necessary. Most probably the keys will be found in those locations. For Internet Explorer's Favorites folder: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main] change: "FavIntelliMenus"="yes" to "FavIntelliMenus"="no" For the Start Menu, and sub-menus: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanc ed] change: "IntelliMenus"=dword:00000001 to "IntelliMenus"=dword:00000000 Speed up your browsing of Windows 2000 & XP machin Here's a great tip to speed up your browsing of Windows XP machines. Its actually a fix to a bug installed as default in Windows 2000 that scans shared files for Scheduled Tasks. And it turns out that you can experience a delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network because Windows 2000 is using the extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Note that though the fix is originally intended for only those affected, Windows 2000 users will experience that the actual browsing speed of both the Internet & Windows Explorers improve significantly after applying it since it doesn't search for Scheduled Tasks anymore. Here's how : Open up the Registry and go to : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace Under that branch, select the key : {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF} and delete it. This is key that instructs Windows to search for Scheduled Tasks. If you like you may want to export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary. This fix is so effective that it doesn't require a reboot and you can almost immediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes. 20 Hidden Things! Useful Windows XP Tips, Tweaks, Walkthroughs and Shortcuts :) 1. Total Uptime: It boasts how long it can stay up. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type ’systeminfo’. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type ’systeminfo > info.txt’. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. 2. Delete Files Immediately: You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the

Start menu, select Run… and type ‘gpedit.msc’; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care — some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. 3. Lock XP: You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same. 4. Remove System Software: XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can make it show everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be the software and you

can now uninstall it. ¤L¤vë §h¤¤t뮤 5. Interesting New Commands: For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ’schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options. 6. IP Version 6 Support: XP has IP version 6 support — the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type ‘ipv6 install’ into Run… (it’s OK, it won’t ruin your existing network setup) and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t worry. 7. Task Termination: You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system. 8. ZIP Files as Folders: XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files alone by typing ‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can change things back by typing ‘regsvr32 zipfldr.dll’. 9. XP Has ClearType: XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology — but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second dropdown menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2. ¤L¤vë §h¤¤t뮤 10. Remote Assistance: You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like

192.168.1.10. Replace this with your friend’s real IP address — they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com — and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer. 11. User Task Management: You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As… and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects. 12. Disable Default Notifications: Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might go insane before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0. 13. Faster Startup: You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run… from the start menu and type ‘control userpasswords2', which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use. ¤L¤vë §h¤¤t뮤 14. Delete Temp Internet Files Automatically: Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options… and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed. 15. Network Activity Light: XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can’t see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You’ll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic. 16. Speed-Up Your Start Menu: The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0. 17. Batch Rename Files: You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By… Show In Groups. 18. Album Cover Arts: Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn’t, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it. 19. Handy Shortcut Keys:

Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up

the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons. ¤L¤vë §h¤¤t뮤 20. Windows File Protection: Windows XP secretly KNOWS that the average user has no idea what they are doing. Therefore, it doesn’t let you do really stupid things like deleting the windows directory (at least not without spending several hours convincing it that you REALLY want to do this). Hide Your Files In A JPEG Well, did you know you could hide your files in a JPEG file? For this, you will only need to download WinRAR. You just need to have a little knowledge about Command Prompt and have WinRAR installed. Ok, lets begin… 1. Gather all the files that you wish to hide in a folder anywhere in your PC (make it in C:\hidden RECOMMENDED). 2. Now, add those files in a RAR archive (e.g. secret.rar). This file should also be in the same directory (C:\hidden). 3. Now, look for a simple JPEG picture file (e.g. logo.jpg). Copy/Paste that file also in C:\hidden. 4. Now, open Command Prompt (Go to Run and type ‘cmd‘). Make your working directory C:\hidden. 5. Now type: “COPY /b logo.jpg + secret.rar output.jpg” (without quotes) - Now, logo.jpg is the picture you want to show, secret.rar is the file to be hidden, and output.jpg is the file which contains both. :D 6. Now, after you have done this, you will see a file output.jpg in C:\hidden. Open it (double-click) and it will show the picture you wanted to show. Now try opening the same file with WinRAR, it will show the hidden archive . Registered Owner & Organization Setting When you right click on My Computer then Click on properties , you will see there Registered to: registered owner registered Organization serial numbers it can not be change from here and cannot delete too.... it can be done by Registry easily ...just follow the steps : Open the registry, START --> RUN --> Type 'Regedit' Locate the registry key as below : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE --> SOFTWARE --> Microsoft --> Windows NT --> CurrentVersion On the right panel you will see two keys named, 'RegisteredOwner' & 'RegisteredOrganization'....change these values as you want.... (The above given key is for Windows NT/2000/XP users) for Windows 98/ME Users

Windows 98/ME users follow the steps :HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE --> SOFTWARE --> Microsoft --> Windows --> CurrentVersion now follow the above same steps..... Disable CD Auto Run Start regedit and navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet \Services\Cdrom. Now Create a new registry key of type Dword and name it AutoRun. If the key is already there, just set the value to 0 in order to disable AutoRun. To enable it, change the value to 1. Once it is done, Exit Registry and Reboot. CD Writer is Not Fast Enough..? Open My Computer, right-click the CD Drive icon, and then click Properties. Click the Recording tab to display the settings. Under "Select a write Speed" Choose the "Fastest". If still having a problem, then choose a speed like 18x or a medium speed. This will resolve almost all the issues. A shortcut to “Sleep” well Create your own Sleep button by creating a shortcut on your desktop. In the previous PDf release, I discussed about Shutdown and re-start shortcuts. Now it’s time for a sleep. Rightclick on the desktop. Select New Shortcut. Type rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState in the text box as it is. Click Next. Type Sleep in the text box and click Finish. Now when you click the Sleep icon, Windows XP will put the computer into either Stand By or Hibernate mode depending on how the “When I Press The Sleep Button” On My Computer setting is configured on the Advanced tab of the Power Options Properties dialog box. Disable the Windows XP Startup Screen If you want to see what goes behind the Windows Startup Screen, you have to disable the Windows boot screen. Right click “My Computer”. Select “Properties”. Select the “Advanced” tab. In the “Startup and Recovery” section, click “Settings”. In the “System Startup” section, click Edit to open the boot.ini file in Notepad. You will see a line that looks similar to the one below: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect To disable the Startup Screen, change the line as below: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /sos. Note that there is a space between 'fastdetect' and '/sos'. Close Notepad, click Yes when Notepad asks if you want to save your changes. Exit System Properties. Reboot computer and the Startup Screen will be gone. Hidden User Account An account that is normally displayed on the Welcome screen can be hidden from view. To log on using the account it's necessary to use the Log On To Windows dialog box similar to the one in Windows 2000. Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogo n\SpecialAccounts\UserList. Right Click on the right side window and create a new DWord value. Name the key, the name of account to be hidden. For example, If I wish to hide an account called “Sandeep”, then I name the key as “Sandeep”. Set the value 0 to hide that account. Now exit the registry editor and reboot. To display the account at a later period, visit the same key and give the value 1. Now you have an account hidden.

Increase Internet Download Connections This trick increase Simultaneous Internet Download Connections and increases the number of allowed simultaneous connections to a higher number. The default value is only five connections. Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings. Right click on the window pane and create a DWord key with the name “MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server” as it is without quotes. Set the value to a higher number like 0000000a. Note that they are zeros and not alphabet ‘O’. Right click on the window pane and create another DWord key with the name “MaxConnectionsPerServer”. No quotes please. Set the value to a higher number like 0000000a. Note that they are zeros and not alphabet ‘O’. Remove Invalid Entries from os selection menu Remove Invalid Entries from Operating System Selection Menu A common complaint after reinstalling XP is the appearance of a boot screen asking the user to select the copy of XP that is to be loaded, even when there is only one copy of XP on the system. XP provides a method that eliminates the danger of manual editing of boot.ini by using the System Configuration Utility. Click Start > Run .Type msconfig and click OK to open System Configuration Utility. Select the tab labeled BOOT.INI. Click the button labeled. Check All Boot Paths. A dialog box will open detailing the location of any invalid operating system locations. Confirm you want to remove the entry and reboot the system. Avoid Reactivation on XP Reinstall On activating your copy of Windows XP operating system, a file gets updated in windows /system32 directory. It is called wpa.dbl. If you need to reinstall, take a backup of this file and once you have reinstalled the OS, just copy it back to the same directory. This way you can avoid reactivation hurdles. Do not let Regedit remember last change You might have noticed that whenever you open up Regedit, you can see the screen opened up with the key you last changed. This is because regedit remembers the last changed key. You can make it forget at your wish. You be the master. To do this trick, you'll need admin privileges. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Regedit and look for the value LastKey. Double-click it and clear the string. Then right-click the Regedit key (in the left-hand pane) and select Permissions.Set Permissions to Deny for any/all users/group. Hide All Icons in System Tray Run the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/ Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer. Create a new DWORD called NoTrayItemsDisplay. Assign it a value of 1. (0= keep the icons displayed.) Exit the Registry and reboot. Disable the Win Key in a Keyboard If you do not have a windows enabled keyboard you can disable its use. Navigate to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\KeyboardLayout. Look for value of "Scancode Map". Its binary data. Set its value to "00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 5B E0 00 00 5C E0 00 00 00 00" to disable the win key. Please be cautious while entering this lengthy key.

Disable Automatic Modem Connections at startup Disable Automatic Modem Connections at Startup The system may try to initiate an Internet connection at Windows startup or at the start of many applications. This setting can be disabled by a small registry hack. Navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Ole. Create a new String value, or modify the existing value, called EnableRemoteConnect and edit the value to “Yes” or “No” accordingly. Yes = enable automatic connections and No = disabled. Customize the HTML error pages Some times, when you type a webpage address you might see an error page. A very common error page that we come across is “Page not found” page. These error messages do not come from any server. They are all stored in a DLL file in our system itself. The name of the dll file is SHDOCLC.DLL file. If you don’t trust me then copy the following address and paste it in your IE address bar and see for yourself. res://c:\\Windows\\System32\\SHDOCLC.DLL/servbusy.htm Now replace servbusy.htm with other html files given below . http_400.htm, http_404.htm, http_406.htm, http_410.htm, http_500.htm, http_501.htm, http_gen.htm, servbusy.htm, syntax.htm, navcancl.htm, offcancl.htm, policyerror.htm, policylooking.htm, policynone.htm, policysyntaxerror.htm, privacypolicy.dlg, preview.dlg, printerr.htm, printnf.htm, printnof.htm, printunk.htm, wcee.htm, ietext.bmp, ietext256.bmp, world.bmp, world256.gif, ie.gif, ie256.gif, orgfav.dlg, about.dlg, analyze.dlg, bidifind.dlg, docppg.ppg, error.dlg, find.dlg, findic.dlg, ieerror.dlg, imageppg.ppg, orgfav.dlg, and pstemplate.dlg (Do you trust me now???) If you need to customize these messages, write an error message and store it somewhere on your hard disk. We can replace all these HTML error pages with our own. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\AboutURLs. You can change entries associated with various keys and provide complete path name to your own custom html file. Where is the Conformation Message? When you first choose to download a file in Internet Explorer, you receive a Confirm File Open dialog box. The "Always ask before opening this type of file" check box in this dialog box is selected by default. But if you clear that check box, the registry entry for this setting is changed and you do not see the Confirm File Open dialog box in subsequent download sessions. Instead, Internet Explorer automatically opens files instead of downloading them. If you regret the action and you want the message box back, here is a way: go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile and modify the third octet for the EditFlags value in the value from 01 to 00. Remove “Log Off” from the Start Menu To remove the Log Off line on your Start menu do the following registry hack. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Create a new DWORD value and name it NoLogOff. Now add the value 1 to the key. You need to logoff or reboot for the settings to take effect. Unable to Open Certain Web Sites? Try These Steps From the IE window, go to Tools Internet Options Advanced and uncheck the option Enable third party browsing extensions. Now restart IE. Go to Start Run and type regsvr32 actxprxy.dll (follow next bullet point too) Go to Start Run and type regsvr32 shdocvw.dll and reboot. Open Tools Internet Options Privacy tab and put one of these web sites in the list

which can be located by clicking the Sites button. Try putting the web site in the "Trusted Zone" and if this fixes the problem, you can begin to diagnose cookie/script problems with that site and your Internet zone settings. If you are a dial-up user and your ISP have more than one local number for dialup, remove the primary number that is dialing up first and use the secondary dialup number. Clear the checkbox for Negotiate multilink for single link connections under the PPP settings. A file in your Windows folder called 'hosts' (no extension) may have an incorrect IP address for the page. To find out, open Windows Explorer, select your C:\Windows folder, and look in the right pane for a hosts file. If you can't find it in your Windows folder, this isn't your problem. If you do find a hosts file, open it in Notepad and look for a line referring to the page that's giving you trouble. If it's there, enter # at the beginning of the line. Save and exit the file. Go to Tools Internet Options Connections Lan Settings. Uncheck Use a proxy server. Now restart IE. These steps will definitely solve the issues.