Windows XP Tips & Tricks - Part 1

1. Cleaning the Prefetch Directory:
WindowsXP has a new feature called Prefetch. This keeps a shortcut to recently used programs. However it can fill up with old and obsolete programs.
To clean this periodically go to:
1. Star / Run / Prefetch.
2. Press Ctrl-A to highlight all the files.
3. Delete them.

2. Not Displaying Logon, Logoff, Startup and Shutdown Status Messages:
1. Start Regedit.
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system 3. If it is not already there, create a DWORD value named DisableStatusMessages.
4. Give it a value of 1.

3. Bringing Up the Shutdown Dialog Box:
1. Create a new txt file somewhere on your system, open it and put in this one line: (newActiveXObject("Shell.Application")).ShutdownWindows();
2. Save and Close the file. Change the extension to js and your got it.
3. You can make a shortcut to that file to make it easy to shut down your system.

4. Increasing the Folder Cache:
The default setting for WindowsXP is to cache the Explorer settings for 400 folders.To increase it:
1. Start Regedit.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam.
3. Change the vaule of BagMRU to whatever size you want (hex).
1000 - 3e8
2000 - 7d0
3000 - bb8
4000 - fa0
5000 - 1388

5. Poweroff at Shutdown:
If your computer does not turn off the power when doing a shutdown,you may need to edit the registry. I have all the correct BIOS and Power settings and still needed to do this.
1. Start Regedit.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.
3. Edit the key PowerOffActive and give it a value of 1.
4. You can do the same in HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop.

6. Show Hidden Devices:
You can show hidden devices in the Device Manager. One way is by making a simple registry change. The other is through a batch file.

Registry Change:
1. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ ControlSet001 \ Control \ Session Manager \ Environment.
2. Create a string DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES.
3. Give it a value of 1.

Batch File
@Echo Off
Prompt $p$g
set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
start devmgmt.msc
exit

7. Disable Shared Documents:
To disable the Shared Documents folder that shows up on the network:
1. Start Regedit.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer 3. Create a new DWORD Value.
4. Give it the name NoSharedDocuments.
5. Give it a value of 1.
6. Log off or reboot.

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Good Luck!