Keep Folders Hidden

First create a new folder somewhere on your hard drive
when you name it hold down "Alt" and press "0160" this will create and invisible space so it will apper as if it has no name.

Then right click in and select "Properties" select the tab "coustimize" and select "change icon" scroll along and you should a few blanc spaces click on any one and click ok when you hav saved the settings the folder will be invisible to hide all your personal files

How To Speed Up A Slow Computer

First off in the bottom right hand corner of your computer if you see alot of icons start up there when you first start your computer then this is for you if you dont know already how to get rid of em.

Press your Start Button (bottom left) and go to "run"
now type in: msconfig
now you will get a box that pops up and will tell you bunch of stuff dont mess with anything else other than what I tell you otherwise you could do something really bad (possible) go to your "startup" tab on the top right of the screen where it usually is and click it.

Now you will have a closed in box with bunch of filenames n addresses and more boxes with checks in them. Now if your like me you dont want anything startin up when you start you computer up or while your even doing anything cause it slows you down. Now unless your like me right now 1 have 1 thing starting up when my computer starts up and thats my settin for my overclocked vid card. But other than that uncheck every box and then hit apply and ok. Then window you were jus in will now close and ask you if you want to restart or wait till later to restart.

Either way when you shut it off and then turn it back on the settins will kick in

WinXP Bootable CD

How to create a bootable Windows XP SP1 CD (Nero):

Step 1

Create 3 folders - C:\WINXPSP1, C:\SP1106 and C:\XPBOOT

Step 2

Copy the entire Windows XP CD into folder C:\WINXPSP1

Step 3

You will have to download the SP1 Update, which is 133MB.
Rename the Service Pack file to XP-SP1.EXE
Extract the Service Pack from the Run Dialog using the command:
C:\XP-SP1.EXE -U -X:C:\SP1106

Step 4

Open Start/Run... and type the command:
C:\SP1106\update\update.exe -s:C:\WINXPSP1

Click OK

Folder C:\WINXPSP1 contains: Windows XP SP1



How to Create a Windows XP SP1 CD Bootable

Step 1

Download xpboot.zip
Code:
Code:
http://thro.port5.com/xpboot.zip

( no download manager !! )

Extract xpboot.zip file (xpboot.bin) in to the folder C:\XPBOOT

Step 2

Start Nero - Burning Rom.
Select File > New... from the menu.
1.) Select CD-ROM (Boot)
2.) Select Image file from Source of boot image data
3.) Set Kind of emulation: to No Emulation
4.) Set Load segment of sectors (hex!): to 07C0
5.) Set Number of loaded sectors: to 4
6.) Press the Browse... button


Step 3

Select All Files (*.*) from File of type:
Locate boot.bin in the folder C:\XPBOOT

Step 4

Click ISO tab
Set File-/Directory length to ISO Level 1 (Max. of 11 = 8 + 3 chars)
Set Format to Mode 1
Set Character Set to ISO 9660
Check all Relax ISO Restrictions


Step 5

Click Label Tab
Select ISO9660 from the drop down box.
Enter the Volume Label as WB2PFRE_EN
Enter the System Identifier as WB2PFRE_EN
Enter the Volume Set as WB2PFRE_EN
Enter the Publisher as MICROSOFT CORPORATION
Enter the Data Preparer as MICROSOFT CORPORATION
Enter the Application as WB2PFRE_EN

* For Windows XP Professional OEM substitute WB2PFRE_EN with WXPOEM_EN
* For Windows XP Home OEM substitute WB2PFRE_EN with WXHOEM_EN

Step 6

Click Burn tab
Check Write
Check Finalize CD (No further writing possible!)
Set Write Method to Disk-At-Once

Press New button

Step 7

Locate the folder C:\WINXPSP1
Select everything in the folder and drag it to the ISO compilation panel.
Click the Write CD Dialog button.

Press Write

You're done.

Speed up the Boot Menu (#1)

Tired of waiting thirty seconds to boot Windows 2000 if you don't select from the boot menu? Speed up the booting process by only showing the available operating systems for just a couple of seconds.

Right-click "My Computer" on the desktop and choose "Properties". On the "System Properties" multi-tabbed dialog box that follows, click "Advanced". Click the "Startup and Recovery..." button. Then, on the "Startup and Recovery" dialog box that follows, next to "Display list of operating systems for ... seconds", select the number of seconds that you want the computer to wait before continuing with the default OS. When you're done, press "OK" to close the dialog box.

Desktop Disappearing? (#2)

Although Windows 2000 is more stable than previous versions of NT, in some situations, strange things can happen. If, for example, Explorer crashes, most of your desktop, including the "Start" button, disappears. To bring back Explorer without rebooting your machine, press CONTROL-ALT-DELETE. When the "Windows Security" dialog box appears, click the "Task Manager" button. If the "Windows Task Manager' dialog box appears as it should, select the "File" menu and then "New Task (Run)". When the "Create New Task" dialog box appears, just type in "Explorer" and press the "OK" button. Windows Explorer should then reappear, complete with the "Start" button.

Change Process Priority (#3)

Is a particular program or process running too fast or too slow? Is a program or process taking too much of your CPU time or can you allow a process or program to take more of your computing power? To change these settings for a particular process, just right-click on an empty area of your taskbar and choose "Task Manager..." On the "Windows Task Manager" dialog box that follows, select a process and right-click it. On the popup menu that appears, select "Set Priority" and choose one of the following priorities: "Realtime", "High", "Above Normal", "Normal", "Below Normal", or "Low". The lower the priority is on the popup menu, the lower percentage of CPU time will be delegated to said priority.

Note that depending on the process and your administrative rights to your machine, you may not be able to change a particular process's priority.

Put the Desktop in your Taskbar (#4)

Do you frequently multitask? If so, all of the windows created by running applications can quickly cover your desktop. If you'd like, you can make the desktop icons immediately accessible from your taskbar. Just right-click an empty area of your taskbar, choose "Toolbars", and check "Desktop". Your desktop icons will then be immediately accessible without having to minimize your current windows. If you have a lot of desktop icons, click on the two greater-than arrows (">>") to the right of your desktop icons and a popup menu will appear allowing you to select from any of the available desktop icons not immediately visible on your taskbar.

Changing DOS Window Titles (#5)

If you use DOS a lot, you may frequently have more than one DOS window open at once. Perhaps you'll have one a window for FTP, one for debugging a batch file, one for doing basic tasks such as displaying directories, etc. If so, it can get very confusing navigating between the different DOS windows since each of their titles just say "Command Prompt". If you'd like, you can change the titles of a DOS window so you can easily see what tasks you are performing in each window.

To change the title of a Windows 2000 command prompt window, just enter in the TITLE command, followed by your desired window title. For example, to name a DOS window "Debugging Window", just enter the following command at a DOS prompt:

TITLE Debugging Window

Save the Current Directory Name (#6)

Windows 2000 lets you temporarily store the name of the current directory that you are in, letting you recall the directory name later after you are doing other processing. This may be useful if you are jumping around DOS directories a lot, either manually or through a batch file.

To store the name of the current directory, or rather, to PUSH the name of the current directory onto the stack, enter the PUSHD command followed by the name of a directory that you would like to access next. For example, if you are in the "C:\Program Files" directory and want to push that directory name onto the stack, jumping to the C:\WINNT" directory, enter:

PUSHD C:\WINNT

After you are done working in the "C:\WINNT" directory and ready to go back to the "C:\Program Files" directory, don't type in "CD C:\Program Files", just POP the old directory from the stack by entering:

Windows Xp: Speed Up Your, Speed Up Your Network and Internet Access

I have a dial up connection and it improve my speeds about 25% in surfing the internet. give it a try. Im IT , only do it if you feel comfortable with changing registry.

Increasing network browsing speed

Does your computer slow down when you browse your local area network and connect to other computers that are sharing data? One of the most common causes of this slowdown is a feature of Windows Explorer that looks for scheduled tasks on remote computers. This effort can take some time on some computers and can really slow down your browsing. The window with which you are browsing the network may appear to freeze momentarily, as the system is waiting for a response from the remote computer.

Windows XP: Speeding Disk Access

Although this problem is a complex one, the solution is very simple. Instead of having to wait for the remote scheduled tasks, which is useless information to anyone who is not a system administrator remotely configuring scheduled tasks, you can disable this feature.

In order to do this, you will have to change the System Registry and delete a reference to a key so that this feature will not be loaded. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open up the Registry Editor by clicking the Start Menu and selecting Run. Then type regedit in the text box and click the OK button.

2. Once the Registry Editor has loaded, expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key.

3. Next, expand Software and then Microsoft.

4. Locate Windows and expand that as well.

5. You will want to be editing the main system files, so expand CurrentVersion.

6. Because this feature is a feature of the Windows component known as Explorer, expand the Explorer key.

7. Next, you will want to modify the remote computer settings, so expand the RemoteComputer key and then expand the NameSpace key to show all of the features that are enabled when you browse to a remote computer.

8. In the NameSpace folder you will find two entries. One is "{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}" which tells Explorer to show printers shared on the remote machine. The other, "{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}," tells Explorer to show remote scheduled tasks. This is the one that you should delete. This can be done by right-clicking the name of the key and selecting Delete.

Tip:

If you have no use for viewing remote shared printers and are really only interested in shared files, consider deleting the printers key, "{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}", as well. This will also boost your browsing speed.

Once you have deleted the key, you just need to restart and the changes will be in effect. Now your network computer browsing will be without needless delays.

Winxp Tips And Tricks, Winsock 2 repair

Repairing Damaged Winsock2

The symptoms when Winsock2 is damaged show when you try to release and renew the IP address using IPCONFIG...

And you get the following error message:

An error occurred while renewing interface 'Internet': An operation was attempted on something that is not a socket.

Also Internet Explorer may give the following error message:

The page cannot be displayed Additionally, you may have no IP address or no Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) address, and you may be receiving IP packets but not sending them.

There are two easy ways to determine if Winsock2 is damaged:

From the XP source files, go to the Support / Tools directory

Winsock Test Method 1

Run netdiag /test:winsock

The end should say Winsock test ..... passed

Winsock Test Method 2

• Run Msinfo32
• Click on the + by Components
• Click on the by Network
• Click on Protocol
• There should be 10 sections if the Winsock2 key is ok
• MSAFD Tcpip [TCP/IP]
• MSAFD Tcpip [UDP/IP]
• RSVP UDP Service Provider
• RSVP TCP Service Provider
• MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...
• MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...
• MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...
• MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...
• MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...
• MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...

If the names are anything different from those in this list, then likely Winsock2 is corrupted and needs to be repaired.

Winsock2 is corrupted and needs to be repaired.

If you have any 3rd party software installed, the name MSAFD may be changed.

There should be no fewer than 10 sections.

To repair Winsock2

• Run Regedit
• Delete the following two registry keys:
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock2

Restart the computer

Go to Network Connections

Right click and select Properties

Click on the Install button

Select Protocol

Click on the Add button

Click on the Have Disk button

Browse to the \Windows\inf directory

Click on the Open button

Click on the OK button

Highlight Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

Click on the OK button

Reboot

Key Board Shortcuts

• Windows+M Minimize all open windows
• Shift+Windows+M Undo minimize all open windows
• Windows+F1 Open Windows Help
• Windows+Tab Cycle through the Taskbar buttons
• Windows+Break Open the System Properties dialog box

Accessibility shortcuts

• Right SHIFT for eight seconds........ Switch FilterKeys on and off.
• Left ALT +left SHIFT +PRINT SCREEN....... Switch High Contrast on and off.
• Left ALT +left SHIFT +NUM LOCK....... Switch MouseKeys on and off.
• SHIFT....... five times Switch StickyKeys on and off.
• NUM LOCK...... for five seconds Switch ToggleKeys on and off.

Explorer shortcuts

• END....... Display the bottom of the active window.
• HOME....... Display the top of the active window.
• NUM LOCK+ASTERISK....... on numeric keypad (*) Display all subfolders under the selected folder.
• NUM LOCK+PLUS SIGN....... on numeric keypad (+) Display the contents of the selected folder.
• NUM LOCK+MINUS SIGN....... on numeric keypad (-) Collapse the selected folder.
• LEFT ARROW...... Collapse current selection if it's expanded, or select parent folder.
• RIGHT ARROW....... Display current selection if it's collapsed, or select first subfolder.

Type the following commands in your Run Box (Windows Key + R) or Start Run

• devmgmt.msc = Device Manager
• msinfo32 = System Information
• cleanmgr = Disk Cleanup
• ntbackup = Backup or Restore Wizard (Windows Backup Utility)
• mmc = Microsoft Management Console
• excel = Microsoft Excel (If Installed)
• msaccess = Microsoft Access (If Installed)
• powerpnt = Microsoft PowerPoint (If Installed)
• winword = Microsoft Word (If Installed)
• frontpg = Microsoft FrontPage (If Installed)
• notepad = Notepad
• wordpad = WordPad
• calc = Calculator

WINDOWS XP HIDDEN APPS:

• Character Map = charmap.exe (very useful for finding unusual characters)
• Disk Cleanup = cleanmgr.exe
• Clipboard Viewer = clipbrd.exe (views contents of Windows clipboard)
• Dr Watson = drwtsn32.exe (Troubleshooting tool)
• DirectX diagnosis = dxdiag.exe (Diagnose & test DirectX, video & sound cards)
• Private character editor = eudcedit.exe (allows creation or modification of characters)
• IExpress Wizard = iexpress.exe (Create self-extracting / self-installing package)
• Microsoft Synchronization Manager = mobsync.exe (appears to allow synchronization of files on the network for when working offline. Apparently undocumented).
• Windows Media Player 5.1 = mplay32.exe (Retro version of Media Player, very basic).
• ODBC Data Source Administrator = odbcad32.exe (something to do with databases)
• Object Packager = packager.exe (to do with packaging objects for insertion in files, appears to have comprehensive help files).
• System Monitor = perfmon.exe (very useful, highly configurable tool, tells you everything you ever wanted to know about any aspect of PC performance, for uber-geeks only )
• Program Manager = progman.exe (Legacy Windows 3.x desktop shell).
• Remote Access phone book = rasphone.exe (documentation is virtually non-existant).
• Registry Editor = regedt32.exe [also regedit.exe] (for hacking the Windows Registry).
• Network shared folder wizard = shrpubw.exe (creates shared folders on network).
• File siganture verification tool = sigverif.exe
• Volume Contro = sndvol32.exe (I've included this for those people that lose it from the System Notification area).
• System Configuration Editor = sysedit.exe (modify System.ini & Win.ini just like in Win98! ).
• Syskey = syskey.exe (Secures XP Account database - use with care, it's virtually undocumented but it appears to encrypt all passwords, I'm not sure of the full implications).
• Microsoft Telnet Client = telnet.exe
• Driver Verifier Manager = verifier.exe (seems to be a utility for monitoring the actions of drivers, might be useful for people having driver problems. Undocumented).
• Windows for Workgroups Chat = winchat.exe (appears to be an old NT utility to allow chat sessions over a LAN, help files available).
• System configuration = msconfig.exe (can use to control starup programs)
• gpedit.msc used to manage group policies, and permissions