George Jones Fri Apr 21, 4:51
PM ET
Despite all the hoopla about the introduction of Windows Vista,
the truth of the matter is that the new OS isn't due for at least
another seven to nine months — and it will probably be even longer
before most of us start adopting it. Meanwhile, we've still got to
deal with Win XP.
In order to make the waiting easier, we've decided to assemble
the greatest tips in the history of
Windows XP. Here you'll
find the tips that give you the most bang for your buck; that are
most useful in terms of security, functionality, and PC
performance; and that are just plain cool.
One final thought: As you parse our Top 10, consider the
following: With any luck, this time next year we'll all be reading
Windows Vista tips stories.
And now let's start the countdown.
Tip
10: Halt background services to improve performance.
This tip is one of our favorites because it always works.
Running in the background of Windows are scores of
services, small processes used by Windows and many Windows
applications. The thing is, you don't need all these services —
especially for applications you never use — and many of them
actually slow your PC down.
Win XP power users have long known that you can easily eke a
little extra performance out of your PC by disabling services that
are completely unnecessary or that don't need to be running all the
time. Here's how it works.
1. Click Start > Run, type services.msc and click OK.
This will bring up the Services management console. Click on the
Extended tab at the bottom of this window; each background service
running on your PC is listed here. Windows includes a fairly
detailed description of each service; simply drag the Description
column wider to read more of each description, or click on a
service to see its full description in the left pane.
2. Double-click a service to bring up a window with several
options. In the Startup Type area, you can set the service to run
automatically in the background at all times so it's ready whenever
it's needed, or you can tell it to run manually, which means you'll
have to go into this Services management console and re-enable it
if an application needs it.
You can also completely disable the service. In general, you
want to disable services tied to applications and/or features you
don't use or rarely use. You can find a great list of appropriate
services to disable at the Elder Geek's Services Guide For Windows XP.
If you're logged onto the computer as the administrator, you can
also pause the service (click the Pause button in the Service
Status area just below the Startup Type area), then see how the
computer behaves. Danger signs include crashes or other erratic
behaviors in your applications, such as running slowly or getting
stuck on a query prompt. Click Resume to start up the service
again.
Tip
9: Increase available disk space by scaling back System
Restore.
It's not perfect, but Windows System Restore is a useful first
step in recovering your PC or drive from a major system error.
However, it can consume more than 10 percent of your total hard
drive space.
If you find yourself desperate for an extra few gigabytes —
particularly on secondary storage drives — there's an easy way to
reclaim data space by simply limiting the number of System Restore
points Windows XP establishes. This one's a snap and there's no
tangible increase of risk, which is why we love it.
1. Right-click on My Computer and select Properties > System
Restore.
2. If you have just one hard drive, skip to step 3. Otherwise,
select the drive on which you want to gain storage space and click
the Settings button.
3. Adjust the slider to the left to use less disk space, and Win
XP will reduce the number of System Restore points by the
appropriate amount.
Tip
8: Scrub your hard drive clean.
Windows Support Tools, provided free by Microsoft, are a suite
of some 20+ separate applications that are extremely handy for a
number of uses. Ordinary PC users probably won't use many of these
apps — they're mostly used by IT pros to troubleshoot and analyze
Windows XP. But even if you're not an expert, don't be afraid of
using the Windows Installer Clean Up Utility, which will help you
remove all leftover files from a failed uninstall of a Windows
Installer application.
Download Windows Support Tools from Microsoft's Download Center. (If you're curious
about the other apps in the suite, check out the help file included
in the Windows Support Tools Program group.)
To run the Windows Installer Clean Up Utility, go to the command
prompt (select Start > Run) and type msicuu.exe. You'll
see a list of all applications with uninstall data. Select the ones
you want to get rid of and click the Remove button. Obviously, you
want to use caution here — don't clear the install data for an
application unless you're absolutely sure you won't ever need
it.
Tip
7: Run two displays on the same PC.
This tip is for the worker bee. Adding a second display to your
PC won't quite double your productivity, but it will make your
computing life easier. Walk around a cube farm these days, and
you'll likely see at least a few power users doubling up.
Thankfully, Windows XP makes it extremely easy.
1. Plug the second display into your computer. (Many video cards
today have a second Video Out port; if not, you'll have to install
a second video card.)
2. Right-click on your desktop and click Properties to bring up
the Display Properties window. Click on the Settings tab.
3. See the grayed-out box to the right of the black box? That's
your second monitor. Click on it and then click the check box next
to "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor" to enable it. From
here you can adjust the resolution of the secondary display. The
goal here is to have a desktop that spans both of your displays, so
if your second screen is physically located to the left of your
primary one, drag and drop the #2 monitor to the left of the #1
display.
Tip
6: Force unresponsive applications to close at shutdown.
When it comes to balky PCs, few things annoy us more than the
moment when we try to shut down Windows and it tells us it can't
because some crashed application isn't responding, and that we have
to do it ourselves by clicking the End Now button.
This registry hack changes that. Here's how it works.
1. Launch RegEdit (select Start > Run, type regedit
and click OK) and browse to
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
2. Find the string called AutoEndTasks. Right-click it, select
Modify from the pop-up menu, and change the data value from
0 to 1. (If you can't find this string, create it by
selecting Edit > New > String Value and set the data value to
1.)
3. Close RegEdit and reboot.
Tip
5: Automatically optimize your hard drive.
One of the keys to system performance is an optimized hard
drive. Typically, you optimize your hard drive using Windows'
Defrag utility. But there's a great registry hack that will force
Win XP to automatically optimize the location of files when your PC
is idle. Here's how it works.
1. Open RegEdit and browse to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
OptimalLayout
2. Find the string called EnableAutoLayout, and change its data
value to 1. (If this string doesn't exist, create it and set
the value to 1.)
3. Exit RegEdit and reboot your PC. Done!
Tip
4: Set a custom resolution.
Notice a trend in the second half of this story? If you
answered, "They're all registry hacks," you are correct. Windows
XP's registry loads an amazing amount of flexibility and
customization in a fairly low-risk package.
Tip number 4 on our list is another one of our favorite registry
hacks. Windows XP allows you to specify a large number of set
screen resolutions based on what types of images your display can
accept. However, in a few rare instances, you may want to specify a
non-standard resolution for a clearer or more accurate picture.
This tip allows you to do just that. It's one of those tips that
doesn't seem all that handy — until you desperately need it. Plus,
it's just plain cool. If you have a wonky projector or TV screen
you want to use with a laptop or PC, you might want to give this a
try.
Here's how it works:
1. Open RegEdit and browse to
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\VIDEO\
{the address of your primary video card...it often begins with
"23A77BF7"}\0000\
2. The Default Settings.XResolution data value is the horizontal
resolution, and the Default Settings.YResolution data value is the
vertical. Double-click the Default Settings.XResolution data entry,
select the Decimal radio button, and in the Value Data field, enter
your desired horizontal resolution. Then do the same with Default
Settings.YResolution to change the vertical resolution.
3. Exit RegEdit and reboot your PC.
If you're scared of tweaking your registry on this one, a handy
app called PowerStrip ($29.95, available for a free try-before-you-buy download), allows you
similar resolution-changing functionality.
Tip
3: Stay on top of registry changes.
Given the power and flexibility of Windows XP's registry (and
the large number of registry hacks in this Top 10), it's no
surprise that the number 3 XP tip involves keeping track of any and
all changes made to your registry.
But given the prevalence of spyware, rootkits, and other malware
these days, knowing what you've done to your registry is a
secondary concern to knowing what other applications are doing to
it.
For peace of mind — and occasionally, for curiosity's sake — we
consider SysInternal's Regmon an essential piece of our OS. It's a
freeware application that allows you to browse through all the keys
in the registry, filtering in a variety of ways to pinpoint
specific registry changes.
For example, you can quickly filter for certain applications. If
you're having trouble with Windows Media Player, you click on the
Options menu, then Filter. At the menu, type wmplayer into
the Include field. When you see the resulting list, you can
double-click any entry to open up its registry value.
Because you can search and filter, Regmon is also an excellent
method for tracking down hard-to-find registry items.
Tip
2: Recover lost data.
Everyone has accidentally deleted files from their hard drive,
and very few feelings are as low as the moment right after you nuke
300 irreplaceable photographs of your kids/dogs/life. Actually, one
feeling is worse than that: accidentally quick-formatting your
entire drive.
Even if you regularly back up your drives, mistakes happen.
That's why this tip is paramount. It's also really simple. There's
an excellent downloadable data recovery app for XP called Zero Assumption Recovery that can help. Don't
waste another minute — download and install it now.
When you run into trouble, here's what to do:
1. The moment you delete your data, stop using your hard drive.
Don't save or install any new applications — they'll be written
over your recently departed data.
2. Run Zero Assumption Recovery. You already had it installed,
right?
3. Select the hard drive you want to scan. Wait for the scan to
finish. (This can take between one and two hours -- part of Zero
Assumption Recovery's effectiveness is its thoroughness.)
4. With any luck, you'll see a list of your missing folders and
files. The freeware version of Zero Assumption Recovery allows you
to recover up to four folders per scan. If you pay $100 for the
full version, you get full recovery.
Note: You can also use Zero Assumption Recovery to recover
deleted photos from your camera's memory card.
Tip
1: Automatically log when and why shutdowns have
occurred.
Love it or hate it, Windows XP is undeniably more stable than
its predecessors. But it still crashes, and it still has occasional
trouble shutting down. This registry hack logs all shutdown errors,
telling you when, where, and why strange and annoying things have
happened.
Some folks have the luxury of packing their buggy PC off to a
help desk. But if you like to get your hands dirty, consider this
essential tweakage.
Here's how to set up logging for unexpected system
shutdowns:
1. Open RegEdit and browse to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Reliability
2. Set the ShutDownReasonUI data value to 1. (If this
string doesn't exist, create it and set the value to 1.)
3. Exit RegEdit and reboot your PC.
To examine the log you've created, open up the Event Viewer,
which you'll find by selecting Control Panel > Administrative
Tools > Event Viewer. Click on the System subheading and you'll
see a massive list of system events. Errors will be marked with a
red X or a yellow exclamation mark. Double-click on the error and
you'll see details that may help you unravel the mystery.
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