ere are a few tips if you use WinXP. Some of these are to be used with caution. Everything was virus checked with NOD32 and is clean. (And if you've never heard of NOD32 - time to go look at it.) This is the list of tweaks which I apply no matter what, come hell or high water, on any clean XP install. 1. Get out of Teletubby Land. Right click on My Computer and select Properties/Advanced/Performance Settings. Click Best Performance. Click ok. Done. Reset the damn background to something, ANYTHING but the default one. Ahhhhhh..... so much better. 2. Setting folders the way they bloody well should be - FUNCTIONAL Open My Documents. In the View menu, select Status Bar, List, and Arrange Icons by Name. Next, right click on an empty spot in the My Documents toolbar and select Customize. Choose any of the Available Toolbar Buttons you wish (or remove) and click Add / Remove. Click to the Tools menu and select Folder Options. Under the View tab, tell XP to show you the full path, to show hidden and system files, not to hide any file extensions, and not to hide protected folders--plus any other settings you want. When you have the folder options set the way you desire, click the "Apply to all folders" button at the top of the dialog. This adjusts all windows opened by Explorer, so they'll inherit the visual choices you made for this one window. (You can always reset it if you don't like it.) 3. I liked the old search, thank you very much If you want to use the classic search engine in the Internet Explorer Start Regedit Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain If it is not there, create a String Value of Use Search Asst Give it a value of no If you prefer to use the classic search style in Explorer, Start Regedit Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerCabinetState Add a String Key called Use Search Asst Give it a value of no (I have a registry file for both of those, if anyone wants them) 4. OMFG! OVERKILL! Right click on the Recycle Bin, select Properties, and on the Global tab, decide how much space you want the Recycle Bin to consume. It does not need that much. Do you really need to keep over a gig of deleted files? PER DRIVE? Check those settings, they are nuts. Make sure you adjust them per drive. You think that's nuts? You're in for a shock. Open Internet Explorer, and select Tools/Internet Options. Under Temporary Internet Files, click the Settings button and select a reasonable size for this cache area. Generally speaking, if you have a fast connection, 5 Mbytes to 10 Mbytes is adequate; 25 Mbytes or so is usually enough with a slower dial-up connection. On my machine, XP would like to store 916mb of temporary files. I DON'T THINK SO, Mr. Gates! 5. I have my own graphics prog I want to use to view pics, go away Win Fax/Picture viewer If the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer is set as the default for many of your graphic file types, you can remove it so other graphics programs can be used. Run Regedit Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT / SystemFileAssociations / image / ShellEx / ContextMenuHandlers Delete the key ShellImagePreview (Got a registry file for that one too) 6. Guest? I don't have no stinkin guests. Do I look like a B&B! 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 7. Ain't got no fast users either! Open Control panel. User Accounts. Then "Change the way users log on". Turn off the welcome screen and fast user switching. Apply options. 8. Stop the damn error reporting already! Right click on the My Computer icon on the desktop Select Properties / Advanced Click on the Error Reporting tab Check Disable error reporting No more damned popups when it goes wrong. 9. If I want a baloon I go to a fair! To turn off balloon tips in applications that support XP Themes: Start Regedit Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced Create a DWORD value of EnableBalloonTips Give it a value of 0 (Again, I have a reg file if anyone wants it) 10. Internet time server! You can set your system clock to a time server on the Internet. Double-click the time on your taskbar Click the Internet Time tab Check Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server Click on the Update Now button 11. 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_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementDisablePagingExecutive Set the value to be 1 Reboot the computer (BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THIS!!!) (Got reg file for it) 12. NUMLOCK! Give it BACK! To have numlock turned on for each user: Start Regedit Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelKeyboardInitialKeyboardIndicators 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.DEFAULTControl PanelKeyboardInitialKeyboardIndicators (Got reg file for it) 13. Open Windows Explorer with all drives showing and the system folder expanded Open the shortcut. On the first line, put %SystemRoot%explorer.exe /e Save the shortcut. Done.

Silke