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 that is between 32 and 256, inclusive (that is, the lowest possible value is 32 and the highest is 256): A value of 32 will give you the smallest possible thumbnails, and 256 will give you the biggest
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.
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.
If this doesn’t work for some reason, then you might try the following: Navigate to Display Properties then Appearance then Advanced and turn off the option titled Show menu shadow. You will get much better overall performance.
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) and navigate to the View tab. In the Advanced Settings section, scroll down to the bottom and uncheck Use simple file sharing (Recommended), a Mickey Mouse feature if there ever was one. Now share your folders on the LAN as you would in Windows 2000.
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
can add the /v parameter to get detailed information about drivers or
the /si parameter to get information about signed and unsigned drivers on
the system. This can be very useful.
Listing all drivers from the remote system makes the utility even more
useful. Everything you can do with a local system, you can also do on a
remote system by adding the /s parameter.
If you get an error that NTOSKRNL not found:
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Change to the drive that has the CD ROM.
CD i386
expand ntkrnlmp.ex_ C:WindowsSystem32ntoskrnl.exe
If WindowsXP is installed in a different location, just make the necessary change to C:Windows
Take out the CD ROM and type exit
If the System32 folder shows on the desktop, there may be an invalid entry in the Registry
Start Regedit
Go to both:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun
Double check that the values do not have incorrect, incomplete, or blank entries
There is a command-line utility called System File Checker (SFC.EXe), which allows an administrator to scan all protected files to verify their versions.
The following shows the command-line syntax:
/SCANNOW Scans all protected system files immediately.
/SCANONCE Scans all protected system files once at the next boot.
/SCANBOOT Scans all protected system files at every boot.
/CANCEL Cancels all pending scans of protected system files.
/QUIET Replaces all incorrect file versions without prompting the user.
/ENABLE Enables Windows File Protection for normal operation
/PURGECACHE Purges the file cache and scans all protected system files immediately.
/CACHESIZE=x Sets the file cache size
If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can increase system performance
by having the core system kept in memory.
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementDisablePagingExecutive
Set the value to be 1
Reboot the computer
