Sunday, December 28, 2008

Adjust Graphics for Speed

Windows XP has a lot of new cool looking visual elements, however, those new elements take up more RAM and cause your computer to be less responsive. By tweaking your graphics settings, you can increase the performance of your computer.

To get started, Let’s reduce the color quality. This setting determines how many colors are displayed on your screen.

1. Right click on your desktop and select properties.

2. Click on the settings tab and adjust the color quality drop down box to Medium (16 Bit).

3. Click OK.

Next, let’s use the windows performance settings to optimize your computer for performance. This will revert back to the old Windows 2000 look as well as take away a lot of the fancy graphics effects. However, if you are really into performance, this is the price you have to pay.

1. Right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop or in your start panel and select properties.

2. Next, Click on the Advanced tab and hit the setting button under performance.

3. On the visual effects tab, select Adjust for Best Performance and hit OK.

4. Hit OK once more to exit system properties.

Now your computer will run slightly faster!

Lock ur folders without any software...

Suppose you want to lock the folder games in d: which has the path D:\Games.

In the same drive create a text file and type ren games games.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

Now save this text file as loc.bat
create another text file and type in it ren games.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} games

Now save this text file as key.bat

Now you can see 2 batch files loc and key.

Press loc and the folder games will change to control panel and you cannot view its contents.Press key and you will get back your original folder.

Hey do not forget to change games to ur folder name.

try it out!!!!!!!

Automatic Screen Refresh

When you are working on your local computer and want to refresh any changes in your system automatically. For example some times you are watching sports results, online Stock Exchange rates and any changes to your hard drive but these changes are not usually refreshed until you press the F5 key on your keyboard.

To refresh your screen automatically you should edit your system Registry. But the best technique to edit the windows registry keys, always export or backup the whole windows registry keys on backup drive before editing. Because any mistake in Registry can cause serious problem in your computer to run properly.

Follow the given steps to change the updates automatically.


First click on Start button then type Regedit in Run option.

In Registry Editor panel go to the path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / System / CurrentControlSet /

Control / UpdateMode

Here in right hand side panel edit the DWORD value to be between 1 and 5.

Now restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

How To Restrict Drives in My Computer

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Explorer

In right-side pane, create a new DWORD value NoViewOnDrive and change its value as following:

3 : To Restrict A and B drives only.
4 : To Restrict C drive only.
7 : To Restrict A, B, and C drives only.
8 : To Restrict D drive only.
F : To Restrict A, B, C, and D drives only.
03FFFFFF : To Restrict all drives.

And if you want more specific restrictions, like you want to restrict a combination of other drives, then you can use decimal no. instead of hexadecimal no. Following is a list for all drives decimal no.:

A: 1
B: 2
C: 4
D: 8
E: 16
F: 32
G: 64
H: 128
I: 256
J: 512
K: 1024
L: 2048
M: 4096
N: 8192
O: 16384
P: 32768
Q: 65536
R: 131072
S: 262144
T: 524288
U: 1048576
V: 2097152
W: 4194304
X: 8388608
Y: 16777216
Z: 33554432
ALL: 67108863

So if you want to disable a combination of drives, just sum their numbers and give the same value to NoViewOnDrive. e.g., for restricting CDEF drives, give the value: 4+8+16+32 = 60

NOTE: You can also hide the drives using NoDrives DWORD value. The location and its value remain same as the above trick.

Speed up the Start Menu

The default speed of the Start Menu is pretty slow, but you can fix that by editing a Registry Key.

Fire up the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ MenuShowDelay

By default, the value is 400.

Change this to a smaller value, such as 0, to speed it up.

Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC

A modern PC with Vista Home Edition takes about one and a half minutes to boot. An older machine with XP is about the same. That’s 30 seconds for the PC itself (the BIOS) to boot up, plus a minute for the Windows operating system to boot.

Sometimes, you need to reboot Windows (e.g. when installing new software), but there is no need to restart BIOS, too. However, the default is to reboot both. (That’s called doing a “cold boot,” rather than a “warm boot.”) There’s a trick that works on both XP and Vista to get it to do a warm boot instead, thus saving you 30 seconds per cycle.

The trick is to hold down the SHIFT key when invoking the restart.

Windows Vista: Select Start, then hover over the right arrow that is to the right of the padlock icon until the pop-up menu appears that contains “restart” as one of it’s choices. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “restart” choice.

Windows XP: Select Start. Select “Shut Down…”. Change the drop-down combo box under “What do you want the computer to do?” to “Restart”. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “OK” button.

Enable Administrator at Welcome Screen

By default windows XP doesn't show the Administrator in the user list at the welcome screen. Here's a way to get around it.


Now head up to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\Userlist

create a new DWORD entry and name it as Administrator and change its value to 1.

exit and reboot for the changes to take effect.

To change it back change its value to 0 or simply delete the key

Change your Windows XP Boot Screen

This is a very simple trick to do if you have done the same for the logon screen and the start button. There are 2 ways to do this trick that I know about one is doing it manually and the other is using a program called bootxp. I am going to tell you the manual way to do it, but if you want to know the other way just let me know, so I can do an update to the guide. Now once you have downloaded your ntoskrnl.exe file save it a general location so that you will have easy access to it, like my folder.

Once you have ntoskrnl.exe file in an easy access folder, restart your pc into safe mode. Once into safe mode go to the folder where your files are located.

Now that you are there copy the file that you want to change your boot screen too. Once you have copied that file, hit the window key + r or type %windir%\system32 in the run command, so that folder as follows.

Once there paste your new file into the folder and overwrite the existing folder.

Now that you have your new file in the folder restart your pc as you normally would and your new boot screen should appear. You can download this bootscreen here.

ALWAYS BACKUP EVERYTHING YOU EDIT OR DELETE. I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU MESS YOUR COMPUTER UP BY DOING THIS HACK OR ANY TYPE OF HACK. DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Top 20 Tips To Keep Your System Faster

Follow these tips and you will definitely have a much faster and more reliable PC! Most of the below tips works for windows XP

1. Wallpapers: They slow your whole system down, so if you're willing to compromise, have a basic plain one instead!

2. Drivers: Update your hardware drivers as frequently as possible. New drivers tend to increase system speed especially in the case of graphics cards, their drivers are updated by the manufacturer very frequently!

3. Minimizing: If you want to use several programs at the same time then minimize those you are not using. This helps reduce the overload on RAM.

4. Boot Faster: The 'starting Windows 95/98' message on startup can delay your booting for a couple of seconds. To get rid of this message go to c:\ and find the file Msdos.sys. Remove the Read-Only option. Next, open it in Notepad or any other text editor. Finally, go to the text 'Options' within the file and make the following changes: Add BootDelay=0. To make your booting even faster, set add Logo=0 to remove the Windows logo at startup.

5. Restart only Windows: When restarting your PC, hold down Shift to only restart Windows rather than the whole system which will only take a fraction of the time.

6. Turn Off Animations: Go to Display Settings from the Control Panel and switch to the Effects Tab. Now turn off Show Windows Content While Dragging and Smooth Edges on Screen Fonts. This tip is also helpful with Windows XP because of the various fade/scroll effects.

7. Faster Start-Menu Access: Go to the Start menu and select Run. Now type Regedit and hit Enter. The Registry Editor will appear on the screen. Now, open the folder HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. You should see a MenuShowDelay value. If you don't then do the following: right click on a blank space in the right pane and select New\String. Change the name in the new value to MenuShowDelay. Now that we have the MenuShowDelay value, double click on it and enter 0 in the value data field. This sets the start menu delay to 0 milliseconds.

8. Resolutions: If you are willing to do anything for faster performance from your PC, then try lowering your display resolution. The lower it is, the faster your PC.

9. Turn off Active Desktop: Go to your Display Properties and switch to the Web tab. Uncheck View My Active Desktop As a Web Page. Since the Active Desktop option under Windows 98 uses a lot of system resources, this option can have a dramatic effect on the speed of the whole system.

10. Defragment Often: Windows 98's Defrag tool uses Application Acceleration from Intel which means that when you defragment your drive, data is physically arranged on the drive so that applications will load faster.

11. Take your PC to Bed: Using the Advanced Power Management feature under Windows 98 gives you the option to use the sleep command. That way, you can send your PC to sleep instead of shutting it down and then restarting it. It's as simple as pressing a button and then pressing the same button to wake it up. You can tell Windows after how many minutes/hours of inactivity to automatically sleep the machine in the Advanced Power Management section of the Control Panel.

12. Faster Internet Access: If you use the internet for reference and the sites you visit are rarely updated then try the following. In IE (the same can be done in Netscape) go to Tools, Internet Options. Next, click on Settings... in the Temporary Internet Files section. Finally, select Never for the first option and double the amount of storage space to use, click OK!

13. Benchmarking: Benchmarking can be very useful when run frequently. It can tell you how your PC's components are performing and then compare them to other machines like yours. For example, when you overclock your PC, you want to know how much more speed you have and whether it is stable. All this and more can be discovered using benchmarking. An excellent piece of software for doing this job is SiSoft Sandra which can be found in the Downloads File Archive!

14. Refresh the Taskbar without restarting: If you in some way change the taskbar, either in Regedit or elsewhere, you can refresh the task bar without restarting. Hold down Ctrl Alt Del, and double click on Explorer. Say Yes to close Explorer, but no to closing Windows. This will refresh the Taskbar and system tray.

15. Quick CD Eject: Instead of pushing the button on your drive, right-click your CD drive letter in My Computer and click on Eject. This will also remove any icons that have become associated with the CD drive.

16. Start Up Programs: Windows can be slowed down when programs run on start up. To eliminate this, check your Start up folder. You can access it from the start menu: Start, Programs, Start Up. Another way to eliminate programs from loading even before Windows actually starts is by doing the following: Click on Start, then Run. Type msconfig. It will take quite a long time for this program to load, but when you finally see it on your screen, explore the different tabs. They all have to do with how quickly your PC boots, so select what you want, and uncheck what you don't want!

17. Fonts: When Windows starts, it loads every single font in the Fonts folder. Therefore, the more fonts you have, the slower the booting process. To get rid of unwanted fonts, simply go to the Fonts folder under c:\windows and remove whatever you don't want. Fonts that have a red letter 'A' as their icon are system fonts, so don't delete them.

18. Stretching Wallpapers: Don't "stretch" your wallpaper in Windows 98 since it actually slows Windows down when you drag icons around on the desktop.

19. RAM Matters: If you have less than 32MB then you should seriously think of upgrading it to at least 64MB. Windows runs much more smoothly with 64MB or higher and tends to use less hard disk space for virtual memory.

20. Partitioning: A very nice little thing you can do to boost system performance. By partitioning your hard drive, splitting one physical drive into several logical ones, you can gain several advantages. 1. If you get a virus or you accidentally format a drive, not all will be lost. 2. By placing the swap file (Win386.swp) on a separate drive, The swap file will be less fragmented and thus, faster. 3. Place Windows on a separate drive and whenever you need to reinstall it, you rest assured that your data is safe on a separate drive. Partitioning can be done using a few programs such as FDisk which comes with DOS. However, FDisk formats everything on the hard disk before partitioning. Alternatively, you can use Partition Magic fromPower Quest to partition your hard disk without losing your data.

Enable and Disable automatically running CD-ROM

When you insert a CD-ROM disk, your CD-ROM drive always runs automatically for the default setting (autorun CD-ROM). We have a tip to disable running your CD-ROM drive whereas you can enable it running again as you want. This tutorial will teach you to enable or disable running CD-ROM drive by editing a registry. Follow these steps.

* Click Start > Run .
* In the Run dialog, type regedit and press Enter.
* In the Registry Editor window, Go to the path like below,

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom

* Now you can see the AutoRun DWORD in the right panel, double click on it.
* Change the Value data to 0 for disabling automatically running CD-ROM, then click OK. If you want it to automatically run again, you must fill 1 value in the Value data.
* Close Registry Editor window and reboot your computer.
* Test it by inserting your CD-ROM disk. Now your computer does not automatically runs your disk.

How to increase your Laptop Battery's Life?

Follow the few steps to increase the laptop battery's life:

Lower the backlighting on your screen.

The screen of your Laptop takes up significant amount of power and you do not require its maximum brightness. You should have to check your system and decrease the screen brightness it to a comfortable point. How to increase your Laptop Battary

Stop your wireless signal when you are not using.

After turning off your Laptop can save max. 20 minutes of your laptop's battery time because WiFi can use a considerable quantity of power. By right clicking you can stop your WiFi signal when you are not using.

How to increase your Laptop Battary

Manage the correct power scheme in XP

Windows XP contain a number of predetermined power plans, which control settings like how rapidly your laptop turns off and when your screen saver boots in. You can change your laptop power scheme by choosing Control Panel > Power Options. For max. Battery life from the "Power scheme" chooses the option "Max. Battery" and decline the list. There are good choices for you just like "Low Power Mode" and Portable /Laptop. They don't conserve as much power as Max Battery. After selecting a power scheme you click Ok button to finish the process.

How to increase your Laptop Battary

How To Change Keyboard Language In Windows XP

If you want to learn how to change your keyboard language while using Windows XP, you come to the right article. It’s fairly easy once you know how it’s done and by the end of this article you will.Of course, the first step is to sit in front of your turned on computer which I assume you are since you’re reading this article. Now that you’re sitting comfortably, you can begin to change your keyboard language.

1. Click the Start button at the bottom left corner of the screen. This will present you with a long two column menu. On the right menu, click the option Control Panel.

2. There are 2 options in which the Control Panel icons may be presented: catergory or classic. You want to be in Classic view. You can see at the left side of the Control Panel which view you’re currently in. If it says Switch To Category View, it means you’re now in Classic view which is what you want. If it says Switch to Classic View, click that link.

3. In The Control panel, click the Regional and Language Options icon. This will open a small dialog. You’re about halfway to changing your keyboard language.

4. In this new dialog, you will see 3 tabs. The middle one reads Languages. Click on that.

5. In the top half of this tab, you will see a button which reads Details. Click on that button. A new dialog window will open.

6. In The lower half of the new dialog window, you will see and Add button. This will open yet another dialog window.

7. At the top half of this screen, you will see a Combo under the title of Input Language. Choose the language you wish to add and click OK twice.

8. Look at the bottom of your screen in what is known as the System Tray (bottom right corner), you will see an indication of the current language you’re using (EN signifies English). You can now switch between the different language you’ve installed by pressing Alt+Shift keys.

There you have it. You’ve successfully changed your keyboard language.

BlogCatalog

Technology Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory