Windows XP - Tips!

[rohanlive]

Optimize Windows XP - Tips!
These are some of the best sure shot tweaks. (Tweaks are compiled)

Services You Can Disable
There are quite a few services you can disable from starting automatically. This would be to speed up your boot time and free resources. They are only suggestions so I suggestion you read the description of each one when you run Services and that you turn them off one at a time.

Some possibilities are:

Quote:
Alerter
Application Management
Clipbook
Fast UserSwitching
Human Interface Devices
Indexing Service
Messenger
Net Logon
NetMeeting
QOS RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Routing & Remote Access
SSDP Discovery Service
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Web Client


Cleaning the Prefetch Directory
WindowsXP has a new feature called Prefetch. This keeps a shortcut to recently used programs. However it can fill up with old and obsolete programs.

To clean this periodically go to:


Quote:
Star / Run / Prefetch
Press Ctrl-A to highlight all the shorcuts
Delete them


Not Displaying Logon, Logoff, Startup and Shutdown Status Messages

To turn these off:

Quote:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\M*crosoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\policies\system
If it is not already there, create a DWORD value named DisableStatusMessages
Give it a value of 1


Clearing the Page File on Shutdown

Quote:
Click on the Start button
Go to the Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Local Security Policy
Local Policies
Click on Security Options
Right hand menu - right click on "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile"
Select "Enable"
Reboot


For regedit users.....
If you want to clear the page file on each shutdown:


Quote:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\ClearPageFileAtShutdown
Set the value to 1


No GUI Boot
If you don't need to see the XP boot logo,


Quote:
Run MSCONFIG
Click on the BOOT.INI tab
Check the box for /NOGUIBOOT


Speeding the Startup of Some CD Burner Programs
If you use program other than the native WindowsXP CD Burner software,
you might be able to increase the speed that it loads.


Quote:
Go to Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services
Double-click on IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service
For the Startup Type, select Disabled
Click on the OK button and then close the Services window
If you dont You should notice


Getting Rid of Unread Email Messages[b]
To remove the Unread Email message by user's login names:


Quote:
Start Regedit
For a single user: Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\M*crosoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\UnreadMail
For all users: Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\M*crosoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\UnreadMail
Create a DWORD key called MessageExpiryDays
Give it a value of 0


[b]Decreasing Boot Time
M*crosoft has made available a program to analyze and decrease the time it takes to boot to WindowsXP
The program is called BootVis


Quote:
Uncompress the file.
Run BOOTVIS.EXE
For a starting point, run Trace / Next Boot + Driver Delays
This will reboot your computer and provide a benchmark
After the reboot, BootVis will take a minute or two to show graphs of your system startup.
Note how much time it takes for your system to load (click on the red vertical line)
Then run Trace / Optimize System
Re-Run the Next Boot + Drive Delays
Note how much the time has decreased
Mine went from approximately 33 to 25 seconds.


Increasing Graphics Performance
By default, WindowsXP turns on a lot of shadows, fades, slides etc to menu items.
Most simply slow down their display.

To turn these off selectively:

Quote:
Right click on the My Computer icon
Select Properties
Click on the Advanced tab
Under Performance, click on the Settings button
To turn them all of, select Adjust for best performance
My preference is to leave them all off except for Show shadows under mouse pointer and Show window contents while dragging


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.


Quote:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive
Set the value to be 1
Reboot the computer


Increasing File System Caching
To increase the amount of memory Windows will locked for I/O operations:


Quote:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management
Edit the key IoPageLockLimit

4096 - 32megs of memory or less
8192 - 32+ megs of memory
16384 - 64+ megs of memory
32768 - 128+ megs of memory
65536 - 256+ megs of memo


Resolving Inability to Add or Remove Programs
If a particular user cannot add or remove programs, there might be a simple registry edit neeed.


Quote:
Go to HKCU\Software\M*crosoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pol icies\Uninstall
Change the DWORD NoAddRemovePrograms to 0 disable it


Windows Explorer Tip

Quote:
When launched in Windows Millennium/Win2k/WinXP,Explorer by default will open the "My Documents" folder. Many people prefer the behavior from previous versions of Windows, where Windows Explorer would open and display "My Computer" instead of the new way. To revert to the old way [My Computer by default rather than My Documents as the default], simply edit the shortcut to Windows Explorer, by right clicking on it, and left clicking "Properties" and changing the "Target" box to: "C:\WINDOWS\EXPLORER.EXE /n,/e," [adjust the path/drive letter if needed]. The key is to add the "/n,/e," to the end of the shortcut (don't type the quotes).


XP browsing speed up tweak
when you connect to a web site your computer sends information back and forth, this is obvious. Some of this information deals with resolving the site name to an IP address, the stuff that tcp/ip really deals with, not words. This is DNS information and is used so that you will not need to ask for the site location each and every time you visit the site. Although WinXP and win2000 has a pretty efficient DNS cache, you can increase its overall performance by increasing its size.

You can do this with the registry entries below:

Code:


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Dnscache\Parameters]
"CacheHashTableBucketSize"=dword:00000001
"CacheHashTableSize"=dword:00000180
"MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000fa00
"MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000012d

make a new text file and rename it to dnscache.reg. The copy and paste the above into it and save it. Then merge it into the registry.


Grouping multiple open windows
WinXP will group multiple open windows (IE windows for example) into one group on the task bar to keep the desktop clear. This can be annoying at times - especially when comparing different web pages because you have to go back to the task bar, click on the group and then click on the page you want and then you only get one page because you have to click on each one separately. I think the default for this is 8 windows - any combination of apps or utilities open.

You can modify this behavior by adding this reg key at:

Change number of windows that are open before XP will start
grouping them on the Taskbar

Quote:
HKEY_CURRRENT_USER\Software\M*crosoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Explorer\Advanced\
add reg_Dword "TaskbarGroupSize"

modify "TaskbarGroupSize" entry to be the number of windows you want open before XP starts to group them on the task bar.
A value of 2 will cause the Taskbar buttons to always group.

Disable or enable recent documents history. This can be done at:

Quote:
HKEY_CURRRENT_USER\Software\M*crosoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Policies\Explorer\
this key should already be present - if it isn't you'll need to add it:
reg_Binary "NoRecentDocsHistory"
modify it so that value reads 01 00 00 00



Group Policy for Windows XP
One of the most full featured Windows XP configuration tools available is hidden right there in your system, but most people don't even know it exists. It's called the Local Group Policy Editor, or gpedit for short. To invoke this editor, select Start and then Run, then type the following:

Quote:
gpedit.msc

After you hit ENTER, you'll be greeted by gpedit, which lets you modify virtually every feature in Windows XP without having to resort to regedit. Dig around and enjoy!

[sambhalke]

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