Some Windows XP Registry Tweaks that may come handy

[sushrukh]

20 XP Registry Tweaks that can be useful

Part 1

CUSTOMISATION

1.Start Menu scrolling

When your Start menu overflows,it isn’t possible to list all the entries in a single column.Then, Windows either creates a second column or a scrolling menu.You can control this through the registry.Navigate to the :-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, & select the entry called ‘StartMenuScrollPrograms’.If it’s not present, create a new String value called ‘StartMenuScrollPrograms’. Specify the value as ‘Yes’ if you want the Start menu to scroll, and ‘No’ if you need the Start menu as multiple columns.

2.IE Title bar text

Internet Explorer installations distributed by companies other than Microsoft
might have their names in the title bar.If you want to change this,navigate to :-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main, & edit or create a string value entry called ‘Window Title’. Double-click the entry and enter any string you want. Leave it blank if you want to remove the default string.You’ll need to restart Internet Explorer for the change to take effect.

3. Changing Logon message

To create a personalised logon message in XP, go to :-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\
CurrentVersion\Winlogon.In the right pane, double-click the string entry ‘LegalNoticeCaption’,enter the string ‘ My Windows XP Machine’ & click OK.Next, double-click the ‘LegalNotice Text’ string entry, and enter the message to be displayed.

4. Change the welcome screen

Windows XP displays 3 different screens during boot-up.The 2nd screen
is the one that says “Welcome”. To change this, navigate to :-

HKEY USERS\DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. Under this key, you will find an entry named ‘Wallpaper’; double-click it & enter the path of the image file you want displayed.The file can be a BMP or JPEG image. If you want to tile the image, set the value of the ‘TileWallPaper’ entry to 1. If you want to stretch the wallpaper, set the value of the ‘WallPaperStyle’ entry to 2.

5.Detailed information in the device manager

When this tweak is applied,the device manger in Windows 2000/XP will
show an extra tab called ‘Details’. Selecting this tab will provide additional
information about the device. Go to :-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Control\SessionManager\Environment.Here,you’ll find a string entry with the name ‘DEVMGR_SHOW_DETAILS’; if there isn’t one, create it.Assign this entry a value of ‘1’if you want the system to display the details tab; to hide the tab, assign it a value of ‘0’.

6.Prevent access to specified drives

Use this tweak to prevent access to drives to certain users.Remember, once this is applied, the prohibited user can’t access the drive by any means. Log into Windows using the user account that you want to restrict access to, open the registry editor & go to :-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Create a DWORD value with the name ‘NoViewOnDrive’.Double click this entry and in the dialog box that appears, select the radio button named ‘Decimal’. In the value data field you need to enter a number that depends on the drive that needs to be hidden. Use the formula ‘2n-1’, where n is 1 for your A drive, 2 for B drive, and so on until 26 for drive Z. If you need to hide more than one drive, add the respective drive numbers and enter it into the value data field.

For example, to hide drive C you need to enter 4 (23-1); to hide drives D and E you need to enter 24 (24-1+25-1). To apply the change to all users in the system, follow the same method, but use the key :-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer instead. To remove all restrictions, just delete the entry.

Performance

7. Speed up access to folders with AVI files

Windows XP sometimes takes a really long time to open folders with AVI files.
This is because XP tries to get information about the files.To disable this feature, open the registry and go to :-

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}. Append a [-] (a minus sign) in front of the ‘{87D…’ key, so that it becomes something like ‘- {87D…’.

8.Prevent OS being paged to disk

At times, when there’s a dearth of RAM, the system will move some portion of the main memory to the hard disk. Obviously, this slows down the system, but there’s nothing much that can be done about it. In case your system is blessed with loads of RAM (256 MB or more) and runs Windows NT, 2000 or XP, you can use this tweak to prevent the kernel mode code from being moved to the hard disk. While this will improve system performance, it may affect programs that rely on Windows swap space. So if you notice any eccentric behaviour after applying this setting, revert to the previous setting.

Go to :-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Control\Session Manager\MemoryManagement.Look for a DWORD entry called ‘DisablePagingExecutive’ ; set it to ‘1’to disable the kernel being paged. if you face problems,set it back to ‘0’.

9.Window refresh rate

All open windows are refreshed at a predefined interval; but when there’re
too many windows open, and a paucity of memory, they often appear blank—a
file copied to a folder may not appear immediately on the window. This tweak allows you to set a faster refresh rate for open windows.Go to :-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Control\Update.Create or modify the DWORD key called ‘UpdateMode’. Assign it a value of ‘0’ for a faster refresh rate, and ‘1’ for default.

ANNOYANCES

10. Menu display delay

When a menu is opened, Windows opens the menu after a small delay. For example, after clicking on Start, the Programs menu takes ages to expand. This is because the ‘Menushowdelay’ entry has been given a large value.Open the key :-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop and modify or create a string value named ‘MenuShowDelay’. In this entry, give the required delay in milliseconds; the accepted limit is 0 to 999.