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Misc system tweaks that I do.

Lots of small tweaks that I do to my system. (do these at your own risk – I will not take responsibility for damage)

Default windows wallpapers location

Default windows wallpapers location is “c:\windows\web\wallpapers” (just remove all but the bliss.bmp, just to keep windows happy) you can also put your own in there to quickly access them from display properties

User avators/pictuers location.

User avators (display pictures) that windows users (for your logon etc and in the top of the start menu) is “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures” just remove or add your own.

Show extra items in the windows add/remove.

Adjust hidden add/remove items. This will show all the hidden windows items in the windows components of add remove programs window. To unhide an item remove the word HIDE from the end of it but keep the “” there. (before, “HIDE” and after “” ) start/run and enter “notepad %windir%\inf\sysoc.inf” in the run dialog box and then press enter. This will enable you to remove windows pinball for example.

Set a password for the guest account.

Set a password for guest account in wp pro. Goto Start/run and then enter “Net user guest password” into the run dialog box and press enter. And this will allow you to set a password for the guest account under account settings.

Disable the dos 8.3 naming convertion.

Disable the DOS 8.3 naming convention to save system resources. Open up regedit throught start/run and enter regedit in the run dialog box and press enter then navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem” change the value of the NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation key to 1

Stop the last access update.

Stop the last access update from usings system resources by opening up regedit throught start/run and enter regedit in the run dialog box and press enter then navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem” and create a new DWORD value called “NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate” and set the value to 1

Launch Programs from the registy instead of the startup folder.

You can also use the registry to launch programs instead of the startup folder in the start menu and you can also monitor what is loading by going to the following registry location. Goto “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run” and Create a REG_SZ value named after your program, with the value being the path to the executable file (for example, c:\program files\myfile.exe) and if there is a program in there that you dont want just delete the REG_SZ value. You can also find other entries in “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run”

Give your apps more time to shut down.

Give windows more time to shutdown apps before it closes. Do this by going to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/” and Highlight the
“WaitToKillAppTimeout” value and Set it to a value higher than what it is. Now highlight the “HungAppTimeout” value Set it to a higher number also. (the longer you make the time the more of a chance your programs have to shut down correcly before windows kills them)

You can also goto “HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop” and “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/” to change the values.

Also if you use windows x64 I have noticed that it also users “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Wow6432Node/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run”

Disable the windows hidden shares.

Windows has a few hidden shares which I think a re a major security issue and should be disabled (C$ and D$ for example) To disable the hidden shares goto “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters” and add the Dword value ‘AutoShareWks’ with a value of ’0′ and restart your computer.

Disable the network scheduled tasks.

When you connect to another computer over a network it checks for any Scheduled tasks on that computer, it can add about 30 seconds of waiting on the other
end. Goto “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace” and there should be a key called {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF} just delete this, and after a restart, Windows will no longer check for scheduled tasks over the network.

Disable the built in xp zipped folders.

To disable windows xp zipped folders got start/run and type “regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll” in the run dialog box and press enter. (a small dialog box will appear saying that the .dll has been unloaded so just click on OK)

Disable the annoying ati shortcut in every right click menu.

To disable the ati display shorcut in all of the right click menus just goto “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers” delete the ‘ACE’ entry by right-clicking on its folder and selecting Delete.

To manually activate windows.

To activate windows goto start/run and type “%systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a” in the run dialog box and the press ok or hit enter. If you see “Windows is already activated” then everything is OK.

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