Our Favorite Tweaks

[Perris Calderon]

if you have a program you are constantly launching and closing, like your email client, create a keyboard shortcut so you don't have to find the icon every time

Right-click the desktop shortcut, and then click Properties.

On the Shortcut tab, click in the Shortcut Key box.

use an any f key that you don't already use, and it's a one key shortcut

if you hit any other key, the shortcut will become control alt+ whatever key you choose

to undo, just hit the backspace key while active in that shortcut box...bing, back to the default behavior

 

[Grandmaster]

Okay here is how to remove Windows Messenger:

On XP Systems without SP1:

1.Click Start / Run
2. Then type the following:

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

3. Press ENTER
4. Restart Windows

On XP Systems with SP1:

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Double click on Add/Remove Programs
3. Uncheck "Windows Messenger"
4. Click "Next"
5. Click "Finish"
6. Reboot

 

[Grandmaster]

Here is a great method to restart your pc quickly, by using a custom made shortcut:

1. Create a shortcut (Right-click on desktop, select New > Shortcut).

2. For location, type the following:

shutdown -r -t 0

3. Click Next, enter a name for the shortcut, (I used "Reboot") and click Finish.

When you click your Restart shortcut, Windows XP will reboot almost instantly.

Some more info:

The -r switch tells XP to reboot.

If you'd like the shortcut to shut off your PC instead, change it to -s.

To simply log off, jsut change it to -l.

The -t 0 sets the timeout, in seconds, so increase this value if you find the need for it. To force running applications to close

Add -f but be careful with this one!

 

[Perris Calderon]

gotta love those 0_87

gonna love the next one also

you can add whatever you want to your right click "send to" menue;

hit windows key+r

paste the following;

sendto

hit enter.

in the window that pops up, just drag whatever folder you would like included in your sendto menue

 

[Grandmaster]

That one is awesome!

 

[Perris Calderon]

I have it here. I'll post it if you want

/offtopic/

Why'd ya decide to kill off Dealer?

I don't know

which do you think is better?

 

[dreamliner77]

Just used to dealer

But we still love you perris

 

[Not Bman]

Both names are good, but perris would look better like Perris

 

[Perris Calderon]

poll time?

dealer

perris

Perris

 

[sboulema]

i vote for perris

 

[Not Bman]

Perris !!

 

[Perris Calderon]

this one is vey nice and most people don't know about it

I print off of web pages, but most of the time I just want the text and not any of the graphics...this is improtant to save color and ink

things like mapquest usually print up tons of graphics, which I hate

simple solution too.

highlight the text you want to print

then go to file>print

bottom left is a button that says "print selection"

hit that, finnished

 

[Grandmaster]

Speeding Up the Start Menu

You'll notice that there is a delay between the different parts of the menu hierarchy. To make this faster, all you have to do is make a little change in the registry:

1. Press Winkey + R. Type in "regedit".
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
3. Select MenuShowDelay from the list on the right.
4. Right on it and select Modify.
5. Change the value to 0
6. Reboot your computer.

 

[Perris Calderon]

/me love this one, but the value at zero is a bit too quick for some, so experiment with that value

 

[Perris Calderon]

allright, this is simple, but I use it every day, and it is definately one of my all time favorites

my favorite tree is friggn huge...very hard to find what I'm looking for

here's what you do;

right click in the tree>create a new folder

now, name that folder "search favorites"

also, right click the folder icon, customize, change the icon to something more suitable

ok, the important thing is to keep this folder empty, and at the top of your favorites tree

now, all you have to do is tap this "search" button

then hit the first letter of whatever favorite you are looking for...windows will highlight the favorites with that letter one at a time everytime you hit the key.

man, I love this

 

[Perris Calderon]

to get to your security settings, double click the little world icon that's at the bottom right of your browser window

 

[dreamliner77]

Thanks perris, that saves me 2 mouse clicks...

Just kidding. Don't know if that's really a "tweak" though

 

[Perris Calderon]

going into msconfig?

I hate that notification when I reboot

paste the following into notepad, then hit save as, name it msconfig.vbs

then whenever you open msconfig, double click this script, and the warning won't appear

it's a one time fix...you have to hit the script whenever you use msconfig if you want it to work;

'xp_nomsconfig.vbs - this script will stop the Selective Startup on a one time basis when you adjust msconfig

On Error Resume Next
Err.Clear

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\MSConfig"

If Err.Number <> 0 then
MsgBox "You may need Administrator permissions to run this script" & vbcr & "or the registry entry does not exist.",4096,"Error!"
Else
MsgBox "The registry entry has been removed.", 4096,"Done!"
End If
Set WshShell = Nothing

ps, I didn't write this script, I nicked it off of a site

I beleive the first site to post it was doug knox

Im sure he wrote it so he gets the credit...great site too.

 

[Grandmaster]

That's a good one, now if only there would be one that you didn't need to double click each time for.

 

[Perris Calderon]

important tweak for anyone with 256 mbs of memory or less...don;t botherif you have more.

right click on your desktop, go to properties, settings

change your color from 32 bit to 16

your computer will be quite a bit faster...you'll notice the differance immediately

there is a visual price, but it's not high...most people do not notice any differance at all visually.

give this a go, you'll probably think it's worth the visual price