Change the Default Opening Folder in Windows Explorer

By default, Windows Explorer opens showing the My Documents folder. To change the default setting so that all top-level drives and folders are shown.

Follow these steps:

· Click Start > Programs > Accessories, then right-click Windows Explorer, and click Properties.

· Under Target field, which reads %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe, add to make the lineread: %SystemRoot%\explorer.

Do Not Highlight Newly Installed Programs

Tired of that annoying little window that pops up to tell you that new software is installed? If it gets in the way when you're logging off, turn it off completely. To do this:

· Click Start, right-click at the top of the Start menu where your name is displayed, and then click Properties.

· In the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, on the Start Menu tab, click Customize.

· Click the Advanced tab, and then clear the Highlight newly installed programs check box.

· Click OK, and then click OK again.

Change Drive Letters in Windows XP

When you add drives to your computer, such as an extra hard drive, a CD drive, or a storage device that corresponds to a drive,Windows automatically assigns letters to the drives. However, this assignment might not suit your system; for example, you might have mapped a network drive to the same letters that Windows assigns to a new drive. When you want to change drive letters, follow these steps:

· Right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.

· Under Computer Management, click Disk Management. In the right pane, you'll see your drives listed. CD-ROM drives are listed at the bottom of the pane.

· Right-click the drive or device you want to change, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.

· Click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the drive letter you want to assign, and then click OK

Turn Off Autoplay for Program CDs

How can you stop Windows XP from launching program CDs? Its very simple, just follow these steps:

· Click Start, click Run, type GPEDIT.MSC to open Group Policy in the Microsoft Management Console.

· Double-click Computer Configuration, double-click Administrative templates, double-click System, and then click Turn off autoplay.

· The instructions on your screen describe how to configure this setting. Click Properties to display the setting dialog.

· Click Enabled, and choose CD-ROM drives, then click OK, to stop CD autoplay.

This setting does not prevent Autoplay for music CDs.

Auto Login

Follow these steps for auto login:

· Go to Start/Run, and type 'control userpasswords2'.

· From Users Tab, Uncheck "Users must enter ...."

· A dialog will allow setting a user and password to be used automatically.

Load Internet Explorer the Fastest Way Possible

Edit your link to start Internet Explorer to have -nohome after it.

For Example:

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE"-nohome

This will load internet explorer very fast because it does not load a web page while it is loading. If you want to go to your homepage after it is loaded, just click on the home button.

Remove Hibernation File

If you do not use hibernation, make sure you do not have it enabled, which reserves disk space equal to your RAM. If you have a hidden file on root directory of your C-drive called hiberfil.sys, hibernation is enabled.

To remove that file:

. Go to Control Panel

. select Performance and Maintenance, Power Options, Hibernate tab, and uncheck the Enable hibernation box.

Clean Your Prefetch to Improve Performance

This is a unique technique for WinXP. We know that it is necessary to scrub registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodically. Prefetch is new and very useful

technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, prefetch directory can get full of junk and obsolete links in the Prefetch catalog, which can slow down your computer noticeably.

· Open C(system drive):/windows/prefetch,

. delete those junk and obsolete files,

. reboot.

It is recommended that you do this every month.

Turn Off Indexing to Speed Up XP

Windows XP keeps a record of all files on the hard disk so when you do a search on the hard drive it is faster.There is a downside to this and because the computer has to index all files, it will slow down normal file commands like open, close, etc. If you do not do a whole lot of searches on your hard drive then you may want to turn this feature off:

· Open My Computer.

· Right-click your hard drive icon and select Properties.

· At the bottom of the window you'll see "Allow indexing service to index this disk for faster searches," uncheck this and click ok.

· A new window will pop up and select Apply to all folders and subfolders. It will take a minute or 2 for the changes to take affect but then you should enjoy slightly faster performance.

Slow Network Access

Slow Network Access Not Always Due to Scheduled Tasks Check If you have very slow access to your network computers through "My Network Places" and have already deleted the Registry entry calling for a check of Scheduled Tasks on the other network computers (documented elsewhere on this site) AND you have multiple network adaptors (i.e. a cable or DSL connection through one NIC and an internal network using a second NIC) check the following:

· Right-click on "My Network Places", go to Properties.

· Right-click on the NIC that your cable/DSL connects to, and choose Properties.

· Select Internet Protocol(TCP/IP), click on Properties.

· Click on "Advanced", go to "WINS" tab, chose Disable NetBios over TCP/IP.

· When you are back at your Network Connections page, right-click on the Broadband selection.

· Choose "Properties", click on the Networking tab.

· Again, choose TCP/IP, Properties, Advanced, WINS, and select "disable NetBios over TCP/IP".

Disable XP Boot Logo

It is possible to disable the XP splash screen, which will slightly speed up the overall boot process. Be aware that removing the splash screen will also cause you not to see any boot-up messages that might come up(chkdsk, convert ... ), but if your system runs without any problems then it should not matter.

· Edit boot.ini.

· Add " /noguiboot" right after "/fastdetect".

Upon restarting, the splash screen will be gone. It can be re-enabled by removing the new switch.

Correcting System Hang at Startup

If your system hangs about 2 or 3 minutes at startup, where you cn't access the Start button or the Taskbar, it may be due to one specific service (Background

Intelligent Transfer) running in the background.

Here's what you do:

· Click on Start/Run, type 'msconfig', then click 'OK'.

· Go to the 'Services' tab

. find the 'Background Intelligent Transfer' service.

· Disable it, apply the changes & reboot.

Adjust LargeSystemCache

Normally, the tweak I've seen asks you to go into HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management and change the value either O or 1 to the adjustment LargeSystemCache.

However, in Windows XP, all you have to do is:

· Right-click My Computer.

· Select Properties.

· Click Advanced.

· Choose Performance.

· Click Advanced again.

· Select either Programs or System Cache.

Programs = 0 for the registry tweak equivalent System Cache = 1 for the registry tweak equivalent

· On NT Server (in this case XP), the Large System Cache option is enabled, but disabled on Workstation The 2 different settings effect how the cache manager allocates free memory. If the Large Cache option is on, manager marks all the free memory, which isn't being used by the system and / or by applications, as freely available for disk caching.

· On the flip-side (with a small cache), the manager instead only sets aside four MB of memory for disk caching in an attempt to accelerate the launch of the

applications.Or in a more technical approach,if enabled the system will favor system-cache working sets over process working sets (with a working set basically being the memory used by components of a process).

Turn Off System Restore to Save Space

By default, Windows XP keeps a backup of system files in the System Volume Information folder. This can eat up valuable space on your hard drive. If you don't want Windows to back up your system files:

· Open the Control Panel.

· Double-click on System.

· Click the System Restore tab.

· Check "Turn off System Restore on all drives".

· Hit Apply.

· You may now delete the System Volume Information folder.

Warning! If you turn this off you will not be able to use Windows System Restore to restore your system in case of failure.

Speed Up Detailed View in Explorer

If you like to view your files in Windows Explorer using the "Details" view here is a tweak to speed up the listing of file attributes: Viewing files in Windows Explorer using the "Details" mode shows various attributes associated with each file shown. Some of these must be retrieved from the individual files when you click on the directory for viewing. For a directory with numerous and relatively large files (such as a folder in which one stores media, eg: *.mp3's, *.avi's etc.), Windows Explorer lags as it reads through each one. Here's how to disable viewing of unwanted attributes and speed up file browsing:

· Open Windows Explorer.

· Navigate to the folder which you wish to optimize.

· In "Details" mode right-click the bar at the top which displays the names of the attribute columns.

· Uncheck any that are unwanted/unneeded.

Explorer will apply your preferences immediately, and longs lists of unnecessary attributes will not be displayed.

Likewise, one may choose to display any information which is regarded as needed, getting more out of Explorer.

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Shutdown XP Faster

Like previous versions of windows, it takes long time to restart or

shutdown windows XP when the "Exit Windows" sound is enabled.

To solve this problem you must disable this useless sound.

· Click Start button.

· Go to settings > Control Panel > Sound, Speech and Audio

devices> Sounds and AudioDevices > Sounds.

· Then under program events and windows menu click on

"Exit Windows" sub-menu and highlight it. Now from sounds

you can select, choose "none" and then click Apply and OK.

Now you should see some improvements when shutting down

your system.

Add a Map Drive Button to the Toolbar

Do you want to quickly map a drive, but can't find the toolbar button?If you map drives often, use one of these options to add a Map Drive button to the folder toolbar.

1. Option One (Long Term Fix)

#Click Start, click My Computer, right-click the toolbar, then unlock the toolbars, if necessary.

# Right-click the toolbar again, and then click Customize.

# Under Available toolbar buttons, locate Map Drive, and drag it into the position you want on the right under Current toolbar buttons.

# Click Close, click OK, and then click OK again.

You now have drive mapping buttons on your toolbar, so you can map drives from any folder window. To unmap drives, follow the above procedure, selecting Disconnect under Available toolbar buttons. To quickly map a drive, try this option.

2. Option Two (Quick Fix)

# Click Start, and right-click My Computer.

# Click Map Network Drive.

If you place your My Computer icon directly on the desktop, you can make this move in only two clicks!!!

Instantly Activate a Screensaver

Turn on a screensaver without having to wait by adding a shortcut to your desktop:

1). Click the Start button and then click Search.

2). In the Search Companion window, click All file types.

3). In the file name box, type *.scr

4). In the Look in box, choose Local Hard Drives (C or the drive where you have system files stored on your computer.

5). Click Search.

You will see a list of screensavers in the results. Pick a screensaver you want. You can preview it by double-clicking it.

6). Right click on the file, choose Send To.

7). Click Desktop (create shortcut).

8). To activate the screensaver, double-click the icon on your desktop.

Change Web Page Font Size on the Fly

If your mouse contains a wheel for scrolling, you can change font size on the fly when viewing a Web page. To do so:

Press and hold Ctrl. Scroll down (towards yourself) to enlarge the font size. Scroll up (away from yourself) to reduce the font size.

You might find it useful to reduce font size when printing a Web page, so that you can fit more content on the page.