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Make your Windows shine
OVER time, Windows XP or any version of Windows for that matter, becomes sluggish, unresponsive and loses stability. Frequent restarts, frozen screens and cryptic program errors are just about the most common indications. Despite all the fancy utilities, the new look and other features Microsoft has adorned Windows XP with, the operating system still falls short in many areas. Everybody’s hopes are pinned on Microsoft’s Longhorn, the much-awaited successor to Windows XP. While you wait, here are a bunch of tips and tricks you can use to optimize your current Windows with.
Before attempting to carry out anything mentioned below, it’s advisable to make a fresh backup of your registry, incase anything goes horribly wrong. To make a backup, you can use Windows’ System Restore Utility (Start >Accessories>System Tools) to create a restore point.
Speed it up
Whenever Windows XP (or 2000) starts, a barrage of “startup services” and programs gets loaded into your PC’s memory. But you don’t need all these services running automatically at startup. By disabling some, you’ll be able to trim several seconds off your startup time.
First, run the System Configuration Utility (Start>Run, and type “msconfig”). Click the startup tab to see a list of programs that routinely load with Windows. Uncheck those that you think are inessential. For instance, you can safely remove programs, such as Real Player and MSN or Yahoo Messenger. These can be run later manually when needed.
Next, you can use Windows’ built-in Services tool to disable the services you think are unnecessary (Start> Run, and type “services.msc”) or (Control Panel> Administrative Tools> Services). Use caution when changing service settings, as otherwise, essential services might not run correctly.
But which services can you safely disable? Here’s a list:
Visual Styles: If Window’s XP’s visual styles (Blue, Olive Green and Silver) don’t strike your fancy and you prefer the “mature” Windows look, you can safely put them on hold and save oodles of memory at the same time. Before proceeding, ensure that you are using the “Windows Classic style” colour scheme (Control Panel> Display> Appearance> Windows and buttons). Go back to the services window and double-click “Themes.” Set “startup type” to “Manual” (service can be restarted whenever needed) or “Disabled” (if you’re sure you don’t need it) and click ok.
Error reporting: Normally in Windows XP, whenever an application crashes, an error-reporting window pops up, prompting you to send the error details to Microsoft. This can be quite infuriating (as ridiculous as it seems), especially if you have an unruly program on your hands. Turning this feature off can really save some time. To do so, double-click on “Error Reporting Service” and set the startup type to (preferably) “disabled.”
Firewalls: Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) software built into Windows acts like a shield between a network and the elements outside by setting restrictions on the information sent and received. If you don’t use this feature (you most probably don’t), you can turn it off.
Other items: Services, such as “Remote Registry” and “Wireless Zero Configuration” aren’t necessary for the majority of users and can be disabled or set to manual.
If you don’t have two operating systems installed, you can remove the startup delay during booting. Head over to the Startup and Recovery Options (Right-click My Computer> Properties> Advanced> Startup and Recovery Settings). If the “Time to display list of operating systems” is selected, change it to 0 seconds to remove it.
By tweaking the Windows registry, using the built-in Registry Editor, you can make your system faster than ever without even thinking of installing any utility that does the same job. Some important settings are explained below:
Increase NTFS performance: Every time you access a directory on an NTFS volume, Windows updates the “Last Access” attribute. If you don’t need this, you can disable this feature to speed up your system. To do so, first open Registry Editor in Windows 2000 or XP. (Start> Run> regedit). Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
Double-click the option “NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate” and set the value data to 1.
No More Notifications: If Windows is running low on free space; it gives a low disk space notification. To disable this, navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Set the value of “NoLowDiskSpaceChecks” to 1. Log off or reboot afterwards.
Memory saver: Normally, Windows waits a short time before program libraries are unloaded from memory. To save some physical memory, you can force Windows to remove them immediately after a program doesn’t need them. For this, go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer; and double click “AlwaysUnloadDLL” and set the value data to 1.
Optimize your cache: If you have an active file system and RAM to spare, you can considerably speed up file system activity by increasing the “IoPageLockLimit” to a suitable value. The default setting is 512 KB. To make changes, go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
Double click “IoPageLockLimit” and click “Decimal” and input a value (in bold) given below. These are all dependent on the amount of RAM you have installed on your system.
64MB or more: 16384 KB
128MB or more: 32768 KB
256MB or more: 65536 KB
512MB or more: 131072 KB
The icon cache: Every icon accessed by Windows is cached. Whenever you access a file, Windows reads the icons from the cache instead of searching for the actual files. If the Icon cache value is sufficiently large, desktop and start menu icons will be displayed faster. The default setting is 500 icons. It is possible to increase this to 2000 or even 8000 in some cases. To do so, navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Double click “Max Cached Icons” to adjust the value to 2000 or 8000. Restart your system.
Create more space
If you’re running low on disk space, scrub out unnecessary files on your hard drive to create more room. Here’s a list of files that can be safely deleted: (applicable for all Windows’ versions)
To search and delete files, go to Search in the Start menu and type an extension exactly as you see it above and press enter. When the search is complete, click inside the file list window, press Ctrl + A (for Select All) then Delete. In this way, complete for all extensions.
Before deleting any file, remember to play it safe. As a precaution, move all unnecessary files you wish to eradicate to a separate folder or drive. If everything continues to work fine after a few days, you can safely delete the entire folder.
No more crashes
A grave problem with WindowsXP is the fact that it automatically restarts whenever a critical error occurs. For instance, if your system suddenly gives an enigmatic error message telling you about a faulty program and conveniently “apologizes for the inconvenience” caused while you’re doing something important, it reboots unexpectedly by itself. This can be quite exasperating. But there’s a simple fix: go to the Startup and Recovery options. Under “System Failure,” uncheck “Automatically Restart.”
Better security
In Windows 98 and Me, the only way to password-protect files is by using special encryption programs. Windows 2000 and XP always had this feature enabled (only works when the hard drive is formatted as NTFS rather than as FAT). If yours isn’t, you can still keep your crucial data private: by simply storing sensitive files and folders in a compressed folder and encrypting it with a password.
If you’re using Windows Me with the folder compression feature installed on your PC (check in Add/Remove Programs> Windows Setup> System Tools Details), securing your files is simple. In Windows versions XP and Me, choose any folder you wish to encrypt. Right click on it and select “Send To Compressed Folder.” After it gets compressed, double click to open it. Go to the File menu and select “Add A Password” or “Encrypt.” Type your desired password in the “Password” and “Confirm Password” boxes, and then click ok.
From now on, only users who know the password will be able to access the compressed folder. Moreover, you can use Winzip, ZipMagic, etc, to uncompress the folder, but you need to supply the correct password. Also note that any files you add subsequently to this compressed folder will not be password-protected. To protect them, you will first have to decrypt the entire folder and then re-encrypt it again with the additional files included.
Also remember that while the files within in a password-protected folder aren’t accessible without a password, the file names are visible. To hide any file names, before encryption, keep all your data in a sub-folder, that is, a folder inside another folder. Then compress and password-protect the main folder so that its contents aren’t visible anymore. Password protecting a compressed folder cannot be done on Windows98 or Windows2000 (with FAT). You’ll have to use additional software instead.
The writer
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