THE TIPS & TRICKS thread post only tips no questions

March 21, 2003

This is an excellent trick I picked up, and it really makes 2kpro shine as better than XP. Since SP2 of 2kpro, we have had Application Compatability just as XP does. It's just hiding....

Whip out a command prompt and do this:

Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]
(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.

C:\&gt;cd %systemroot%\AppPatch

C:\WINNT\AppPatch&gt;regsvr32 slayerui.dll

C:\WINNT\AppPatch&gt;

A confirmation dialogue will popup and should say

DllRegisterServer in c:\winnt\appatch\slayerui.dll succeeded

Now when you have any shortcut to a program on your computer, right click it and you will see the Compatability tab. (As far as I know, 2kpro and 2kpro SP1 are incompatable with this)

Well, there goes an XP "feature" down the drain...

March 22, 2003

this one gave me a bit of a boost

For users of Windows 2000 or XP you actually have to tell the OS what size L2 cache your processor has otherwise it won't be used properly! Luckily it's fairly easy to fix.

Click on the Start button then go to run. From there type REGEDIT and press the "Ok" button. After it opens the Registry Editor follow this path. hkey_local_machine, System, CurrentControlSet,

Control, Session Manager, Memory Management

Once you're in the Memory Management folder look for the DWORD value

secondleveldatacache.

Right click on that and go to modify. Very important you have to change the Base from Hexidecimal to Decimal before modifying the values. After that's done just punch in your L2 cache size so if you're using an AthlonXP since the CPU has 256KB L2 Cache

you enter 256. For Duron's enter 64 and for P4 Northwood's enter 512.

After that's done you should notice your programs now have quite a bit more zip and the system is less sluggish because Windows now knows how to use your L2 cache properly.

March 24, 2003

TweakXP.com

March 24, 2003

this one gave me a bit of a boost
For users of Windows 2000 or XP you actually have to tell the OS what size L2 cache your processor has otherwise it won't be used properly! Luckily it's fairly easy to fix.

Click on the Start button then go to run. From there type REGEDIT and press the "Ok" button. After it opens the Registry Editor follow this path. hkey_local_machine, System, CurrentControlSet,

Control, Session Manager, Memory Management

Once you're in the Memory Management folder look for the DWORD value

secondleveldatacache.

Right click on that and go to modify. Very important you have to change the Base from Hexidecimal to Decimal before modifying the values. After that's done just punch in your L2 cache size so if you're using an AthlonXP since the CPU has 256KB L2 Cache

you enter 256. For Duron's enter 64 and for P4 Northwood's enter 512.

After that's done you should notice your programs now have quite a bit more zip and the system is less sluggish because Windows now knows how to use your L2 cache properly.

Actually, this is an obsolete key.

2000 DOES properly detect the amount of cache you have but also, this key's functionallity was disabled after SP1.

No matter what you set it to, you will not see an increase in performance. It is merely a placebo effect.

And this is to those discussing it:

IF YOUR PROCESSOR DOES NOT HAVE ON DIE L2 CACHE THEN THIS SETTING WILL BE EVEN MORE USELESS. AN EXAMPLE OF THIS WOULD BE THE SOMETHING LIKE THE PENTIUM II SERIES (I'm not sure if ALL P2s have no on die cache, but mine, and quite a few do have the cache sitting on the pcb).

A picture is enclosed of a P2 with OFF DIE cache.

April 18, 2003

I saw this over at xptuneup.com

I have never seen this 'trick/tip' at all, so I don't think NeoWin knows of it?

At least, I've never seen it ever :)

So here goes:

125. Securing your WINDOWS XP computer

You can provide added level of security to your WINDOWS XP System. This is called securing your Windows XP accounts database. You can store all information related to your accounts in a encrypted form on a floppy disk. What this would do is that if You do not have access to your floppy disk, You can not access the system. I am not sure You realized what I just said ! Even if You know your userid/password, You will not be able to access the system unless and until You have this startup disk.

Process of generating the this secure startup floppy disk is simple. Go to START-RUN and type syskey. You would see a window coming up. Click on Upgrade command button. You would see another window poping up which will give You the option of storing the encrypted accounts database either locally or on your floppy disk. Choose floppy disk and click OK and let the process complete. You are done.

Next time You reboot the computer and get to the logon prompt, make sure that You have the floppy disk available in A: drive else You can not log on.

I think it is very handy for laptops, especially having twice the number of passwords.

The disk idea is a worry, if you keep the disk with your laptop/desktop all the time,

But I do like the 'password required to start up' idea, along with the classic logon-prompt or welcome screen :yes:

April 26, 2003

tweakxp

this site is pretty useful...i hope this has not been up.....

April 26, 2003

Ever wonder what's going on behind that splash screen? Well, now you can find out!

Right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery, Edit. Edit BOOT.INI. Add "/SOS" right after "/fastdetect" with a space between. The line will look something like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /SOS.

When you're finished. The first part, multi(0)..... may not be the same on your machine. Upon restarting, the splash screen will be gone. It can be re-enabled by removing the new switch.

May 8, 2003

This one's old, but when I told a friend about it, he was completely surprised:

By sticking this in your internet options (Home Page):

java script:resizeTo(1050,476);moveTo(50,40);document.location.href='http://www.google.com/'

It will resize your browse to the size mentioned (1050x476), it will move the window out from the left by 50 pixels, from the top 40 pixels, and will load google.

I like to do this because some sites like to have popups that resize your browser. This way I'm not always screwing with mine. I have it at a set value, then I'm done. :)

May 24, 2003

Get rid of windows messenger

Start->Run->"gpedit.msc""

-Computer Configuration

-Administrative Templates

-Windows Components

-Windows Messenger

Here you can enable "Do not allow Windows Messenger to be run" and "Do not automatically start Windows Messenger initially"

Remove Shared Documents

Open Regedit(Start- Run- Regedit) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer My Computer NameSpace DelegateFolders

There will see a sub-key named {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}. By Deleting this you can remove the 'Other Files stored on This Computer' group.

Reduce Temporary Internet File Space

The temporary internet files clutter your hard drive with copies of each page visited. These can build up over time and take up disk space. Even more bothersome is that instead of getting new pages each time IE often takes the page out the temp internet files. This can be a problem if you are viewing a website that is updated all the time. If you are on a slow connection such as a 56K or lower then this can be good but if you are on a fast broadband connection, like me, then you can get away with decreasing the size of your temp internet files to just one meg without any performance decrease.

Launch Internet Explorer.

Select the Tools from the menu bar.

Then select Internet Options... from the drop down menu.

Once the internet options has loaded click on the general tab.

Under the temporary internet files section click the settings button.

A settings window will load. Slide the slider all the way to the left so the size indicated in the text box on the right is one.

Click OK

Click Ok

Turn Off System Recovery

Right click on My Computer and choose Properties. Click on the System Restore tab and check the box Turn off System Restore. (This will increase Windows performance & save disk space)

Enable / Disable Firewall

Open Control Panel and double click on Network Connections. In the new box that appears right click on the Connection and click on the Advanced tab. Check or uncheck the box according to your desire.

Win XP Won?t Completely Shutdown

- Goto Control Panel, then goto Power Options.

- Click on the APM Tab, then check the "Enable Advanced Power Management support."

- Shut down your PC. It should now successfully complete the Shut Down process.

WinXP Clear Page file on shutdown

Go to Control Panel - Administrative tools - local security policy - local policies - security options. Change the option for "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile" from disabled to enabled.

Turn off Hibernation

Control Panel - Screen Saver - Power-Hibernate Tab - uncheck the hibernation box - reboot and hiberfil.sys is no more.

Adjust various visual effects

1. Open up the control panel

2. Go under system and click on the advanced tab

3. Click settings under Performance options

4. You can now change various graphical effects (mainly animations and shadows)

Disable error reporting

Open Control Panel

Click on Performance 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

Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons

Here's how you can remove those shortcut arrows from your desktop icons in Windows XP.

1. Start regedit.

2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile

3. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

You may need to restart Windows XP.

Easy sendto menu modification

first open - X:\Documents and Settings\username\SendTo\ (it is hidden) where X is your drive letter and username is your username make and delete shortcuts to folders at will

Enable Clear Type

Easy way- Click on or cut and paste link below:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleart...name=%20&fsize=

or

- Right click on a blank area of the Desktop and choose Properties

- Click on the Appearance Tab; Click effects

- Check the box: Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts

- In the drop down box select: Clear Type

Turn of CD Auto Play

- Open My Computer

- Right click on your CD ROM and choose Properties

- Click on the Auto Play tab

- In the drop down box you can choose the Action for each choice shown in the drop down box

Or

1. Go to Start->Run->gpedit.msc

2. Computer Config -> Administrative Template -> System

3. Double click Turn off Autoplay

4. Enable it.

Getting MP3 ripping to work in Windows Media Player 8 in XP

Enter the following in the registry :

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Settings\MP3Encoding]

"LowRate"=dword:0000dac0

"MediumRate"=dword:0000fa00

"MediumHighRate"=dword:0001f400

"HighRate"=dword:0002ee00

This corresponds to 56, 64, 128 and 192 Kbps.

You can change this to your liking using the following dword hex values :

320 Kbps = dword:0004e200

256 Kbps = dword:0003e800

224 Kbps = dword:00036b00

192 Kbps = dword:0002ee00

160 Kbps = dword:00027100

128 Kbps = dword:0001f400

112 Kbps = dword:0001b580

64 Kbps = dword:0000fa00

56 Kbps = dword:0000dac0

Increase BROADBAND:

this ones simple:

this is for broad band connections. I didn?t try it on dial up but might work for dial up.

1.make sure your logged on as actually "Administrator". do not log on with any account that just has administrator privileges.

2. start - run - type gpedit.msc

3. expand the "local computer policy" branch

4. expand the "administrative templates" branch

5. expand the "network branch"

6. Highlight the "QoS Packet Scheduler" in left window

7. in right window double click the "limit reservable bandwidth" setting

8. on setting tab check the "enabled" item

9. where it says "Bandwidth limit %" change it to read 0

reboot if you want to but not necessary on some systems your all done. Effect is immediate on some systems. some need re-boot. I have one machine that needs to reboot first, the others didn't. Don't know why this is.

This is more of a "counter what XP does" thing. In other words, XP seems to want to reserve 20% of the bandwidth for its self. Even with QoS disabled, even when this item is disabled. So why not use it to your advantage. To demonstrate the problem with this on stand alone machines start up a big download from a server with an FTP client. Try to find a server that doesn't max out your bandwidth. In this case you want a slow to medium speed server to demonstrate this. Let it run for a couple of minutes to get stable. The start up another download from the same server with another instance of your FTP client. You will notice that the available bandwidth is now being fought over and one of the clients download will be very slow or both will slow down when they should both be using the available bandwidth. Using this "tweak" both clients will have a fair share of the bandwidth and will not fight over the bandwidth.

June 22, 2003

How to get software RAID-like thing without dynamic disks?

Here's how:

Split your pagefile by moving half from it to another hard disk - can be done from System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance Options -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory -> Change, just set the original to its half size making sure Initial Size=Maximum Size and create another one to second disk (preferably on another controller) the same size.

Note, when the pagefile on the systemroot is equal to ram or smaller your'e not able to create Full Memory Dump when system crashes, you can configure that in System Properties -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery.

Now, the sweetest part for me:

Move the whole "Documents and Settings" folder to another drive, read how to from here. this is heavy operation but it's definatelly worth it :yes:

June 22, 2003

Thread cleaned of junk. And remember Tips only NO discussions thanks

June 25, 2003

There's lot of talk about slimming down, do it but in the proper way by uninstalling, uninstall everything that you don't NEED. And think again when installing something new - do you really need that, there's lot of things that can be done with resources you allready have but you aren't aware of. Especially think again about all that warez you have, cause you might not need it or it can be replaced with a freeware app that does the same thing but takes less resources. Things that cost more aren't always the best.

For security and slimming resasons there might be some things you don't need, go to your Network Properties and uninstall:

- QOS packet scheduler

- File and printer sharing

- Client for MS Network, for hardcore, because with this uninstalled you won't be able to download automatic updates.

June 25, 2003

DisablePagingExecutive

There has been some confusion by some people (not just here), as to what this does and how to set it. Here's the end-all be-all of it, straight for MS:

Specifies whether user-mode and kernel-mode drivers and kernel-mode system code can be paged to disk when not in use.
Value Meaning

0 Drivers and the kernel must remain in physical memory.

1 Drivers and the kernel can be paged to disk as needed.

So for performance (assuming you have plenty of extra ram), I'd say that's the opposite of what I've seen many people say. Heh. :) Happy tweaking all.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techi...entry/29932.asp

July 27, 2003

here is one of the very first things I do..

I can't stand wasted space in my browser, and I can get all of the functionality of INTERNET explorer with just one tool bar,

this is almost as good as an f11 view, but I still have all of my buttons and tools

allright...right click the tool bar, and hit customize

now, remove all of the buttons you don't use, or hardly use

for instance, most people have their home page in their favorites, and don't need it on the toolbar...I never use the print button on the tool bar either

also, there's no reason for the separators, and they take more room then you think, so get rid of all of those

next, bottom left, get rid of all of those text labels...by now, you should know what the buttons mean

and now, go to small icons...aply and exit

next, right click again, and unlock the tool bars

starting from the bottom right, you can grab the dotted line, move it to the right and up

continue with the next dotted line, and so on

you don't need more then and inch and a half for the address bar, so move that over to a as small a serviceable size as you like

that's it...lock the too bar when you have all of this up to one bar

now, if you like, you can also auto hide the task bar on the bottom by right clicking, properties, task bar.

and of course, check auto hide.

July 27, 2003

Thread cleaned of junk. And remember Tips only NO discussions thanks

What about tips that are PURE junk?? Take that QOS tip for example?

Here is a MS article about QOS;

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316666

Here is a quote from the article;

There have been claims in various published technical articles and newsgroup postings that Windows XP always reserves 20 percent of the available bandwidth for QoS. These claims are incorrect.

August 2, 2003

Disable Windows File Protection (Windows 2000/XP)

Windows 2000 and XP include a feature called Windows File Protection (WFP), part of the System File Checker, which is intended to avoid some of the common DLL consistency issues. This feature may also block valid attempts to change system files and it can therefore be disabled using this tweak.

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/790/

has many other registry guides

August 7, 2003

Enable L2 Cache for Windows 2000/XP 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 

Navigate to the Regkey: 

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management 

 

Double click on "SecondLevelDataCache" and select "Decimal" and type "256" 

 

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

Speed up Diskcache 

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

Open Regedit and Navigate to: 

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementIoPageLockLimit]; 

Modify the value in Hex depending on the size of your RAM 

RAM: modified value(Hex) 

64M: 1000; 

128M: 4000; 

256M: 10000; 

512M or more: 40000. 

Reboot.

These are VERY BAD TWEAKS. They will cause all kinds of disk write errors in Windows XP in a RAID configuration.

DO NOT USE THESE TWEAKS

I hear the CPU cache one is useless anyway.

August 8, 2003

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THAT INFO

p.s. if need to be delted DELETE it

August 31, 2003

Oops Wrong forum ... Some Body Delete this ... Sorry

Edited August 31, 2003 by T@RicK

September 2, 2003

When I install Windows XP I only need one user (as I'm the only person using this comp).

When you are finished installing Windows XP it will set-up your internet connection and then ask for the user names.

I just press the reset button on my comp, let windows check my HD for errors and start windows with just the administrator on the logon-screen.

September 16, 2003

But it would be more sensible to add yourself as a user, and keep the Admin account for backup.

The Admin a/c is exactly that. For ADMIN!

If your user a/c goes wrong somewhere, the Admin a/c is there to login and try to sort out any problems with your pc etc.

Always keep the Admin a/c for Admin only. :woot:

September 17, 2003

THE ULTIMATE TWEEK--

ok guys, check it out, everyone should now about the standard tweak to disable the windows indexing service in services.msc,, right? well i just used the new utility xplite. I totally uninstalled the indexing service and the related files. Holy crap! I cannot believe how much that improved my systems performance! once i reinabled the windows file protection and rebooted, the computer booted up almost instantaneously! I have to say, after years of tweaking and stuff, i dont think i ever saw a performance increase of that much, just thought id let yall know

September 17, 2003

is it free?

sounds like your trying to make a sale! heh jj.

September 17, 2003

no, there is no sale,, i dont work for the company or anything. I was just really impressed by the damn improvement it made by just completely removing the stuff. By the way, to do the tweak that i said,, its available in the free version. if you pay for it you get more stuff that you can remove, but its kinda pointless anyway because you can remove most if it from the add/remove controle panel if you use the edit sysoc.inf tweak. I nevered payd and dont really intend to. I just used it to remove that one function and thats it

September 18, 2003

To run a program from the RUN command .... start menu -> run / windows key + r

just copy the .exe and paste in $root$\windows\systems32\

then just type the application name and it will run !!

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