Assignment Lanka

XP Tips & Tweaks – Turn Off Indexing to Speed Up XP

sanjayaalwis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:45:00 +0000

Windows XP keeps a record of all files on the hard disk so when you do a search on the
hard drive it is faster. There is a downside to this and because the computer has to index
all files, it will slow down normal file commands like open, close, etc. If you do not do a
whole lot of searches on your hard drive then you may want to turn this feature off:
• Open My Computer.
• Right-click your hard drive icon and select Properties.
• At the bottom of the window you’ll see “Allow indexing service to index this disk
for faster searches,” uncheck this and click ok.
• A new window will pop up and select Apply to all folders and subfolders.
It will take a minute or two for the changes to take affect but then you should enjoy
slightly faster performance.

XP Tips & Tweaks – Slow Network Access Not Always Due to Scheduled Tasks Check

sanjayaalwis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:45:00 +0000

If you have very slow access to your network computers through “My Network Places”
and have already deleted the Registry entry calling for a check of Scheduled Tasks on the
other network computers (documented elsewhere on this site) AND you have multiple
network adaptors (i.e. a cable or DSL connection through one NIC and an internal network
using a second NIC) check the following:
• Right-click on “My Network Places”, go to Properties.
• Right-click on the NIC that your cable/DSL connects to, and choose Properties.
• Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and click on Properties.
• Click on “Advanced”, go to “WINS” tab, and chose Disable NetBios over TCP/IP.
• When you are back at your Network Connections page, right-click on the
Broadband selection.
• Choose “Properties”, click on the Networking tab.
• Again, choose TCP/IP, Properties, Advanced, WINS, and select “disable NetBios
over TCP/IP”.

XP Tips & Tweaks – Disable XP Boot Logo

sanjayaalwis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:44:00 +0000

It is possible to disable the XP splash screen, which will slightly speed up the overall boot
process. Be aware that removing the splash screen will also cause you not to see any
boot-up messages that might come up (chkdsk, convert … ), but if your system runs
without any problems then it should not matter.
• Edit boot.ini.
• Add ” /noguiboot” right after “/fastdetect”.
Upon restarting, the splash screen will be gone. It can be re-enabled by removing the new
switch.

XP Tips & Tweaks – Correcting System Hang at Startup

sanjayaalwis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:43:00 +0000

If your system hangs about 2 or 3 minutes at startup, where you can’t access the Start
button or the Taskbar, it may be due to one specific service (Background Intelligent
Transfer) running in the background. Microsoft put out a patch for this but it didn’t work
for me. Here’s what you do:

• Click on Start/Run, type ‘msconfig’, then click ‘OK’.
• Go to the ‘Services’ tab, find the ‘Background Intelligent Transfer’ service.
• Disable it, apply the changes & reboot.

XP Tips & Tweaks – Slow Start-up When Using Norton Internet Security 2002

sanjayaalwis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:42:00 +0000

If you are using Norton Internet Security 2002, and are experiencing slow start-up of XP,
(i.e. you can see the desktop with icons etc. but it takes 30-60sec before you can start
using the computer), this fix might help:
• Click on Start button.
• Select Control Panel.
• Open “Network Connections”.
• Under “LAN and High-Speed Internet”, right-click on your “Local Area Connection”
and select “Properties”.
• Under “General” tab, select “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)” and select “Properties”.
• Select “Use the following IP address:”.
• Under “IP address” enter following : 192.168.0.1
• Under “Subnet Mask:” enter following : 255.255.255.0
• Click “Ok”.

XP Tips & Tweaks – Easy Way to Adjust LargeSystemCache

sanjayaalwis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:41:00 +0000

Normally, the tweak I’ve seen asks you to go into
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management and
change the value to either O or 1 to the adjustment the LargeSystemCache.
However, in Windows XP, all you have to do is:
• Right-click My Computer.
• Select Properties.
• Click Advanced.
• Choose Performance.
• Click Advanced again.
• Select either Programs or System Cache under Memory Usage.
Programs = 0 for the registry tweak equivalent
System Cache = 1 for the registry tweak equivalent
• On NT Server (in this case XP), the Large System Cache option is enabled, but
disabled on Workstation. The two different settings effect how the cache manager
allocates free memory. If the Large Cache option is on, the manager marks all the
free memory, which isn’t being used by the system and/or applications, as freely
available for disk caching.
• On the flip-side (with a small cache), the manager instead only sets aside 4MB of
memory for disk caching in an attempt to accelerate the launch of applications. Or
in a more technical approach, if enabled the system will favor system-cache
working sets over process working sets (with a working set basically being the
memory used by components of a process).

XP Tips & Tweaks – Very Slow Boot When Networking

sanjayaalwis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:40:00 +0000

On some XP Pro installations, when connected to a network (peer-peer in this case), the computer boot time is over 1:40. The system seems to freeze after logging in and the desktop may not appear or will freeze for a minute. As timed with the utility, Bootvis.exe, the problem was with the driver mrxsmb.dll, adding over 67 seconds to the boot time.

Turning off and restoring file and printer sharing eliminated 65 seconds from the boot
time.
• Alt-click (or right-click) on Network Places > Properties.
• Alt-click on Ethernet Adapter connection > Properties.
• Un-check “File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks” > OK.
• Reboot.
• If you need file or printer sharing, repeat the above, re-check the box and re-boot
again.

XP Tips & Tweaks – Turn Off System Restore to Save Space

sanjayaalwis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:40:00 +0000

By default, Windows XP keeps a backup of system files in the System Volume Information
folder. This can eat up valuable space on your hard drive. If you don’t want Windows to
back up your system files:
• Open the Control Panel.
• Double-click on System.
• Click the System Restore tab.
• Check “Turn off System Restore on all drives”.
• Hit Apply.
• You may now delete the System Volume Information folder.

Warning! If you turn this off you will not be able to use Windows System Restore to
restore your system in case of failure.

XP Tips & Tweaks – Speed Up Detailed View in Explorer

sanjayaalwis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:38:00 +0000

If you like to view your files in Windows Explorer using the “Details” view here is a tweak to speed up the listing of file attributes: Viewing files in Windows Explorer using the “Details” mode shows various attributes associated with each file shown. Some of these must be retrieved from the individual files when you click on the directory for viewing. For a directory with numerous and relatively large files (such as a folder in which one stores media, eg: *.mp3′s, *.avi’s etc.), Windows Explorer lags as it reads through each one. Here’s how to disable viewing of unwanted attributes and speed up file browsing:

• Open Windows Explorer.
• Navigate to the folder which you wish to optimize.
• In “Details” mode right-click the bar at the top which displays the names of the attribute columns.
• Uncheck any that are unwanted/unneeded. Explorer will apply your preferences immediately, and longs lists of unnecessary attributes will not be displayed.
Likewise, one may choose to display any information which is regarded as needed, getting
more out of Explorer.

Easily Disable Messenger
Go into: C:/Program Files/Messenger. Rename the Messenger folder to “MessengerOFF”.
This does not slow down Outlook Express or hinder system performance.
Turn

XP Tips & Tweaks – Speeding Up Your Pentium 2 by 50%

sanjayaalwis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:35:00 +0000

We all know that you really shouldn’t try to run Windows XP on anything less that about a Pentium 3 of some sort if you are out for speedy operations and amazing reaction times, but for those of us with the good old Pentium 2′s who want to see just how well we can run XP, we have to tweak as much as we can where-ever we can. A real killer to the system’s performance is Windows Media Player. Although it may look desirable and fancy with it’s rounded off edges and 3rd-Dimensional appearance, the truth is, it takes up a large amount of that precious processing power. All of these troubles however, lead to one thing in particular with this ‘new-look’ over-rated music and video player…the Visualizations. The look-great I’ll admit but like a lot of software these days, it has no purpose. If you run the task manager, and click the Performance tab along the top, you’ll see that when Windows Media Player is running and nothing else is active, it takes up around 50% of the processors power. Once these visualizations are turned off, it barely takes up 2-3% of the processors power, which leaves much more room for other applications to work efficiently.

Here’s how to disable the feature:
• Open Media Player.
• Make sure the Now Playing tab on the left is selected.
• Click the View menu along the top.
• Go down to Now Playing Tools.
• In the sub-menu that has just ‘popped-out’, uncheck Show Visualization.