Shutdown
You know the drill. You start to shut down the computer, you wait a few moments,
and then you see a dialog box asking if you want to kill an application or service that
is running. Instead of prompting you, you can make Windows XP take care of the kill
task automatically. Here's how:
1. Open the Registry Editor.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.
3. Highlight the value AutoEndTasks and change the value to 1.
4. Close the Registry Editor.
12. Stop Noise
When using 3rd party burning software (eg, Nero Burning Rom) to copy audio
CD,some noise may be heard at the end of each track. To prevent this,try the
following method:
1. Enter System Properties\device manager
2. Select IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
3. Double click on thee CD writer IDE channel
4. Select advance setting
5. Change the transfer mode to 'PIO Only'
6. Restart Computer
13. Disable Unsigned Driver Dialogue
First go to: Start Run
Then type: gpedit.msc and hit enter. Browse the folder tree to the following location
User Configuration Administrative Templates System. Right-click Code
signing for Device drivers and select Properties. On the Settings tab, either select
enable, and then select ignore from the appearing listbox..
or click the disable option. Click apply and Ok and your set!
Alternatively especially for XP Home users:
Open "System" properties (Windows key + pause or Right click 'My Computer' -
properties or Control Panel - System).On the Hardware tab click the "Driver Signing"
button. In the dialogue that comes up choose "Ignore" to install the new driver
anyway.
14. A Flying Start for the Start Menu
A simple Registry tweak can give speed up your start menu and sub-menus. Open the
Registry Editor, and navigate to and select:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop .
Double-click the MenuShowDelay icon on the right, and change 'Value data' from its
default of 400 (milliseconds) to something speedier, like 0. When you have finished,
press Enter.
15. Resize Your Wallpaper
If you just switched to a wide-screen monitor, your desktop wallpaper image may no
longer look right, or maybe you just want to make a small adjustment to it.
For more-granular control of your wallpaper's placement, highlight the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\desktop
Double-click the WallpaperOriginX icon in the right pane. (If you don't see this icon,
right-click in this pane, choose New, String Value, type WallpaperOriginX to name
the value, and press
position of your wallpaper's left edge, and press
WallpaperOriginY icon (create it if necessary as explained above) and enter a number
for the starting vertical position of the image's top edge. If your wallpaper image is
larger than the screen, type a negative number (for example, -200) to push the
picture's top or left edge off the screen.
To test the effect, first minimize the Registry Editor (and any other open window),
right-click the desktop, choose Properties, and click OK or Apply to refresh the
wallpaper placement. Repeat these steps as needed until the wallpaper is positioned
correctly.The settings work whether you've set your wallpaper to be centered, tiled, or
stretched.
16. Unhide the Administrator
Few people are aware of Windows XP's cloaked administrator account (called,
appropriately enough, "Administrator"). This account is invisible unless either your
system has no other accounts or you are booting in Safe Mode. To remove
Administrator's camouflage and add it to XP's Welcome screen, navigate to & select
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winl
ogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList in the Registry Editor, and double-click the
Administrator icon in the right pane. If you don't see this icon, right-click in the pane,
choose New, DWORD Value, name it Administrator, and press Enter. Type 1 in the
'Value data' box, and press
Accounts window via the Control Panel, you'll see the Administrator account. You
can easily change its picture or give it a password. In addition, the next time you see
the Welcome screen, your Administrator account will be visible, along with the entire
computer's other user accounts.
17. Retitle Internet Explorer
By default, Internet Explorer's title bar shows the name of the Web site you're
viewing, followed by "Microsoft Internet Explorer"--or in some cases, your
company's name or the name of the ISP that supplied the browser. To change the
repeating text in IE's title bar (or to get rid of it altogether), navigate to and select
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main in the Registry
Editor, and double-click the Window Title icon in the right pane. (If you don't see this
icon, right-click in the pane, choose New, String Value, type Window Title, and press
the site name. Note that the hyphen that normally separates the site name from the
page title will remain. When you relaunch Internet Explorer, you will see the change.
Bonus Tip: Hack Your BIOS for Faster
Startups
You can speed up your startup procedures by changing the BIOS with the built-in
setup utility. How you run this utility varies from PC to PC, but you typically get to it
by pressing the Delete, F1, or F10 keys during startup. You'll come to a menu with a
variety of choices. Here are the choices to make for faster system startups:
Quick Power On Self Test (POST)
When you choose this option, your system runs an abbreviated POST rather than the
normal, lengthy one.
Boot Up Floppy Seek
Disable this option. When it's enabled, your system spends a few extra seconds
looking for your floppy drivea relatively pointless procedure, especially considering
how infrequently you use your floppy drive.
Boot Delay
Some systems let you delay booting after you turn on your PC so that your hard drive
gets a chance to start spinning before bootup. Most likely, you don't need to have this
boot delay, so turn it off. If you run into problems, however, you can turn it back on.
18. Find Every File
When you search for a file in Windows Windows searches only for file types it
recognizes. Files that aren't listed in the 'Registered file types' list are ignored.
Fortunately, a simple edit of the Registry will make Windows search for every file,
regardless of its extension. Open the Registry Editor as described above, and then
navigate to and select:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex.
Double-click the FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions icon in the right pane, change
the 0 in the 'Value data' box to 1, and press Enter.
To ensure that Windows XP searches for every possible file, select All Files and
Folders under 'Type of file' in the Search Companion pane. (If you don't see this
option, click More Advanced Options.) Check Search system folders, Search hidden
files and folders, and Search subfolders (as desired). In Windows 2000, click Search
Options, check Type, and make sure that (All Files and Folders) is selected in the
resulting drop-down menu. Check Advanced Options, and make sure Search
Subfolders is checked. Finally, to ensure that Windows 2000 finds system and hidden
files, choose Tools, Folder Options and click the View tab. In the 'Advanced settings'
list, select Show hidden files and folders. Uncheck Hide protected operating system
files (Recommended), click Yes to acknowledge the warning, and finish by clicking
OK.
19. Rework System Restore
The amount of space Windows uses for restore points is a little more complicated than
a single percentage value. The Registry includes its own setting for the maximum disk
space given to System Restore, and Windows uses whichever amount is larger: the
percentage you specify via the System Properties dialog box, or the Registry's
maximum value. Any disk space you free up via System Properties won't instantly be
used by System Restore; it will be available until a new restore point requires more
space than the amount allotted via the percentage value. The percentage and max
values tell Windows only when to stop making new restore points.
To lock in your System Restore allocation, open the Registry Editor and navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\S
ystemRestore. Select the SystemRestore icon in the left pane to see several icons
appear in the right pane. Do not experiment with just any of these icons! While you
can safely change the value of some of them, Microsoft warns that others should not
be altered under any circumstances. Fortunately, you can safely edit the values for the
DiskPercent and DSMax icons, which control System Restore's disk-space allotments.
To change the maximum amount of disk space System Restore will use (providing it's
larger than the percentage value), double-click the DSMax icon. In the Edit DWORD
Value dialog box, click Decimal so you can see the specified number of megabytes in
the 'Value data' box (the default on most systems is '400'). Change this to the desired
amount, and click OK.
While you're there, you can also safely edit the DSMin value, which specifies the
minimum space System Restore needs to work at all. Normally, if free space on your
Windows drive gets too low, System Restore shuts down and makes no restore points
until you have at least 200MB of free space. Setting this value determines the amount
of disk space at which System Restore will wake up and attempt to start saving restore
points again. However, just because System Restore will try to do so, it won't
necessarily succeed if the available space is too small. Unfortunately, we know of no
method to determine how much space a single restore point will require, so setting
this amount too low could render the feature useless. Still, you can fit a lot of system
files in 100MB of disk space.
To change this value, double-click the DSMin icon, click Decimal, and enter your
desired amount of free disk space (in megabytes) in the 'Value data' box. Click OK.
20. Pop Up a Message at Start Up
To pop a banner which can contain any message you want to display just before a user
is going to log on, go to the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Polic
ies\System.
Now create a new string Value in the right pane named LegalNoticeCaption and enter
the value that you want to see in the Menu Bar. Now create yet another new string
value and name it LegalNoticeText. Modify it and insert the message you want to
display each time Windows boots. This can be effectively used to display the
company's private policy each time the user logs on to his NT box.
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