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Enabling NumLock on by Default

To have numlock turned on for each user:

  • Start Regedit
  • Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Keyboard\InitialKeyboardIndicators
  • Change the value from 0 to 2
  • Turn Numlock on manually
  • Log off and back on again.
  • For all users, make the same change to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Keyboard\InitialKeyboardIndicators

Adding / Removing Additional Programs

By default, WindowsXP does not display all the programs you can add or remove.
To show this list:

Edit the \Windows\Inf\sysoc.inf file

In the Components section, simply remove the word hide.
This will leave two commas together (like on the rest of the items).
Then you can go to the Control Panel / Add or Remove Programs / Add/Remove Windows Components and the new items will be displayed.

[Components]
NtComponents=ntoc.dll,NtOcSetupProc,,4
WBEM=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,wbemoc.inf,hide,7
Display=desk.cpl,DisplayOcSetupProc,,7
Fax=fxsocm.dll,FaxOcmSetupProc,fxsocm.inf,,7
NetOC=netoc.dll,NetOcSetupProc,netoc.inf,,7
iis=iis.dll,OcEntry,iis.inf,,7
com=comsetup.dll,OcEntry,comnt5.inf,hide,7
dtc=msdtcstp.dll,OcEntry,dtcnt5.inf,hide,7
IndexSrv_System = setupqry.dll,IndexSrv,setupqry.inf,,7
TerminalServer=TsOc.dll, HydraOc, TsOc.inf,hide,2
msmq=msmqocm.dll,MsmqOcm,msmqocm.inf,,6
ims=imsinsnt.dll,OcEntry,ims.inf,,7
fp_extensions=fp40ext.dll,FrontPage4Extensions,fp40ext.inf,,7
AutoUpdate=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,au.inf,hide,7
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7
msnexplr=ocmsn.dll,OcEntry,msnmsn.inf,,7
smarttgs=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,msnsl.inf,,7
RootAutoUpdate=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,rootau.inf,,7


Games=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,games.inf,,7
AccessUtil=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,accessor.inf,,7
CommApps=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,communic.inf,HIDE,7
MultiM=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,multimed.inf,HIDE,7
AccessOpt=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,optional.inf,HIDE,7
Pinball=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,pinball.inf,HIDE,7
MSWordPad=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,wordpad.inf,HIDE,7
ZoneGames=zoneoc.dll,ZoneSetupProc,igames.inf,,7

Changing Visual Effects

To change visual effects such as fade menus, mouse shadow, visual styles on buttons, drop shadows for icons, slide open boxes and buttons etc.:

  • Right click on My Computer
  • Select Properties
  • Click on the Advanced tab
  • Under Performance, click on the Settings button
  • From here you have a list of items you can select

Increasing System Performance

If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can increase system performance
by having the core system kept in memory.

  • Start Regedit
  • Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive
  • Set the value to be 1
  • Reboot the computer

Disabling Hibernation

If you don't want to use up the disk space taken by Hibernation, or don't need to use it at all,
you can easily disable it.

  • Open up the Control Panel / Power Options icon
  • Click on the Hibernation icon
  • Uncheck Enable Hibernation

Speeding Up the Display of Start Menu Items

An easy way to speed up the display of the Start Menu Items is to turn off the menu shadow.

  1. Right click on an open area of the Desktop

  2. Select Properties

  3. Click on the Appearance tab

  4. Click on the Effects button

  5. Uncheck Show shadows under menus

Disabling Balloon Tips

To turn off balloon tips in applications that support XP Themes:

  • Start Regedit

  • Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\

  • Change the value of EnableBalloonTips from 1 to 0

Creating a Shutdown/Reboot Icon

WindowsXP has a program called SHUTDOWN.EXE which allows you to easily create icons to shutdown or restart your computer.

To create a shutdown shortcut on the desktop:

  • Right click on an open area of the desktop
  • Select New / Shortcut
  • Enter in "shutdown -s -t 00" - no quotes
  • Press the Next button
  • For the name, enter in anything you like. I just use shutdown. Click on the Finish button.

For a reboot, enter "shutdown -r -t 00"

Shutdown [{-l|-s|-r|-a}] [-f] [-m [\\ComputerName]] [-t xx] [-c "message"] [-d[u][p]:xx:yy]

Parameters

  • -l - Logs off the current user, this is also the defualt. -m ComputerName takes precedence.
  • -s - Shuts down the local computer.
  • -r - Reboots after shutdown.
  • -a - Aborts shutdown. Ignores other parameters, except -l and ComputerName. You can only use -a during the time-out period.
  • -f - Forces running applications to close.
  • -m [\\ComputerName] - Specifies the computer that you want to shut down.
  • -t xx - Sets the timer for system shutdown in xx seconds. The default is 20 seconds.
  • -c "message" - Specifies a message to be displayed in the Message area of the System Shutdown window. You can use a maximum of 127 characters. You must enclose the message in quotation marks.

Creating an Automated Install of WindowsXP

On the WindowsXP CP, in the SUPPORT\TOOLS directory,
there is a file called DEPLOY.CAB.

  • Extract the programs DEPLOY.CHM (help file) and SETUPMGR.EXE (main program)
  • Run SETUPMGR and answer the prompts.
  • This will create both a unattend.bat and unattend.txt file you can use for automated installs.
  • Note: The batch file might need some minor modification for file locations but it is fairly basic.

Increasing Graphics Performance

By default, WindowsXP turns on a lot of shadows, fades, slides etc to menu items.
Most simply slow down their display.

To turn these off selectively:

  • Right click on the My Computer icon
  • Select Properties
  • Click on the Advanced tab
  • Under Performance, click on the Settings button
  • To turn them all of, select Adjust for best performance
  • My preference is to leave them all off except for Show shadows under mouse pointer and Show window contents while dragging

Disabling Error Reporting

By default, WindowsXP will request to report application errors to Microsoft.
To turn this off:

  • Right click on the My Computer icon on the desktop
  • Select Properties / Advanced
  • Click on the Error Reporting tab
  • Check Disable error reporting

Hiding System Tray Icons

With WindowsXP, you can manually select how you want individual icons in the System Tray to be displayed.

  • Right click on the Taskbar
  • Select Properties
  • Check Hide inactive icons
  • Click on the Customize button
  • This will bring up a dialog box that will allow you to select one of three options for your applications:
    Hide when inactive, Always hide,     or always show
  • Highlight current or past applications and make any changes you like.
  • A small arrow will now appear in the System Tray that will allow you to show or hide these icons.

Turning Off the Guest Account

For security purposes, you might want to turn off the Guest account

  • Open up the Control Panel
  • Click on User Accounts
  • Click on Change an account
  • Click on the Guest account
  • Click Turn off the guest account

Turning Off the Firewall

If you want to turn off the firewall for your computer:

  • Go to Start / Settings / Network Connections
  • Right click on the network connection you want to change
  • Select Properties
  • Click on the Advanced tab
  • Uncheck the box in Internet Connection Firewall

Rollback a Device Driver

If you install a device drive that does not work correctly,
you can restore the previous one fairly easily.

  • Log in with an administrator account
  • Right click on My Computer
  • Select Properties
  • Click on the Hardware tab
  • Click on the Device Manager button
  • Go to the device you want to reconfigure
  • Click on the Driver tab
  • Click on the Roll Back Drive button

Renaming the Start Button

To rename the start button, you will need a hex editor.
My preference is UltraEdit

  • Copy the \windows\explore.exe file to a new name (e.g. explorer_1.exe)
  • With the hex editor, open that file and go to offset 412b6
  • You will see the word start with blanks between each letter
  • Edit it be any 5 characters or less
  • Save the file
  • Boot to DOS
  • Copy the existing c:\windows\explorer.exe to explorer.org
  • Copy explorer_1.exe to explorer.exe
  • You will also need to replace the explorer.exe in the c:\windows\system32\dllcache file as well with the new one.

Note: If the partition is NTFS and you can't access the files from DOS:

  • Start Regedit
  • Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon.
  • Change the value of Shell from Explorer.exe to explorer_1.exe

Decreasing Boot Time

Microsoft has made available a program to analyze and decrease the time it takes to boot to WindowsXP
The program is called BootVis

  • Uncompress the file.
  • Run BOOTVIS.EXE
  • For a starting point, run Trace / Next Boot + Driver Delays
  • This will reboot your computer and provide a benchmark
  • After the reboot, BootVis will take a minute or two to show graphs of your system startup.
  • Note how much time it takes for your system to load (click on the red vertical line)
  • Then run Trace / Optimize System
  • Re-Run the Next Boot + Drive Delays
  • Note how much the time has decreased
  • Mine went from approximately 39 to 30 seconds.

Set the Online Registration as Being Completed

You can set WindowsXP to assume the online registration has been completed.

  • Run Regedit
  • Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion
  • Create a String Value called RegDone
  • Give it a value of 1

Creating a Boot Floppy

To create a bootable floppy from within WindowsXP:

  • Insert a floppy into the A: drive
  • Open the Explorer
  • Right click on the A: Drive
  • Select Format
  • Check Create an MS-DOS startup disk
  • Click on the Start button
  • This will create a Millennium boot disk

Stop Password Expiration

If you are getting an error message that your password is about to expire:

  • Right click on the My Computer icon
  • Select Manage
  • Go to Local Users and Groups / Users
  • Right-click on the user you want to change
  • Select Properties
  • On the General tab, check Password never expires
  • Click OK

Changing the Registered Owner

  • Start Regedit
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
  • From there you can edit the name in the Registered Owner key

Allowing Network Access with Blank Passwords

Although you can log in locally without a password, by default, WindowsXP Pro does not allow network users to access the computer without a password. Typically you will receive an Unknown error 31 if this is the case.

To change this setting:

  • Run gpedit.msc
  • Go to Computer Configuration / Windows Settings / Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options
  • Double click on Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console login only
  • Disable this option

Changing Drive Letters

If you want to change the letters assigned to your fixed or removable drives:

  • Right Click on My Computer
  • Select Manage
  • Select Disk Management

For a Fixed Disk:

  • Select it
  • Right click
  • Select Change Drive Letter and Path
  • Click on the Edit button
  • Enter in the letter you want to use

For a Removable Disk:

  • In the lower, right hand panel, right click on the Disk or CD ROM # 
  • Select Change Drive Letter and Path
  • Click on the Edit button
  • Enter in the letter you want to use

No To All When Overwriting Files

When overwriting files in the Windows Explorer, there is an option for Yes To All.
This would overwrite any files you would normally be prompted for.

To have No To All, simply hold down the Shift key while you click on the No option.

Logging in as Administrator

If you want to log in as Administrator, but it is not show on the Welcome screen,

  • Hold the Ctrl-Alt key and press Del twice.
  • This will bring up the normal login and you can log on as Administrator

To unhide the Administrator account show it does show up:

  • Start Regedit
  • Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList
  • Unhide the Administrator key by giving it a value of 1

No GUI Boot

If you don't need to see the XP boot logo,

  • Run MSCONFIG
  • Click on the BOOT.INI tab
  • Check the box for /NOGUIBOOT

Adding windows XP SafeBoot to the Boot Menu

You can add Safeboot as an option to the normal XP boot screen

  • Open a command prompt
  • Copy the current c:\boot.ini to another name (just in case)
  • With your favorite text editor, edit c:\boot.ini
  • Copy then edit the current boot line to another line. For example:
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
    might copy and then change to:
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Safeboot" /fastdetect
  • Start MSCONFIG
  • Click on the BOOT.INI tab
  • Highlight the second line with the additional name of Safeboot
  • Check the /SAFEBOOT box with option you want
    Minimal - Minimal set of drivers
    Network - With Network Support
    Dsrepair - Directory Services Repair
    Minimal (Alternate Shell) - Standard Explorer Desktop
  • You will now have this option every time you start XP

ReInstalling WindowsXP

If you need to reinstall WindowsXP and want to keep all your current installed applications and settings:

  • Start WindowsXP

  • Go to the location of your source files

  • Run WINNT32 /unattend

You've often need to do this to repair something that had gotten corrupted and didn't want to do a clean install.