SASANK@TECHNOMANIA

Windows XP can display in each device properties dialog box a supplementary tab named 'details' that lists advanced information about the current device that is mainly dedicated to administrators or developpers. To permanently display the 'details' tab in each device properties dialog box of the device manager, use the following method:

1. Click Start/Control Panel,
2. Double click 'System',
3. Click the Advanced tab,
4. Click 'Environment Variables',
5. Locate the 'System variables' frame,
6. Click New,
7. In the Name label, type: "DEVMGR_SHOW_DETAILS"
8. In the Value label type 1 and then click OK, OK and OK,
9. Now in open the device manager, double click a device of your choice and look: you have a new details tab with tons of informations to dig in.

A very important new feature in Microsoft Windows XP is the ability to do a boot defragment. This basically means that all boot files are placed next to each other on the disk drive to allow for faster booting.
By default this option is enabled but some upgrade users have reported that it isn't on their setup.

1. Start Regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
3. Select Enable from the list on the right.
4. Right on it and select Modify.
5. Change the value to Y to enable and N to disable.
6. Reboot your computer.

Instead of using the command line to display /configure your ip with ipconfig, you can download wntipcfg directly from Microsoft which will give you the same GUI to display / configure your ip as winipcfg.

Download: http://microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/existing/wntipcfg-o.asp

When you have downloaded it, install it (the default is c:\program files\resource kit\ ) copy wntipcfg.exe to c:\windows and rename it to winipcfg.exe Now you can just click on run, then type in "winipcfg"

Some of you dislike the fact Windows Messenger starts each time you start your computer. To prevent Windows Messenger 4.5 (or later) from running, use the following method:
1. Start Registry Editor (Regedit.exe).
2. Locate and click the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft

3. On the Edit menu, point to New , click Key , and then type Messenger for the name of the new registry key.
4. Locate and click the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger

5. On the On the Edit menu, point to New , click Key , and then type Client for the name of the new registry key.
6. Locate and click the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client

7. On the Edit menu, point to New , click DWORD Value , and then type PreventRun for the name of the new DWORD value.
8. Right-click the PreventRun value that you created, click Modify , type 1 in the Value data box, and then click OK .
9. Quit Windows Messenger.

This tip is extracted from article Q302089 of the Microsoft Windows XP Knowledge Base.

ncase you didn't already know, It is possible to disable the Windows XP boot-up splash screen, although this only speeds up the boot process very slightly so there isn't a real need to use this tweak.

1. Edit boot.ini
2. Add " /noguiboot" right after "/fastdetect".

Once you reboot, the splash screen will be gone. It can be re-enabled by removing the new switch

When you shut down Windows XP, the OS tries its best to make sure that all services (they help run things like graphics, printers etc) are shut down. But there are times when they don't close, thus Windows XP tries to give it the chance to shut down itself. This amount of time that windows waits for the service to close is stored in the system registry. If you modify this setting, then windows will shut down the service earlier. To modify the setting, follow the directions below:

* Start Regedit.
* Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control.
* Click on the "Control" Folder.
* Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"
* Right click on it and select Modify.
* Set it to a value lower than 2000, say 1000 as a test.

As many of you would have noticed - every time a Microsoft program crashes in Windows XP - and Error Report comes up allowing you to send some information on the crash to Microsoft. Well this can get quite annoying, so here is how you disable it.

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click on Preformance and Maintenance.
3. Click on System.
4. Then click on the Advanced tab
5. Click on the error reporting button on the bottom of the windows.
6. Select Disable error reporting.
7. Click OK
8. Click OK

1. Click Start > Run > Type gpedit.msc
2. Click User Configuration > Windows Setting > Internet Explorer Maintenance > Browser User Interface
3. Double click on Browser Title
4. Click on Customize Title Bars
5. Change the text to what whatever you want
6. Click on Ok

Now you changed the title of your browser and you sure see what you wrote when you
open a New Widow

When you connect to a web site your computer sends information back and forth. Some of this information deals with resolving the site name to an IP address, the stuff that TCP/IP really deals with, not words. This is DNS information and is used so that you will not need to ask for the site location each and every time you visit the site. Although Windows XP and Windows XP have a pretty efficient DNS cache, you can increase its overall performance by increasing its size.

You can do this with the registry entries below:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters]
"CacheHashTableBucketSize"=dword:00000001
"CacheHashTableSize"=dword:00000180
"MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000fa00
"MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000012d

Make a new text file and rename it to dnscache.reg. Then copy and paste the above into it and save it. Merge it into the registry.

Under Windows 98, Me, or 2000 there was an option in the shutdown dialog box to enter the computer into hibernation (where all the content of the RAM is copied to the hard disk). The shutdown dialog box of Windows XP doesn't offer any longer the hibernation button. Some users may get confused about how to enable the hibernation mode. If this mode is supported by your motherboard (ACPI) you have to do the following:

1. Click Start and Shut Down,
2. Point the standby button and maintain the shift key pushed,
3. A new hibernation button appears: click it while still holding the shift key: voila your PC will hibernate.