Thread: Here are some windows Xp tricks..!!

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina.
[HIDE]Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type 'systeminfo'. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type 'systeminfo > info.txt'. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only). [/HIDE]

2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first.
[HIDE]Go to the Start menu, select Run... and type ' gpedit.msc'; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care -- some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only). [/HIDE]
3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse.
[HIDE]Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.[/HIDE]

4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. [HIDE]Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word 'hide' and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.[/HIDE]

5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, [HIDE]XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include 'eventcreate' and 'eventtriggers' for creating and watching system events, 'typeperf' for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and 'schtasks' for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options -- they're all far too baroque to go into here.[/HIDE]

6. XP has IP version 6 support -- the next generation of IP. [HIDE]Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type 'ipv6 install' into Run... (it's OK, it won't ruin your existing network setup) and then 'ipv6 /?' at the command line to find out more. If you don't know what IPv6 is, don't worry and don't bother. [/HIDE]

7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using [HIDE]'taskkill /pid' and the task number, or just 'tskill' and the process number. Find that out by typing 'tasklist', which will also tell you a lot about what's going on in your system. [/HIDE]

8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you've got a fast machine.
[HIDE]On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing 'regsvr32 zipfldr.dll'. [/HIDE]

9. XP has ClearType -- Microsoft's anti-aliasing font display technology -- but doesn't have it enabled by default. It's well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType,
[HIDE]right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2. [/HIDE]
10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who's using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. [HIDE]Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum's real IP address -- they can find this out by going to

Code:
www.whatismyip.com-- and get them to make sure that they've got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer. [/HIDE]
11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. [HIDE]Right click the icon, select Run As... and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects. [/HIDE]

12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to [HIDE]HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0. [/HIDE]

13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run...
[HIDE]from the start menu and type 'control userpasswords2', which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.[/HIDE]

14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to.

[HIDE]Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options... and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.[/HIDE]

15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can't see the LEDs twinkle on your network card.
[HIDE]Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You'll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic. [/HIDE]

16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry [HIDE]HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0. [/HIDE]

17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer.

[HIDE]Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By... Show In Groups. [/HIDE]

18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks -- [HIDE]if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn't, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it. [/HIDE]
19. [HIDE]Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.[/HIDE]

Lock ur folder without any software
Suppose you want to lock the folder movies in d: which has the path D:\movies.

[HIDE]
In the same drive create a text file and type
ren movies movies.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
Now save this text file as loc.bat
Create another text file and type in it
ren movies.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} movies
Now save this text file as key.bat


you can see 2 batch files loc and key. Press loc and the folder movies will change to control panel and you cannot view its contents. Press key and you will get back your original folder.[/HIDE]

Speed up browsing of Windows 2000 & XP machines
Here's a great tip to speed up your browsing of Windows XP machines. Its actually a fix to a bug installed as default in Windows 2000 that scans shared files for Scheduled Tasks. And it turns out that you can experience a delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network because Windows 2000 is using the extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Note that though the fix is originally intended for only those affected, Windows 2000 users will experience that the actual browsing speed of both the Internet & Windows Explorers improve significantly after applying it since it doesn't search for Scheduled Tasks anymore. Here's how :

[HIDE]Open up the Registry and go to :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Under that branch, select the key :

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

and delete it.

This is key that instructs Windows to search for Scheduled Tasks. If you like you may want to export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary.

This fix is so effective that it doesn't require a reboot and you can almost immediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes. [/HIDE]

Improved Use of System cache

[HIDE]Open registry by going to START-RUN and entering regedit. Navigate to the registry key
that is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\SessionManager
\MemoryManagement . Look for value of "LargeSystemCache". If available, do one of the
following: If the computer is a workstation, set its value to 0. If it is a server set a value of 1. [/HIDE]

Like previous versions of windows, it takes long time to restart or shutdown windows XP when the "Exit Windows" sound is enabled. To solve this problem you must disable this useless sound.

[HIDE]Click Start button.
Go to settings > Control Panel > Sound, Speech and Audio devices > Sounds and Audio Devices > Sounds.
Then under program events and windows menu click on "Exit Windows" sub-menu and highlight it. Now from sounds you can select, choose "none" and then click Apply and OK. [/HIDE]

Now you should see some improvements when shutting down your system.

Here are some commands which will come handy in use

[HIDE]Accessibility Controls------------------------- access.cpl

Accessibility Wizard--------------------------- accwiz

Add Hardware Wizard------------------------ hdwwiz.cpl

Add/Remove Programs --------------------- appwiz.cpl

Administrative Tools------------------------- control admintools

Automatic Updates--------------------------- wuaucpl.cpl

Bluetooth Transfer Wizard------------------ fsquirt

Calculator------------------------------------ calc

Certificate Manager------------------------- certmgr.msc

Character Map------------------------------- charmap

Check Disk Utility--------------------------- chkdsk

Clipboard Viewer--------------------------- clipbrd

Command Prompt-------------------------- cmd

Component Services----------------------- dcomcnfg

Computer Management-------------------- compmgmt.msc

Control Panel------------------------------- control

Date and Time Properties----------------- timedate.cpl

DDE Shares-------------------------------- ddeshare

Device Manager--------------------------- devmgmt.msc

Direct X Troubleshooter------------------ dxdiag

Disk Cleanup Utility----------------------- cleanmgr

Disk Defragment-------------------------- dfrg.msc

Disk Management------------------------- diskmgmt.msc

Disk Partition Manager------------------- diskpart

Display Properties------------------------ control desktop (or) desk.cpl

Files and Settings Transfer Tool-------- migwiz

File Signature Verification Tool--------- sigverif

Folders Properties----------------------- control folders

Fonts------------------------------------- control fonts

Group Policy Editor (XP Prof)---------- gpedit.msc

Help and Support----------------------- helpctr

Indexing Service----------------------- ciadv.msc

Registry Editor------------------------- regedit

Security Center----------------------- wscui.cpl

Services------------------------------- services.msc

Shared Folders----------------------- fsmgmt.msc

System Configuration Utility-------- msconfig

System File Checker Utility (Scan Immediately)----sfc /scannow

System File Checker Utility (Scan Once At Next Boot)-----sfc /scanonce

System File Checker Utility (Scan On Every Boot)---------sfc /scanboot

System File Checker Utility (Return to Default Setting)-------sfc /revert

System File Checker Utility (Set Cache Size to size x)-------sfc /cachesize=x

Windows Version (to show which version of windows)-----winver

Wordpad--------------------------------------write [/HIDE]

These are run commands..!! (start>run)

HEy thanks for the great tips... keep them coming (particularly like nos: 11 & 13)

You really don’t need to tweak your browser in case you are using Firefox because it is a browser which has been specially designed for optimized and fast browsing but if you can make it even a little more fast that would certainly be a treat for you. Likewise there is a trick to make Internet Explorer 6 fast too. Browsers are designed to work with fast connections but with this trick even dial-up users can experience fast and smooth browsing.

Optimize Firefox and IE Browsing Speed

I shall be teaching you two tricks which work separately on Firefox and Internet Explorer. It doesn’t require you to be some expert rather all you have to do is change some registry values and you are done. I have also included a video tutorial for those who want to see it step by step visually. This is perhaps one of the oldest tricks to optimize Firefox and IE but it still works great.

Trick to Increase Firefox Speed

[HIDE]1. Open firefox and in the address bar write about:config and press enter
2. Double click network.http.pipelining and set it to True
3. Double click network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and set value to 10 from 4
4. Right click and create a new string nglayout.initialpaint.delay and set its value to 0 [/HIDE]

You are done. Enjoy lightning fast Firefox browsing and now for IE.

Trick to Increase Internet Explorer Speed

[HIDE]1. Go to Start –> Run and type regedit
2. Select HKEY_CURRENT_USER –> Software –> Microsoft –> Windows –> Current Version –> Internet Settings
3. Increase the values (DECIMAL) from default to a higher value e.g. 10[/HIDE]

See the difference in speed of IE Very Happy

Yippee!

How to make your Desktop Icons Transparent?

[HIDE]Go to ontrol Panel > System, > Advanced > Performance area > Settings button Visual Effects tab "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the Desktop"[/HIDE]

Set Processes Priority

[HIDE]Follow this tip to increase the priority of active processes, this will result in prioritisation of processes using the CPU.

CTRL-SHIFT-ESC

1.Go to the second tab called Processes, right click on one of the active processes, you will see the Set Priority option


2.For example, your Run your CDwriter program , set the priority higher, and guess what, no crashed CD’s[/HIDE]


Set Permissions for Shared Files and Folders

[HIDE]Sharing of files and folders can be managed in two ways. If you chose simplified file sharing, your folders can be shared with everyone on your network or workgroup, or you can make your folders private. (This is how folders are shared in Windows 2000.) However, in Windows XP Professional, you can also set folder permissions for specific users or groups. To do this, you must first change the default setting, which is simple file sharing. To change this setting, follow these steps:
•Open Control Panel, click Tools, and then click Folder Options.
•Click the View tab, and scroll to the bottom of the Advanced Settings list.
•Clear the Use simple file sharing (Recommended) check box.
•To manage folder permissions, browse to the folder in Windows Explorer, right–click the folder, and then click Properties. Click the Security tab, and assign permissions, such as Full Control, Modify, Read, and/or Write, to specific users.

You can set file and folder permissions only on drives formatted to use NTFS, and you must be the owner or have been granted permission to do so by the owner.[/HIDE]


Search For Hidden Or System Files In Windows XP

The Search companion in Windows XP searches for hidden and system files differently than in earlier versions of Windows. This guide describes how to search for hidden or system files in Windows XP.[HIDE]

Search for Hidden or System Files By default, the Search companion does not search for hidden or system files. Because of this, you may be unable to find files, even though they exist on the drive.

To search for hidden or system files in Windows XP:
Click Start, click Search, click All files and folders, and then click More advanced options.

Click to select the Search system folders and Search hidden files and folders check boxes.

NOTE: You do not need to configure your computer to show hidden files in the Folder Options dialog box in Windows Explorer to find files with either the hidden or system attributes, but you need to configure your computer not to hide protected operating system files to find files with both the hidden and system attributes. Search Companion shares the Hide protected operating system files option (which hides files with both the system and hidden attributes) with the Folder Options dialog box Windows Explorer. [/HIDE]


Restricting Logon Access
[HIDE]
If you work in a multiuser computing environment, and you have full (administrator level) access to your computer, you might want to restrict unauthorized access to your "sensitive" files under Windows 95/98.
One way is to disable the Cancel button in the Logon dialog box.
Just run Regedit and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Network/Logon

Create the "Logon" subkey if it is not present on your machine: highlight the Network key -> right-click in the left hand Regedit pane -> select New -> Key -> name it "Logon" (no quotes) -> press Enter. Then add/modify a DWORD value and call it "MustBeValidated" (don't type the quotes). Double-click it, check the Decimal box and type 1 for value.
Now click the Start button -> Shut Down (Log off UserName) -> Log on as a different user, and you'll notice that the Logon Cancel button has been disabled.[/HIDE]


Remove the Bin from the Desktop

[HIDE]If you don't use the Recycle Bin to store deleted files , you can get rid of its desktop icon all together.

Run Regedit and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/explorer/Desktop/NameSpace


Click on the "Recycle Bin" string in the right hand pane. Hit Del, click OK.[/HIDE]


How to Rename the Recycle Bin

[HIDE]To change the name of the Recycle Bin desktop icon, open Regedit and go to:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/CLSID/{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

and change the name "Recycle Bin" to whatever you want (don't type any quotes).[/HIDE]


NTFS vs. FAT[HIDE]

To NTFS or not to NTFS—that is the question. But unlike the deeper questions of life, this one isn't really all that hard to answer. For most users running Windows XP, NTFS is the obvious choice. It's more powerful and offers security advantages not found in the other file systems. But let's go over the differences among the files systems so we're all clear about the choice. There are essentially three different file systems available in Windows XP: FAT16, short for File Allocation Table, FAT32, and NTFS, short for NT File System.


FAT16
The FAT16 file system was introduced way back with MS–DOS in 1981, and it's showing its age. It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive, and has had minor modifications over the years so it can handle hard disks, and even file names longer than the original limitation of 8.3 characters, but it's still the lowest common denominator. The biggest advantage of FAT16 is that it is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX. The biggest problem of FAT16 is that it has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2–GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesn't support compression, encryption, or advanced security using access control lists.

FAT32
The FAT32 file system, originally introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, is really just an extension of the original FAT16 file system that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. As such, it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system. However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation—many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32—most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well. Now this isn't a problem if you're running FAT32 on a Windows XP computer and sharing your drive out to other computers on your network—they don't need to know (and generally don't really care) what your underlying file system is.

The Advantages of NTFS
The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file–by–file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if you're doing an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, you'll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS. Don't worry. If you've already upgraded to Windows XP and didn't do the conversion then, it's not a problem. You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point. Just remember that you can't easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the drive or partition), not that I think you'll want to.

The NTFS file system is generally not compatible with other operating systems installed on the same computer, nor is it available when you've booted a computer from a floppy disk. For this reason, many system administrators, myself included, used to recommend that users format at least a small partition at the beginning of their main hard disk as FAT. This partition provided a place to store emergency recovery tools or special drivers needed for reinstallation, and was a mechanism for digging yourself out of the hole you'd just dug into. But with the enhanced recovery abilities built into Windows XP (more on that in a future column), I don't think it's necessary or desirable to create that initial FAT partition.

When to Use FAT or FAT32
If you're running more than one operating system on a single computer, you will definitely need to format some of your volumes as FAT. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system on that computer should be stored on a FAT16 or possibly FAT32 volume. But keep in mind that you have no security for data on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume—any one with access to the computer can read, change, or even delete any file that is stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 partition. In many cases, this is even possible over a network. So do not store sensitive files on drives or partitions formatted with FAT file systems.[/HIDE]


How to Convert FAT to NTFS file system


[HIDE]
To convert a FAT partition to NTFS, perform the following steps.

Click Start, click Programs, and then click Command Prompt.

In Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type cmd and then click OK.

At the command prompt, type CONVERT [driveletter]: /FS:NTFS.

Convert.exe will attempt to convert the partition to NTFS.

NOTE: Although the chance of corruption or data loss during the conversion from FAT to NTFS is minimal, it is best to perform a full backup of the data on the drive that it is to be converted prior to executing the convert command. It is also recommended to verify the integrity of the backup before proceeding, as well as to run RDISK and update the emergency repair disk (ERD).[/HIDE]

Create a Password Reset Disk

[HIDE]If you’re running Windows XP Professional as a local user in a workgroup environment, you can create a password reset disk to log onto your computer when you forget your password. To create the disk:

1.Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click User Accounts.
2.Click your account name.
3.Under Related Tasks, click Prevent a forgotten password.
4.Follow the directions in the Forgotten Password Wizard to create a password reset disk.
5.Store the disk in a secure location, because anyone using it can access your local user account.[/HIDE]

Disable CD Autorun

[HIDE]1) Click Start, Run and enter GPEDIT.MSC

2) Go to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System.

3) Locate the entry for Turn autoplay off and modify it as you desire.[/HIDE]


Rename a Series of Files
[HIDE]
When you download photos from your digital camera, they often have unrecognizable names. You can rename several similar files at once with the following procedure. This also works for renaming other types of files.

1.Open the My Pictures folder. (Click Start, and then click My Pictures.) Or open another folder containing files that you want to rename.
2.Select the files you want to rename. If the files you want are not adjacent in the file list, press and hold CTRL, and then click each item to select it.
3.On the File menu, click Rename.
4.Type the new name, and then press ENTER.


All of the files in the series will be named in sequence using the new name you type. For example, if you type Birthday, the first will be named Birthday and subsequent files in the series will be named Birthday (1), Birthday (2), and so on. To specify the starting number for the series, type the starting number in parentheses after the new file name. The files in the series will be numbered in sequence starting with the number you type. For example, if you type Birthday (10), the other files will be named Birthday (11), Birthday (12), and so on.[/HIDE]

To change drive letters

[HIDE]To change drive letters (useful if you have two drives and have partitioned the boot drive, but the secondary drive shows up as "D")

Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management, Disk Management, then right-click the partition whose name you want to change (click in the white area just below the word "Volume") and select "change drive letter and paths."
From here you can add, remove or change drive letters and paths to the partition.[/HIDE]

How To Enable Hibernation
[HIDE]
Under Windows 98, Me, or 2000 there was an option in the shutdown dialog box to enter the computer into hibernation (where all the content of the RAM is copied to the hard disk). The shutdown dialog box of Windows XP doesn't offer any longer the hibernation button. Some users may get confused about how to enable the hibernation mode. If this mode is supported by your motherboard (ACPI) you have to do the following:

1.

Click Start and Shut Down,
2.

Point the standby button and maintain the shift key pushed,
3.

A new hibernation button appears: click it while still holding the shift key: voila your PC will hibernate.[/HIDE]