Winxp Tips

Windows XP Useful Tips and Tweaks 1. Cracking Windows XP Login Password Download the nice and easy Nt/2k/xp password cracker from http://www.astalavista.com/ Or other way is if u get access to the computer then go to Start>Run and type “control userpasswords2” without Quotes and a new pop up windows will open and u will reach to user account properties. Here u can Reset the Administrator and any Users password so anytime when u Want to use the Computer start it in safemode pressing F8 at Booting get into the xp as u have Administrator password and go to Controlpanel>Useraccounts and create a New Account .Start Computer Normally and get into WinXP with Ur newely made account and do Ur job. (Don’t forget to Delete ur newely made account Otherwise u will be in trouble) Delete ur account again starting the computer in Safemode as Administrator and Delete ur Account. 2. Disable XP Boot Logo It is possible to disable the XP splash screen, which will slightly speed up the overall boot process. Be aware that removing the splash screen will also cause you not to see any boot-up messages that might come up (chkdsk, convert ... ), but if your system runs without any problems then it should not matter. Edit boot.ini. Add " /noguiboot" right after "/fastdetect". Upon restarting, the splash screen will be gone. removing the new switch.

It can be re-enabled by

3. Turn off Indexing to Speed up XP Windows XP keeps a record of all files on the hard disk so when you do a search on the hard drive it is faster. There is a downside to this and because the computer has to index all files, it will slow down normal file commands like open, close, etc. If you do not do a whole lot of searches on your hard drive then you may want to turn this feature off: Open My Computer. Right-click your hard drive icon and select Properties. At the bottom of the window you'll see "Allow indexing service to index this disk for faster searches," uncheck this and click ok. A new window will pop up and select Apply to all folders and subfolders. It will take a minute or two for the changes to take affect but then you should enjoy slightly faster performance. 4. Clean Your Prefetch to Improve Performance This is a unique technique for WinXP. We know that it is necessary to scrub registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodically. Prefetch is a new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the

prefetch directory can get full of junk and obsolete links in the Prefetch catalog, which can slow down your computer noticeably. Open C (system drive):/windows/prefetch, delete those junk and obsolete files, reboot. It is recommended that you do this every month. 5. Performance Increase Through My Computer Easy enough tweak to usually find out about it on your own, but still, some of us still don't find it right away. So here it is: Start > right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Click on the "Advanced" tab. See the "Performance" section? Click "Settings". Disable the following: Fade or slide menus into view Fade or slide ToolTips into view Fade out menu items after clicking Show Shadows under menus Slide open combo boxes Slide taskbar buttons Use a background image for each folder type Use common tasks in folders There, now Windows will still look nice and perform faster. 6. Reduce 10 Second Scandisk Wait Time Start MS Dos Prompt (Start>run>CMD), and type: where 4 is the amount of wait time.

CHKNTFS /T:4

CHKNTFS /? for more info. 7. DMA Mode on IDE Devices Just like Windows 2000, Windows XP still fails to set the DMA mode correctly for the IDE device designated as the slaves on the primary IDE and secondary IDE channels. Most CD-ROMS are capable of supporting DMA mode, but the default in XP is still PIO. Setting it to DMA won't make your CD-ROM faster, but it will consume less CPU cycles. Here's how: Open the Device Manager. One way to do that is to right-click on "My Computer", select the Hardware tab, and select Device Manager. Expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and double-click on "Primary IDE Channel". Under the "Advanced Settings" tab, check the "Device 1" setting. More than likely, your current transfer mode is set to PIO. Set it to "DMA if available". Repeat the step for the "Secondary IDE Channel" if you have devices attached to it. Reboot. 8. Load Internet Explorer the Fastest Way Possible Edit your link to start Internet Explorer to have -nohome after it. For Example: "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" -nohome This will load internet explorer very fast because it does not load a web page while it is loading. If you want to go to your homepage after it is loaded, just click on the home button.

9. Easy Way to Adjust LargeSystemCache Normally, the tweak I've seen asks you to go into HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management and change the value to either O or 1 to the adjustment the LargeSystemCache. However, in Windows XP, all you have to do is: Right-click My Computer. Select Properties. Click Advanced. Choose Performance. Click Advanced again. Select either Programs or System Cache under Memory Usage. Programs = 0 for the registry tweak equivalent System Cache = 1 for the registry tweak equivalent 10. Shutdown XP Faster Like previous versions of windows, it takes long time to restart or shutdown windows XP when the "Exit Windows" sound is enabled. To solve this problem you must disable this useless sound. Click Start button. Go to settings > Control Panel > Sound, Speech and Audio devices > Sounds and Audio Devices > Sounds. Then under program events and windows menu click on "Exit Windows" sub-menu and highlight it. Now from sounds you can select, choose "none" and then click Apply and OK. Now you should see some improvements when shutting down your system. 11. Easily Disable Messenger Go into: C:/Program Files/Messenger. Rename the Messenger folder to "MessengerOFF". This does not slow down Outlook Express or hinder system performance. 12. Turn off Autoplay for Program CDs How can you stop Windows XP from launching program CDs? Click Start, click Run, type GPEDIT.MSC to open Group Policy in the Microsoft Management Console. Double-click Computer Configuration, double-click Administrative templates, double-click System, and then click Turn off autoplay. The instructions on your screen describe how to configure this setting. Click Properties to display the setting dialog. Click Enabled, and choose CD-ROM drives, then click OK, to stop CD autoplay. This setting does not prevent Autoplay for music CDs. 13. Synchronize Your Computer Clock with an Internet Time Server Does your computer have the right time? If your computer is not part of a domain, you can synchronize your computer clock with an Internet time server. To do so: Double–click the time on your task bar.

Click the Internet Time tab. Select the time server you want to use and make sure to select the Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server check box. 14. Win XP Won’t Completely Shutdown Go to Control Panel, then go to Power Options. Click on the APM tab, then check the "Enable Advanced Power Management support." Shut down your PC. It should now successfully complete the Shut Down process. 15. Adjust Various Visual Effects Open up the Control Panel. Go under System and click on the Advanced tab. Click settings under Performance options. You can now change various graphical effects (mainly animations and shadows). 16. Disable Error Reporting Open Control Panel. Click on Performance and Maintenance. Click on System. Then click on the Advanced tab. Click on the error-reporting button on the bottom of the windows. Select Disable error reporting. Click OK. Click OK. 17. Increase Your Cable Modem or DSL Speed in XP This tweak is for broad band cable connections on stand alone machines with WinXP professional version - might work on Home version also. It may also work with networked machines as well. This tweak assumes that you have let WinXP create a connection on install for your cable modem/NIC combination and that your connection has tcp/ip - QoS file and print sharing - and client for Microsoft networks , only, installed. It also assumes that WinXP will detect your NIC and has in-box drivers for it. If it doesn't do not try this. In the "My Network Places" properties (right-click on the desktop icon and choose properties), highlight the connection then at the menu bar choose "Advanced" then "Advanced Settings". Uncheck the two boxes in the lower half for the bindings for File and Printer sharing and Client for MS networks. Click OK. 18) Stop Jerkey Graphics: If you are connected to a LAN and have problems with jerkey graphics, this might be the solution: Right-click "MyComputer". Select "Manage". Click on "Device Manager". Double-click on your NIC under "Network Adapters". In the new window, select the "Advanced" tab.

Select "Connection Type" and manually set the value of your NIC. (Not "Auto Sense" which is default.). You should reboot. 19. Speeding Up Your Old Shit Pentium by 50% We all know that you really shouldn't try to run Windows XP on anything less that about a Pentium 3 of some sort if you are out for speedy operations and amazing reaction times, but for those of us with the good old Pentium 2's who want to see just how well we can run XP, we have to tweak as much as we can where-ever we can. A real killer to the system's performance is Windows Media Player. Although it may look desirable and fancy with it's rounded off edges and 3rd-Dimensional appearance, the truth is, it takes up a large amount of that precious processing power. All of these troubles however, lead to one thing in particular with this 'new-look' over-rated music and video player...the Visualizations. The look-great I'll admit but like a lot of software these days, it has no purpose. If you run the task manager, and click the Performance tab along the top, you'll see that when Windows Media Player is running and nothing else is active, it takes up around 50% of the processors power. Once these visualizations are turned off, it barely takes up 2-3% of the processors power, which leaves much more room for other applications to work efficiently. Here's how to disable the feature: Open Media Player. Make sure the Now Playing tab on the left is selected. Click the View menu along the top. Go down to Now Playing Tools 20. Turn off System Restore to Save Space By default, Windows XP keeps a backup of system files in the System Volume Information folder. This can eat up valuable space on your hard drive. If you don't want Windows to back up your system files: Open the Control Panel. Double-click on System. Click the System Restore tab. Check "Turn off System Restore on all drives". Hit Apply. You may now delete the System Volume Information folder. 21) Shut down fast Start -> Run -> regedit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ set WaitToKillServiceTimeOut to the time (ms) you want to wait for the kill service to timeout 22) Create your own Logon message: 1 Click start, click run, type regedit, and then click ok! 2 In The registry editor drill down to the following key: hklm\software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current version\Winlogon 3 Right click LegalNoticeCaption, click modify, Type: My windows XP Machine, and then click ok!

4 Right click legalNoticeText, click modify, and then Close your message! 5 The message will appear every time you logon! 23) To make Windows XP use L2 cache: By default windows doesn't recognise your L2 cache on processor and doesn't make use of it, to enable it run regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Session Manager > MemoryManagment there is a DWORD called "SecondLevelDataCache" double click it, select Decimal and set the amount of L2 cache you have (e.g. if you have 256KB, then just type 256, and make sure you enter it in Decimal, not Hexadecimal 24) Execute from the Run Command in Win XP: # Disk Managment - diskmgmt.msc # Device Manager - devmgmt.msc # Disk Defrag - dfrg.msc # Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc # Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc # Group Policies - gpedit.msc # Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc # Performance Monitor - perfmon.msc # Resultant Set of Policies - rsop.msc # Local Security Settings - secpol.msc # Services - services.msc # Component Services - comexp.msc Shortcuts: WinKey+E starts Windows Explorer WinKey+D minimizes all windows (display desktop) WinKey+R opens "Run" dialog Winkey+F starts find application WinKey+U starts Accesibility Utility Manager (quick access to shut off skickykeys) 25) How can I enable autologon for Windows XP? To enable autologon and bypass XP's prompt to enter a username and password, perform the following steps: 1. Select Run from the Start menu. 2. Enter control userpasswords2 and click OK. 3. Select the Users tab. 4. Clear the "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" check box. 5. Click OK. 6. When the system prompts you, enter a username and password for users who automatically log on, and click OK. 26) How can I perform a bulk file rename in Windows XP? XP lets you rename files in bulk by simply selecting multiple files within Windows Explorer and pressing the F2 key. When you use this feature, the OS applies the name you enter to the first file and applies the same name with a number in parentheses to the other files you selected (the file extensions remain unchanged).

For example, if you select the following files, * notes.doc * figures.xls * disney.jpg * holiday.gif and rename the first file (notes.doc) to file.doc, XP renames the remaining files as follows: * file (1).xls * file (2).jpg * file (3).gif 27) Quickest way to restart/exit windows without going throught the start menu: First of all create a shortcut with the following paths: C:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec This Shortcut on clicking will restart Windows immediately without any Warning. To create a Shortcut to Restarting Windows, type the following in the Command Line box: c:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows This Shortcut on clicking will shut down Windows immediately without any Warning. 28) Change the Internet Explorer title bar name to whatever you want: Just start Regedit and go to (all users): HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main or to (if only one user): HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main and/or to (currently logged on user): HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main Modify (or create if not present) the "Window Title" String Value in the right hand pane (don't type the quotes) to show the name of your choice: right-click in the right hand pane -> select New -> String Value -> name it "Window Title" (no quotes) -> double-click on it -> type your own, customized MS IE title bar name (for example I use IE6) -> click OK or press Enter. Default is "Microsoft Internet Explorer". To revert to default, simply delete the "Window Title" String Value. 29) Where does Window's ProductId get stored? This is great if you "loose your key" just so you don’t have to borrow some one else’s (now that would drive me nutts) There are two places at least where ProductId gets stored. To see the first place, 1 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion]. In right

pane, look for key by the name "ProductId". This is your Windows Product Id. [OR] 2 alternatively you can navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cur rentVersion] and still find same field with the name ProductId. 30) Speedup boot up sequence by defragmenting all key boot files: Open Registry by going to START-RUN and typing REGEDIT. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction. In right hand panel look for Enable. Right click on it and set it 'Y' for enable. This is the way I have it set on my computer. This will help speedup boot time. 31) Speed up Nero at start: When you load up Nero, it may be slow "Scaning SCSI/IDE-Bus Pleast Wait..." Because XP also uses the CD-RW Drive. If you do not use the built-in CD Recording feature, disable it, so Nero can load up faster. 1. Open Control Panel 2. Administrative Tools 3. Services 4. Look for "IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service" under name (I suggest clicking on the "Name" bar to organize it in chronological order first) 5. Right click, go to Properties 6. In the "Startup Type:", select Disabled 7. Apply and close, no need for reboot, close Nero if needed, and reopen. You should see a difference in the time Nero loads from start to finish compare to how long before this tweak. 32) Wanna know how to get Internet Explorer to simply 'run', without loading any webpages: (If you use a 'blank' page, that is still a page, and slows access. Notice the 'about :blank' in the address bar. The blank html page must still be loaded..). To load IE with 'nothing' [nothing is different than blank]: 1. Right-click on any shortcut you have to IE [You should create a shortcut out of your desktop IE icon, and delete the original icon] 2. Click Properties 3. Add ' -nohome' [with a space before the dash] after the endquotes in the Target field. 4. Click OK Fire up IE from your modified shortcut, and be amazed by how fast you are able to use IE! mmm weird. 33) Increase kaZaA bitrate: KaZaA limits your searches to a bitrate, to enable higher bitrate searches, and even more results, just do this: 1) Start > Run, regedit 2) go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Kazaa change: LimitBitrate from 1 to 0

34) Remove the 'shortcut' arrow that appears in the corner of desktop icons: 1) 2) 3) 4)

Start regedit. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile Delete the IsShortcut registry value. Restart.

35) Getting rid of unwanted items in "open with..." shell extension: When right clicking any file you’re likely to see an option called "open with", which lists any available program on you computer to open the file with. To simply clear up this list of unwanted items, or to remove useless associations, like opening an mp3 file with a paint program, follow these steps: - Click on the start button, click on Run... and type the word "regedit" (without the quotes) in the box that appears to open the registry editor, Navigate to " HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts" - Find the extention you wish to edit and click on the "+"-sign to locate the key that says "OpenWithList" - In the right pane of the registry editor you’ll see a list with the programs in the list, like "paint.exe" or "notepad.exe" - Simple click on the one you wish to delete and press the delete button on your keyboard Don’t worry if you´ve removed an entry you rather hadn’t removed. When right clicking a file there will be another option in the "open with" extension where you can choose any program on your computer. Once used, it will reappear in the list of associated programs. 36) Remove MSN Messenger from your system: If you'd like Windows Messenger to show up in the list of programs you can add and remove from Windows, navigate to C:\WINDOWS\inf (substituting the correct drive letter for your version of Windows) and open sysoc.inf (if you cannot see this folder, click on Tools, folder options, view then check "Show hidden files or folders). Open the sysoc.inf file, you'll see a line that reads: msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7 Change this to the following: msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,,7 You only remove the word hide, nothing else. Save the file. Windows Messenger will appear in Add or Remove Programs, and then Add/Remove Windows Components, then, and you can remove it for good. 37) You can easily create an icon on your desktop that allows you to compose and send a mail by double clicking on it without opening Outlook Express: 1) Find a free space on your desktop and right click on it on -> New -> Shortcut 2) Enter in the space 'mailto:' (w/out quotes) 3) Press 'Next' button.

4) Enter in the space a name for the icon (i use 'Q-Mail') 5) Click 'finish'. 38) Unsigned Drivers - Use Sigverif.exe: 1. Click Start, click Run, type "sigverif" (without the quotation marks), and then click OK. 2. Click Advanced, click "Look for other files that are not digitally signed", navigate to the Winnt\System32\Drivers folder, and then click OK. 3. Click Start. After Sigverif.exe is finished, a list of all unsigned drivers installed on your computer are displayed. The list of all signed and unsigned drivers found by Sigverif.exe can be found in the Sigverif.txt file in the %Windir% folder, typically the Winnt or Windows folder. All unsigned drivers are noted as "Unsigned". File signature verification is something I hate in Win XP. I like testing beta drivers. I disabled those annoying popups that says the file is not Microsoft Digital Signe........etc. If you want to disable signature verification, goto control panel, System icon, hardaware tab, Driving signing and click on ignore. 39) Adds Defrag to the right click context menu in Windows XP: Save the following text as a ".inf" file, then just right click & install that’s it. Just right click on a drive letter & defrag. ; context_defrag.INF ; Adds Defrag to the right click context menu in Windows XP [version] signature="$CHICAGO$" [DefaultInstall] AddReg=AddMe [AddMe] HKCR,"Drive\Shell\Defrag\command",,,"DEFRAG.EXE %1" 40) To speed up boot time: run "regedit" and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Session Manager > MemoryManagment > PrefetchParameters There you'll see a DWORD called "EnablePrefetcher" double click it and set the value between 5 to 7, which ever works better, I recommend 5. Also after time it gets filled with unneeded stuff, navigate to C:\Windows\Prefetch and delete unnecesary files, if unsure, delete all files and restart twice, all needed files will be automatically created. 41) Speed up your Start menu:

If your hardware configuration is not upto speed but still want to boost response time of start menu, here is a trick that might help. Open registry editor by going to START-RUN and entering regedit 1. HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ MenuShowDelay . 2. Change the value (default may be 400) to 5 or 50 or even 0. 3. Select a value from 1-10, 1 being the fastest. This should speed up. If you are not all that crazy for shadowy effects, you can further speed the things up by going to DISPLAY Properties Window and from there to appearance and over there clicking Advanced command button and check off Show menu shadow (its cheaper than upgrading). 42) Getting errors when using Add/Remove Programs, when Windows XP Service Pack 1 is installed, to do a quick "How-To" on fixing the problem: Fixing the dreaded "Parser Message: Value creation failed “at line 472" error: This is a problem with the file shellstyle.dll, which is included in most visual styles. Use the following steps to fix the problem: 1.) Go to your /WINDOWS/Resources/Themes directory, or wherever you may have your themes located. 2.) Go into the directory of the theme your currently using. Navigate to /WINDOWS/Resources/Themes 3.) Go into the folder called 'Shell" within the previous directory. 4.) Inside you'll find a folder with a file called 'shellstyle.dll' inside. Now remember the name of the theme your using? (Example: Semplice). You need to rename this folder from Shell to the name of the theme your currently using. If you don't know the exact name, go to Display Properties, and try to Display/Show the theme, the name you see in Display Properties is the name you need to change the 'Shell' folder to. Example: Using Semplice as an example, the Shell folder for that theme is called 'Shell', in this situation you'll need to rename the folder to 'Semplice'. Easy enough, right? Note that for multi-part themes, aka themes with more than one variation or color, you'll need to rename each corresponding 'Shell' folder to what is displayed in Display Properties when you try to apply the theme. 5.) Now that you've changed the 'Shell' folder name to correspond with the visual styles name, reapply the theme. 6.) Go to Add/Remove Programs, and voila! 43) Internet Connection slower? Some of us may find that after installing Windows XP, the Internet connection gets slower. A possible reason for this is the QoS (Quality of Service) installed. This service reserves 20 per cent of the bandwidth for itself, even with QoS disabled. In order to remove this reserved quota, you will have to make sure you are logged on as Administrator. Go to Start > Run and type gpedit.msc. Expand the ‘local computer policy’ branch, the ‘administrative templates’ branch, and the ‘network’ branch. Highlight the ‘QoS Packet Scheduler’ in the left window and in the right window double-click the ‘limit reservable bandwidth’ setting. Then, on the Setting tab, check the ‘enabled’ item and change the ‘Bandwidth

limit %’ to read 0. After doing this, you should immediately notice a boost in your Internet connection speed. 44) You can delete files immediately without having them move to the Recycle Bin: 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. (Professional Edition only). 45) Get more processing power: In the Run box, type "Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks". This frees up any idle tasks running in the background so that Windows XP can devote its full attention to what you want it to do. For example playing graphic intensive games. 46) Disable Indexing Services: Indexing services is a small program that hogs HUGE amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexing and updates lists of the files on your system, so you can search for them quickly, but it's completley unnessesary. To disable it, go to the Control Panel and click Add/Remove Programs. Click the Add/Remove Window Components. Simply unclick the Indexing services and click next! 47) Disable zip folders: Are the ZIP folders too slow for you? Disable it by unregistering the file zipfldr.dll. In the Run box, type " regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll ". 48) CDFS Tweaks: What’s the one thing we hate most when copying something from CD, for me at least, is the speed in which the data is copied. After many months of research, I have found what I consider the best CDFS settings to have, and my DVD drive never copied so good. Here is the changes that must be made HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\CDFS Look for that registry key, if not there, you must create a new key, then add the following values CacheSize, this must be added as a binary value, then type in this value: ff ff 00 00 Prefetch, this key must be added as a DWORD value, then type in this value: 4000 hex PrefetchTail, this key must be added as a DWORD value, then type in this value: 4000 hex Let the ripping begin. 49) Increase 'CPU priority tweak' effect: First you must set the CPU Priority setting tweak. Using 'Regedit', go to this location:" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl\" and set the "Win32PrioritySeparation" to "38" The last adjustment is to set the "Launch folder windows in separate process" setting by opening the "My

Computer\Tools\Folder Options\View -and tick the "Launch folder windows in separate process" box. Window XP will open any new window(including program) in its own memory and in separate process priority.(increase stability and speed but use much more RAM than before) Note: Sometimes this 2 tweak can cause unresponsive keyboard and mouse in Counter-Strike. 50) Make icons in windows appear quicker: In Windows XP everytime you open My Computer to browse folders XP automatically searches for network files and printers. This causes a delay in displaying your icons. You probably see the "default" windows icon and as you scroll it changes to the correct icon. This is how to stop that... 1. Open My Computer 2. Click on the Tools menu and select Folder Options... 3. Under Folder Options select the view tab. 4. Uncheck the very first box that reads "Automatically search for network folders and printers". 5. Click "Apply" or "OK" You should see a dramatic increase in speed when Windows displays your icons. 51) Enable 5th zone setting in Internet Explorer 6.0: I read about this a few days ago. There a fith setting in Internet Explorer 6 called my computer which is diabled by default. If you want to enable this, Open registry by going to START-RUN and entering regedit and then navigate to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\InternetSettings\Zones\0] and look for the data value called "flags". Its default value is 33 ("Flags"=dword: 0X00000021 ) . Chage its value 1 and reboot. Now you should see an option called my computer in Internet Explorer 6 Zone settings. 52) Went from waiting at least three seconds to a millisecond when I would right click on a web page from within IE on a Win2K box. I did this fix and it was great. I happen to look at he same key in WinXP (though the delay problem was not as bad) there are alot of empty keys that affect the right click display from showing quicker.........here is what I did: Go to START then choose RUN.........type in REGEDIT.........now that this is open make your way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\CodePage. Now delete all empty keys. If you are a WIn2k user you will just jump for joy, there is a modest increase on XP but they are useless keys just taking up space. 53) Enable On board processing on Network Cards: Some of the new Network cards (I know one from 3COM has it) do provide capabilities of offloading some of the network protocol functionality like checksum from CPU. This is helpful since its free your CPU time and in a nutshell increases the CPU response time and overall speed by allowing CPU to do other jobs. It may not work on all cards of some of the cheap models but nothing wrong in giving it a try. To implement this tip, do as follows: Navigate to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] and look for the data key "DisableTaskOffload" and set its value to 0 to enable the task offload. By default if key is present, it’s set to 1 to disable the task off load. If this tweak does not have desired effect, you can change it back to 1. 54) Speedup boot up sequence by defragmenting all key boot files: Open Registry by going to START-RUN and typing REGEDIT. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction. In right hand panel look for Enable. Right click on it and set it 'Y' for enable. This will help speedup boot time. 55) If you have a faster hard disk, keep your pagefile.sys: If you do not already know, pagefile.sys is your swap file. It makes common sense to put it on a hard disk that is fastest. So say if you have upgraded you machine and a newer and faster harddisk, change the pagefile location to that drive. Open registry and navigating to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\ MemoryManagement and then looking for Paging files Change its drive location (on mine its says C:\pagefile.sys) to the one that is faster (say D:\pagefile.sys if D: denotes the faster drive). 56) Optimize your XP Pro system by tweaking service manager? Remove unnecessary services! This is important. You don't know how many services are started by your service manager everytime you boot your system. There is a very strong likelihood that some of these services are never of any use to you and as such you never directly or indirectly use them. If so, why delay the boot time and also degrade the system performance for no reason ! Stop this services from starting automatically. Here is How-to ! Open service manager by going to START-RUN and entering services.msc. Now in the right pane, you would see a list of services some of them would be started and others don't. Also they could be set to any of three status of start mode. "Manual", "automatic" and "disabled". If you double Click on any of these you would see detailed info on each of these. You have an option of starting or stopping the services running on your computer. If you are typical desktop user like most of us, it might be safe to disable and stop following services. But still do understand it before you do it. Also some of those listed below may not be available for you as well. 1. Portable Media Serial Number 2. DHCP Client 3. Distributed Link Tracking Client (Most likely you're not connected to a Windows 2000 domain) 4. DNS Client (Again you're not connecting to a specific DNS server on your local network most of times) 5. FTP Publishing Service (If you don't want your system to act as an FTP server. I don’t!) 6. IIS Admin Service (You computer may not be a WWW server and as such no need for this service) 7. IPSEC Policy Agent (disable it if you're not connected to a Windows 2000 domain) 8. Messenger (same reason...you may not be connected to a Windows 2000 domain) 9. Remote Registry Service (Typically you don't remotely access the Registry of other systems)

10. RIP Service (If you are a typical home user, you don't need your system to act as a router) 11. Run As Service (This can also go since most likely you don't use any applications that run as an alias) 12. World Wide Web Publishing Service (If you are a not into web publishing business,You don't need this as well). 57) How To: Determine what Services are running in WinXP? When you bring up the Task Manager you'll see an entry for Services and the amount of memory consumed. However this one listing is actually all the Services combined into a single entry. To view the complete list: From a command prompt (type) "tasklist /svc" (no quotes) you will see all the Services running in process. (XP Pro only) To save the onscreen info: Right-click and select: Select All Right-click again and select: Mark Open Notepad and Paste the info File - Save As: tasklist.txt or (type) "tasklist /svc >tasklist.txt" (no quotes). Another trick. If u want explorer to display all drivers , run this command: Target: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /e,c: 58) copy and paste these registy keys in notepad, says as a reg ext. then merge into registry. This reg hack puts a MS-Powertoys (Tweakui Icon in your control panel): Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D14ED2E1-C75B-443c-BD7C-FC03B2F08C17}] @="TweakuiXP" "InfoTip"="Starts the Tweakui program which customises advanced options in Windows" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D14ED2E1-C75B-443c-BD7C-FC03B2F08C17}\DefaultIcon] @="%SystemRoot%\\\\System32\\\\tweakui.exe,0" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D14ED2E1-C75B-443c-BD7C-FC03B2F08C17}\Shell] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D14ED2E1-C75B-443c-BD7C-FC03B2F08C17}\Shell\Open] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D14ED2E1-C75B-443c-BD7CFC03B2F08C17}\Shell\Open\command] @="tweakui.exe" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D14ED2E1-C75B-443c-BD7C-FC03B2F08C17}\ShellFolder] "Attributes"=dword:00000030 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cur rentVersion\Explorer\ControlPanel\NameSpace\{D14ED 2E1-C75B-443c-BD7C-FC03B2F08C17}]

@="Add Tweakui to Control Panel"

59) Remove the Shared Documents folders from My Computer One of the most annoying things about the new Windows XP user interface is that Microsoft saw fit to provide links to all of the Shared Documents folders on your system, right at the top of the My Computer window. I can't imagine why this would be the default, even in a shared PC environment at home, but what's even more annoying is that you cannot change this behavior through the shell: Those icons are stuck there and you have to live with it. Until now, that is. Simply fire up the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ My Computer \ NameSpace \ DelegateFolders You'll see a sub-key named {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}. If you delete this, all of the Shared Documents folders (which are normally under the group called "Other Files Stored on This Computer") will be gone. You do not need to reboot your system to see the change. 60) Disabling Display of Drives in My Computer: This is yet another trick you can play on your geek friend. To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer 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. Now modify it's value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal) Now press F5 to refresh. When you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown. To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item. 61) Making the Internet Explorer & the Explorer Toolbars Fancy: The Internet Explorer toolbar looks pretty simple. Want to make it fancy and kewl? Why not add a background image to it. To do this kewl hack launch the Windows Registry Editor and go to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\Toolbar\. Now in the right pane create a new String Value and name it BackBitmap and modify it's value to the path of the Bitmap you want to dress it up with by right clicking on it and choosing Modify. When you reboot the Internet Explorer and the Windows Explorer toolbars will have a new look. 62) Force Use of Classic Start Menu: This tweak loads the Classic Start Menu and makes it impossible to change back to the Windows XP version [Start] [Run] [Regedit] Go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Modify/Create the DWORD Value of Data type REG_DWORD Named [NoSimpleStartMenu] Value Data: [0 = Default / 1 = Force Classic Start Menu] Exit Registry / Reboot

63) Cleaning Recent Docs Menu and the RUN MRU: The Recent Docs menu can be easily disabled by editing the Registry. To do this go to the following Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Now in the right pane, create a new DWORD value by the name: NoRecentDocsMenu and set it's value to 1. Restart Explorer to save the changes. You can also clear the RUN MRU history. All the listings are stored in the key: HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU You can delete individual listings or the entire listing. To delete History of Find listings go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU and delete 64) WindowsXP Command Line Utilities: While there are a lot of command line utilities in WindowsXP, here are some that I have been using lately. bootcfg - Configures, queries, or changes Boot.ini file settings. driverquery - Displays a list of all installed device drivers and their properties. getmac - Returns the media access control (MAC) address and list of network protocols associated with each address for all network cards in each computer gpresult - Displays Group Policy settings and Resultant Set of Policy (RSOP) for a user or a computer netsh - You can use commands in the Netsh Interface IP context to configure the TCP/IP protocol schtasks - Schedules commands and programs to run periodically or at a specific time systeminfo - Displays detailed configuration information about a computer and its operating system

65) Adding a Title for the Command Prompt Title Bar: If you create a batch file that might take a while to run, you can add a title to the command prompt title bar it by simply adding the line: title YOUR TEXT where YOUR TEXT would be replaced by whatever text you want to show. 66) Common Command Console Utilities: WindowsXP comes with quite a few console utilities you can easily run from the command line: Computer Management - compmgmt.msc Disk Managment - diskmgmt.msc Device Manager - devmgmt.msc Disk Defrag - dfrg.msc Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc Group Policies - gpedit.msc Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc Performance Monitor - perfmon.msc Resultant Set of Policies - rsop.msc Local Security Settings - secpol.msc Services - services.msc Component Services - comexp.msc 67) Automatically Ending Non-Responsive Tasks 1. 2. 3. 4.

Start Regedit Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\AutoEndTasks Set the value to be 1 In the same section, change the WaitToKillAppTimeout to the number of milliseconds you want.

68) Easiest way to delete prefetch 1. Open notepad.exe, type del c:\windows\prefetch\*.* /q (without the quotes) & save as "delprefetch.bat" in c:\ 2. From the Start menu, select "Run..." & type "gpedit.msc". 3. Double click "Windows Settings" under "Computer Configuration" and double click again on "Startup" in the right window. 4. In the new window, click "add", "Browse", locate your "delprefetch.bat" file & click "Open". 5. Click "OK", "Apply" & "OK" once again to exit. 6. Reboot your computer. 69) Creating 3D Window Effect You can create a nice 3D effect for your windows 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Colors

3. Make sure the following setting are there: • •

ButtonHilight=128 128 128 ButtonShadow=255 255 255

70) Increasing System Performance If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can increase system performance by having the core system kept in memory. 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive 3. Set the value to be 1 4. Reboot the computer 71) Powering on the Computer With Your Mouse If you have ATX Main Board, ATX case Award Bios, or any Bios that supports PS/2 Mouse Power On, then you can power on your computer with a double click. To activate this feature: 1. Restart your computer 2. Then press Del when the BIOS message appears to enter your CMOS configuration 3. Select Integrated Peripherals from main menu 4. If PS/2 mouse power on disabled, activate it by press page up/ page down key it will became Double-Click 5. Press Esc key to exit 6. Press F10 to save and exit Power off your PC 7. Now double-click the left mouse button,.. Your PC will turn on 72) Removing the Shortcut Icon Arrows(new):

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Open REGEDIT.EXE Open the Key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Open the Key LNKFILE Delete the value IsShortcut Open the next Key PIFFILE Delete the value IsShortcut 7. Restart the system. 73) Turn Off Window Animation: You can shut off the animation displayed when you minimize and maximize windows.

1. Open Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Right Mouse Click an empty space in Select new string value. Name the new value MinAnimate. Doubleclick on the new string value Enter a value of 0 for Off or 1 for Close Regedit and all programs then

the right pane. (MinAnimate) and click on "Modify" On then hit Enter reboot.

74) Setting the Recycle Bin to Always Delete: You can set the recycle bin to always delete items (like holding down the shift key when dragging files to the recycle bin) 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ BitBucket 3. Set the key NukeOnDelete to 1 75) Prevent Changes to the Start Menu: To prevent any changes to the Start Menu, even a right click: 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer 3. Add a DWORD called NoChangeStartMenu 4. Give it a value of 1 76) Removing the Hand Icon from Shared Resources: When you share a local resource, Windows normally puts a hand in from of that resources icon. To remove hand icon from your shared resources: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Start Regedit. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT / Network Open SharingHandler. Clear it's default value Restart Windows. To restore set Default value "msshrui.dll".

77) Displaying Hi-Color Icons without the Plus Pack 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ desktop \ WindowMetrics 3. Add or edit Shell Icon BPP=16 where the number is the color depth. 4. The default is 8 (bit or 256 colors). 78) Eliminating the Right Click on the Taskbar To eliminate the right click on the taskbar: Start Regedit

1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer 3. Add a DWORD and give it a name of NoTrayContextMenu 4. Give it a value of 1 5. Close Regedit and then reboot. 79) Eliminating the Right Click on the Desktop To eliminate the right click on the desktop: 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer 3. Add a DWORD and give it a name of NoViewContextMenu 4. Give it a value of 1 5. close Regedit and reboot. 80) Sticky Menus Normally when you move the mouse over the Start Menu / Programs, it will automatically cascade and show the submenus. If you want them to open only when you actually click on them: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Start Regedit Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop If if it not already there, create a string called MenuShowDelay Give it a value of 65534 Reboot.

81) Disabling the Blinking Cursor To stop the cursor from blinking in applications such as Word: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Start Regedit Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop Add a String Value Name it CursorBlinkRate Give it a value of -1 Reboot the computer.

82) Disabling Run or Find from the Start Menu 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKey_Current_User \ Software\ Microsoft \Windows \ Current Version \ Policies \ Explorer 3. Right click on the right panel and add a New / DWORD 4. Name it NoFile or NoRun 5. Give it a value of 1 6. Logoff or Reboot the computer. 83) Disabling the Right-Click on the Start Button

Normally, when you right button click on the Start button, it allows you to open your programs folder, the Explorer and run Find. In situations where you don't want to allow users to be able to do this in order to secure your computer. 1. Start Regedit 2. Search for Desktop 3. This should bring you to HKey_Classes_Root \ Directory 4. Expand this section 5. Under Shell is Find 6. Delete Find 7. Move down a little in the Registry to Folder 8. Expand this section and remove Explore and Open Now when you right click on the Start button, nothing should happen. You can delete only those items that you need. Note: - On Microsoft keyboards, this also disables the Window-E (for Explorer) and Window-F (for Find) keys. 84) Disabling My Computer In areas where you are trying to restrict what users can do on the computer, it might be beneficial to disable the ability to click on My Computer and have access to the drives, control panel etc. To disable this: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Start Regedit Search for 20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D This should bring you to the HKey_Classes_Root \ CLSID section Delete the entire section.

Now when you click on My Computer, nothing will happen. You might want to export this section to a registry file before deleting it just in case you want to enable it again... 85) Setting the Minimum Password Length 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKLM,SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Network 3. Add a new Binary Value 4. Rename it to MinPwdLen 5. Assign it a value equal to your minimum password length. 86) Disabling File and Print Sharing 1. Start regedit. 2. Go to HKLM,SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Network 3. Add a new DWord Value 4. Rename it to NoPrintSharing or NoFileSharing 5. Assign it a value of 1 87) Removing Programs listed from the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs Section

If you remove an installed program and its files by deleting the files, it may still show up in the Add/Remove programs list through the control panel. In order to remove it from the list (so you don't need to re-install in order to just remove it again). 1. Start the Registry Editor 2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Uninstall 3. Delete any programs here. This will only delete them from the list, not delete the actual programs.

88) Get Your Folders to Open the Way You Want Every Time To get your folders to open the way you want every time: 1. Set up all your folders the way you want (auto arrange, view, etc.), 2. Start Regedit 3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explo rer. 4. Go to NoSaveSettings 5. Modify and change value to 1. 89) Hiding All Icons from the Desktop 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKey_Current_User \ Software\ Microsoft \Windows \ Current Version \ Policies \ Explorer 3. Right click on the right panel and add a New / DWORD 4. Name it NoDesktop 5. Give it a value of 1 6. Logoff or Reboot the computer Now all icons are hidden on the desktop. 90) Not Displaying the Network Neighborhood 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKey_Current_User \ Software\ Microsoft \Windows \ Current Version \ Policies \ Explorer 3. Right click on the right panel and add a New / DWORD 4. Name it NoNetHood 5. Give it a value of 1 Logoff or Reboot the computer 91) Automatic Screen Refresh When you make changes to your hard drive and use Explorer, the changes are not usually displayed until you press the F5 key. To make the updates automatic:

1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / System / CurrentControlSet / Control / UpdateMode 3. Edit the DWORD value to be between 1 and 7 4. Restart the system. 92) Preparing to Move Hard Drive to another Computer To remove the devices from device manager when taking a HD from one computer to another, simply: 1. Run Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ and delete the Enum section 3. This removes all of the hardware specific settings. 93) Turning off System Beeps If you want to turn off all system beeps (like the ones that go through your computers' internal speaker): 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sound 3. Edit the key Beep and give it a value of No 4. Restart the system. 94) Auto Disconnect for Internet Explorer Use this edit to automatically disconnect from Internet Explorer after a specified length of time has elapsed. Use this trick on anyone whom you don’t like using your computer with net. 1. Run Regedit 2. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters 3. Modify/Create DWORD Value of Data type REG_DWORD Named [Autodisconnect] Value Data: [Enter a new disconnect time. Use Hexadecimal if you are unfamiliar with Binary] 4. Exit Registry / Reboot 95) Restoring a Lost Desktop If you ever lose the Desktop but Explorer is still running with the Start Button, you can do this to bring back your Desktop in a Windows box. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Click Start Click Run Type a period " . " Press Enter.

96) IoPageLockLimit:

IoPageLockLimit controls the size of memory buffers for I/O devices. The default minimizes RAM usage. An I/O intensive system could benefit from larger buffer sizes. Caution: setting this parameter too high can result in slower performance. Set it in increments and see how it effects your system. 1. Run Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management 3. Create DWORD value of type REG_DWORD Named IoPageLockLimit 4. Enter the value as given below: Value: Value: Value: Value: Value:

0x00000000 0x00100000 0x00200000 0x00400000 0x00800000

512KB 1MB 2MB 4MB 8MB

97) Control automatic logon: 1. Run Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon 3. Go to AutoAdminLogon on the right pane. 4. Give it a value of 1 which enables auto logon and setting it to 0 disables auto logon. 5. Restart the system. 98) Block the Shift Override: Whether you use the Autologon utility or the registry approach, there are times when you must logon as another user or need the logon dialog to appear. Hold down the shift key until during boot until the logon dialog appears. For the control freaks, even the shift override can be blocked. 1. Run Regedit. 2. Go to HLEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon 3. Create a new string value of type REG_SZ named IgnoreShiftOverride 4. Give it a value 0f 1 which blocks the shift key during auto login. 5. Restart the system. 99) AutoLogon for specified number of times:

If you want to enable autologon for certain number of times then 1. Run Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon 3. On the right pane create a new string value of type REG_SZ named AutoLogonCount 4. Give a number for the certain number of autologon’s you want to allow. 100) View System BIOS Information: This registry key stores information about the system BIOS, including the release date, version number and video BIOS date. 1. Run Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System 3. On the right pane look for the keys SystemBiosDate, SystemBiosVersion, and VideoBiosDate which gives information about the BIOS in your system. 101) View System Processor Information: These values contain information about the system processor, including speed, brand and model. 1. Run Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\CentralProcessor\0 3. On the right pane look for the values ~MHz, Identifier, and VendorIdentifier to obtain more information about the processor installed in your machine. 102) Disabling the F3 Search Key: If you want to disable the ability to use the F3 key from either the Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer

1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions

3. Create a Dword value called NoFindFiles 4. Give it a value of 1

5. Reboot 103) Launch the Task Manager Quickly (Windows NT/2000/XP): Launching the Task Manager can sometimes be difficult depending on the situation. Some people didn't know that the Task Manager can actually be launched in at least three different ways to make it easier to use when you need it the most. First Method: Press CTRL + ALT + DELETE and click on the 'Task Manager...' button on the Windows Security dialog. Second Method: Right click on the Windows taskbar and chose 'Task Manager...' Third Method: Press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC and the Task Manager will be launched instantly. 104) Change the Logon Screen Background Color When you change the color scheme and appearance of your desktop it does not change the background color of the logon screen to match. This tweak allows you to change that color as well. 1. Start Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors 3. Modify the value named 'Background' according to the color you would like in RGB (Red/Green/Blue) format. For example, "0 0 0" for black or "255 255 255" for white, and every other color in between. 4. Restart Windows for the change to take effect. 105) change the Logon screen wallpaper: When you setup a background wallpaper for your desktop, the initial logon screen wallpaper is not changed and stays as the default Windows appearance. This tweak allow you to change the default wallpaper.

1. Start Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop 3. Modify the value of ‘Wallpaper’ on the right pane to equal the path and filename of the bitmap file you want to use as the background. 4. Restart the system for the changes to take effect.

106) Active Window Tracking using Your Mouse: This tweak allows you to control the window focus using the mouse cursor, by making an application active my moving your mouse cursor over it. 1. Start Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse 3. On the right pane modify the existing value name ‘ActiveWindowTracking’ and set it equal to 1 for enabled or 0 for disabled. 4. Restart the system for the changes to take effect. 107) Power the computer off after shutdown: Enabling this setting will cause windows to automatically power down your computer once it has finished shutdown process. 1. Start Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon 3. Modify the existing value PowerDownAfterShutdown to 1 for enabling this setting. NOTE: This feature must be supported by your system BIOS.

108) Contiguous file allocation size: To optimize the file system (i.e. for running multimedia applications), 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\FileSystem 3. Right-click in right hand pane, select New, and then DWORD. Name this new DWORD (double word) value "ContigFileAllocSize" (no quotes). Now highlight it, double-click on it, and check the Decimal box, And give it a value of 512. 4. Close the Registry editor and restart Windows. 109) Control Write Behind Caching: For increased performance “write behind caching” is used to write data to the fixed disks, this means that in the event of a system failure there is a possibility that data would not be completely written to the disk. If you have a system critical application you can disable this functionality to be sure that

data is written directly to the disk bypassing the cache. 1. Start Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem 3. Create a new Binary value, or modify the existing value called 'DriveWriteBehind' using the settings below. 00 00 00 00 for protected mode. 01 00 00 00 for real mode.

4. Restart windows for changes to take effect. 110) Use Asynchronous or Synchronous Buffer Commits: This setting changes function calls to the File-Commit API to return immediately back without checking the data has been correctly written to the disk drive. By default Windows uses synchronous buffer commits, this setting allows you to enable asynchronous as an alternative for applications that may need this functionality. 1. start Regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem 3. Create a new Binary value, or modify the existing value called ‘AsyncFileCommit’ using the setting below. 0 for synchronous. 1 for asynchronous.

Contact Me at: Govindaraj Venkatesan ([email protected])