We all are different. We like different things; we want to be unique and try to avoid the routine. The same things apply to the user-operating system relationship. Windows comes in a rough initial “shape” but not everybody is willing to accept it. So here are some useful changes to make it more comfortable. Tip #1 1. Command your Windows Explorer to start in the location of your choice By default, when you access Windows Explorer it will go directly to the My Documents folder. To change this, right click on the icon and replace the Target field with: “%SystemRoot%explorer.exe /e, c:”. You can make it start in your games folder or any other location. For example, you can instruct it to start directly on My Computer by adding this string: “%SystemRoot%explorer.exe /e,”. Tip #2 2. Teach Windows to automatically log on to your account Many of you may have realized that Windows does no longer log on directly to your account when you boot the computer. This happens because of the .NET Framework Update from m*cro$oft that creates an extra user account named ASP.NET. Of course, you would think that the easiest method is not to update the .NET Framework or to delete the newly created account. However, it is better to configure Windows to automatically log on to the user of your choice by using this method: Go to Start->Run, type “control userpasswords2” and click OK. The “Users” window will appear; select the account you want to automatically log on to then uncheck the “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer” option. If you have a password set, type it to complete the process. Unfortunately, this is available just for Windows XP Professional users. Tip #3 3. Are you in a hurry and your PC doesn’t want to Shut Down rapidly? Here are some tips: For both Home and Professional edition users go to Start->Run and type “regedit” to fire up the Registry Editor. Navigate to the following key: [HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management] and set the “ClearPageFileAtShutdown” value to 0. XP Professional users can do this via the Group Policy Editor. To start it, go to Start->Run and type “secpol.msc”. Click Local Policies, then Security Options, and set “Shutdown: Clear virtual memory page file” to Disabled. These registry tweaks may solve the problem partially because there may be other processes, services or malfunctioning installed applications that cause the shutdown procedure to take a long time. Tip #4 4. Being a long time user of Windows, you are now aware of the Show Desktop utility function, but back in the past you have removed it from Quick Launch. Don’t know how to restore it? Go to Start->Run and type the command “regsvr32 /n /i:U shell32”. The icon will reappear in Quick Launch. Tip #5 5. Remove the username and picture from the new Windows XP Start Menu The Windows XP start menu displays your username and a picture at the top. Many complain that they don’t want this information to be shown but there is no solution for this. Well, there is, of course without disabling the Welcome Screen and Windows XP Themes. Go to Cocuments and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataMicrosoftUser Account Pictures. Inside the folder there is a BMP picture file named after your username. If your name is Smith then the picture file should be named Smith.BMP. Rename it to Smith2.BMP, then rename the following folder: Cocuments and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataMicrosoftUser Account PicturesDefault Pictures to “Old_Default Pictures”. To remove the user name, go to the Registry Editor (Start->Run->regedit) and look for [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoft WindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer]. In the right panel, set the “NoUserNameInStartMenu” value to 1. After a system reboot, no username or picture will be shown. Tip #6 6. Windows forgets your Folder settings? If you are a meticulous person you might like to customize your folders to look nice, changing the view mode, position or display options. After restarting, you realize that everything was in vane, you lost the settings. This is due to the fact that by default Windows XP remembers the settings for at most 400 folders. To solve this go to Registry Editor and look after these keys: [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShell] and [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellNoRoam]. Set the BagMRU Size to 5 000 (or up to 8 000). Now it's solved! Tip #7 7. Set the command prompt to a desired path. When you type CMD in the “Start->Run” window to access the command prompt, you notice that it will go to the user’s home directory. To change that, use the Registry Editor to navigate to [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoft Command Processor]. In the right panel, look for Autorun. If it misses, create a new REG_SZ and set the folder there, preceded by a CD (as you type in DOS). Example: typing just CD makes the Command Prompt default to C: drive. You can also type “CMD /?” in the Command Prompt for detailed information about its parameters. Tip #8 8. Sometimes you might be unable to preview JPG, GIF and HTM files in the Display Properties dialog. To solve this error type “REGSVR32 /i SHIMGVW.DLL” and “REGSVR32 /i MSHTML.DLL” in Start->Run. Tip #9 9. Clear the "Search for files and folders" history in Windows XP to keep your privacy. Go to Registry Editor and look for [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoft Internet Explorer ExplorerBars{C4EE31F3-4768-11D2-BE5C-00A0C9A83DA1}FilesNamedMRU]. There you can delete the items. Tip #10 10. Your zip archiver software has expired and after uninstall there is no zip associated program, although Windows can deal with zip archives. Go to Start->Run and type “REGSVR32 ZIPFLDR.DLL” or “cmd /c assoc .zip=CompressedFolder”. Please note that due to the large number of settings and changes that might have previously been applied to your Windows system, some of the tweaks mentioned above might not work as they were described. Warning: Make a backup of the registry before tweaking it.....or create a System Restore point before applying the tweaks. And try the tweaks at your own risk.
Here are a couple of context menu Add-ons that I use that come in real handy The first part adds an "Open with Notepad" option to the right click on any file. It doesn't matter what extension the file has which makes it nice for config files of different extensions. The second part adds a "Command Prompt" open to every folder right click. Writing batch files and stuff it can sometimes be a pain to keep navigating to the correct path to run what you need. With this you simple navigate with explorer right click on the folder you want to be in and choose command prompt and the cmd windows opens in that folder. Just copy these contents into notepad and save with the .reg extension. Double click to merge into the registry. Code: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\*\Shell] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\*\Shell\Open With Notepad] @="Open With Notepad" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\*\Shell\Open With Notepad\command] @="notepad %1" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\Command Prompt] @="Command Prompt" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\Command Prompt\command] @="cmd.exe /k cd %1"
