Few Tricks for XP.... part3

Disabling Unnecessary Programs At Startup:

Many programs add portions of themselves starting automatically on every login.This can be either in the Startup Folder or the Registry. One easy way to tell is by looking at how many icons are in your system tray. If you have a large number, perhaps unnecessary resources are being allocated them as well as increasing your boot time.

In the Start / Programs / Startup Folder
In the Registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Run

Renaming The Start Button:

To rename the start button, you will need a hex editor.
My preference is UltraEdit

Copy the \windows\explore.exe file to a new name (e.g. explorer_1.exe)
With the hex editor, open that file and go to offset 412b6
You will see the word start with blanks between each letter
Edit it be any 5 characters or less
Save the file
Boot to DOS
Copy the existing c:\windows\explorer.exe to explorer.org
Copy explorer_1.exe to explorer.exe
You will also need to replace the explorer.exe in the c:\windows\system32\dllcache file as well with the new one.
Note: If the partition is NTFS and you can't access the files from DOS:

Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon.
Change the value of Shell from Explorer.exe to explorer_1.exe

To Increase the Internet Speed:

Open Notepad and paste the below code in it.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]
"SackOpts"=dword:00000001
"TcpWindowSize"=dword:0005ae4c
"Tcp1323Opts"=dword:00000003
"DefaultTTL"=dword:00000040
"EnablePMTUBHDetect"=dword:00000000
"EnablePMTUDiscovery"=dword:00000001
"GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize"=dword:0005ae4c

Now save this file as speed.reg. Execute it and observe the change!

EXTREMELY FAST BOOTUP

The trick is Enabling Hibernation:
Go to diplay properties>screen savers>power>hibernate. Check 'Enable Hibernation'. Press shift button after you click 'Turn Off Computer' in start menu.

Creating The Suspend Shortcut:

Right click on the Desktop .New / Shortcut. Enter in rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState . Give it whatever name you want. Now when you click on that shortcut, your computer will shutdown and suspend.

­Use system restore when you cannot boot your system

If your system has failed to the point where you cannot access the Windows GUI either through booting normally or through safe mode, you may still have the chance to use the System Restore feature if you have it enabled, by running it form the command prompt. To do this:

Restart your computer and press F8 after the POST screen to bring up the Windows XP boot menu. Choose 'boot in safe mode with command prompt.'





If your system gets to the command prompt successfully, type '%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe' and then press enter. Follow the onscreen instructions to restore your computer to a previous saved point.

Automatically run programs when starting Windows

If there are applications or commands that you run every single time you start your computer (Email comes to mind) you may want to consider setting things up so that these programs run automatically during the Windows XP startup. This can be done quite easily in XP by creating shortcuts and shuffling them around.

Here's how: Windows XP has a startup folder located at 'C:\ Documents and Settings\ (your user name)\ Start Menu\ Programs\Startup.' Shortcuts placed into this folder will be run automatically when Windows XP starts up.

If you already have shortcuts for the programs you desire to use, copy and paste them into the startup folder. Otherwise, go to 'start\programs,' select the program you would like to create a shortcut for, right click it and select 'send to' then 'desktop.' This will create a shortcut on the desktop that you can then use.