Chandra Blog: Windows Tips and Trick (English Version)

Make Windows XP boot Even Faster

Microsoft has chosen a completely different path for XP and its boot features by trying to incorporate as much support for newer fast boot BIOSes that are on most current motherboards. They built XP in such a way as to make it able to take advantage of features in these new BIOSes and one of the coolest things is a small application called Bootvis. Bootvis watches everything that loads at boot time, from the moment the OS begins to load just after POST (Power on Self Test) to the moment you get to a usable Desktop.

Some Programs, most notably Antivirus software, suck up valuable seconds before you can actually do anything even though you’re at the desktop. Bootvis generates a trace file that you load and can then “see” a visual representation of what’s happening. Every file, driver, hard drive read/write, etc., is recorded. You can then use bootvis to optimize the loading of files during the boot sequence. Bootvis will rearrange the ways these very files are stored on the hard drive, thereby improving the boot time dramatically

Change the Default Opening Folder in Windows Explorer

By default, Windows Explorer opens showing the My Documents folder. To change the default setting so that all top–level drives and folders are shown, follow these steps:
Click Start > Programs > Accessories, then right–click Windows Explorer, and click Properties.

Under Target field, which reads %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe, add to make the line read:
%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /n, /e, /select, C:\

Click OK

How to Change Drive Letters in Windows XP

When you add drives to your computer, such as an extra hard drive, a CD drive, or a storage device that corresponds to a drive, Windows automatically assigns letters to the drives. However, this assignment might not suit your system; for example, you might have mapped a network drive to the same letter that Windows assigns to a new drive. When you want to change drive letters, follow these steps:

Right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.

Under Computer Management, click Disk Management. In the right pane, you’ll see your drives listed. CD-ROM drives are listed at the bottom of the pane.
Right-click the drive or device you want to change, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
Click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the drive letter you want to assign, and then click OK.

Simple Secure your computer

With Enable Advanced File System Security Options,
This will further secure your windows explorer and not really a performance tweak. Open registry by going to START-RUN and entering regedit. Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa] . In this look for value of "forceguest". If available, its default value would be 1. Set its value to 1. This would enables Windows XP logic for advanced permissions.

How 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?....Oke, let's go try it..If you have installed Windows in C: drive,Go to C:\WINDOWS\inf 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="*"

I hope that useful..