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XP Best Tricks 2011



Classic Mode

To change the look and feel of XP back to that of Windows 2000 or previous version, there are two settings that need to changing.



Start Menu

  • Open Control Panel

  • On the left, click Switch to classic view (This may or may not be needed depending on if this has been done previously. If the bar on the left says "Switch to Classic view" it is needed. If it says "Switch to category view" it is not.)

  • Open Taskbar and Start Menu Control


  • Click Start Menu

    • Select Classic Start Menu or

    • Select XP Mode Start Menu



  • Click Apply

  • Click OK


Start Bar

To change the start bar and the title bars to look like they did in previous versions. Some older programs are incompatible with XP style themes, so leaving this in XP mode will not always look correct for older programs.



  • Open Control Panel

  • Click on Switch to Classic view

  • Select Display (It should open to the "Themes" tab if not, click the Themes tab)


  • In the dropdown Theme:

    • Select Windows Classic or

    • Select Windows XP



  • Click Apply

  • Click OK





QuickLaunch

By default, the QuickLaunch toolbar is not shown. This is a handy feature and only requires a single to open the application. It is always viewable on your taskbar so you don't have to resort to your desktop or Start options to open the app.


To enable it...



  • Right click on an open area of the toolbar

  • Select Toolbars

  • Select Quick Launch


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To turn off balloon tips in most applications...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER

    • Software

    • Microsoft

    • Windows

    • CurrentVersion

    • Explorer

    • Advanced



  • Click Edit

  • Click New

  • Create DWORD value = EnableBalloonTips

  • Value = 0

  • Click OK



See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.



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NumLock

To set NUMLock on by default...



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Windows Version

To turn off the version number on the desktop...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_USERS

    • .DEFAULT

    • Control Panel\Desktop



  • Edit or Create the DWORD value = PaintDesktopVersion

  • Value = 0 (will hide the version from displaying on the desktop)

  • Click OK


  • Reboot

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.





Taskbar Buttons

By default, all open windows using the same application are grouped under a single icon. This saves Task Bar space.


If you want to group, or ungroup, similar taskbar buttons...




Logon Style

To change the logon screen so it looks like the traditional NT4 or 2000 style...



  • Open Control Panel

  • Select User Accounts

  • Click Change the way users log on and off

  • Uncheck Use the Welcome screen

  • Click on Apply



System Tray Icons

Icons in the Notification area (on the right side of the taskbar) are, by default, hidden when they are inactive. This behavior is determined by a setting, which can be cleared or selected for each item.



  • Right click on the Taskbar

  • Select Properties

  • Check Hide inactive icons


  • Click on Customize button This will bring up a dialog box that will allow you to select one of three options for your applications:

    • Hide when inactive

    • Always hide

    • Always show




  • Highlight current or past applications and make any changes you like. A small arrow will now appear in the System Tray that will allow you to show or hide these icons.

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.





System Time

To make sure your system time is accurate, you can automatically set the time from an Internet server.



  • Double-click the time on the taskbar

  • Click Internet Time tab

  • Check Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server


  • Click on Update Now button

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.




Certain Dell machines lose their system time in XP. To correct this do the following...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter cmd

  • Click OK


  • Enter the following and press Enter after each line

    • Net stop w32time

    • w32tm /unregister

    • w32tm /unregister

    • w32tm /register

    • Net start w32time




  • exit

    A patch is also available from Dell. See Dell.com for more information.






Desktop

On some occasions changes to desktop settings will not save. Sometimes there is also a reason to disable this for public machines that users should not be allowed to change settings. This can be used to make it so your user's changes DO NOT get saved by disabling save desktop setting.



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enterregedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER

    • Software

    • Microsoft

    • Windows NT

    • CurrentVersion

    • Program Manager

    • Restrictions




  • Create or edit the DWORD value = NoSaveSettings

    • To save desktop settings, value = 0

    • To disable saving desktop settings, value = 1



  • Click OK

  • Close regedit


  • Reboot

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.




The Desktop Cleanup Wizard keeps track of your usage of the icons on your desktop and periodically offers to remove the icons you have not recently used. This is really not needed as most people can delete icons off their desktop themselves.





Java Virtual Machine

Instead of including the latest version of Java support, XP will default to a 4-year-old version. Users can get a new Java download which is 5MB in size or Install Service Pack 1 as it fixes a large number of other bugs and installs the Java Virtual Machine.



Paging File

To clear the Windows paging file (Pagefile.sys) during the shutdown process and prevent any unsecured data from being contained after the shutdown process is complete. Some third-party programs can temporarily store unencrypted (plain-text) passwords or other sensitive information in memory.



Method 1

  • Open Control Panel

  • Select Administrative Tools

  • Select Local Security Policy

  • Select Local Policies

  • Click on Security Options

  • In the right hand menu, right click on Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile

  • Select Enable

  • Reboot


Method 2

  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SYSTEM

    • CurrentControlSet

    • Control\Session Manager

    • Memory Management



  • Double click on ClearPageFileAtShutdown

  • Set Value = 1

  • Click OK

  • Reboot


See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.




Quick Reinstall

To repair a corrupted operating system. This also works on Windows 2000.



  • On the Windows CD, go to the location of your source files

  • Run WINNT32 /unattend



CD Info

After you remove either a CD recording software or other software from your computer, your computer may not allow access to the CD drive.



To correct this the following registry keys need to be deleted:



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SYSTEM

    • CurrentControlSet

    • Control

    • Class

    • {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}



  • Delete UpperFilters value


  • Delete LowerFilters value

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.





To increase loading speed... If you use a program other than the native XP CD Burner software.



  • Open Control Panel

  • Select Administrative Tools

  • SelectServices

  • Double-click on IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service

  • For Startup Type, select Disabled

  • Click OK

  • Close Services window


  • Reboot

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.




To turn off the ability to using the built-in CD burner software that comes with XP do the following...





E-mail Message Count

Under your name on the Welcome screen, there is a hyperlink that indicates the number of unread e-mail messages. To remove the Unread E-mail message count by user's login names: This feature is not always active in XP for some reason.



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SOFTWARE

    • Microsoft\Windows

    • CurrentVersion

    • UnreadMaili



  • Click Edit

  • Click New

  • Select Create DWORD value =MessageExpiryDays

  • Set Value = 0


  • Click OK

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.





Administrator Logon

If the administration logon is not show on the Welcome screen



To access it...



  • Hold down Ctrl and Alt and press Del twice


To unhide the Administrator account so it always shows up...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SOFTWARE

    • Microsoft

    • Windows NT

    • CurrentVersion

    • Winlogon

    • SpecialAccounts

    • UserList




  • If Administrator exists...

    • Double Click on Administrator

    • Set Value = 1

    • Click OK




  • IIf Administrator doesn't exist...

    • Click Edit

    • Click New

    • Select DWORD value

    • Enter the name Administrator

    • Double Click on line

    • Set value = 1

    • Click OK






Registration

To change your name and company information...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SOFTWARE

    • Microsoft

    • Windows NT



  • Double click on CurrentVersion

  • Change the value in the Registered Owner key


  • Click OK

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.




To set that online registration has been completed...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SOFTWARE

    • Microsoft

    • Windows NT

    • CurrentVersion



  • Click Edit

  • Click New

  • Create a String value = RegDone

  • Set Value = 1


  • Click OK

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.






Passwords

To change the password to never expire. This is identical to Windows 2000 for the same issue.



  • Right click My Computer

  • Select Manage

  • Go to Local Users and Groups/Users

  • Right-click on user to change

  • Select Properties

  • On General tab, check Password never expires

  • Click OK


To allow logging in without a password... (Do not recommend)



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter gpedit.msc

  • Click OK

  • Select Computer Configuration

  • Select Windows Settings

  • Select Security Settings

  • Select Local Policies

  • Select Security Options

  • Double click on Accounts

  • Disable the option Limit local account use of blank passwords to console login only




User Names (Show/Hide)

To hide/unhide the users on the logon screen...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SOFTWARE

    • Microsoft

    • Windows NT

    • CurrentVersion

    • Winlogon

    • SpecialAccounts

    • UserList



  • Click Edit

  • Click New

  • Select Add DWORD value = name of the user account you want to hide

  • To hide, set value = 0

  • To unhide, set value = 1

  • Click OK



Guest Account

We highly recommend turning off the ability to login with guest account.




Fast User Switch

To fix the the error referencing CSGina.DLL that a recently installed program has disabled the Welcome screen and Fast User Switching ...




System Restore

To disable system restore. System restore, which is supposed to "roll back" your system to a previous point, does not always solve problems. This feature can take up a large chunk of your hard drive and system resources.



To Disable System Restore



  • Open Control Panel

  • Select System Control

  • Click System Restore tab

  • Check Turn off System Restore

  • Click OK


To Re-Enable System Restore



  • Open Control Panel

  • Select System Control

  • Click System Restore

  • Uncheck Turn off System Restore

  • Use the slider under Disk Space usage to set the limit on how much hard disk space to give up

  • Click OK


You can re-enable it again by...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter gpedit.msc

  • Select Computer Configuration

  • Select Administrative Templates

  • Select System

  • Select System Restore

  • Set Turn off System Restore

  • Set Turn off Configuration to Disable



  • Right click My Computer

  • Select Manage

  • Select Services and Applications

  • Select Services

  • Scroll to System Restore Service

  • Set to Automatic

  • Click the Start button to start the service

  • Close window



  • Go back to the gpedit.msc and configure both to Not configured

  • Right click My Computer

  • Click System Restore

  • Configure how much space will be used


See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.




Device Drivers

To restore a previous working device driver. If this does not work, you need to remove the device and reinstall the drivers.



  • Log in with an administrator

  • Right click My Computer

  • Select Properties

  • Click Hardware tab

  • Click Device Manager button

  • Go to the device you want to reconfigure

  • Click Driver tab


  • Click Roll Back Drive button

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.





Firewall

If you want to turn off the firewall for your computer: Highly recommended.



  • Click Start

  • Click Settings

  • Click Network Connections

  • Right click network connection you want to change

  • Select Properties

  • Click the Advanced tab


  • Uncheck Internet Connection Firewall

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.





Error Reporting

To turn off reporting of errors to Microsoft...




Performance

By default, XP displays extra graphic objects for menu items which can slow down your display.



To turn off these selectively...



  • Right click My Computer

  • Select Properties

  • Click Advanced tab

  • Under Performance, click Settings button


  • To turn them all off, select Adjust for best performance Preference is to leave them all off except for Show shadows under mouse pointer and Show window contents while dragging

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.




To speed up the display of the Start Menu Items, turn off the menu shadow.



You can increase system performance by loading more of the system into memory. DO NOT attempt this with less then 512MBs of ram. Your system will become unstable.



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SYSTEM

    • CurrentControlSet

    • Control

    • Session Manager

    • Memory Management



  • Double click on DisablePagingExecutive

  • Set Value = 1

  • Click OK


  • Reboot

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.






Hibernation

Hibernation takes up extra disk space.


To disable...




MSN Messenger

MSN Messenger is typically a waste of system resources.



To remove the MSN Messenger from starting...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove


To totally remove MSN Messenger, you need to first make Messenger appear in Add/Remove programs.



  • Edit the file \Windows\Inf\sysoc.inf

  • Change msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7

  • To msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,,7


See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.




Non-Responsive Tasks

To set a time-out to automatically delete "Not Responding" tasks...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER

    • Control Panel

    • Desktop



  • Double click on AutoEndTasks

  • Set Value =1

  • Click OK


  • Change WaitToKillAppTimeout to the number of milliseconds to wait

    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.





File System Cache

To help speed up the system, increase the amount of memory to use for I/O operations...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SYSTEM

    • CurrentControlSet

    • Control\Session Manager

    • Memory Management




  • Edit IoPageLockLimit

    • 4096 =32MB or less

    • 8192 =32MB

    • 16384 = 64MB

    • 32768 = 128MB

    • 65536 = 256MB+


    See Microsoft Knowledge Base article.




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DNS Cache

DNS (Domain Name System) caching is used to resolve hostnames for faster access. The problem with this feature is that failed DNS lookups also get cached.



To change so that it will not cache failed DNS lookups...


1. Flush the DNS cache manually



  • Go to the Command Prompt

  • Enter ipconfig /flushdns


2. To permanently solve, modifing the Registry



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit


  • Click OK
    Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SYSTEM

    • CurrentControlSet

    • Services

    • Dnscache

    • Parameters



  • NegativeCacheTime=0 (DWORD default=300 seconds) Determines how long an entry recording a negative answer to a query remains in the DNS cache. When the time specified in the value of this entry expires, the DNS client deletes the answer record from cache.

  • NetFailureCacheTime=0 (DWORD default=30 seconds) Determines for how long the DNS client stops sending queries when it suspects that the network is down. When the DNS client does not receive responses to repeated queries sent to any network adapter, the DNS client stops sending queries for the time specified in the value of this entry. During that time, the DNS client returns a time-out response to all queries. If the value of this entry is 0x0, this optimizing feature is disabled. DNS continues to send queries to an unresponsive network.

  • NegativeSOACacheTime=0 (DWORD default=120 seconds) Determines how long an entry recording a negative answer to a query for an SOA (Start of Authority) record remains in the Domain Name System (DNS) cache. When the time specified in the value expires, the DNS client deletes the answer record from the cache.



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Bandwidth

If you run an application that needs to send high priority/real time data, XP will restrict "best effort" traffic to 80% of the bandwidth.


To change this...



  • Log in as Administrator (Not just any account with admin privileges)

  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter gpedit.msc

  • Select Local Computer Policy

  • Select Administrative Templates

  • Select Network

  • Select QOS Packet Scheduler

  • In the right window, double-click limit reservable bandwidth

  • On setting tab, check enabled setting

  • Bandwidth limit % value = 0

  • Click OK

  • Close gpedit.msc




  • Click My Computer

    • Select My Network Connections

    • Select View Network Connections

    • Right-click your connection



  • Under Protocol Properties, check QOS Packet Scheduler

  • Reboot


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TCP/IP

To reinstall the TCP/IP protocol stack...



  • netsh int ip reset [ log_file_name] The log_file_name needs to be specified


Example: netsh int ip reset ip_reset.txt


To change TCP/IP settings...



  • Click Start

  • Click Run

  • Enter regedit

  • Click OK


  • Go to

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

    • SYSTEM

    • CurrentControlSet

    • Services

    • TCP/IP

    • Parameters




  • Edit or Create the following...

    • GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize="256960" (DWORD)

    • Tcp1323Opts="1" (DWORD)

    • DefaultTTL="64" (DWORD)

    • EnablePMTUDiscovery="1" (DWORD)

    • EnablePMTUBHDetect="0" (DWORD)

    • SackOpts="1" (DWORD)

    • TcpMaxDupAcks="2" (DWORD)



  • Reboot



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NetBEUI


It is recommended that you do not install NetBEUI unless absolutely needed. It is no longer supported by Microsoft. You can add it by going to the VALUEADD\MSFT\NET\NETBEUI directory on your CD.


In the example below, C:\WINDOWS represents the common drive\directory where XP is installed.



  • Copy nbf.sys C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ directory

  • Copy netnbf.inf C:\WINDOWS\\INF\ directory

  • Open the Network connection properties for your local area network

  • use Install...button to add NetBEUI protocol


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