Ali's Knowledge Base

Phone Dialer is NOT on any menu in Windows XP. To run Phone Dialer, Start / Run / Dialer.exe / OK. To add Phone Dialer to the Communications menu: 1. Right-click the Start button and press Explore All Users. 2. Double-click Programs. 3. Double-click Accessories. 4. Double-click Communications. 5. On the File menu, press New […]

· 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.

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 a new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the prefetch directory can get full of junk and obsolete links in the Prefetch catalog, which […]

You can disable the windows XP splash screen, but you should be aware that removing the splash screen will also cause you not to see any boot-up messages, such as chkdsk, but it should boot a little quicker also. * Edit boot.ini * Add ” /noguiboot” right after “/fastdetect”.

You can change the size of the Thumbnails view in My Computer by opening up the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and navigating to the following location: Current user only: HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer All users: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer Add a new DWORD value called ThumbnailSize and give it a hexidecimal value […]

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 Windows 2000, getting to the Sharing options for a folder was simple: Just right-click, choose Properties, and you’d see a Sharing tab. In Windows XP, this feature is missing by default, but you can make the system display the Sharing tab if desired. Simply open up Folder Options (My Computer, then Tools, Folder Options) […]

This is useful for checking the status of system drivers, is included in Windows XP Professional edition. The primary task of driverquery is to display all drivers installed on the system. When you run the utility, you’ll receive a list of the drivers, their short name, description, driver type, and link date and time. You […]

Because of changes in Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows XP-based computers that use a leaked product key that is known to be available to the general public may not be able to install SP1 or automatically obtain updates from the Windows Update Web site. For example, you may experience the symptoms that are […]