tips and tricks, windows xp.txt

1000 HOWTOs for various needs [WINDOWS]

double click it. an icon should appear on your desktop that says "My Briefcase". double click it. it will come up with this window that tells you how to use it.

TURN NUMLOCK ON AT LOGON.
NumLock does not toggle on by default (system-wide), even if you have it set in your PC's BIOS, because of XP's multi-user functionality. Guess Microsoft doesn't know everyone actually turns it on, which should be reason enough for what acts as "default"...
Anyway, you can hack the Windows Registry to change this behavior, or run a script at logon to turn NumLock on.
1. To enable NumLock through the Registry:
* Open Windows' Registry Editor (START > RUN, type "REGEDIT").
*. Navigate to HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Keyboard.
*. Change the value for InitialKeyboardIndicators from 0 to 2.
2. To enable NumLock using a script, see this MS Knowledgebase article for complete instructions:
CODE
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q262625

Option 1 is the quicker method, but if you have more than one user on your system and one or more don't want NumLock on (stranger things have been known of), then option 2 is the way to go since it allows you to only attach the script to specific users.

FREE DISK SPACE BY DELETING RESTORE POINTS.
Start button-all programs-accessories-system tools-cleanup-more options. You will have the option of deleting your restore points.When your done creat one
restore point as a back up.

HOW TO REAL GET RID OF UNNECESSARY SOFTWARE
to uninstall things like msn messenger and other hidden installs thru add remove programs, do this: find sysoc.inf (you might have to enable "show hidden files" and "show hidden/protected system folders" in explorer) and open it in notepad replace all ",hide" with "," (both with out quotes) which is easiest to do with the replace all command under edit then in add/remove programs under add/remove windows compnents and whole new list of things to uninstall and add are now listed (such as internet explorer)

HAVING PROGRAMS RUN WHEN WINDOWS LOADS SLOWS DOWN YOUR STARTUP.
There are two ways do disable programs that may be in your startup (like icq, messanger,) The easiest is to do the following:
1. start --> run --> msconfig
2. Click on the "startup" tab (furthest right)\
3. Unclick any items you don't want to load when windows starts.
The second is by deleting registry entrys, this can be done the following way:
1. Start --> run --> regedit
2. Navigate to : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
3. Delete any entry's that you don't want to load up

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 I suggest turnning this feature off:
1. Control Panel
2. Administrative Tools
3. Services
4. Disable Indexing Services

HALF LIFE AND WINDOWS XP.
1. How to recover from incompatible drivers
Before you install new drivers set a system restore point. Start>All programs>Accessories>system tools>system restore
After your new drivers don't work reset your computer. Press F8 repeatedly as soon as the BIOS screen disappears, and before the Windows XP screen appears. Select safe mode. Use system restore again to undo your mess.
2. Video Drivers
The NVidia drivers that come with XP do not allow you to run Half Life in OpenGL. Update to the newest drivers.
Despite the fact that they are not official drivers, 22.50 was the only set which worked
3. Sound Drivers
Use windows update to update Creative drivers.
4. Fixing screen flicker
Windows XP defaults to 60Hz for games. A fix is available here:
CODE
http://www.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?/planetquake/ztn/nvreffix-setup.exe

Select "set: ev ery resolution to monitor's maximum supported rate"
5. Fixing lag
If you are having trouble with lag, try disabling the windows XP firewall. Go to control panel>network connections. Select connection, right click, properties, advanced, untick the firewall.
6. Mouse
You can improve your mouse smoothness for games.
Control panel>mouse>hardware>properties>advanced
Change the sample rate to a higher one, eg. 200

REGISTRY METHOD FOR REMOVING STARTUP ITEMS.
I prefer to use MSCONFIG selective startup to troubleshoot. To remove entries for good, open the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RUN and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RUN
Delete entries of unwanted startup daemons and tray procedures.

DISPLAY MESSAGE ON STARTUP.
Start regedit, if you are unfamiliar with regedit please see our FAQ.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Modify the key legalnoticecaption with what you want to name the window.
Modify the key legalnoticetext with what you want the window to say. Restart.

REMOVE THE DEFAULT IMAGE VIEWER IN WINDOWS ME/XP.
This tweak works in Windows Me/XP, I have not try it in Windows NT/2000 yet, because i don't have that OS, you can try it if you have.
*This tweak does not work in Windows 95/98
To remove the Windows default Image Viewer, first:
Click Start Menu
Select Run menu
Type "cmd", (for Windows Me, type "command")
Then type "regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll" to unregister this dll. This will stop it from previewing any picture that it support, e.g. JPEG, Bitmap, GIF....
* Before perform this tweak, make sure that you have the alternative Image Viewer installed in you windows e.g. ACDsee, FireGraphics... because once you do this tweak without that application, you can't open and view your image anymore! So, to undo it, type "regsvr32 shimgvw.dll" in command prompt.

SPEED UP BOOT BY DISABLING UNUSED PORTS.
You may have tried many tweaks like modifying windowsXP start-up applications, prefetches, unload DLLs method,etc. And yes those methods do work for me.
I have just accidentally found out another way to give you an extra boost in windowsXP's boot performance. This is done by disabling your unused devices in
Device Manager. for example, if you don't have input devices that are connected to one of your USBs or COM ports, disabling them will give you an extra perfromance boost in booting. Go to Control Panel -> System -> Hardware tab -> device manager Disable devices that you don't use for your PC and then restart.

CLEAR UNWANTED ENTRIES FROM ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS.
Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT).
Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Uninstall Remove any unwanted keys under "Uninstall."

CLICKING * .AVI FILES ON EXPLORER CAUSING 100% CPU USAGE.
Well windows seem to have a REALLY big problem when it comes to reading AVI files. It seems that when you click on an AVI file in explorer, it'll try to read the entire AVI file to determine the width,height, etc. of the AVI file (this is displayed in the Properties window). Now the problem with Windows is that if you have a broken/not fully downloaded AVI file that doesnt contain this info, Windows will scan the entire AVI file trying to figure out all these properties which in the process will probably cause 100% CPU usage and heavy memory usage. To solve this problem all you have to do is the following:
1. Open up regedit
2. Goto HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler
3. Delete the "Default" value which should be "{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}"
Voila! Please not that this will no longer provide you with the windows properties displaying the AVI file information such as width, height, bitrate etc. But its a small price to pay for saving you resources.
NOTE: Please use caution when using regedit. Improper usage may cause windows to behave imcorrectly. Also, I cannot be held resposible. Backup your registry first.

CD ROM STOPS AUTOPLAYING/AUTORUN.
And the AutoPlay Tab has disappeared in My Computer, Devices With Removable Storage, Right Click on CDROM, Properties.
Solution: The service: "Shell Hardware Detection" has been set to Manual or Disabled. Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services. Return this service to "Automatic".

SHUTDOWN XP FASTER 1.
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 then 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 can see some improvements when shutting down your system.

SHUTDOWN XP FASTER 2.
Start Regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control.
Click on the "Control" Folder.
Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"
Right click on it and select Modify.
Set it a value lower than 2000 (Mine is set to 200).

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.

SPEED UP MENU DISPLAY.
When using the start menu the you will notice a delay between different tiers of the menu hierarchy. For the fastest computer experience possible I recommend changing this value to zero. This will allow the different tiers to appear instantly. Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Select MenuShowDelay from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to 0.
Reboot your computer.

16 COLOUR ICONS.
If you select 16bit mode for graphics your icons will revert to using 8bit (16 color) icons. Yuck! Change the following registry setting to:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics] "Shell Icon BPP"="16" "Shell Icon Size"="32" Setting the BPP to 16bit will yield 65565 colors for icons.

DE-CRYPT ENCRYPTED FILES ON WINDOWS XP.
1. Login as Administrator
2. Go to Start/Run and type in cmd and click OK.
At the prompt type cipher /r:Eagent and press enter
This prompt will then display:
Please type in the password to protect your .PFX file:
Type in your Administrator password
Re-confirm your Administrator password
The prompt will then display
Your .CER file was created successfully.
Your .PFX file was created successfully.
The Eagent.cer and Eagent.pfx files will be saved in the current directory that is shown at the command prompt. Example: The command prompt displays
C:\Documents and Settings\admin> the two files are saved in the admin folder. (For security concerns, you should house the two files in your Administrator folder or on a floppy disk).
3. Go to Start/Run and type in certmgr.msc and click OK. This will launch the Certificates Manager. Navigate to Personal and right click on the folder and select All Tasks/Import. The Certificate Import Wizard will appear. Click Next. Browse to the C:\Documents and Settings\admin folder. In the Open dialog box, change the Files of Type (at the bottom) to personal Information Exchange (*.pfx,*.P12). Select the file Eagent.pfx and click Open. Click Next. Type in your Administrator password (leave the two checkboxes blank) and click Next. Make sure the Radio button is active for the first option (Automatically select the certificate store based on the type of certifcate). Click Next. Click Finish. (You'll receive a message that the import was successful). To confirm the import, close Certificates Manager and re-open it. Expand the Personal folder and you will see a new subfolder labeled Certificates. Expand that folder and you will see the new entry in the right side column. Close Certificate Manager.
4. Go to Start/Run and type in secpol.msc and click OK. This will launch the Local Security Policy. Expand the Public Key Policies folder and then right click on the Encrypted File System subfolder and select Add Data Recovery Agent... The Wizard will then display. Click Next. Click the Browse Folders... button. Browse to the C:\Documents and Settings\admin folder. Select the Eagent.cer file and click Open. (The wizard will display the status User_Unknown. That's ok). Click Next. Click Finish. You will see a new entry in the right side column. Close the Local Security Policy.
You, the Administrator are now configured as the default Recovery Agent for All Encrypted files on the Local Machine.
To Recover Encrypted files: Scenario #1
If you have completed the above steps BEFORE an existing user encrypted his/her files, you can log in to your Administrator account and navigate to the encrypted file(s). Double click on the file(s) to view the contents.
Scenario #2
If you have completed the above steps AFTER an existing user has already encrypted his/her files, you must login to the applicable User's User Account and then immediately logout. Next, login to your Administrator account and navigate to the encrypted file(s). Double click on the file(s) to view the contents.
*Warning Do not Delete or Rename a User's account from which will want to Recover the Encrypted Files. You will not be able to de-crypt the files using the steps outlined above.

DUMP FILES TWEAK & DISABLE DR.WATSON.
"Dump file. A dump file stores data from memory during a system crash and can be helpful when diagnosing problems, but like a swap file, it can also expose a lot of sensitive, unencrypted data. To prevent Windows from creating the file, go to Control Panel | System. Click on the Advanced tab and then the Settings button on the Startup and Recovery pane. Set the drop-down menu under Write debugging information to (none). "Similarly, the debugging program Dr. Watson saves information when applications crash. To disable it, go to:
HKEY_local_machine\software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ AeDebug and set the Auto string to 0. Then use Windows Explorer to go to Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\DrWatson. Delete User.dmp and Drwtsn32.log, the insecure logs the program creates." Heed related advice from 'microsoft' regarding 'Disable Dr.Watson' first before the preceding Dr. Watson advice (go Google search.) Back up with System Restore, and go ahead. As cautious as I am, I have gladly applied these tweaks, and followed related microsot advice on Dr. Watson.

Precaution: Backups All Of Your Data Before Tweaking, Not All Of The Tips I've Mentioned Above Were Tested. I Don't Responsible For Any Damages. Happy Experiments