XP tips&tricks

Hi, most of you may think that making some customizing in XP (eg. all ms os)
can really be a pain in the @ss, and... it is!!!
So i tried to post here some of the tricks that i use to do that, this isn't
going to resolve all problems(for that you should start fishing or something ;) ) but it might help a bit, or it can be some useless crap, anyway...

Advising: Before you make any change to registry, please note that messing around with this can really make you
into trouble, so make backups and store your current config.

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1º. most of you notice that XP most of time don't unload useless dll's from memory, and this may cause, specially if you got small resources, that after some time hanging around in xp your system may freeze and start to taking a lot of time completing tasks, so what you should do is to force windows to unload them:

Open regedit - start>run regedit.exe

and find:

HKLM>software>microsoft>currentversion>explorer

try to find a key called "AlwaysUnloadDLL" without the quotes.
if you dont find it create one with that name and change it value to 1

reboot and voila do what you use to do and you should see the results.

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2º for many times i saw many posts from people clayming that XP won't
copletely Shutdown, do heres a tip on how to do that:

go to control panel, then Power Options.
here you will click on the APM "Advanced Power Management", and check
the "enable advanced power management support".
Shutdown and this time it should completely shutdown(turn off).

NOTE: you computer may freeze on shutdown in this case you should undo the changes.
There are many ways to go around this problem but this should do the job.

another way to do this:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Double click on PowerDownAfterShutdown or add it as REG_SZ. Set it to 1.

This only works if your HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) supports it.

If this don't work to, well i can't remember any other way in this moment but
as i said before there are many other ways



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3º Change the size of icons in desktop.

HKCU>controlpanel>desktop>windowmetrics>shelliconsize

change the value for one of this

Values: 48,64,72 or 128 default=32


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4º Speed up Boot


HKLM>system>currentcontrolset>control>sessionmanager>memorymanagement>preftchparameters>

.find EnablePrefetcher key
.normally the value is 3 but try to change it to 5.



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5º Speed up shutdown

HKCU>controlpanel>desktop

.find HungAppTimeout this should have the value 5000
.then find WaitToKillAppTimout the default value it's 20000 try to change it to 4000

then go to:
HKLMsystem>CurrentControlSet>Control

.find WaitToKillServiceTimout th default value is 20000 change it to 4000

Restart your system to changes take effect


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6º Grant or deny access to removable drives.

Go to:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

.find AllocateDASD

and the change the value for on of these

0 - Administrators only
1 - Administrators and power users
2 - Administrators and the interactive user


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7º Restrict access to event logs

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog

.find RestrictGuestAccess

and change it to one of the following values
0 = guest access
1 = restricted access


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8º View your BIOS information in registry

go to HKLM\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System

and see the string values


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9º Improve core system performance

this can be used to disable paging for core windows system, and keep it in ram
NOTE: This is only to systems with large amount of RAM!

go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

find DisablePagingExecutive
and chang it to:
0 = default
1 = disable system paging



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10º add command option to right click in folders

go to
HKCRT\Directory\shell

Create a new sub key called Command
than go to this sub key
HKCRT\Directory\shell\Command

change the default value to wharever you wan't to see in right click menu

then create a new sub key under the created above nammed command and change the default value for:

Windows 95, 98 or Me
command.com /k cd "%1"

or


Windows NT, 2000 or XP
cmd.exe /k cd "%1"

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Regards,
Bug_

You know the nice thing about registry editing is that you can really customize how your OS performs. The really bad thing is that the slightest screw-up can wreak havok with your system. If someone is passing advice to you like the post above is (I'm not saying the above is wrong), and they omit the tiniest detail, then you can potentially do a lot of damage or waste time on a wild goose chase. As for me, I hate chasing geese and found a better way. You can download a program called X-Teq's X-Setup and do it the easy way. Its GUI and warning system that lets you know when you're doing something that can have a detrimental affect on your OS make it a breeze to use. So if you're as lazy as I am, go download a copy (free 4.4 meg download) and tweak to your hearts content!!

Great post man keep it up.

As i said messing around with registry can make you go into a lot of trouble, so if you want to
try something be carefull and try it in a second machine or something, if you dont have a second machine (i don't) try it when you have backups up to date and if you have time to, case something goes really wrong, reeinstaling Windows.

I learned that when i did nothing from above and lost many schooll works reaching the deadline. (I think that I will not have to say that I lost many nights of sleep) 8-)

By the way thanks for the reply,
Bug_