10 XP tips to run your computer faster

1.When setting up the system with tweaks or making changes to the core OS or hardware always be logged in as administrator. Seems that while XP does create an account upon install that has administrator privileges, its not the same as the administrator account is. Think about it this way - if the account created was the same then why have an administrator account period?

2.It is always better to install winXP clean than to do an upgrade.

3. The files and settings wizard is your friend. However it doesn't save the account passwords for your e-mail and news groups accounts in OE. Export these accounts manually from within OE first before hand and save them in a safe place. This way you will not need to remember what the account info was, just import the account again.

4. If using a SB Live sound card and trying to run Unreal (the game) you may have some problems. This is not the fault of winXP or Unreal. the problem is a bad driver design from creative and the Devloader portion. There is currently no work around for this problem.

5. Many - many games do run in winXP with comparability mode. The easiest way to do this is to simply create a shortcut on the desktop to the game executable and choose the compatibility tab of the shortcut and set up for win98.

6. Do not disable all the services that you find outlined in the win2K tweak guides floating around. Instead set them to manual instead of disabled. This will allow something to start up when it is needed and you'll avoid the BSOD thing that can occur if something gets disabled that wasn't supposed to.

7. The winXP firewall is actually very good. However it is not very configurable. I would recommend tiny personal firewall from www.tinysoftware.com. It free and all you need. It so far is the most compatible with winXP - why you may ask? - because (little known trivia fun fact here) this is where the winXP firewall came from. Both the XP built in firewall and tiny will give complete stealth. However what you can do - which is kind of cool is divide the work between the two and use both. use tiny to just filter the ports you want to filter instead of everything and let the built in XP firewall take care of the rest. The result is a smoother running firewall system that reacts much more quickly. I've used Nortons , zone alarm (which contrary to popular belief is not a real firewall and a joke in the IT community as a whole) and several of the rest, Tiny has been the best so far.

8. After you complete your clean install and get all your software installed I would recommend that you use something like drive image 4 to do an image of your install partition, then burn the image to CD and keep it. XP is a different creature for some people. If you mess it up when playing around with it, just bring the image back. You can be up and running again in 20 minutes vs. the two to three hours it will take to get the whole thing and all your stuff installed again.

9. choose winXP pro over the personal version because it has more bells and whistles. However if the bells and whistles do not appeal to you then the home (personal) version is the way to go.

10. Avoid problems with WinXP. Insure that your hardware is on the HCL. Don't be mad because the latest and greatest doesn't work with your hardware. It is not the fault of MS , winXP or anything or one else. Not defending them here, just being practical. Look at it this way - if your dream car costs $100,000 dollars and you don't have $100,000 is it the car manufactures fault? nope because thats the free enterprise system and the way it works. Try to upgrade your hardware if you can. If you can't, wait for drivers from the manufacturer that support winxp. I would highly recommend before installing winXP that you go out and get the win2000 drivers for all your hardware. 99% of the win2000 drivers will work in winXP. This way if winxp doesn't have drivers, you do.

Installing Internet Information Server (IIS) On Windows XP Pro

If you are running Windows XP Professional on your computer you can install
Microsoft's web server, Internet Information Server 5.1 (IIS) for free from the Windows XP Pro installation CD and configure it to run on your system by following the instructions below: -

1. Place the Windows XP Professional CD-Rom into your CD-Rom Drive.

2. Open 'Add/Remove Windows Components' found in 'Add/Remove Programs' in the 'Control Panel'.

3. Place a tick in the check box for 'Internet Information Services (IIS)' leaving all the default installation settings intact.

4. Once IIS is installed on your machine you can view your home page in a web browser by typing 'http://localhost' (you can substitute 'localhost' for the name of your computer) into the address bar of your web browser. If you have not placed your web site into the default directory you should now be looking at the IIS documentation.

5. If you are not sure of the name of your computer right-click on the 'My Computer' icon on your desktop, select 'Properties' from the shortcut menu, and click on the 'Computer Name' tab.

6. Your default web directory to place your web site in is 'C:\Inetpub\wwwroot', but if you don't want to over write the IIS documentation found in this directory you can set up your own virtual directory through the 'Internet Information Services' console.

7. The 'Internet Information Services' console can be found in the 'Administration Tools' in the 'Control Panel' under 'Performance and Maintenance', if you do not have the control panel in Classic View.


8. Double-click on the 'Internet Information Services' icon.


8. Once the 'Internet Information Services' console is open you will see any IIS web services you have running on your machine including the SMTP server and FTP server, if you chose to install them with IIS.

9. To add a new virtual directory right click on 'Default Web Site' and select 'New', followed by 'Virtual Directory', from the drop down list.



7. Next you will see the 'Virtual Directory Creation Wizard' from the first screen click the 'next' button.

9. You will then be asked to type in an 'Alias' by which you will access the virtual directory from your web browser (this is the name you will type into your web browser after 'localhost' to view any web pages you place in the directory).

10. Next you will see a 'Browse...' button, click on this to select the directory your web site pages are in on your computer, after which click on the 'next' button to continue.

11. On the final part of the wizard you will see a series of boxes, if you are not worried about security then select them all, if you are and want to run ASP scripts then check the first two, followed by the 'next' button.

12. Once the virtual directory is created you can view the web pages in the folder by typing 'http://localhost/aliasName' (where 'aliasName' is, place the alias you called the virtual directory) into the address bar of your web browser (you can substitute 'localhost' for the name of your computer if you wish).

How to Remove WinXP Splash Screen

Are you having boot up problems and would like to know what it going on behind that Windows Loading Logo? To find out, you can disable the splash screen by making a small change to the Boot.ini file.

Follow these steps (carefully!):

1. Open the "System Properties" dialog box ( Settings - Control Panel - System)

2. On the Advanced tab, click the Settings button in the "Startup And Recovery" section.

3. In the "Startup And Recovery" dialog box, select the Edit button in the "System Startup" section.

4. The Boot.ini file will open in Notepad; locate the line that ends with the /fastdetect switch.

5. Position your cursor to the right after the parameter, press the spacebar, and add the /SOS switch.

6. Save the Boot.ini file, and close Notepad.

7. Click Cancel to close both the "Startup And Recovery" dialog box and the "System Properties" dialog box.

8. Restart the computer to see the effect.

Once the computer restarts you will notice that the Windows Splash Screen is no longer present. Instead you can observe some of the boot up operations that Windows XP performs during the startup stage.

To renable the splash screen, follow the same procedure but remove the "/SOS".

Making Bootable Floppy Disc in XP

This tutorial and its procedure will guide the user on how he/she make the bootable floppy disc that can boot into Windows so that he/she is able to boot into Windows eventhough the Windows bootup is corrupted. All you have to do,

1-1) Go to [i]My Computer

1-2) Make sure that you unhide hidden system file in order for you to see the OS boot file

If you know how to unhide the hidden system, you can skip the following procedures to procedure # 2-1. Otherwise continue on with the following procedure.

1-3) Go to Tools menu, and choose Folder Options...

1-4) Go to the View tab

1-5) Under the Hidden files and folders, choose the option that says, "Show hidden files and folders"

1-6) Uncheck the checkbox that says, "Hide extensions for known file types"

1-7) Uncheck the checkbox that says, "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)"

When the message box appears on the screen, just click the OK button to continue.

1-8 ) Click the OK button to continue

Now you should be able to see all the hidden files and the hidden system files.

2-1) Insert the blank floppy disc into the floppy drive

In order to be able to make the bootable floppy disc, you will have to first format it.

2-2) Go to Command Prompt (In Windows mode, that means Start -> Run -> cmd)

2-3) Change to A Drive (Floppy Drive) by typing the following in the Command Prompt and hit [Enter] key:

CODE
a:


2-4) After you change to A Drive in Command Prompt, format the floppy disc by typing the following in the Command Prompt and then press [Enter] key and follow the prompt:

CODE
format a:


Now the formatting floppy disc begins. When the formatting process completed,

2-5) Go back to My Computer

2-6) Go to the primary partition of the primary HDD (that means C Drive)

2-7) Copy all the following files from C Drive into A Drive (Floppy drive)

NTLDR
Boot.ini
Ntdetect.com

NTLDR, Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com file are the boot files that are required to boot into the OS.

Once you copied those boot files into the A Drive (Floppy Drive), you just created the bootable floppy disc that can boot into Windows. Now you will have to verify it to see if booting from floppy disc works. Before you do that, it is recommended that you take the floppy disc out and set it to write-protected; therefore, your floppy disc is set to read-only. Doing that can prevent that any virus goes onto the floppy disc. After you do that, put that floppy back in.

3-1) Reboot the PC and enter the mobo BIOS setting

3-2) Verify the Boot Sequence to make sure that the Floppy Drive is set to first boot.

3-3) Save and exit the BIOS setting to reboot the system.

Once the system reboots, after the POST process, the system will boot from the floppy drive. If the system is able to boot from the floppy disc and enter to Windows, that means your bootable floppy disc for booting into Windows is working. Be sure that you label the floppy disc and put it in the safe place just for in case of that you need that to troubleshoot the Windows bootup in the future.

Increase number of folders for Windows XP Folder Settings

 Windows remembers 400 folder settings. When that number is reached some settings aren't retained any longer. You can change this to 8000 by adding this edit to the registry.

1. Copy the following (everything in the box) into notepdad.

QUOTE
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\BagMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:00001f40

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:00001f40

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoSaveSettings"=dword:00000000

2. Save the file as folder8000.reg
3. Double click the file to import into your registry.

How To Make Windows XP Faster

There are several ways to make Windows XP faster. We will discuss several tips here.

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:
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


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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:

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

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Not Displaying Logon, Logoff, Startup and Shutdown Status Messages

To turn these off:

Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionpoliciessystem
If it is not already there, create a DWORD value named DisableStatusMessages
Give it a value of 1

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Clearing the Page File on Shutdown

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:

Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementClearPageFileAtShutdown
Set the value to 1

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No GUI Boot

If you don't need to see the XP boot logo,

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

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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.

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

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Getting Rid of Unread Email Messages

To remove the Unread Email message by user's login names:

Start Regedit
For a single user: Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUnreadMail
For all users: Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUnreadMail
Create a DWORD key called MessageExpiryDays
Give it a value of 0

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Decreasing Boot Time

Microsoft has made available a program to analyze and decrease the time it takes to boot to WindowsXP
The program is called BootVis

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.

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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:

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

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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.

Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementDisablePagingExecutive
Set the value to be 1
Reboot the computer

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Increasing File System Caching

To increase the amount of memory Windows will locked for I/O operations:

Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management
Edit the key IoPageLockLimit

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Resolving Inability to Add or Remove Programs

If a particular user cannot add or remove programs, there might be a simple registry edit neeed.

Go to HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesUninstall
Change the DWORD NoAddRemovePrograms to 0 disable it

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 memory

How To Disable Picture And Fax Viewer for images

We all know that WinXP likes to keep itself held together, and how it does not like you uninstalling certain components. Well The Picture and Fax Viewer, is one of these programs which can cause problems if removed incorrectly. It can be disabled safely as follows:

[Start] [Run] type regedit and click [OK]

Navigate to :

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/ SystemFileAssociations/ image/ ShellEx/ ContextMenuHandlers

then delete the Folder ShellImagePreview under ContextMenuHandlers

Note: If you want to restore the Picture and Fax Viewer :

Create the ShellImagePreview folder and create the String Value (Default)
Assign it the value {e84fda7c-1d6a-45f6-b725-cb260c236066}

NOTE: This tweak doesnt uninstall the program. It removes the association and therefore it cannot be run.

Hide Drives and Partitions in Windows XP

Do you have data on a partition or hard drive that you don't want tampered with or easily accessible to other users? Well, you can hide any drive/partition in Windows XP, NT, and 2000. That means that they won't show up in Explorer or My Computer.

If you want access to that drive from your user account you should create a desktop shortcut before proceeding. Once hidden, you can still access by typing the drive letter and a colon in Start/Run—for example, "D:" will bring up a folder of the contents on your D drive.

The easiest way with Win XP is to use the TweakUI power toy from Mcft. Go to Start/Run and type in "tweakui" (without the quotes).

Go to My Computer/Drives and uncheck the drive/partition(s) you want hidden. Click "Apply" or "OK" when finished.

If you have XP but not Tweak UI you can download it here...
http://www.Mcft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

For Win NT, 2000, and XP you can use the following Registry edit:

*Be sure to back up the Registry before proceeding
http://www.worldstart.com/tips/tips.php/401

Open the Registry Editor by going to Start/Run and typing in "regedit" (without the quotes). Find your way to...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mcft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies

Click on "Explorer".

Double-click the "NoDrives" key in the right column. If you don't find a "NoDrives" registry key, just right-click in the right pane and choose "New/DWORD Value" then name the key "NoDrives".

You'll see a value like "0000 00 00 00 00". This is where the fun starts. The four sets of double zeros (after the "0000") are where you'll enter the values for the drive/partitions. Now, stay with me on this—it's not as complicated as it sounds:

The first column is for drives A-H, the second for I-P, the third for Q-X, and the fourth for Y-Z.

The values for each drive are as follows:

1 - A I Q Y
2 - B J R Z
4 - C K S
8 - D L T
16 - E M U
32 - F N V
64 - G O W
80 - H P X

So, let's say you want to hide drive D. In the first column you would put "08". For drive K you would put "04" in the second column.

But what if you want to hide more than one drive in a column? Simply add the values together: D+E = 8+16 = 24. So in the first column you would put "24".

Still baffled? If you have XP then go get TweakUI and save yourself the math.

Whichever method you use, you can rest easy knowing that the files on that drive or partition are less accessible to other users.

How to Run Older Programs on Windows XP

Most programs run properly on Windows XP. The exceptions are some older games and other programs that were written specifically for an earlier version of Windows. To run your program on Windows XP, you can try the following, Run the Program Compatibility Wizard. As an alternative, you can set the compatibility properties manually. Update your program, drivers, or hardware. These options are covered in detail below.

The Program Compatibility Wizard
This wizard prompts you to test your program in different modes (environments) and with various settings. For example, if the program was originally designed to run on Windows 95, set the compatibility mode to Windows 95 and try running your program again. If successful, the program will start in that mode each time. The wizard also allows you to try different settings, such as switching the display to 256 colors and the screen resolution to 640 x 480 pixels. If compatibility problems prevent you from installing a program on Windows XP, run the Program Compatibility Wizard on the setup file for the program. The file may be called Setup.exe or something similar, and is probably located on the Installation disc for the program. To run the Program Compatibility Wizard click Start, click Help and Support, click Find compatible hardware and software for Windows XP, and then, under See Also in the navigation pane, click "Program Compatibility Wizard."

Set the compatibility properties manually
As an alternative to running the Program Compatibility Wizard, you can set the compatibility properties for a program manually. The settings are the same as the options in the Program Compatibility Wizard. To set the compatibility properties for a program manually Right-click the program icon on your desktop or the shortcut on the Start menu for the program you want to run, and then click Properties. Click the Compatibility tab, and change the compatibility settings for your program.

The Compatibility tab is only available for programs installed on your hard drive. Although you can run the Program Compatibility Wizard on programs or setup files on a CD-ROM or floppy disk, your changes will not remain in effect after you close the program. For more information about an option on the Compatibility tab, right-click the option and then click "What's This."

Update your program or drivers
If your program does not run correctly after testing it with the Program Compatibility Wizard, check the Web for updates or other fixes, as follows:

Check the Web site of the program's manufacturer to see if an update or patch is available.
Check Windows Update to see if a fix is available for the program.
Click Home on the menu bar of Help and Support Center, then click Windows Update in the right pane.

If the program is a game that uses DirectX, ensure that you are using the latest version of DirectX. In addition, check the Web site of the manufacturer of your video card or sound card to see if newer drivers are available for either of them.

Disable The Send Error Report to Microsoft feature in Windows XP

To disable the feature in Windows XP, which tries to send a report to microsoft every time a program crashes you will have to do this:

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Open Control Panel

Click on Preformance 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

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