Some XP Tricks you may not know…
These are some Windows XP tricks that not many people know about. These tricks would certainly help your computing experience on a Windows OS. I learnt most of these when I worked for Dell and I am hoping to pass it on to other web users here at TECH BLOG. I am personally not a big fan of altering my register file, I wouldn’t be giving any register file hacking tricks.
Disable Autoplay for CDs and DVDs
There are two ways of doing this. The first way is to disable a particular kind of CDs and DVDs. The second / desired way of disabling autorun has to be done everytime you pop in a CD/DVD.
Batch Disabling - Go to my computer, right click on your CD drive. The second tab would be autoplay. Click on it. Select take no action on the kind of CD/DVD that you may be using. This is a good way of disabling if you don’t want a particular kind of CDs to play. For ex. if you don’t want your DVDs to play immediately, you could disable it as a whole here.
Desired Method - When you pop in a CD/DVD, just hold your shift button for 5 to 10 seconds and the CD/DVD will not autoplay. Shift acts as a shortcut for disabling autorun. Great shortcut to use when you don’t want to be annoyed by the autoplay feature.
On Screen Keyboard
Did you ever know that Windows had its version of on screen keyboard which could be replaced for your typical keyboard. Here is a screenshot.
To run the On Screen Keyboard, click on start -> Run -> Type in “osk” -> Hit Enter
That should do it…
Changing Visuals
You can change the way your windows looks by disabling / enabling the animations and other shadow effects. In all reality, if all the visual details are turned, your computer is set to run 12.5% faster than what it does right now. So, its a trade-off between looks and speed. Which one would you choose?
This is the way you get visual options. Right Click on My Computer -> Click on properties -> Advanced Tab -> Settings. Here you could uncheck / check as much as you want and the items are self explanatory.
Error Reporting
It is painful to see one of my programs just freeze on me and on top of that the annoying error reporting dialog box just makes my day worse. I share a love-hate relationship with Windows/Microsoft. I am not very keen on sending the error reports to Microsoft as I don’t see any improvements even after I sent a million of those (exhaggerated).
Turn error reporting this way :
Right Click on My Computer -> click on Properties -> Advanced Tab -> Error Reporting
Hit disable error reporting to disable it.
Uninstall Internet Explorer
Before you uninstall Internet Explorer, get Mozilla Firefox.
Now, that you have an alternate better browser, getting rid of Internet Explorer should be a matter of seconds.
Hit Start -> Control Panel -> Add Remove Programs -> Add/Remove Windows Components (left column) -> Uncheck Internet Explorer -> Next -> Finish
Goodbye IE.
Rename a Series of Files
If you have 100 files which you want to rename it all as a sequence i.e foto1, foto2, foto3…. , it doesn’t make sense renaming one after the other, does it? Windows has this cool feature of multiple files renaming which is just amazing in my book.
Go to My Computer -> Browse to the folder where your files are present -> Highlight all the files using shift/ctrl keys -> Right click on any of the selected files -> Click on rename -> Specify a new name
This would ensure that all the selected files would have the sequential numbering with the prefix being the name that you provided.
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on April 3rd, 2006 at 11:43 am
That doesn’t uninstall Internet Explorer, it just removes it from the start menu/desktop.
on April 3rd, 2006 at 2:34 pm
the “Rename a Series of Files” instruction does not work on my XPsp2.
on April 3rd, 2006 at 3:19 pm
I think you may be mistaken about uninstalling IE… the truth is, you can’t completely remove it, you can only roll back the usable version to what it was when the operating system was installed. IE is integrated directly into the Windows OS, and no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of it.
on April 3rd, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Quote{ I am not very keen on sending the error reports to Microsoft as I don’t see any improvements even after I sent a million of those (exhaggerated). }
Which is a pity, because there are top-class programmers in Redmond whose job it is to look at these error reports. Sure, they won’t come and fix your problem — not for the $99/$199 you paid for Windows (a support contract would be another story though…) but they do use this info for service packs, subsequent OS releases, etc.
Another thing: Firefox has talkback enabled on beta-channel releases by default. How has that ever helped you? Ffox 1.5 still leaks memory and crashes (though less than 1.0x). OTOH Talkback has helped improve Firefox quality consistently across major releases.
If you expect your crash reports to automagically qualify you for a fix from the developers, you obviously misunderstand shrinkwrap product development. Go use a browser with 10 users or something, or pay someone to write or maintain a custom codebase for you.
on April 3rd, 2006 at 4:30 pm
I have Windows XP with SP2. I tried to rename a batch of files again and it worked fine with ascending numbers.
With IE, I am sorry for the wrong information that I provided regarding uninstallation. IE is a parasite in my book.
Here is an advanced procedure to negate the ill effects caused by IE. Please back up your registry before you attempt this.
Hit Start -> Run -> Regedit
Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4383}
Modify/Create the Value Data Type(s) and Value Name(s) as detailed below.
Data Type: DWORD // Value Name: IsInstalled
Setting for Value Data: [Change the Value from 1 to 0]
Exit Registry
Let me know if you have any other questions…
on April 3rd, 2006 at 5:54 pm
“Set Processes Priority
If we are running a lot of programs, there may be some programs that we would want them to run faster than others. This could be done in XP by prioritizing your process.
Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc -> Click on Processes Tab -> Right Click on any active process -> Set the priority ”
Note that changing certain hard-drive thrashing programs to “realtime” mode or “high” priority can make your computer appear to hang. (Try moving-with-sort 60,000 names in Excel after cranking Excel’s priority up, for instance. This can make slower PCs totally unresponsive for up to 15 minutes, in my experience.)
In addition to speeding up, this can also prevent strange errors in smaller programs. MW-Snap 3.0 is an excellent screenshot program, but occasionally will display “init:0″ error messages if you take screenshots rapidly. Crank the priority to high, and MWSnap gets slightly more of XP’s resources… the error messages stop, and MWSnap still uses only a tiny fraction of available memory.
Moving programs to high priority can also solve port buffer errors in terminal emulator-type programs.
on April 4th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
“IE is integrated directly into the Windows OS, and no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of it.”
Ever heard of nLite? Can do 1000x more than you think is possible, and it makes your OS run like a Ferrari.
on April 12th, 2006 at 2:53 am
Yes sorry once again there’s errors. When you are batch renaming. It will do
Photo1.jpg
Photo1(1).jpg
Photo1(2).jpg
…
The number inside the ()’s ISN’T a cool number system it thinks Photo1(1) and Photo1(2) are just copies of Photo1.
on June 6th, 2006 at 10:39 am
yeah, IE cant be removed, Microsoft made sure of that :P Microsoft is pretty good though, have you seen the funny fake macintosh comercial someone made on www.thepeon.com? search for mac sucks there, and you’ll see it :) i prefer windows cuz it is tailored to be able to use easily, but the problem with that is that since it is so easy even a complete idiot can use it, when it crashes, said idiot has no clue what to do. good tip about the onscreen keyboard i knew it was on here because i used to use it a lot, i just couldnt remember how to get to it :-/
on July 5th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
you cannot remove IE from windows
if dont believe me try this first do whatever it is that you believe to remove IE, Then open the icon my documents. In the address bar type an http address say like http://www.google.com if you have an internet connection i bet you go there. Windows explorer and Internet Explorer are the same program and you cant delete windows explorer. if manage to do it you will cripple your file system cause you will be unable to navigate it unless you want to go back to using DOS
on August 14th, 2007 at 8:24 am
I am using windows xp with ser.,pack 2,whenever I wil right click on ant file or folder ,system will hang,again I havt restart manually