1) Clean Desktop
To hide all the icons on your Desktop, open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft \Current Version\Policies\Explorer. Add a DWORD value and name it NoDesktop. Change it's value to 1. Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows.
2) ToolTips
To disable ToolTips in Windows, open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. Double-click UserPreferencemask and change its value to 3E 00 00 00. Chose the Registry Editor and restart Windows.
To disable ToolTips in Windows, open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. Double-click UserPreferencemask and change its value to 3E 00 00 00. Chose the Registry Editor and restart Windows.
3) Speed up your modem
Even if your modem if apparently working well, the baud rate of your COM Port might not allow you to reach top-speed. To improve your port's speed:
Even if your modem if apparently working well, the baud rate of your COM Port might not allow you to reach top-speed. To improve your port's speed:
- Click Start >Settings > Control Panel > System.
- Click the Device Manager tab, and click on the "+" sign next to Ports (COM & LPT).
- Select the port your modem uses, click Properties, then click the Port settings tab and set the Bits per second to 115200 bps. That way you won't have a sort of filter on the Port.
4) Associations in a jiffy
To associate files of a certain type with a different program, hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file of that type and click on Open With... from the context menu. Select the program you want to open files of this type with and enable Always use this program to open this type of file. Henceforth, the file will always open with this program when double-clicked.
To associate files of a certain type with a different program, hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file of that type and click on Open With... from the context menu. Select the program you want to open files of this type with and enable Always use this program to open this type of file. Henceforth, the file will always open with this program when double-clicked.
5) A clean Registry
As time passes the computer's registry accumulates a lot of corrupted, unused, and unnecessary register keys, especially if keys are not removed when you uninstall a program. As a result, you might experience problems and your machine might function slower than expected. The latest version of Microsoft's RegClean could delete a lot of such registry junk. You can download this from zdnet Just search for RegClean and it will let you download it. Best of all, it is free !!
As time passes the computer's registry accumulates a lot of corrupted, unused, and unnecessary register keys, especially if keys are not removed when you uninstall a program. As a result, you might experience problems and your machine might function slower than expected. The latest version of Microsoft's RegClean could delete a lot of such registry junk. You can download this from zdnet Just search for RegClean and it will let you download it. Best of all, it is free !!
6) Assigning passwords to folders in win 98 and 2000
Right-click on empty space in the folder which you want to protect and
select CUSTOMIZE THIS FOLDER, then choose CREATE HTML DOCUMENT FOR THIS
FOLDER. Once the document is opened in Notepad, scroll down until you see
<script language>="JavaScript"> Insert a blank line after this string.
Then insert the following text.
Right-click on empty space in the folder which you want to protect and
select CUSTOMIZE THIS FOLDER, then choose CREATE HTML DOCUMENT FOR THIS
FOLDER. Once the document is opened in Notepad, scroll down until you see
<script language>="JavaScript"> Insert a blank line after this string.
Then insert the following text.
var pass = prompt("Enter the password")
if(pass != "YOURPASSWORD")
{window.location="C:"}
Hit the Enter key on your keyboard
if(pass != "YOURPASSWORD")
{window.location="C:"}
Hit the Enter key on your keyboard
Put a password in the place of YOURPASSWORD but leave the quotes. Save the
document, exit Notepad,
refresh the folder (or hit F5), enter your new password, and the next time
you try to enter that folder,
you'll be prompted for your password. If you enter a wrong password you'll
end up in C: drive!
document, exit Notepad,
refresh the folder (or hit F5), enter your new password, and the next time
you try to enter that folder,
you'll be prompted for your password. If you enter a wrong password you'll
end up in C: drive!
This works on Windows 98 and 2000.
7) Trace the route
A great utility included with Windows is a program called Trace Route. Open a DOS window and type tracert <location name>. The location name can be any IP address or Internet domain like tracert .The program will then trace the route from your Internet service provider to that locating, and show you every server along the way. This could be useful for when you can't connect to a site it will show you if some server is down along the way.
A great utility included with Windows is a program called Trace Route. Open a DOS window and type tracert <location name>. The location name can be any IP address or Internet domain like tracert .The program will then trace the route from your Internet service provider to that locating, and show you every server along the way. This could be useful for when you can't connect to a site it will show you if some server is down along the way.
8) Select your Monitor
Windows might not always detect your Monitor accurately. This affects display and refresh rates. To select your monitor manually:
Windows might not always detect your Monitor accurately. This affects display and refresh rates. To select your monitor manually:
- Right-click on the Desktop.
- Choose Properties from the context menu. On the Settings tab press Advanced button. Select the Monitor tab. If your monitor is not listed (correctly) here, click on Change.
- Select your Monitor form the list, or if you have a driver disk for your monitor, select have Disk.
- Click Apply, and follow any other instructions on screen.
9) Redialing
Dial-Up Networking provides for automatic redial.
Dial-Up Networking provides for automatic redial.
- Open Dial-Up networking.
- Select your connection.
- From the menu select Connections > Settings.
- Enable, Redial, select the number of times to redial and click OK.
10) A clean Run!
To remove unwanted items form the Run menu:
To remove unwanted items form the Run menu:
- Start the Registry Editor.
- OpenHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU.
- Delete the entries that you do not want on Run menu.
- Close the Registry Editor and Restart Windows. Note: Do not delete the (Default) or MRUList values.
11) Bitmap as icons
You can preview bitmaps (.BMP files) as icons in Explorer instead of the default icon of the application it is associated with. Open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_ CLASSES_ROOT\Paint.Picture\DefaultIcon. Double-click the Default string and change it's value to '%1' (without quotes). Close the Registry Editor and restart windows.
12) Window and menu Animations
One of the desktop enhancements built into windows is the animation displayed when you minimize and maximize windows or when displaying menus. Disabling this makes navigating Windows a lot faster. Open the Desktop Properties dialog by right-clicking any blank area of the desktop and clicking on Properties. Disable Animate windows, menus and lists form the Effects tab.
13) Smooth Screen Fonts
You may find that the fonts in your Internet Explorer and other windows seem jagged as you increase the font size. To make them smooth and thus, beautiful.
14) Change the Refresh rate of your Graphics Adapter
Refresh rate of your monitor determines how fast the screen if updated. Generally, the higher refresh rate monitor can support, the better. Optimum refresh rates can be set manually for a flicker-free display. If Windows hasn't already configured it. Right-click on the Desktop, click on Properties and open Settings > Advanced > Adapter. Depending on your graphics card and monitor, you will get different choice for the refresh rate. Click on Apply after setting the appropriate refresh rate. Click through the warning message to change the refresh rate. If, for some reason the display becomes garbled, don't do anything, Windows will restore the original refresh rate.
15) Speed-up your connecting time
To speed-up the time it takes for Dial Up Networking to establish a connection with your ISP:
16) Dummy entries in Add/Remove Programs list
Sometimes, even after program are uninstalled, or due to the files being deleted instead of a uninstalled, the entry in the Add/Remove Programs list does not get deleted. To remove it form the list: 1. Start the Registry Editor. 2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Uninstall. 3. Delete the program entry here. You can also use TweakUI to do this.
17) Restart only Windows
When restarting Windows, you don't always need to go to thought the BIOS initialization and POST. Instead of simple clicking on Restart form the Shut Down Windows dialog box, help down the Shift key as you click on OK. This will restart only Windows. This is particularly useful when you change some registry entries or a few system settings.
Improve Removable Disk Drive Performance
Windows gives you the option to use write-behind caching to improve the performance of removable disk drivers.
Note: If this result in a problem with disk operations, uncheck the Enable write-behind caching on all removable disk drives check box.
18) MS Office memory hoggers
A typical installation of MS Office installs Find Fast, an indexing utility that loads at startup. This hogs system resources by regularly indexing the entire hard disk(s). You can improve performance of your computer by removing Find Fast form your Startup folder. To reclaim the space used by the Find Fast index, open Control Panel > Find Fast, select your hard drives(s) and form the Index menu, click on Delete Index. When you've deleted your Index, click on Close and Stop form the Index menu. Another item installed in the Startup folder is named Microsoft Office. This does nothing apart from loading all MS Office libraries at startup to speed up launching of any Office applications. Since this is not necessary, you can delete this shortcut, too.
19) Stop Automatic Dialing
Many Internet applications or software are often set to automatically dialup and connect. To setup automatic dialing, open Control Panel > Internet Options. Under the Connections tab, enable Never dial a connection.
20) Automatic maintenance
The Windows Maintenance Wizard can automate a lot of routine system maintenance tasks. To open this wizard, choose Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Maintenance Wizard. It sets up the Task Scheduler to regularly run Scandisk, Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup. |
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