Further fine tune Internet access speed

: Tip on improving DNS resolution.
Internet browsing is such an exciting and easy experience now a days that we have almost forgotten the amount of work that goes behind the scene to make this all happen. We only feel bad if we can't find something easily or have to wait for a long time (I have heard many people saying WWW stands for world wide wait not too long ago!!!) Well with changes in technology and falling prices we have far better hardware and software to do this job but fruits of fine tuning have always been great and would continue to remain so. One of the things that should happen before Internet connection would go through is DNS resolution.DNS stands for Domain Name Service. Even though XP does a fine job of handling DNS resolution, you may still gain by increase the DNS Cache size. To do this you would have to add following entries in registry. Save what is written below in say "dnstuning.reg" file and import it in REGISTRY but opening registry editor and going to IMPORT option from top menu.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters]
"CacheHashTableBucketSize"=dword:00000001
"CacheHashTableSize"=dword:00000180
"MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000fa00
"MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000012d

Want to remove shared documents folder from My Computer window : 

Microsoft has done a fabulous job in the making of Windows XP. But least to say, no two people are alike. Some of the default features that Microsoft thought was good may not be liked by you at all. I have read various newsgroups and chats and one thing I noticed is that some don't like my shared documents folder option. If you are one of that, here is a trick to remove it.Open registry editor by going to START-RUN and entering regedit. Once in registry, navigate to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ My Computer \ NameSpace \ DelegateFolders You must see a sub-key named {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}. If you delete this key, you have effectively removed the my shared documents folder.

Want to have more options in the Add/Remove program list :-
All programs that are available on your Windows XP system are not available for removal. For example wordpad. I mean you don't want to remove wordpad from Add/Remove program list, but that serves just as an example. So why are some programs in the list and some not. Its not a game of Random numbers. There many a few unique methods through which we can control what appears on list and what does not. If you have installed Windows in C: drive , Go to C:\WINDOWS\inf (substituting the correct drive letter for your version of Windows) and open the sysoc.inf file. File contents looks like this: See the components that have word HIDE as second last item on the row. This hide tells system to not to display those items/apps in the Add/Remove program list. If you want to have this item in list, simply replace it with blank. I think you understand what am I saying
[Version]
Signature = "$Windows NT$"
DriverVer=07/01/2001,5.1.2600.0
[Components]
NtComponents=ntoc.dll,NtOcSetupProc,,4
WBEM=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,wbemoc.inf,hide,7
Display=desk.cpl,DisplayOcSetupProc,,7
Fax=fxsocm.dll,FaxOcmSetupProc,fxsocm.inf,,7
NetOC=netoc.dll,NetOcSetupProc,netoc.inf,,7
iis=iis.dll,OcEntry,iis.inf,,7
com=comsetup.dll,OcEntry,comnt5.inf,hide,7
dtc=msdtcstp.dll,OcEntry,dtcnt5.inf,hide,7
IndexSrv_System = setupqry.dll,IndexSrv,setupqry.inf,,7
TerminalServer=TsOc.dll, HydraOc, TsOc.inf,hide,2
msmq=msmqocm.dll,MsmqOcm,msmqocm.inf,,6
ims=imsinsnt.dll,OcEntry,ims.inf,,7
fp_extensions=fp40ext.dll,FrontPage4Extensions,fp40ext.inf,,7
AutoUpdate=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,au.inf,hide,7
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7
RootAutoUpdate=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,rootau.inf,,7
IEAccess=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,ieaccess.inf,,7
Games=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,games.inf,,7
AccessUtil=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,accessor.inf,,7
CommApps=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,communic.inf,HIDE,7
MultiM=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,multimed.inf,HIDE,7
AccessOpt=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,optional.inf,HIDE,7
Pinball=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,pinball.inf,HIDE,7
MSWordPad=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,wordpad.inf,HIDE,7
ZoneGames=zoneoc.dll,ZoneSetupProc,igames.inf,,7
[Global]
WindowTitle=%WindowTitle%
WindowTitle.StandAlone="*"

How to verify XP software you bought is OEM/UPGRADE/RETAIL:-
I am sure we all have noticed Microsoft product marketing strategy. Whenever they launch any new product line,there are various flavors of it available right from day one. Some are given adjectives like UPGRADE version or FULL, others RETAIL v/s OEM and then of-course we have various categories of the product like HOME, PRO , SERVER , ADVANCED SERVER etc etc. Well ever wondered what you bought is same as what was advertised ? How to tell the difference. Here comes the help. Look for a file called Setupp.ini that is present on your Windows XP CD and double click on it and browse its content. There is a field called PID=. This PID is what would tell us exactly what we have got.First 5 bytes of PID decide whether (it is OEM or RETAIL or is an UPGRADE ) and last three digits determine what kind of CD KEY will it accept. Here are some of the typical PID values:
Retail = 51882 335
Volume License = 51883 270
OEM = 82503 OEM 

Have tendency to forget passwords ? Want a solution that will help you get back in business ?
Most of us have a common tendency of forgetting passwords. If you don't every forget anything, I envy you and this may not be of much use to you but for most of us, this may be a life saver. If you're running Windows XP Professional as a local user in a workgroup environment, you can create a password reset disk by following instruction as shown below:
Go to START-CONTROL PANEL-USER ACCOUNTS. Then click your account name and further on in RELATED TASKS, click PREVENT A FORGOT PASSOWRD. A wizard would come up, follow instructions and you have your password reset disk ready.
IMPORTANT NOTE: As it goes with things like password, make sure that you keep this disk at secure location else you risk tress passing with your user account.

Start menu is slow in responding? Want to boost response time of start menu ?

Windows XP is touted as a new generation of OS Xperience. No doubt about that but this experience come at a cost. Resources. If your hardware configuration (read CPU,RAM) is not upto speed but still want to boost response time of start menu, here are a few tricks that might help. Open registry editor by going to START-RUN and entering regedit and navigate to key HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ MenuShowDelay . Change the value (default may be 400) to 5 or 50 or even 0. This should speed up. If you are not all that crazy for shadowy effects, you can further speed the things up by going to DISPLAY Properties Window and from there to appearance and over there clicking Advanced command button and check off Show menu shadow. 

 How to improve on shutdown time ? Close apps automatically & quickly at shutdown

Open Registry by going to START-RUN and typing REGEDIT. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\CONTROL PANEL\DESKTOP and look for AutoEndTasks. On my computer default value is 0. Change it to 1. Thats all. Further more you can reduce the time it takes for Windows to issue kill directive to all active/hung applications. In doing this only constraint that you should make sure exists is that HungAppTimeout is greater than WaitToKillAppTimeout. Change the values of WaitToKillAppTimeout to say 3500 (since default value for HungAppTimeout 5000 and for WaitToKillAppTimeout is 20000)

Speedup boot up sequence by defragmenting all key boot files

Open Registry by going to START-RUN and typing REGEDIT. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction. In right hand panel look for Enable. Right click on it and set it 'Y' for enable. This is the way I have it set on my computer. This will help speedup boot time

Are you a MP3 fan ? Add ability to rip MP3 songs in Windows Media Player 8 

I am not that great a fan of MP3 but do appreciate its power. If you have a truckload of CDs that you would like to listen to but do not want to carry all of them at the same time, you can rip them into MP3. Yes it can be done technically and that too from Windows Media Player even though make sure you have legally on right side of fence, meaning you own the CD that you would rip MP3 from. That said here is the little tweak in registry. Open Registry by going to START-RUN and typing REGEDIT. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayerSettings\MP3Encoding] and adding following entries
"LowRate"=dword:0000dac0
"MediumRate"=dword:0000fa00
"MediumHighRate"=dword:0001f400
"HighRate"=dword:0002ee00

which corresponds to 56, 64, 128 and 192 Kbps. Following table would help with other settings as well:

320 Kbps = dword:0004e200
256 Kbps = dword:0003e800
224 Kbps = dword:00036b00
160 Kbps = dword:00027100
112 Kbps = dword:0001b580

Customize logon prompt with your own words

This tip won't make your computer any faster but may help personalize your computer experience. Open Registry by going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]. In right pane, look for key by the name "LogonPrompt". Set its value to whatever text you want to see displayed at login screen. 

How to avoid autoplay of CD ? Way I like best.

Hey this time no registry trick even though there are ways in registry to do it. In earlier operating systems only those CD that had autorun.inf file in their root directory were able to execute on its own but with advent of WINDOWS XP it has become possible with just about anything. Well sometimes it is good but there are other times when you want to avoid this part of automation. What would I do. Simply press SHIFT key when you enter a CD in your CD drive. It won't Auto play. For those of you, who do want a registry hack. Here it is: Open Registry and navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer] and look for key "NoDriveTypeAutoRun" and set its value to 185 (decimal). This would stop autoplay

How to determine a 16 bit application from a 32 bit application ?

Old 16 bit app are still useful and are in use by many. I think this is the result computer evolution. If You want to know whether a particular executable is a 16 bit or 32 bit application, here is a secret. Right-click the program’s executable file and Then choose Properties. If You see a Version tab, it’s a 32-bit program else its a 16-bit program. Alternately You can go into task manager and look for applications that have ntvdm.exe (virtual dos machine) in the name column of process tab. If there is one, it means its a 16 bit app.

Do You know how to add/delete entries in Control Panel ? Heard about CPL extension ?

If You open windows explorer and search for all *.cpl files, You would see at least as many entries in search as You have in your control panel.Yes ! .cpl stands for control panel. If You do not want to navigate to any of your favorite entries, You can create a shortcut to that entry's corresponding cpl file. Following lists control panel and cpl file names:
System Properties = sysdm.cpl
Network Connections = ncpa.cpl
ODBC Administrator = odbccp32.cpl
Display Properties = desk.cpl
Add or remove programs = appwiz.cpl
Internet Properties = Inetcpl.cpl
Game Controllers = joy.cpl
Phone and modem Options = telephon.cpl
Time and Date Properties = timedate.cpl
Region and Language Options = intl.cpl
Power Options = powercfg.cpl
Mouse Properties = main.cpl
Accessibility Options = access.cpl
Add Hardware Wizard = hdwwiz.cpl
Sound and Audio Devices = mmsys.cpl
User Accounts = nusrmgr.cpl
Speech Properties = sapi.cpl
Now if You want to add/delete any of these entries from panel You can do it through Registry or gpedit.msc or through tweakui if You have powertoys installed. It is preferable to use gpedit or TweakUi as its easier.

From TweakUi, You have to simply click on control panel , and select/deselect entries in right panel as per your choice.

From gpedit.msc (to run gpedit, goto START-RUN and type gpedit.msc) Navigate to User Configuration- Administrative Templates-Control Panel folder select and right click on Show only specified Control Panel Applets , click on enabled and Then click on the show. In this list You won't see anything if its your first time. Click on add and type the complete file name from above list. (This is a bit more complicated process specially if You are a new user of the tool)

And if You are a registry fan, You can do this my navigating to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\] and adding a key field by the name "don't load" and one string value to each of the cpl file names. For example if You don't want to see accessibility options, add a string "access.cpl" on the right pane to the newly added key field "don't load". You can add as many strings You want.

Working in command environment ? Avoid keystrokes - use TAB key

One of the features in Linux and certain UNIX shells is the ability to predict user keystroke. If You are typing a directory name or a filename and if it exists, using this feature would help You avoiding those extra keystrokes. Do You know WindowsXP command environment has this feature ? (Well it is available in Windows 2000 as well). To use this feature You have to use TAB key. (I would also show You how to change it to some other key even though there is no need of it). Assume You are in C:\ drive and want to type autoexec.bat and there is a file that exists by that name. Result are amazing if there is no ambiguity in filenames (meaning multiple files/directories with similar names/prefix). In such cases You can simply type first few characters and press the TAB key. You would really be amazed at this finding (Hey if not, You are really too smart and don't need this tip! )

Now if You want to change this power key to some other key here is howto: Open Registry by going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Command Processor] and set CompletionChar" to ASCII number associated with the key char. for example, "CompletionChar"=dword:00000009

Customizing Windows Explorer Context menu (right click menu in windows explorer)

Ever wondered how does the right click menu (which is actually a context menu) work ? For example, when I right click in windows explorer, I see an option which says "open command window here". Do You know why I see this ? Well I see this because I have following entries in my registry.

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\cmd]
@="Open Command Window Here"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\cmd\command]
@="C:\WINDOWS\System32\cmd.exe /k cd "%1""

If You have never used a tweaking utility and have newly installed Windows XP, You would not see this option. You would have to navigate to [[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive] go and create two subkeys ("cmd" and within that "command" and would have to put the text "Open Command Window Here" without quotes in default string value of "cmd" key and the text "C:\WINDOWS\System32\cmd.exe /k CD"%1"" without quotes in default string value of command key). After this You need to REBOOT for these changes to take effect.

Trick is in adding similar entries for other applications as well even though its much harder to come with ideas about what to put in the context menu!!!! .

 Low on disk space and do not use Windows XP Hibernate feature ?

With hardware prices going down every passing day You may not need this tip but if You are in a situation where You are really low on disk space even after using disk cleaner, one of the things You can do is to identify features of XP You don't use. It may very well be the hibernate feature. If You don't use it, simply disable it and get as much of hard disk space free as is your physical RAM size. To do that go to power options in control panel (fast route: goto START-RUN or win+R and type powercfg.cpl ) and click on hibernate tab and deselect "enable hibernation".

Do You want Windows to unload dll immediately?

Folks, I read about this a long time ago and my preliminary findings are that it works on XP as well even though I can not say how beneficial this trick is (or how damaging !). Also there might be some potential problems with a a few apps. But I would still provide it to You There is a way in registry for You to tell Windows OS to unload DLL,immediately as soon as its use is over. Here is how to do that: . Open Registry by going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer] and look for AlwaysUnloadDLL parameter. It may not be present by default. If not, add a key by the name AlwaysUnloadDLL and set it to value of 1.

This would inform OS to unload the DLL files from memory immediately. This has its advantages and disadvantages. It may also crash some Microsoft applications (like Access).