Welcome
to the tips n trixs sector for Windows XP. Hopefully you will find something in
here that will make the use of Windows XP more to the way you want it to work
and improve its performance.
Please check out all pages by clicking on the next page link as there is a lot
here to view. By clicking on the underlined statement below it will take you to
the details of how to carry out the task.
You may find
this application handy for changes in the registry.
RegEditX (Registry Editor Extensions) is freeware that enhances the Windows
Registry Editor. If you edit the same keys repeatedly, this is for you!
New buttons activate frequently
used commands, and a combo box stores a history of visited keys and allows quick
navigation back to them.
The keys are saved across
sessions and available the next time you use the Registry Editor.
The Windows XP Start menu is "polluted" with a number of extra links courtesy of
Microsoft. At the top there are links to the Internet and E-mail programs; these
default to the Microsoft programs. We'll discuss changing those later.
Under those two shortcuts, we find the
"Most frequently used" programs list. But when you start using other programs,
you'll notice that Microsoft has given its own an apparent "head start", as they
will be slow to disappear from the list.
It is, however, easy enough to remove a program from
this list: just right-click on the program you want to remove, and from the menu
select Remove from This List.
When you right-click, you might also note that Pin to Start menu is an option.
When you select that option, the shortcut will be moved to the top of the Start
menu, directly below the E-mail link.
You can also remove a program that was pinned to the Start menu by
right-clicking, and choosing Unpin from Start menu (which will restore it to its
position on the lower part of the start menu), or choosing Remove from This
List, which will remove it completely from the Start menu.
Next you will notice a great number of
links on the right side of the Start menu such as My Documents, My Recent
Documents, My Pictures and My Music.
Well, I don't know about you, but that's nothing
that I need there! Just right-click an empty space on the Start menu, click
Properties, click Customize and select the Advanced tab.
Now you can customize the
look & feel of your Start menu in whatever way you want! There are a number of
items (Control Panel, My Computer, My Documents, My Music, and My Pictures) for
which you have these three options:
Display as link
Display as menu
Don't display this item
It is especially useful to have the Control Panel as menu, as this will create
faster access to the individual Control Panel applets.
There are another number of options
One other option I should mention is the Highlight newly installed programs.
This is another annoyance you will want to switch off quickly!
Not only will newly installed programs be listed with a yellowish highlight in
the All Programs menu, you will also receive a pop-up when you open the start
menu that tells you New programs installed.
On the General tab (after
pressing Customize on the Taskbar and Start Menu properties), you can also
change the Internet & E-mail programs listed on the Start menu.
The drop-down boxes should
contain all programs installed on your system.
Also you can change the number of shortcuts listed on the (left side) Start
menu, as well as clear the whole list of programs in one shot.
On the Taskbar and Start Menu
properties itself, you can also choose Classic Start menu. Choosing this option
will make your start menu look like the Windows 2000 Start menu.
Windows XP Service Pack 1 added a new
option called "Set Program Access and Defaults", which dumped an extra icon on
the All Programs menu, and also added an icon to the Add or Remove Programs
applet in Control Panel.
To learn more about this
feature read: Service Pack 1 For Windows XP To Include Antitrust Tweaks.
If you want to remove these icons you can. First,
follow these steps to remove the Set Program Access and Defaults icon from the
All Programs menu:
Start the Registry Editor
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Policies \ Explorer
From the Edit menu select New > DWORD value
Enter the name NoSMConfigurePrograms, double-click the new value, and enter 1 as
the Value Data
Close the registry editor and log off from Windows for the changes to take
effect
To remove the icon from the Add or Remove Programs applet in the Control Panel:
Start the Registry Editor
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Policies \ Uninstall
From the Edit menu select New > DWORD value
Enter the name NoChooseProgramsPage, double-click the new value, and enter 1 as
the Value Data
Close the registry editor and log off from Windows for the changes to take
effect
To reverse the effect, either delete the values you added, or change the Value
Data from 1 to 0.
This is an old tweak, it has been around
since Windows 95, and is still alive today! If you think your Start menu could
respond a little quicker try this:
Start the Registry Editor
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \
Right-click the String Value MenuShowDelay, and select Modify
Change the Value data (0 is fast, 400 is default. These are all in miliseconds)
When ready, press OK and close the registry editor
Log off, or restart Windows for the changes to take effect
Can't seem to find a way to uninstall
Windows Messenger? Well, there is a way: Click Start > Run and in the Open: box
type the following command (press OK when done):
To add additional components to the Add/Remove Programs list (Windows
Components):
Start Windows Explorer, and navigate to the inf folder in your Windows folder.
Windows Explorer must be set to Show hidden files and folders. You can adjust
this from the Tools menu, Folder Options, View tab (and while you are there,
un-check Hide extensions for known file types too).
Now find the file Sysoc.inf, and Open it (double-click)
You will find several lines that include the word hide: xxxx=xxxx.dll,xxxx,xxxx.inf,hide,7
Remove the word hide, so that the line now reads: xxxx=xxxx.dll,xxxx,xxxx.inf,,7
(don't remove the comma's!)
Save the file, and close it
Select Add or Remove Programs in Control Panlel and click on Add/Remove Windows
Components
Several additional Windows components will now be listed, and you will be able
to remove them
Here's a list what some of the listings mean:
WBEM - Windows Management Instrumentation
com - COM+ (Provides support for developing and deploying distributed,
component-based applications)
dtc - Distributed Transaction Coordinator (Coordinates distributed transactions
between multiple clients, servers, and resource managers)
AutoUpdate - Windows Automatic Updates
msmsgs - Windows Messenger
CommApps - Communications
MultiM - Multimedia
AccessOpt - Accessibility Wizard
Pinball - Yep, the game
MSWordPad - WordPad
I would be careful about
uninstalling certain parts (WEBM, com, dtc, and maybe even CommApps and MultiM),
as it might break some functions in Windows!
Also note that some items will be listed as a
sub-item from other items. For example, Pinball will be a sub item of Games,
which in itself is a sub item from Accessories and Utilities.
When a hard disk is running out of
disk space, Windows will occasionally pop up a warning message in your system
tray. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes it's just not possible to adjust
the free space on the disk (by deleting/removing files).
For example when you have your Windows paging file on a separate hard drive, and
you have Windows use that drive to capacity for the page file.
To disable the low disk space notification:
Start the Registry Editor
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Policies \ Explorer \
Right-click an empty space in the right pane and select New > DWORD Value
Name the new value NoLowDiskSpaceChecks
Double-click this new value, and enter 1 as it's Value data
Close the registry editor
Log off, or restart Windows for the changes to take effect
Note: This will turn of the Low Diskspace warning on all your drives!
Windows XP - like Windows Me -
includes System Restore, which enables you to return your computer to an earlier
state (called a restore point), removing/replacing certain system & application
files, without effecting your own files such as documents, e-mail, etc.
Windows XP's System
Restore doesn't seem to be as big a resource hog as the Windows Me version was
claimed to be.
I would suggest that you leave System
Restore running, it might one day save you! However, by default System Restore
is monitoring all the hard drives in your system, which might not be necessary.
To customize which drives should be excluded, start System Restore (Start > All
Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore and click on the System
Restore Settings link.
Select the drive for which you want to change the System Restore settings, and
press the Settings button.
You can change the amount of disk space used by System Restore on the selected
drive, or turn System Restore monitoring off for the selected drive.
There is also a
setting to Turn off System Restore on all drives, this could be useful if you
are using a 3rd party product such as GoBack (or others).
Whenever an application suffers
from an error, and is closed down by the system or by you, the Microsoft Error
Reporting feature will pop up, asking you if you want to send a report about the
problem to Microsoft.
Windows allows you to customize
the way Error Reporting works. Open the System applet from Control Panel, and
select the Advanced tab. Near the bottom, click the Error Reporting button.
You can enable or disable Error
Reporting, or when you leave it enabled, you can specify which programs you want
to exclude from this feature.
When you add an account for certain users with Windows XP, their user names will
appear on the Welcome Screen.
Sometimes a user needs to be added to a Windows XP machine, because he needs
access (via the network) to resources on the machine, but he will not be
physically logging in on the computer.
You can remove his name
from the Welcome Screen, while still maintaining the user account.
Start the Registry Editor
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \
Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList \
Right-click an empty space in the right pane and select New > DWORD Value
Name the new value exactly as the Username
Leave the Value data as 0
If you want to enable this user again
on the Welcome Screen, either double-click the Username value, and change the
Value data to 0, or delete the Username
Close the registry editor
To change the picture that is displayed on the Welcome Screen & Start Menu, just
click on the picture on the Start Menu.
This will open the Pick a new picture for your account part of the User Accounts
applet. Here you can pick any of the pictures included, or use your own picture
by using the Browse for more pictures feature.
Windows XP will in
many cases prompt you to dial your connection. For example if you are reading
your email while you are "Off Line", and you hit a HTML email which has a link
to a picture, XP will ask you to dial your ISP.
Even if you
have set the option Never dial a connection in Internet Explorers Tools >
Options > Connections, Windows XP can continue to bug you with this.
The answer? A new setting, you can find here:
Click Start > Control Panel
Click Network and Internet Connections, next click Network Connections
From the menu, choose Advanced >
Dial-up Preferences, and uncheck the Autodial check box for your location under
Enable autodial by location
If you want Windows XP to dial-up "on demand", but don't want to be prompted,
just uncheck the box Always ask me before autodialing.
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