THE TIPS & TRICKS thread post only tips no questions


Recommended Posts

  • 2 weeks later...
Tweak: How to Disable System File Checker/Windows File Protection in XP

Purpose: If you replace system files a lot and don't want to see WFP popups then just simply use this tweak.

How To:

  • Make a copy of sfc_os.dll (C:\windows\system32\) and open it in a hexeditor.
  • FOR XP WITHOUT SP1: At offset 76C6EEB8(0E2B8) find the values 8B C6 and replace it with 90 90
  • FOR XP WITH SP1: At offset 76C6EFBB(0E3BB) find the values 8B C6 and replace it with 90 90
  • Then replace the original one with the patched sfc_os.dll. (Delete the sfc_os.dll in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Dllcache\ and ignore the WFP warning.)
  • Open Regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and change SFCDisable to ffffff9d to disable SFC completely.
  • Allowed SFC values:
    •    
    • 0 = Enable SFC.
         
    • 1 = Disable SFC with prompt at reboot to re-enable it.
         
    • 2 = Disable SFC without nag prompt at reboot to re-enable it.
         
    • 4 = Enable SFC but disable all prompts.
         
    • FFFFFF9D = Disable WFP/SFC completely.

    [*]Reboot and enjoy!

After you reboot check event viewer (in Administrative tools) to see if SFC is disabled or not.

574839[/snapback]

.. .. .. does this work for sp2 ??

D.

First I recommend always that you back up your registry. This is done by firstly loading RegEdit from your Start/Run menu bar. Just type RegEdit and it should load correctly. Now select the Registry menu item and then select Export Registry File. Make sure your Export Range has All selected. Once this has been checked, Enter a file name and press save into your prefered location. By doing this it ensures that if everything did go horribly wrong, you can revert to a previous version.

Now if you look at your registry you will see the huge list of folders down the left hand side. Now what you need to do is select the following in the correct order:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER>

Software>

Microsoft>

Windows>

CurrentVersion>

Internet Settings>

Once you have selected the correct sequence, the following selections and changes are the most important.

Within the right hand window of RegEdit you will see there are two strings named MaxConnectionsPerServer and MaxConnectionsPerl_OServer, if these are not there then see below. Click on the first one, MaxConnectionsPerServer and then with the right mouse button click your right mouse button and then select Modify. A window will pop up at this point and you need to change the Value data to 6. Make sure at this point that Decimal is selected to the right. Even if you did not select Decimal, it would not matter because this will be the same as Hexadecimal unless it was over 10. So just ensure that Decimal is selected and it contains a value of 6. Now, Click ok and do exactly the same for the other registry entry called MaxConnectionsPerl_OServer.

If you find that 1 or both of these registry entries are no in your registry, then you will have to add them manually. To do this you need to move your mouse over to some white space in the right hand side of the registry editor. Right click and select the new option and then select DWORD Value. Now enter MaxConnectionsPerServer as the string name and then press the return key. Now repeat this process for MaxConnectionsPerl_OServer as the string name. Now modify these entries using the procedure above.

Once you are happy that everything has been done. Quit regedit and away you go. There is no need to reboot. If you fire up Internet Explorer you should notice a speed improvement when browsing the Internet.

  • 2 weeks later...

Customizing Folders - Setting a folder background in Windows XP

This is a unique customization feature that allows users to set a custom background in folders. This background supposedly can be any .jpg, .gif, .bmp file or for that matter, most any picture file. Let's begin the process of how to achieve this.

I'll start by saying that this is a very simple process, and will not harm your computer. Here we go! Step-by-step.

To make things simpler, I will use an example. Let us suppose I am customizing a folder called \Program files\Doom3\ which is located in D: drive and I want to use FOLDERshot00001.bmp, which is located in D:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\screenshots\FOLDERshot00001.bmp, as the folder background.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Step 1- Open up notepad, or your favorite text editor. Type in the exact line below:

[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]

Note: The above line contains only zeroes and not the alphabet O.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Step 2- Specify the picture to use:

In the next line we will specify the picture that we want to use as the background for the folder. We will do this by typing the following line:

iconarea_image="D:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\screenshots\FOLDERshot00001.bmp"

Use quotes before and after the path if it contains spaces.

The image to be used as the folder background is specified through iconarea_image. So you can type in the exact path to any image of your liking after the ?=? sign as shown above.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Step 3- Specify the icon label color:

Additionally you can also specify the color of the icon labels.(Text Color) This color will be used to display the icon labels in that specific folder. This one is a bit tricky but very easy if you get the idea. The icon label color is specified through iconarea_text. The value for the color is specified in a 24 bit 0x00bbggrr format (b,g and r stand for blue,green and red respectively) which specifies how much blue, green and red to mix. The bbggrr values are in hexadecimal. It sounds complicated but is very simple. Smart Color available at this address http://www.isotton.com/smartcolor/ is a program which can help you decide what color to use and will give you the hex equivalent to enter. And the program is free.

Now In my case, I want the icon labels (Text color) to be white in color. Because my background image is going to be an actual screen shot from the game Doom3 which will be quite dark. To get white, I will mix all blue, red, and green to their max values. So the value will be 0x00FFFFFF. Note the values of blue, red, and green are all FF, which is FFFFFF. The ini file requires the 0x00 in front of these hex values so the final result would be 0x00FFFFFF. The value 0x00FFFFFF equals pure white. Black of course would be the complete opposite 000000 or for this format 0x00000000. My text color preference in the proper format is shown below:

iconarea_text=0x00FFFFFF

-----------------------------------------------------------------

So here's what we have so far in our text editor:

[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]

iconarea_image="D:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\screenshots\FOLDERshot00001.bmp"

iconarea_text=0x00FFFFFF

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Step 4- Save the file.

All I need to do now is save the file as desktop.ini in D:\Program Files\Doom 3

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Step 5- make your folder a system folder.

Open a command prompt and enter the command:

Attrib +s "D:\Program Files\Doom 3"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

That's it. If you did everything right you should have a background image in your explorer right pane for the specified folder. Example of my final result below.

post-21000-1099295104_thumb.jpg

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

using resource hacker... open any of these files to edit and costumize win xp your way

C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.exe - for the picture and word of the start button and some of the right clicks

C:\WINDOWS\System32\NTOSKRNL.dll - for the bootscreen!

C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes\Luna\luna.msstyles - for almost all the graphics you see...

Ive learned it whit a lot of patinece and time... I know a lot of more tricks like to edit the video that apears in the windows when you are erasing, copying or doing something like that whit files, but i dont remember the name of the dll but sure that it was in the windows file

  • 5 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

CBF to read this thread through, but here's my tip.

Fed up of Windows Explorer starting in My Documents when you load it? Then change the target in your shortcut to Windows Explorer to

C:\WINNT\explorer.exe /n,/e,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

and Windows Explorer will start with My Computer focused instead. Much nicer!

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Did you watch the keynote? It is way beyond what is described in this article. Looks interesting. Now it is time for them to deliver unlike what happened in 24.
    • It pretty much has to be compatible with MS Office or it is going nowhere. The rest of the world runs office including Europe. If it is not compatible it will not survive.
    • Incredible deal gets you free NVMe 512GB SSD with AMD AM5 B850 motherboard for only $150 by Sayan Sen Earlier this week we covered the story of an interesting PC case wherein you can build two full-size computers inside it as in it can house and run an AMD and an Intel system simultaneously. Speaking of building PCs, these are hard times to make one for sure as prices are often very high except during flash sales or discounts. If you are in the market for a 1080p gaming PC then Nvidia's 8GB RTX 5060 Ti is currently on sale for just $330 and you get the latest James Bond game too, for free. Speaking of which, right now there is another incredible sale going on as we can get a free 512 GB NVMe SSD from TeamGroup in the form of the G50 alongside the purchase of an AMD B850 socket AM5 motherboard for only $150 (purchase link under the specs table down below). Getting an AM5 motherboard now in 2026 will be a wise investment for sure, especially since AMD confirmed its commitment to support the socket till at least 2029. The MSI PRO B850M-P WIFI is a micro-ATX motherboard that is compatible with AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors. Since it is AM5, the motherboard works with DDR5 memory and includes MSI’s Memory Boost technology, along with EXPO and XMP support. Connectivity features include built-in Wi-Fi 7 paired with a 5G LAN solution. The board offers a PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot with MSI’s EZ M.2 Shield Frozr II thermal solution, that is said to help maintain SSD performance by providing ample cooling against overheating. The technical specifications of the MSI PRO B850M-P WIFI motherboard are given in the table below: The free TeamGroup T-FORCE G50 NVMe SSD is a PCIe Gen4 and as such it promises to deliver sequential read speeds of up to 5,000 MB/s, helping accelerate game loading, file transfers, and everyday computing tasks. The SSD features an InnoGrit controller and SLC caching technology to support consistent performance. An ultra-thin, patented graphene heatsink is included to aid in heat dissipation. The NAND flash is based on TLC which means it has plenty of endurance up its sleeve. The random performance may not be as amazing as other drives with DRAM though. Still it should be very good since it can access system memory via HMB to use it as its DRAM cache. The technical specifications of the TeamGroup 512GB G50 NVMe SSD are given in the table below: Get it at the link below: MSI PRO B850M-P WIFI AM5 AMD motherboard + Team Group T-FORCE G50 512GB SSD (free gift): $149.99 (Sold and Shipped by Newegg US) This Newegg deal is US-specific and not available in other regions unless specified. This is a first-party seller link (at the time of article publishing); ensure that you also purchase from a first-party seller link only. If you don't like it or want to look at more options, check out the previous deals that we have covered, OR you can also visit Amazon US deals page. Get Prime (SNAP), Prime Video, Audible Plus or Kindle / Music Unlimited. Free for 30 days. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
    • RapidRAW 1.5.7 by Razvan Serea RapidRAW is a beautiful, non-destructive, GPU‑accelerated RAW image editor designed for speed and simplicity. It uses a lightweight (~30 MB), efficient code base built with Rust, React and Tauri. Ideal for Lightroom workflows, it offers rich editing tools—exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites/blacks, tone curves, HSL mixer, dehaze, vignetting, film grain, sharpening, clarity and noise reduction—processed in real-time on the GPU. Features include intuitive masking (brush, linear, radial, AI-powered subject and foreground detection), generative edit layers (via ComfyUI), 32‑bit precision, and full RAW format support through rawler. RapidRAW also provides library management (folder navigation, ratings, metadata, EXIF viewer), batch operations, export presets (JPEG/PNG/TIFF), sidecar editing (.rrdata), undo/redo history, customizable UI themes, smooth animations, resizable panels, and preset copy/paste. A modern high-performance Lightroom alternative with polished UX and creative tools, RapidRAW brings powerful photo editing to photographers seeking speed, responsive GPU feedback, and streamlined workflows. RapidRAW v1.5.7 release notes: This update serves as a direct follow-up to the core architectural migration introduced in v1.5.6. While the transition to a more modular state management system marked a significant step forward for RapidRAW's stability and long-term maintainability, it also introduced several edge cases and regressions within the library and editing workflows. This release focuses on addressing those issues, with a particular emphasis on a complete overhaul of library performance to ensure smooth and responsive browsing following the refactoring. It also resolves inconsistencies in the copy-and-paste workflow and expands RapidRAW's accessibility by adding support for eight additional languages. [full changelog] Download: RapidRAW 1.5.7 | ARM64 | ~20.0 MB (Open Source) View: RapidRAW Home Page | Screenshot | Other operating systems Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Thank god they got rid of the disgusting looking sidebars, and the corner radius looks much better, too. Two things I hated on day one, and never got used to.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Very Popular
      Captain_Eric earned a badge
      Very Popular
    • One Month Later
      amusc earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      504
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      223
    3. 3
      ATLien_0
      87
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      80
    5. 5
      +Edouard
      80
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!