Tag: windows xp

ReadyBoost for Windows XP

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ReadyBoost is a disk caching technology first included with Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system. It aims to make computers running Windows Vista more responsive by using flash memory on a USB 2.0 drive, SD card, CompactFlash, or other form of flash memory, in order to boost system performance.

ReadyBoost is also used to facilitate SuperFetch, an updated version of Windows XP’s prefetcher which performs analysis of boot-time disk usage patterns and creates a cache which is used in subsequent system boots. Continue reading →

Manage Windows Virtual Memory

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Windows virtual memory is where windows stores data from RAM when it requires more RAM for programs and RAM installed on your PC is insufficient. By default windows stores this data on c:\pagefile.sys. And windows manages this pagefile size. This may lead to slow computer or performance decrease if you don’t have sufficient RAM.

To overcome this set the pagefile manually.

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Hide and Lock any Drive in Windows

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You can hide any of drive(s) by just adding two keys in windows registry

goto start>run
Type regedit and press enter. This will bring you to the registry editor.To hide any drive you have to follow these 2 steps
STEP1: Hidding Drive
goto HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Explorer now create a new DWORD value NoDrives and set its value as

2^(Alpha Number of Drive Letter-1)
where Alpha number are simple counting of alphabets from A to Z as 1 – 26

for example: to hide C drive
Alpha number of C is 3 so 2^(3-1) = 4 (decimal value)

If you want to hide more than one drive than calculate the value of each drive as explained and then set sum of those numbers as value

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TweakUI for Windows XP

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To begin with tweaking, I start with TweakUI. It lets you change some of the hidden settings in Windows XP.

Tweak UI Version 2.10 requires Windows XP Service Pack 1 or above / Windows Server 2003. If you have a Windows XP system without any Service Packs installed, download Version 2.00.

tweakui

The Windows shell-development team did some extra programming and put together a set of tools called Power Toys. If you’re a power user, go ahead and try them out, but be forewarned that Power Toys aren’t supported by Microsoft because they’re not part of Windows. This group of “toys” lets you adjust your Windows user interface, including menu speed, window animation, and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Version 2.1 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

Get it here

Size: 147KB

Cannot change Homepage

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Many time due to spywares or malwares you cannot change the Internet Explorer homepage. Even after running Anti-spyware like Spybot its not working. In such cases use the following trick to change it.

 In Regedit, navigate to this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel
In the right-hand pane, right-click the “HomePage” value, then select Modify. Change it to: 00 00 00 00

Also change either or these to zero 0 instead of 1 if present:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] – DWORD “NoSetHomePage”=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions] – DWORD “NoSetHomePage”=dword:00000001

If you don’t have this key, browse to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

and in the right hand pane, double click “Local Page” and set equal to “C:\WINDOWS\System\blank.htm” (no quotes) which will hopefully set your Home Page to blank and then allow you to subsequently modify it using Internet Options.

I’m sure this will solve the problem.

Warning:
Editing Registry may cause OS failure. Edit registry only when you are sure of it. Make a backup of registry before editing.