Most useful Tips and Tricks for windows xp & vista

Increase SATA Disk Drive Performance

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:29:00 +0000

You can squeeze a more performance out of your SATA hard disk drive
by enabling write caching.
The price though, is an increased risk for data loss/corruption should
you experienced a power loss - this risk is less in a laptop because
of its battery:
1. Click on the Start Button, enter Device Manager and hit Enter.
2. Expand Disk Drives.
3. Right-click on your hard disk drive and select Properties.
4. On the Policies tab, check Enable Advanced Performance.
5. Click OK and close Device Manager.

Source: www.vistaultimate.com

Speed up Vista in minutes

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:05:00 +0000

i found this great articles in this blog: http://www.mobile-pedia.com/

It has been quite some time since the Windows Vista, the long awaited operating system from Microsoft, was released. Vista offers a rich, secure and user friendly environment. Despite of all these bells and whistles, Vista tends to slow down you system, even if you meet the recommended system requirements. If you were thinking of upgrading your hardware before switching to Windows Vista, think again. This guide will help you tweak Vista to run super fast on your existing hardware.

Why is Vista too slow?
Vista slows down even systems that are way above the recommended requirements. Such problems are noticeable when you run graphic intensive applications like games etc. There are two main reasons for this. One is lots of services loaded in your RAM. If you have 1GM RAM it gets limited to 512 MB due to all the services loaded in the rest 512 MB. Gamers get a low FPS as Vista consumes 32MB of graphics memory itself.
One easy but expensive solution is to upgrade to more memory. Other solution is to disable the “services” running in the background. This guide will help you optimize your system performance for Windows Vista.

Use ReadyBoost

With Vista you can use your USB drive to improve performance. It does not increase the physical memory (RAM), but it serves as a cache. Hard drives are a very show medium as compared with the contemporary USB drives, the reason is that USB drive is a circuit (direct access) and hard drive involves rotational motion. ReadyBoost caches the disk reads so it can retrieve data quickly when needed. ReadyBoost also encrypts the cached data for privacy concerns.
It is recommended that size of USB drive should be equal to that of main memory (RAM). If you have 1GB RAM than go for a 1GB USB. Choose a USB with higher read/write speeds. For example Kingston Migo and Elite have much higher speeds. Such small factors can really boost performance to much larger extent. Do not use a USB drive with less than 64 MB memory or read/write speed below 3 MB/s.
To use ReadyBoost for making Vista perform super fast, follow the procedure:

Plug-in your USB drive
Windows will show a message to either use it as an external drive or as ReadyBoost drive. If no window is displayed then right click and select the ReadyBoost tab manually. If there is no such tab then your USB drive is not compatible with this technology.
Choose ReadyBoost.
You can also change the amount of space to be used for ReadyBoost.
Click the OK button to finalize.

Disable the Indexing Service
Indexing services in Windows Vista indexes all the files and folders for faster access. It basically makes search function faster. By default all files are indexed, but you probably won’t need that. It is recommended that you should disable the indexing service on all the items other than the start menu. To speed up Vista, follow these steps:

Select Start and type "index options", without quotations
After the Indexing Options are loaded, click the Modify button.
Then click Show all Locations
A list of locations will be displayed in the form of a tree. Uncheck those folders which you do not want to be indexed. You can also use the Advanced button to specify file types to be indexed, but this part is optional.
Click OK button to finalize.

Enable advanced write caching
Vista comes with built-in support for SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives. By default Vista does not enable write caching. To improve your data retrieval speed you must enable the write caching. Just follow these steps:

Go to the hard drive properties
Select the Policies tab
Select the radio button labeled Optimize for performance.
Check the boxes titled “Enable write caching on the disk” and “Enable Advance Performance”
Click OK button to finish.

Speed up Start Menu Search

The search option in Vista is very handy. It lets you search pictures, emails, documents, control panel and the start menu itself. To tweak performance you should narrow down the search space. To improve performance, follow the simple procedure:

Place mouse pointer on Start button and right click
From the menu select Properties option
Click on the Customize button
If the Search Communications option is checked then uncheck it.
Click OK buttons to commit the changes.

Disable Unwanted Startup Services
The good old MSCONFIG option is available in Vista as well. Lots of crappy programs load at boot time which consume large amount of memory and processor. To tweak follow these steps:

Go to Start>Run or press Windows + R
Type “msconfig” and click OK
The System Configuration dialogue box will be displayed, select the Startup
You will see list of checkboxes, most of them will be checked. Uncheck those ones which are not needed. More unchecked boxes will lead to better performance.
Click OK button to finish this tweaking step.

Tweak the Side Bar

Vista comes with lots of bells and whistles. Side Bar is one cool looking component of Vista’s interface. The Side bar provides easy access to the gadgets you install. To improve overall performance I recommend you to disable this feature or at least use those gadgets that are extremely important. By applying this performance tweak you will free lots on Memory and processing power. To improve performance, just follow these steps:

Position your mouse pointer on the Side Bar and Right Click
Click on the Properties option
In the menu uncheck the box titled Start Side Bar When Windows Starts
Click the OK button. From now on the bar won’t be loaded on startup.

Tweak Aero: Disable Transparency

Aero is the default theme for Vista. Although the theme looks pretty cool buts it is a resource hog for your hardware. You have to modify its settings to make it run well on your system.

You can remove transparency in Vista to boost performance. Just follow the steps:

While on the desktop, Right Click
Select the Personalize option
Click the “Windows Color and Appearance” option
Uncheck the box “Enable transparency”
Press OK button to finish.

Tweak Aero:
Fine Tune Flip 3D To tweak Vista performance you can also fine tune the Flip 3D option available in Aero. Flip 3D feature lets you switch between windows by pressing Alt + Tab repeatedly. This feature is very intuitive, but it’s too costly for your hardware

To speed up Flip 3D, just follow these steps:

Select Start>Run
Type the command “regedit” without quotations and press OK button
Registry Editor Window will show up
Before going any further I recommend you to make a backup of your registry. Use the
File>Export option in the Registry Editor window
Go to the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Microsoft>Windows>DWM.
While DVM is selected right click to create a new DWORD
Assign any value between 4 and 9 to the newly created key. You can play around with different values to get most of your hardware without sacrificing much of cool looking interface.
Reboot to finalize.

Tweak Aero: min-max animation

In Vista, Aero theme also offers animation of windows while they are minimized or maximized. To speed up performance you have to follow the simple procedure:

In the Start menu type “SystemPropertiesPerformance” and press enter button.
In the window go to Visual Effects tab
Uncheck the box with label Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing.
Finally press OK button.

You will definitely feel the difference in Vista performance after completing this tweak. Stop extra services There are lots of services that are automatically started by default in Vista. Many such services are of no use for the user. There are services that get automatically added to the list when you install different third party software. They consume lots of RAM and processor. To speed up just follow these steps:

Go to Start>Run and type “msconfig” without quotations.
System Configuration window will be displayed.
Go to the Services tab (middle one)
To be on the safe side check the box “Hide all Microsoft Services”
Now you will have a reduced version of the list, select ones that you feel are unnecessary.
Press OK to finish.

There are some Windows Vista’s services that you can disable without any glitch:

Windows Error Reporting
Tablet PC Input Service ( don’t disable if you are using a tablet PC)
Remote Registry
Offline Files
IKE and AuthIP IP Keying Modules
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Computer Browser

Increase Internet Explorer 7 downloads

By default Internet Explorer 7 restricts user from downloading more than two files from the same server. In vista you can tweak IE settings to get maximum downloads, follow these steps:

Start>Run and type regedit to open the Registry Editor
Navigate to the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Internet
Look for a key named “MaxConnectionsPerServer”
Right click to modify it.
Assign it a decimal value larger than 2 (it’s the max download limit, by default its 2)
Similarly perform the same operation for “MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server”
Restart your computer

Disable Network Printer Search

Disabling network printer search may greatly improve Vista’s performance. When you browse through folders Vista is always looking for network printers. This search ends up in consuming lots of resources. To speed up performance just follow these steps:

While you are in the explorer (My Computer), go to the Tools menu
Select Folder options
Go to the View tab
Uncheck the box named “Automatically search for network printers” After completing this step you would certainly feel the difference.

Defragment Frequently

Vista’s defragmentation is the last thing to do tweak performance. Defragmentation procedure basically removes empty spaces and arranges similar files in a sequential manner for faster access. Interface of Vista’s default defragmenter is pathetic. You can look for third party software like Diskeeper if you want a better and intuitive user interface. If you defragment once in a while you will certainly feel the difference.

15 vista tips from PC magazine

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:20:00 +0000

1. If you hate the look of Aero, click Start/Control Panel/Themes and you can choose a non-Aero theme, such as Windows Classic.

2. Windows Vista's installer can detect serial-ATA (SATA) drives without the need to provide a driver diskette. Don't bother creating a diskette for your SATA drives before you install Vista.

3. If, for some reason, the Vista installation gets interrupted due to an unintentional shutdown or reboot, start the computer without booting the Vista DVD. Windows Vista's installer should pick up where it left off. If it does-n't, then restart the installation over from scratch.

4. When you perform a search with Vista's new, instant search feature, you can save the search in a special folder. This powerful feature allows you to create a virtual folder which, by default, is saved in your \\Searches\ folder. Every time you open such a folder, the search results are updated.

5. In Windows Vista, you can add additional clocks to the system tray. Click the clock, and then click Date and Time Settings. Click the Additional Clocks tab. You can add one or two additional clocks to the tray and select their time zones.

6. You can save your progress in most of the games included with Windows Vista—even the carry-overs from earlier versions of Windows.

7. You can create XML documents, which are more secure than regular text files or even word processor docs. Just create a document in a word processor, print it via the options menu, and select the XPS printer.

8. If you upgrade your graphics card in preparation for Windows Vista, be sure to get a new card with as much local memory as possible. Since Windows Vista renders everything—even the desktop and windows them-selves—as 3D surfaces, local 3D memory greatly improves performance...sometimes even more than a more powerful GPU.

9. Windows Vista games deposit their saves into a special directory, called Saved Games, in your personal folder. In theory, that will make upgrading to a new system much easier for gamers, who like to migrate their game saves.

10. When using the Help system, it's usually advantageous to include Microsoft's online database in your search. The online/offline status of your search is located on the bottom right of the Help window. You can click it to toggle.

11. The Games folder is a powerful repository of all things gaming. From within, you launch games, update games with the latest patches, enable parental controls to protect younger users from harmful content, and more. Invoke it by clicking Start/Games.

12. Several applications are available to help you tweak Windows Vista for maximum performance. They in-clude TweakVI (www.totalidea.com), TweakVista (www.tweakvista.com/tweakvistautility), and VistaBootPRO (www.vistabootpro.org). And don't forget about Windows ReadyBoost, which lets you use a removable flash memory drive to boost system memory.

13. Do you use the icon in the upper left corner of system and application windows? A quick double-click closes the window (instead of a single click on the X at the upper right). Though Microsoft left the icon out in Vista, the function remains.—Sarah Pike

14. In Microsoft Windows Explorer, you can use column headers (Name, Size, and so on) to sort files. Savvy users may right-click on a column head to remove items or add some—say, Dimensions for images. There are around 45 such columns available in Windows XP. Windows Vista has well over 250, covering a multitude of metadata.—Sarah Pike

15. If you've become used to surfing your Program Menu to get to applications, you'll be in for a shock when you first use Microsoft Windows Vista. The new Program Menu shows you only recently used applications and requires extra clicks to navigate to submenus. This can be very frustrating but, thankfully, the Search box Microsoft has added to the Start menu is a great replacement—as long as you're an accurate typist. As quickly as you can type, it returns intelligent results in apps, files, even e-mail messages.—Dave Cardinal, freelance writer

Source: www.pcmag.com

Windows Vista recommended system requirements

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:34:00 +0000

Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
- 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 1 GB of system memory
- 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
- Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
- WDDM Driver
- 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
-Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
-32 bits per pixel
- DVD-ROM drive
- Audio Output
- Internet access (fees may apply)
Additional Requirements:
Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration. Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor can help you determine which features and edition of Windows Vista will run on your computer.
While all editions of Windows Vista can support multiple core CPUs, only Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise can support dual processors.
Home Premium / Ultimate
TV tuner card required for TV functionality (compatible remote control optional).
Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
Windows Tablet and Touch Technology requires a Tablet PC or a touch screen.
Ultimate
Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption requires a USB Flash Drive and a system with a TPM 1.2 chip.

Home Basic:

- 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 512 MB of system memory
- 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
- Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory
- DVD-ROM drive
- Audio Output
- Internet access (fees may apply)
Additional Requirements
Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration. Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor can help you determine which features and edition of Windows Vista will run on your computer.
While all editions of Windows Vista can support multiple core CPUs, only Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise can support dual processors.

Windows Vista minimum supported system requirements
Home Basic / Home Premium / Business / Ultimate

- 800 MHz processor and 512 MB of system memory
- 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
- Support for Super VGA graphics
- CD-ROM drive

Vista: Recover a previous version of a document:

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:25:00 +0000

Windows Vista introduces a new feature: Previous Versions. This allows you to "roll back" the clock to an earlier version of a file that you may have accidentally saved over or edited. In the Documents Explorer, open a document, edit it, save it, and then close it. While selecting the document, choose the Previous Versions option on the command bar, which will bring up a list of previously saved versions of the individual file. Choose a previous version and Windows Vista will restore your file to that version. Careful: all edits since that version will be lost.
Source: Microsoft

Vista: Speed up your PC’s performance:

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:24:00 +0000

Windows Vista introduces a new concept for adding additional performance to a running system. Windows ReadyBoost™ lets people use flash memory on a USB 2.0 drive, SD Card, Compact Flash, or other memory form factor to provide additional memory cache—memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard drive. Insert a USB 2.0 memory drive with at least 512 MB capacity. When prompted, click use this device to speed up my computer.
Source: Microsoft

vista: Create an XPS Document:

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:23:00 +0000

XPS documents are a new archiving format perfect for preserving content and for securely sharing information in an application independent way. To create an XPS document, open any document in virtually any application, and select the print option. In the printer selection menu, choose Microsoft XPS Document Writer, and save the file. Double click on the file, which should open it in the XPS Viewer, which is hosted by Internet Explorer 7. The XPS document is a pixel-perfect rendition of the original source material.
Source: Microsoft

vista: Share a folder or file directly from your PC:

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:22:00 +0000

Windows Vista improves on the Windows network folder sharing experience first introduced with Windows XP by giving you more flexibility in what you can share with other people and improving the setup process. With Windows Vista you can now share folders and individual files with any other user on the same corporate network. From any explorer, select a file or folder and on the command bar choose the option to Share. Enter the name of another user on the same network, and give them appropriate rights of access—reader, co-owner, etc. To help close the loop, Windows Vista can even automatically compose an e-mail to the individuals with which you have shared the content. The auto-generated e-mail contains a hyperlink to the shared content, enabling the recipient to instantly be taken to the shared content.
Source: Microsoft

Vista: Collaborate with a co-worker:

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:21:00 +0000

Want an easy way to share files and applications with a colleague or customer—even when you may not be part of the same network? Windows Meeting Space is a new experience in Windows Vista that enables you to start an impromptu collaboration session with other Windows Vista users. Simply open Windows Meeting Space and start a session. Windows Vista will automatically detect other Windows Vista users that are on the same sub-net infrastructure or close enough for you to create an
ad hoc (direct PC-to-PC connection) wireless connection. Once you have invited them and they have accepted,
you can share documents by simply dragging a document to the Handouts area on the bottom right which instantly replicates that file across the other meeting participants’ machines. Dragging the file to the presentation area on the left side starts application sharing, enabling the other participants to watch as you present that file. If someone has a good edit for your file, you can make that edit in real time, or pass control of the application directly to that participant for them to make that edit for you.
Source: Microsoft

Vista: Print picture perfect Web content:

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:20:00 +0000

Most Web sites are simply not formatted to fit cleanly on a standard piece of paper. With the new shrink to fit printing feature found in Internet Explorer 7 Web sites will no longer get cut off when sent to the printer.
Source: Microsoft

Vista: Browse multiple Web sites:

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:17:00 +0000

Tabbed browsing in Internet Explorer® 7 enables a single Internet Explorer window to run with the convenience of multiple pages. Open a new page by clicking the empty tab on the toolbar or by right-clicking any hyperlink and choosing New Tab. Tabs can also be right-clicked to refresh individual pages or refresh pages as a group. You can close either individual tabs or an entire group, and you can save tabs as one favorite group. With the Quick Tabs feature, the icon just to the right of the Favorites icon, thumbnail images of all open tabs can be seen in a single view helping you manage multiple open tabs.
Source: Microsoft

Vista: Experience the enhanced user interface:

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:16:00 +0000

If your PC supports the Windows® Aero™ user experience, open multiple files and see how easy it is to locate the right open window using the breakthrough Windows Flip (simply ALT+TAB) or Flip 3D (Windows key+TAB).
Source: Microsoft

Vista: Discover the new search explorer:

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:15:00 +0000

Try filtering by type using the search pane and selecting Documents. Next choose to see your files in another way, via the new stack view. Select the author column header control drop down menu, and choose the option to Stack by author. Explore all the documents by a particular author by double clicking on an author’s stack. Now, save that search as a new search folder. Choose the option Save Search found on the top command bar and name and save your search folder. In the future, to
re-run it, simply select the Searches folder link on the left side navigation pane, and double click on your search folder.
Source: Microsoft

Explore the new Windows Vista start menu:

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:13:00 +0000

Looking for specific applications, Web sites, and e-mails is faster than ever with the streamlined Windows Vista start menu. To find a specific application or file, click the Windows key on the keyboard (or open the start menu) and enter the file name in the Instant Search field. As you type, Windows Vista dynamically searches filenames, metadata, and the full text of all files and displays the choices by file type. For example, type "out" to find Microsoft® Outlook®.
Source: Microsoft

control your startup programs

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:17:00 +0000

Most quality software give you the option to allow or prevent the program to run at the startup,

but if you can't find the option there:

click Start---> Run ---->type: MSCONFIG.

Go to the Startup tab, and uncheck the unwanted programs.

some times if the program's own option is activated, the program will re-create the autorun entry.

or you can use an external software, there are some free wares:

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwstartup.html

Fix DNS Problems

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:35:00 +0000

Sometimes when you can't connect to a web site, the cause is a DNS problem. There are things you can do to solve these problems, though. If you're having trouble connecting, to find out if DNS is a potential culprit first ping the site to which you can't connect, by issuing the ping command like this at the command prompt or Run box, like this:ping www.zdnet.com
If the site is live, you'll get an answer like this:Pinging www.zdnet.com [206.16.6.252] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 206.16.6.252: bytes=32 time=119ms TTL=242
Reply from 206.16.6.252: bytes=32 time=79ms TTL=242
Reply from 206.16.6.252: bytes=32 time=80ms TTL=242
Reply from 206.16.6.252: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=242
Ping statistics for 206.16.6.252:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 79ms, Maximum = 119ms, Average = 94ms
If it's not, you'll get a response like this:Ping request could not find host. Please check the name and try again.
If you ping a site and it's live, but you can't connect to it with your browser, a DNS problem might be the reason. If you suspect you're having a DNS problem, take the following actions:
Check your HOSTS file. If your HOSTS file contains an incorrect or outdated listing, you won't be able to connect. Even if you don't recall adding listings to a HOSTS file, it still may contain listings, because some Internet accelerator utilities edit them without telling you. Open your HOSTS file with Notepad and see if the site you can't connect to is listed there. If it is, delete the entry, and you should be able to connect.
Check your DNS settings. Make sure your DNS settings are correct for your ISP or network. Find out from your ISP or network administrator what yours are supposed to be. Then, to find out your current DNS settings, double-click on the problem connection in the Network Connections folder, choose Support Details, look at the bottom of the tab to find your DNS servers. If they don't match what they're supposed to be, right-click on the problem connection and choose Properties. Then, highlight Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and choose Properties. Change the DNS servers to the proper ones, or choose "Obtain DNS server address automatically" if your ISP or network administrator tells you to.
Flush your DNS cache. The problem may be related to your DNS cache, so flush it out. To flush the cache, type ipconfig /flushdns at a command prompt.
Find out if your ISP is having DNS problems. The cause may be your ISP. One possibility is that one of its DNS servers is down, and you're trying to access the down server. Ping each of your ISP's DNS servers and, if any of them don't respond, remove them from your DNS list, as outlined earlier in this hack.
Source: O'Reilly

Adjust XP's DNS Cache Settings Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:34:00 +0000

That command will flush your DNS cache—all the entries, both positive and negative, will be flushed, and it will be empty until you start visiting web sites. Negative entries, however, will not be added to the cache if you've given the DWORD a value of 0.
You can also use the Registry to control the amount of time that positive entries are kept in the DNS cache. By default, they are kept for 24 hours. To change the default, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters
again and create a DWORD value called MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit. (If it's already present, just edit the value.) For the value, enter the amount of time you want the entry to remain, in seconds, making sure to use Decimal as the base.
Source: O'Reilly

Adjust XP's DNS Cache Settings

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:32:00 +0000

As a way of speeding up DNS, when you visit a site, XP puts the DNS information into a local DNS cache on your PC. So, when you want to go to a site, XP first looks in its local DNS cache, called the resolve cache, to see whether the DNS information is contained there. That way, if it finds the information locally, it doesn't have to query a remote DNS server to find IP information. The cache is made up of recently queried names and entries taken from your HOSTS file.
The cache contains both negative and positive entries. Positive entries are those in which the DNS lookup succeeded, and you were able to connect to the web site. When XP looks in the cache, if it finds a positive entry, it immediately uses that DNS information and sends you to the requested web site.
Negative entries are those in which no match was found, and you end up getting a "Cannot find server or DNS Error" in your browser. Similarly, when XP looks in the cache and finds a negative entry, it gives you the error message without bothering to go out to the site.
Negative entries can lead to problems. When you try to make a connection to a site that has a negative entry in your cache, you'll get an error message, even if the site's problems have been resolved and it's now reachable.
You can solve this problem, though, using a Registry hack. By default, XP caches negative entries for five minutes. After five minutes, they're cleared from your cache. But if you'd like, you can force XP not to cache these negative entries, so that you'll never run into this problem. Run the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters.
Create a new DWORD value with the name NegativeCacheTime and give it a value of 0. (The value may already exist. If it does, edit its value to 0.) The DWORD determines how much time, in seconds, to keep negative entries in the DNS cache. If you like, you can have the entries stay alive for one second by giving it a value of 1.
After you're done editing, exit the Registry. To make the change take effect, restart your computer, or flush your cache by issuing the command ipconfig /flushdns at a command prompt.
Source: O'Reilly

Speed Up Web Access with a HOSTS File

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:30:00 +0000

It takes time to send your request to a DNS server, have the server look up the proper IP address to resolve the name, and then send the IP address back to your PC. You can eliminate that delay by creating or editing a local HOSTS file on your own PC that contains hostnames and their corresponding IP addresses. When you create one, XP will first look into the HOSTS file to see if there's an entry for the hostname, and, if it finds it, it will resolve the address itself. That way, you won't have to go out to a DNS server and wait for the response before visiting a web site. The HOSTS file is a plain text file you can create or edit with a text editor like Notepad.
You'll find an existing HOSTS file in C:\System32\Drivers\Etc\HOSTS. The file has no extension; it is named only HOSTS. Open it in Notepad and enter the IP addresses and hostnames of your commonly visited web sites, like this:208.201.239.37 oreilly.com
216.92131.107 simtel.net
Each entry in the file should be on one line. The IP address should be in the first column, and the corresponding hostname in the next column. At least one space should separate the two columns. You can add comments to the file by preceding the line with a #, in which case the entire line will be ignored by the file, or by putting a # after the hostname, in which case only the comment after will be ignored. You might want to comment on individual entries—for example:130.94.155.164 gralla.com #still in beta
When you're finished editing the file, save it to its existing location.
Source: O'Reilly

Tweak DNS Settings for Faster Internet Access

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:29:00 +0000

A handful of DNS hacks for speeding up access to web sites.
You use the Web by typing in hostnames such as www.oreilly.com, but web servers and Internet routers can't understand plain English words, so they need those letters translated into numeric IP addresses. Whenever you type in a hostname, such as www.oreilly.com, it needs to be resolved to its IP address, such as 208.201.239.37. DNS servers provide that name resolution automatically and behind the scenes as you surf the Web.
There are several ways you can hack your DNS settings so that you can get faster web access.

Unload Unnecessary DLLS

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:16:00 +0000

When you close a program, any associated DLL it has been using will also be terminated
- but in some cases windows doesn't close all running dlls.
To make sure that DLLs are always unloaded from memory open regedit (registry editor)
Find: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE]SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
in the registry and create a new DWORD value and name it (AlwaysUnloadDLL) .
and give it a value of 1.

Repair your XP installation

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:09:00 +0000

When your Windows XP became slow and generate random crashes, it isn't necessary to reinstall your windows. You can solve all your problems by doing a repair installation.

To do this, you need to restart your computer with the Windows XP installation CD (bootable), press F8 to accept the license agreement and then press R. The windows xp setup will continue in the normal way, and any of your files that have become corrupt will be automatically replaced.

Configure your virtual memory settings manually

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:45:00 +0000

You can configure virtual memory settings manually:

right-click My Computer, select Properties and go to the Advanced tab. Click Settings.

- Go to the Advanced tab and click Change.

- Select the Custom Size option and set the Initial Size and Maximum Size to twice the amount of RAM you have installed. Click Set, then OK.

Make your xp windows transparent

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:16:00 +0000

One of the great features of XP is the ability to use transparent windows, But you need to consider that very few programs take advantage of transparency, and you need a program to do that. there are a lot of programs but i choose Glass2K because it's free and simple to use.

download here.

By just running Glass2K executable file (55 ko) ,you can make any window transparent. When it's running, go to the window you want to make transparent, and press Ctrl-Shift and a number from 0 to 9. 9 makes the window the least transparent, 1 makes it the most transparent, and 0 sets it so that it's solid, with no transparency. You can also right-click on a window, and select the degree of transparency from the program's pop-up menu. The window will keep that degree of transparency as long as you run the program and keep the transparency setting.

screenshot:

Easily find the mouse pointer

noreply@blogger.com (midosone) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:03:00 +0000

There is a feature in windows xp that can help you to easily find the mouse pointer.

To nable it :

- Go to the Control Panel and click the mouse icon.

- Then just follow the picture.

- And Now you can easily find your mouse pointer just by clicking Ctrl Key.