Add_Remove more Windows Components

Add_Remove more Windows Components like MSN Explorer and the Accessories programs

This tweak lets you uninstall Windows Components such as MSN Explorer and programs in the Accessories menu on the ‘All Programs’ menu.

1. Edit the hidden system file SYSOC.INF in the Windows/System/Inf folder (or WINNT/System/Inf if you upgraded from NT or 2000).
2. Delete all instances of the word HIDE. Don’t put any spaces inbetween the commas.
3. Save your changes.
4. Open ‘Add or Remove Programs’ in Control Panel.
5. Click on ‘Add/Remove Windows Components. You will now see options for ‘Accessories and Utilities’ (the programs in the Accessories menu on the Start panel), MSN Explorer and several other components.
6. Uncheck the tick box to remove that component or check it to install it from your XP CD.

Be careful what components you remove though!

Popularity: 23% [?]

Free Disk space by deleting restore points

Free Disk space by deleting restore points

Start button-all programs-accessories-system tools-cleanup-more options. You will have the option of deleting your restore points. I had over 2 gigabytes of restore points. When your done creat one restore point as a back up.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Increase available bandwidth for network connections

Increase available bandwidth for network connections

This will help increase your bandwidth for any network connection in Windows XP PRO.

1. Make sure your logged on as actually “Administrator”. do not log on with any account that just has
administrator privileges. To log in as an administrator:
-click on start->logoff->logoff
-in the logon screen hold Ctrl+Alt+Del.
-in the user field type ‘Administrator’ <-case sensitive.
-in the password field type the password for the administrator (if you don’t have one leave blank)
-press ok

2. Start - run - type gpedit.msc
3. Expand the “Computer configuration” 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– Click apply, OK, exit gpedit.msc
10. Go to your Network connections (start->my computer->my network connection-> view network connections).
 Right click on your connection, choose properties then under the General or the Networking tab
(where it lists your protocols) make sure QoS packet scheduler is enabled.
11. Reboot , now you are all done.

This is more of a “counter what XP does” thing. In other words, XP seems to want to reserve 20% of the bandwidth for itself even with QoS disabled. So why not use it to your advantage. To demonstrate the problem, 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.

For more information on QoS: Refer to the Microsoft Knowledge base article by clicking here.

Popularity: 12% [?]

avi files causing high cpu usage again with installation of XP SP1

avi files causing high cpu usage again with installation of XP SP1

I have recently installed Windows XP SP1 update and have found that the problem with avi files causing 100% cpu usage started happening all over again. I tried to do the original tweak shown on the site, but the registry key specified was already deleted. I searched around and found this tweak that fixes the problem, in both the original release of Windows XP and the SP1 update.

 The ultimate solution

To correct the misbehavior in Windows XP, remove the following registry key.

“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489- 5FE6850DC73E}\InProcServer32″

This will prevent Explorer from loading shmedia.dll in response to file property queries on these files. This will not effect your ability to play files, get file attributes, or even view thumbnails. I really think Microsoft is trying to make sure people only use mpeg

Popularity: 11% [?]

Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons

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.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Unload.dll’s to Free Memory

Windows Explorer caches DLLs (Dynamic-Link Libraries) in memory for a period of time after the application using them has been closed. This can be an inefficient use of memory.

Find the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer].

Create a new sub-key named ‘AlwaysUnloadDLL’ and set the default value to equal ‘1′ to disable Windows caching the DLL in memory.

Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

Allan, the author said: “I tried this after running a intense program,then watched the task manager; memory recovered it self.”

Popularity: 53% [?]

DMA Mode on IDE Devices

Just like Windows 2000, Windows XP still fails to set the DMA mode correctly for the IDE device designated as the slaves on the primary IDE and secondary IDE channels. Most CD-ROMS are capable of supporting DMA mode, but the default in XP is still PIO. Setting it to DMA won’t make your CD-ROM faster, but it will consume less CPU cycles. Here’s how:

1. Open the Device Manager. One way to do that is to right click on “My Computer”, select the Hardware tab, and Select Device Manager.
2. Expand “IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers” and double-click on “Primary IDE Channel”
3. Under the “Advanced Settings” tab, check the “Device 1″ setting. More than likely, your current transfer mode is set to PIO.
4. Set it to “DMA if available”.

Repeat the step for the “Secondary IDE Channel” if you have devices attached to it. Reboot.

Written By: Lolo LaSida

Popularity: 32% [?]

Improve NTFS Performance

The NTFS file system is the recommended file system because of its advantages in terms of reliability and security and because it is required for large drive sizes. However, these advantages come with some overhead. You can modify some functionality to improve NTFS performance as follows:

1. Disable creation of short names. By default, NTFS generates the style of file name that consists of eight characters, followed by a period and a three- character extension for compatibility with MS-DOS and Microsoft® Windows® 3.x clients. If you are not supporting these types of clients, you can turn off this setting by changing the default value of the NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation registry entry (in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Filesystem) to 1.

2. Disable last access update. By default NTFS updates the date and time stamp of the last access on directories whenever it traverses the directory. For a large NTFS volume, this update process can slow performance. To disable automatic updating, change the value of the NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate registry entry (in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentContolSet\Control\Filesystem) to 1. If the entry is not already present in the registry, add it before setting the value. (Add it as a REG_DWORD)

3. Reserve appropriate space for the master file table. Add the NtfsMftZoneReservation entry to the registry as a REG_DWORD in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem. When you add this entry to the registry, the system reserves space on the volume for the master file table. Reserving space in this manner allows the master file table to grow optimally. If your NTFS volumes generally contain relatively few files that are typically large, set value of this registry entry to 1 (the default). Typically you can use a value of 2 or 3 for moderate numbers of files, and 4 (the maximum) if your volumes tend to contain a relatively large number of files. However, be sure to test any settings greater than 2 because these higher values cause the system to reserve a much larger portion of the disk for the master file table.

Reboot after making changes.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit

Microsoft has launched Internet Explorer 8! To read the official Press Release click here. The IE8 looks the same like IE7 Read more

Popularity: 61% [?]

Microsoft Windows Vienna alias Windows 7 and The New OS

Windows “Vienna” (formerly known as Blackcomb) is Microsoft’s codename for a future version of Microsoft Windows, originally announced in February 2000, but has since been subject to major delays and rescheduling.
The code name “Blackcomb” was originally assigned to a version of Windows that was planned to follow Windows XP (codenamed “Whistler”; both named after the Whistler-Blackcomb resort) in both client and server versions. However, in August 2001, the release of Blackcomb was pushed back several years and Vista (originally codenamed “Longhorn” after a bar in the Whistler Blackcomb Resort) was announced as a release between XP and Blackcomb.

Since then, the status of Blackcomb has undergone many alterations and PR manipulations, ranging from Blackcomb being scrapped entirely, to becoming a server-only release. As of 2006, it is still planned as both a client and server release with a current release estimate of anytime between 2009 and 2012, although no firm release date or target has yet been publicized.

Popularity: 16% [?]

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