Useful Tips..
1-Increasing System Performance
If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can increase system performance
by having the core system kept in memory.
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive
3. Set the value to be 1
4. Reboot the computer
2-Removing the MSN Messenger
If you want to remove the MSN Messenger from always starting in the system tray, do
1. Start / Run
2. Then enter in the following string: RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
To remove it completely, see the section Adding / Removing Additional Programs
Remove the hide from the line:
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7
3-Common Command Console Utilities
WindowsXP comes with quite a few console utilities you can easily run from the command line:
Computer Management - compmgmt.msc
Disk Managment - diskmgmt.msc
Device Manager - devmgmt.msc
Disk Defrag - dfrg.msc
Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc
Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc
Group Policies - gpedit.msc
Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc
Performance Monitor - perfmon.msc
Resultant Set of Policies - rsop.msc
Local Security Settings - secpol.msc
Services - services.msc
Component Services - comexp.msc
4- Hide/Unhide Logon Names
If you want to hide or unhide the names of users that are displayed on the initial logon screen:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList
3. Add a DWORD with the name of the user account you want to hide
4. Make sure it has a value of 0
5. If there is an existing account, you can unhide it by giving it a value of 1
5 - Renaming the Start Button
To rename the start button, you will need a hex editor.
My preference is UltraEdit
1. Copy the \windows\explore.exe file to a new name (e.g. explorer_1.exe)
2. With the hex editor, open that file and go to offset 412b6
3. You will see the word start with blanks between each letter
4. Edit it be any 5 characters or less
5. Save the file
6. Boot to DOS
7. Copy the existing c:\windows\explorer.exe to explorer.org
8. Copy explorer_1.exe to explorer.exe
9. You will also need to replace the explorer.exe in the c:\windows\system32\dllcache file as well with the new one.
Note: If the partition is NTFS and you can't access the files from DOS:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon.
3. Change the value of Shell from Explorer.exe to explorer_1.exe
1-Increasing System Performance
If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can increase system performance
by having the core system kept in memory.
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive
3. Set the value to be 1
4. Reboot the computer
2-Removing the MSN Messenger
If you want to remove the MSN Messenger from always starting in the system tray, do
1. Start / Run
2. Then enter in the following string: RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
To remove it completely, see the section Adding / Removing Additional Programs
Remove the hide from the line:
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7
3-Common Command Console Utilities
WindowsXP comes with quite a few console utilities you can easily run from the command line:
Computer Management - compmgmt.msc
Disk Managment - diskmgmt.msc
Device Manager - devmgmt.msc
Disk Defrag - dfrg.msc
Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc
Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc
Group Policies - gpedit.msc
Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc
Performance Monitor - perfmon.msc
Resultant Set of Policies - rsop.msc
Local Security Settings - secpol.msc
Services - services.msc
Component Services - comexp.msc
4- Hide/Unhide Logon Names
If you want to hide or unhide the names of users that are displayed on the initial logon screen:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList
3. Add a DWORD with the name of the user account you want to hide
4. Make sure it has a value of 0
5. If there is an existing account, you can unhide it by giving it a value of 1
5 - Renaming the Start Button
To rename the start button, you will need a hex editor.
My preference is UltraEdit
1. Copy the \windows\explore.exe file to a new name (e.g. explorer_1.exe)
2. With the hex editor, open that file and go to offset 412b6
3. You will see the word start with blanks between each letter
4. Edit it be any 5 characters or less
5. Save the file
6. Boot to DOS
7. Copy the existing c:\windows\explorer.exe to explorer.org
8. Copy explorer_1.exe to explorer.exe
9. You will also need to replace the explorer.exe in the c:\windows\system32\dllcache file as well with the new one.
Note: If the partition is NTFS and you can't access the files from DOS:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon.
3. Change the value of Shell from Explorer.exe to explorer_1.exe
