Encyclopedia of XP tweaks

[dreamliner77]

Thanks Dealer and Hilander

Got it to work finally. The best IE tweak yet!

 

[Perris Calderon]

I don't think anyone should use hibernate, or standby, so far, they eventually cause problems everytime I give them a chance, plus, I set my hard drive and screen to powerdown in power options properties...

BUT...when you do this, hibernation is still enabled, and using resources, so turn it off if you too are not going to use it, here's how;

control panel,performance and maintenance, power options, hibernate tab...uncheck "Enable hibernation"

 

[Perris Calderon]

OK, this is for those of you that have an isp tool bar that won't go away, ie, net zero, free or paid...or any other people stuck with space wasting isp tool bars;

right click in an empty spot in your ie browser toolbar, if lock the tool bar is checked, for now, uncheck it, hit customize...at the bottom of the window that pops up is "text options"...go to the scroll down menu, and select "no text labels", (by now you should know what the icons do and you don't need the lables...next, in the same window, hit the "icon options" and try "small icons"...I like these much better, and they take up less space (if your eyes can't handle it...nevermind)...ok, now go up to the "tool bar buttons, and remove every button you hardly use, leave only the buttons you use...when you're done with that, I personally never use the "links" or the "go"...simple...right click in an empty spot in the tool bar, uncheck link...then hover over the go bar, right click,and uncheck that....oh, I forgot...I have no use for the separators, and they waste space, so try eliminating them with your unused buttons also

OK, now the purpose of all this...grab the bottom tool bar from the vertical dotted line on the far left, and move it to the second tool bar, then do the same thing to the second toolbar, and drag it to the top tool bar...you should eventually be able to fit everything onto one toolbar, plus th blue ie bar....there, all the function on one bar... very little space...now grab the dotted line that adjusts the address bar, and adjust that to your preferance...also on the first bar...as I said, you should be able to get everything you need on one bar


OK, finished, if you like what you've done, lock the tool bar, and voiala...as much browsing space as possible, without using the f11, hide toolbar tweak I posted a while back...sounds like allot work, but it's not, and it's well worth this effort


I just did this on my second user to double check, and realized that sometimes when you do this, the bottom tool bar will stay there because it has a few links....I don't need em, that's what my favorites is for...just right click, and delete...k

 

[Perris Calderon]

ok, for aol users (this meens you dirk)...I wanted to post this seperate, so it didn't get lost in the above very verbose ramblings...


MINIMIZE AOL, OPEN IE ON IT'S OWN, AND THEN USE MY FULL SCREEN TWEAK POSTED A FEW BACK, OR USE THE TWEAK POSTED ABOVE THIS ONE

Whew, had to get that off my chest

 

[2z]

Disable recent documents

I posted this answer in another forum but it really belongs in here. Found the info doing a Google search, cant the remember the site it was many moons ago,so I take none of the credit for this one.

Start / run / regedit / navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies

Look in the left hand pane for these subkeys: Explorer, Network, Ratings, System, ActiveDesktop + WinOldApp. If they are not present, create them: right-click -> New -> Key -> Name it to one of the values listed above.
Now you need to create (or modify if already there) the following DWORD values listed further below under the subkeys above. To create a new DWORD value: right-click -> New -> DWORD -> name it to one of the values listed further below.
To modify one of these DWORD values: right-click on the one you want -> select Modify -> check the Decimal box -> give it a value of 1 (to disable access to a certain system feature/area), or a value of 0 (to enable access to a certain system feature/area).
These are the valid DWORD values (if not specified otherwise) you can change under the following subkeys:

NoRecentDocsHistory = enable/disable Recent Documents in Start Menu (Win98/ME + IE4/IE5/IE6 ONLY)

For XP pro users

Start / run / gpedit / navigate to

User config / Admin templates / start menu & taskbar / remove documents menu from start menu / double click & tick enable / apply / ok.

Thats it for now back soon with a tip I discovered all by myself.

 

[Perris Calderon]

two, that's a good one...and by the way, most of the tweaks anyone posts, they've gotten from someone else...the only important thing is that it'll help some users....good job

 

[Ramanuman]

Talking about which...

A usefull tip
From : http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/answerstips/story/0,24330,3356093,00.html


---------------------Quote------------------------
I highly suggest you create a password recovery disk the minute you create your user account. Why? In order to create a password recovery disk you're going to need your password. Write it down the minute you create your user account and then proceed to creating your very own password recovery disk.

Here's how to launch the Forgotten Password Wizard:

1. Single-click Start menu, Control Panel, and User Accounts.
2. Click your user account name.
3. Under Related Tasks on the left, click "Prevent forgotten password" to launch the wizard.

Now that you've launched the wizard, let it walk you through creating the recovery disk. Make sure the disk you use is formatted and in the drive. After it's finished creating the disk, label it and stash it away for an emergency.

If you happen to forget your password, all you need to do is click your user icon at the logon screen. Even though you don't have your password, go ahead and click the green arrow just like you would to finish logging on to your computer. This will launch a little yellow dialog box directing you to use your password recovery disk.
--------------------End quote-----------------

 

[2z]

My All Time Favourite Tip / Tweak

Ok here it is the ultimate cascading toolbar
1st create a new folder for the toolbar where ever you choose
2nd then drag n drop your favourite drive / folder onto the start button
this then appears @ the top of the start menu as a cascading folder, then navigate to
C:\Documents and Settings\%User name%\Start Menu.
Cut & Paste the newly created cascading folder into your toolbar folder.
Btw. don’t leave large folders in your start menu it tends to crash the explorer.
For simple shortcut folders you can create it within the toolbar folder but it will
only cascade once i.e. you cannot see inside sub folders.
If you want your cascading toolbar to appear in a certain order just rename the shortcuts.

This next tweak has already been covered but I think the advice is wrong

tweaking the prefetcher
Set the value to either 0-Disable,
1-App launch prefetch,
2-Boot Prefetch,
3-Both ("3" is recommended).

Why on earth would anyone want windows to prefetch every app they’ve ever used?
Once windows is up and running there is no noticeable difference as to the speed of
my programs launching. I have mine set to 2 this means windows has less work to do
and the drive gets less fragmented as fewer files are created.

That’s it from me hope you find these tips useful.

 

[Perris Calderon]

I like your reasoning...I'm hoping allan, relder, open_source, dirk, or any guru to have comment on your reasoning

 

[Perris Calderon]

here's another very handy keyboard trick almost nobody knows about, and it'll save alot of clicks when you use it;

shrink the window you're browsing in...then push control+n...that'll owpen the same page you're on in a new window, so you can serf from the new window, while you're working on the same page

 

[GHOST21]

i have a question for anyone. im using xp pro on a p3 700mhz w/ 384mb ram and 160gb storage. i recently had to do a fresh reinstall of xp and this time, for some odd reason, my icons take a while to load on the desktop...this is after loging in. what i dont get is this didnt happen before the reinstall. further, after logon, the start menu and task bar all load then the icons pop up a minute or two after.... any ideas to what may be causing this or how to fix it?

 

[GHOST21]

heres an update....i think the cause of that slow down is the Remote Access Connection Manager under services in MSCONFIG. Everytime i took that off, everything ran smoothe....except i couldnt see the network or connect to the internet....any feedback is appreciated

 

[2z]

Have you got all the latest patches?

 

[Ramanuman]

shrink the window you're browsing in...then push control+n...that'll owpen the same page you're on in a new window, so you can serf from the new window, while you're working on the same page

Do you have to shrink it first ?

I simply click crtl+n when my window is all expanded, and it works.

 

[allan]

dealer - regarding the Prefetch question. My Prefetch folder never contains files older than two weeks. I've never made any adjustments to the folder's settings, so it's my presumption that it routinely deletes old files and keeps only the most recently accessed.

 

[Perris Calderon]

ha...I forgot that allan, and I learned it from you!!!I've even told others the same thing... I'm havin brain farts lately...thanx


here's somemore forgotten keyboards that should be used,,,;

I posted the back key also works for browsing...another way to go both back and forward (I really hate that mouse)

alt + arrow back, and altenate + arow forward work great for browsing

 

[GHOST21]

ya i have all the possible updates from MS...

 

[brodie]

great thread, heaps of huge ideas to tame the beast.

can someone point me to the latest zip of all the tweaks, i couldn't find it in the downloads section, ha sit been removed from there or did i misunderstand soem earlier messages about it being posted somewhere.

 

[Ramanuman]

Hi brodie.
Look on p.13 of this thread.

I'm also working on an updated version, which will have the hyperlinks back in.
-To be posted soon.

 

[brodie]

cheers Ram...

I must have the lastest file then, but will look out for the hyper link version.