Windows NT, 2000, ME, 98, XP Registry Tweaks   Here you will find our selection of tips and tricks for Windows 9.x/ME/NT/2000 and XP. Hopefully they will help you tune your Windows machine to ultimate perfection. REMEMBER   I’m not responsible if you have problems with your system or damaged your computer by using any tweaks on this site.   Disable ScanDisk on boot Faster Internet Add recycle bin to a program manager group Cable Modem & xDSL Speed Tweak CD-ROM Does Not Run Automatically When Inserted Change the Startup and Shutdown Screens Start Windows Without Prompting for a Password Remove Task Scheduler Control the Size of the Disk Cache Optimizing Dial-Up Modem Connection Speed Auto Logon to a Windows NT Machine Improve Core System Performance in Windows NT Disabling Save Password option in Dial-Up Networking Don't Display Last User Name Enable Plug-and-Play on Windows NT Cable Modem & xDSL Speed Tweak Cable Modem & xDSL Speed Tweak (win2000) Change the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) Size Power the Computer Off After Shutdown View the System BIOS Information Slow network browsing   Disable ScanDisk on boot (Windows ME) To do this, run Regedit and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem                      Right-click in the right hand pane -> select New if absent or Modify if present -> click Binary Value if New -> name it "DisableScandiskOnBoot" -> click OK -> double-click on it -> type 01 -> click OK or press Enter. Close the Registry editor. Done.   Faster Internet (Win9x) REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\MSTCP] "Tcp1323Opts"=dword:00000003 "SackOpts"="1" "BSDUrgent"="1" ------End cut & paste here------ Copy this text in Notepad, save it with the .REG extension, then right-click on it in Explorer and select Merge. Here are the recommended values: - Tcp1323Opts DWORD Value Decimal Value: 3 - SackOpts String Value Value: 1 - BSDUrgent String Value Value: 1 Add recycle bin to a  program manager group (Win 9.x /ME) 1 click on a group to add to  2 on the program manager toolbar click file / new / program item 3 in the properties box under description type recycle bin  4 under command line type C:\WINDOWS\RECYCL~1.{64 5 under working directory type C:\WINDOWS 6 click change icon and grab the recycle bin icon from  C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.exe 7 click OK   Cable Modem & xDSL Speed Tweak (Windows 9x)               Use these settings with your Cable Modem or DSL broadband Internet connection, to boost network throughput performance with Windows 95, 98 and ME. If you are using Windows 95, first download and install the Winsock Update from Microsoft before proceeding to the steps below. Open your registry and find the key below.                  Create the following values, as most of these values will not already exist you will need to create them by clicking on Edit | New | DWORD or String Value and then set the value as shown below. DefaultTTL = "128" (String Value) Specifies the default time to live (TTL) for TCP/IP packets. The default is 32. DefaultRcvWindow = "372300" (String Value) Specifies the default receive window advertised by the TCP/IP stack. The default is 8192. PMTUBlackHoleDetect = "0" (String Value)                Specifies whether the stack will attempt to detect Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) routers that do not send back ICMP fragmentation-needed messages. The default is 0. PMTUDiscovery = "1" (String Value) Specifies whether the TCP/IP stack will attempt to perform path MTU discovery as specified in RFC 1191. The default is 1. SackOpts = "1" (String Value) Enables support for selective acknowledgements as documented by Request for Comment (RFC) 2018. Default is 0. Tcp1323Opts = "3" (DWORD Value)                  Controls RFC 1323 time stamps and window scaling options. Possible values are: "0" = disable RFC 1323 options, "1" = window scale enabled only, "2" = time stamps enabled only and "3" = both options enabled. To increase performance even further, increase the MaxMTU to 1500. Exit your registry and restart Windows for the change to take effect. Registry Settings: Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\MSTCP]   CD-ROM Does Not Run Automatically When Inserted  (Windows 9x) When you insert a CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, it may not be run automatically, changing this registry key should correct the problem. Key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] Value Name: NoDriveTypeAutoRun Data Type: REG_BINARY Data: 0000 95 00 00 00   Change the Startup and Shutdown Screens (Windows 9x)            Microsoft has a knack for making the Windows startup and shutdown screens pretty boring. Luckily it's relatively easy to replace these images with pictures of your own. There are three files which makeup the startup and shutdown screens, they are:              LOGO.SYS - The startup screen, usually located in your C:\ directory. LOGOW.SYS - The 'Please wait...' screen, usually located in your c:\windows directory. LOGOS.SYS - The 'It's now safe to turn off your computer.' screen, usually located in your c:\windows directory.                These files are standard 256 color Windows bitmap files with dimensions of 320(w) x 400(h). You can use basically any image editing program to change them (as long as it supports BMP files). Warning: Before getting started make sure to take a backup copy of all three files (LOGO.SYS may or may not already exist). 1. Copy LOGOW.SYS and LOGOS.SYS to a temporary folder, and rename their extensions to .BMP 2. Using your favourite graphics editor, open the files and modify them to your liking.                3. Once your finished, save the files, change their extensions back to .SYS, and copy them back over the original files in the Windows directory (which you've already backed-up) and you're done.                 Alternatively you can create three new BMP files for each screen, just make sure that the proportions of 320(w) x 400(h) are maintained. The file once finished should be 129,078 bytes. Start Windows Without Prompting for a Password (Windows 9x)                   Does Windows prompt you for a password every time you boot up even though you're the only one using the PC? Follow these instructions to make Windows automatically start up without prompting you for a password.                  Windows 9x passwords are recorded in a Password List file, these files are stored in the Windows directory and named according to your username, they can be recognised by their .PWL extension. For example, if your username was 'John' then your password file would probably be 'c:\windows\john.pwl' To remove the password prompt start by finding the PWL file relating to your username and rename it to *.old (e.g. c:\windows\john.old).            If your running a network, you then need to open 'Control Panel -> Network' and check that the 'Primary Network Logon' is set to 'Windows Logon'.                Now restart Windows and you'll be prompted for a password, leave the Password box empty then click OK, you should now not be prompted for a password again. Remove Task Scheduler  (Windows 9x)               Task Sheduler is automatically installed in some versions of Windows, and also when you install Internet Explorer. This tweak will remove it from your system. Open your registry and find the key below.             There should be a value named 'SchedulingAgent' which is set to equal 'mstask.exe', this is the entry that loads the Task Scheduler. Delete this value to stop the task manager loading again. Note: Remember to backup your registry before deleting any values! Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices] Value Name: SchedulingAgent Data Type: REG_SZ Data: mstask.exe   Control the Size of the Disk Cache (Windows 9x)  This tweak allows you control the minimum and maximum amount of memory being allocated as disk cache. It can be used to speed up your system and possibly avoid some memory problems.  Using notepad or another text editor, open your SYSTEM.INI file from your Windows directory.  Find the section starting with [vcache], and add the following two lines, or modify them if they already exist.  MinFileCache=0 MaxFileCache=4096 These values set the amount of memory in kilobytes to be used for disk caching, if you have more the 16Mb of RAM you may want to increase the MaxFileCache size, to about 25% of your total RAM (i.e. if you have 128Mb use "MaxFileCache=32768")  Restart Windows for the change to take effect.  Note: If you are receiving an error like "Error: An I/O subsystem driver failed to load" try increasing the maximum size to 6144.  Settings Value Name: MinFileCache, MaxFileCache   Optimizing Dial-Up Modem Connection Speed (Windows 9x) By optimizing the MaxMTU & MaxMSS settings along with the RWIN and TTL settings you can increase dialup modem connection reliability and performance by as much as 200%.  What is the MTU and MSS?  MTU stands for Maximum Transmission Unit and in basic terms, it defines the maximum size of a packet that can be transferred in one frame over a network.  MSS or Maximum Segment Size defines how much actual data can put in that packet, and it is therefore a marginally smaller value than MTU to allow for packet addressing and other information.  Why do the default values need to be changed?  By default Windows hard codes the value of MTU to equal 1500 bytes. This value is adequate for normal LAN networking, but when your connecting to the Internet with a modem this value is too high. This can show itself in different ways, the most noticeable affect is less than peak performance.  By adjusting this value to more closely match the requirements of a modem Internet connection huge performance gains can be achieved.  Below are the instructions on how to modify these values for yourself. Please remember though, modifying the Windows registry is not for the faint hearted. Always remember to back it up first!  1. To change the settings you first have to find the details of your Dial-Up Adapter.  2. Find the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\Root\Net and within there will be one or more sub-keys such as 0000, 0001 ...  3. Open each key and find the one that contains the value of 'DeviceDesc' equal to 'Dial-Up Adapter'.  4. Within that key there will also be another sub-key named 'Bindings'. Open the 'Bindings' sub-key and you will find a string name like 'MSTCP\0000'. Take note of the four digit number after 'MSTCP' (in this case 0000) and use it in the next step.  5. Now go to the key 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\Network\MSTCP' and expand the sub-key with the same four digit number as from the previous step.  6. In this key you will find a value called 'Driver' and it will be equal to something similar to 'NetTrans\0002'. Take note of this four digit number (in this case 0002) and use it in the next step.  7. Now open the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\NetTrans] below there will be one or more sub-key's. Expand the key with the name equal to the four digit number from the previous step.  8. Within this key create a new string value named 'MaxMTU' and set it to '576', and also add a string value named 'MaxMSS' and set it to '536'.  9. Then exit the registry and restart your computer.    Settings Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\ NetTrans] Value Name: MaxMTU, MaxMSS Data Type: REG_SZ (String Value) Auto Logon to a Windows NT Machine (Windows NT/2000) Windows NT includes a feature that allows you to automatically logon to the machine and network, bypassing the Winlogon dialog box.            To enable this function you need to add several new values to the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon] key. 1. Add a new value of 'DefaultUserName' and set the data to the username you wish to automatically logon as. 2. Add a new value of 'DefaultPassword' and set this to the password for the username above.                       3. Add a new value of 'DefaultDomainName' and set this to the domain of the user. Ignore this value if the NT box is not participating in NT Domain security. 4. Add a new value of 'AutoAdminLogon' and set it to either '1' to enable auto logon or '0' to disable. 5. Exit and reboot, Windows should not ask for a password and automatically show the desktop of the user. WARNING: The password is stored in registry, which means anyone who has access to the machine has access to the password. Improve Core System Performance in Windows NT (Windows NT/2000)                     On systems with large amount of RAM this tweak can be enabled to force the core Windows NT system to be kept in memory and not paged to disk. Open the registry and find the value in the key below. Change the value to '1' enable the tweak and stop the core process from being paged, or set it to '0' for the default. Registry Settings: Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management] Value Name: DisablePagingExecutive Data Type: REG_DWORD Data: (0 or 1) Disabling Save Password option in Dial-Up Networking (Windows NT)                 When you dial a phonebook entry in Dial-Up Networking (DUN), you can use the 'Save Password' option so that your DUN password is cached and you will not need to enter it on successive dial attempts. This key disables that option. Registry Settings: Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RasMan\Parameters] Value Name: DisableSavePassword Data Type: REG_DWORD Data: (0=disable, 1=enable) Don't Display Last User Name (Windows NT)           Enabling this key will blank the username box on the logon screen. Preventing people that are logging on from knowing the last user on the system. Registry Settings: Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon] Value Name: DontDisplayLastUserName Data Type: REG_SZ Data: (1=enable, 0=disable) Enable Plug-and-Play on Windows NT  (Windows NT 4.x)                 By default Windows NT4 doesn't support plug-and-play devices, but it can be configured to a least partially support some PnP features with a little help.                Find the directory on your Windows NT CD-ROM called \Drvlib\Pnpisa, then open the directory for your system type (standard PC's are x86 or i386). In this directory are two files.              To install plug-and-play support, right-click on the file called 'Pnpisa.inf' and select install. You'll need to restart Windows for the changes to take effect. Note: Windows NT should now detect PnP devices, but you may have to configure the settings manually. Cable Modem & xDSL Speed Tweak  (Windows NT)                Use these settings with your Cable Modem or DSL broadband Internet connection, to boost network throughput performance with Windows NT. Open your registry and find the key below.                  Create the following DWORD values, as most of these values will not already exist you will need to create them by clicking on 'Edit | New | DWORD Value' and then set the value as shown below. DefaultTTL = "80" hex (or 128 decimal) Specifies the default time to live (TTL) for TCP/IP packets. The default is 32. EnablePMTUBHDetect = "0"          Specifies whether the stack will attempt to detect Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) routers that do not send back ICMP fragmentation-needed messages. The default is 0. EnablePMTUDiscovery = "1" Specifies whether the TCP/IP stack will attempt to perform path MTU discovery as specified in RFC 1191. The default is 1. TcpWindowSize = "faf0" hex (or 64240 decimal) Specifies the receive window size advertised by the TCP/IP stack. Exit your registry and restart Windows for the change to take effect. Registry Settings: Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] Data Type: REG_DWORD   Cable Modem & xDSL Speed Tweak (Windows 2000)           Use these settings with your Cable Modem or DSL broadband Internet connection, to boost network throughput performance with Windows 2000. Open your registry and find the key below.                   Create the following DWORD values, as most of these values will not already exist you will need to create them by clicking on 'Edit | New | DWORD Value' and then set the value as shown below. DefaultTTL = "80" hex (or 128 decimal) Specifies the default time to live (TTL) for TCP/IP packets. The default is 32. EnablePMTUBHDetect = "0"                 Specifies whether the stack will attempt to detect Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) routers that do not send back ICMP fragmentation-needed messages. The default is 0. EnablePMTUDiscovery = "1" Specifies whether the TCP/IP stack will attempt to perform path MTU discovery as specified in RFC 1191. The default is 1. SackOpts = "1" Enables support for selective acknowledgements as documented by Request for Comment (RFC) 2018. Default is 0. Tcp1323Opts = "3"               Controls RFC 1323 time stamps and window scaling options. Possible values are: "0" = disable RFC 1323 options, "1" = window scale enabled only, "2" = time stamps enabled only and "3" = both options enabled. TcpWindowSize = "5ae4c" hex (or 372300 decimal) Specifies the receive window size advertised by the TCP/IP stack. GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize = "5ae4c" hex (or 372300 decimal) Specifies the system maximum receive window size advertised by the TCP/IP stack. Exit your registry and restart Windows for the change to take effect. Registry Settings: Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] Data Type: REG_DWORD   Change the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) Size (Windows NT) By optimizing the MTU setting you can gain substantial network performance increases, especially when using dial-up modem connections.  MTU stands for Maximum Transmission Unit and in basic terms, it defines the maximum size of a packet that can be transferred in one frame over a network.  Open your registry and find the key below. Add a new value, or edit the existing value, to equal the new MTU size. For low bandwidth modem connections a MTU value of '576' (1398 in decimal) would be a good size.    Settings Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ Parameters] Value Name: MTU Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value) Value Data: Default = 0xFFFFFFFF Power the Computer Off After Shutdown (Windows NT/2000/XP) With this setting, you can control the powerdown function after shutdown. Open regedit and find the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\Winlogon Create a string value and name it: PowerdownAfterShutdown set the value to 1 to have your computer to Powerdown after shutdown. Restart Windows.... View the System BIOS Information (Windows NT/2000/XP) This key views the system BIOS info. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System] Don't change the values, they are read by the system. Log off...   Slow network browsing (NT/2000/XP) This sets the DIR commad's buffer from 14000 to 65000. Open your registry and find: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters Create a new DWORD value and name it: ""SizReqBuf" and set it's data to "0000ffff" Optimise NTFS (NT/2000/XP) NTFS is a nice filesystem, but the performace cost is slight higher than FAT32. Here are some tips to trim it up a bit:                  By default NTFS will automatically update timestamps whenver a directory is accessed. This isn't a necessary feature, and it slows down large volumes. To disable this feature do the following: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem set "DisableNTFSLastAccessUpdate" to 1.            NTFS uses different master file control tables to store filesystem information about your drives. Over time these files grow and become fragmented, and slowing down all access to the drive. By setting aside a little space, these files can grow without becoming fragmented. Create a new dword value and name it: "NtfsMftZoneReservation" and set it to 2. (under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem)