windows

Since Windows XP SP2, you can disable writing to USB devices via registry: [HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies] “WriteProtect”=dword:00000001 To enable write to USB, set this to 0.

When your Start menu overflows,it isn’t possible to list all the entries in a single column.Then, Windows either creates a second column or a scrolling menu.You can control this through the registry.Navigate to the

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

and select the entry called ‘StartMenuScrollPrograms’.If it’s not present, create a new String value called ‘StartMenuScrollPrograms’. Specify the value as ‘Yes’ if you want the Start menu to scroll, and ‘No’ if you need the Start menu as multiple columns.

Internet Explorer installations distributed by companies other than Microsoftmight have their names in the title bar.If you want to change this,navigate to

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

and edit or create a string value entry called ‘Window Title’. Double-click the entry and enter any string you want. Leave it blank if you want to remove the default string.You’ll need to restart Internet Explorer for the change to take effect.

To create a personalised logon message in XP, go to

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

In the right pane, double-click the string entry ‘LegalNoticeCaption’,enter the string ‘ My Windows XP Machine’ & click OK.Next, double-click the ‘LegalNotice Text’ string entry, and enter the message to be displayed.

Windows XP displays 3 different screens during boot-up. The 2nd screen is the one that says “Welcome”. To change this, navigate to

 HKEY USERS\DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

Under this key, you will find an entry named ‘Wallpaper’; double-click it & enter the path of the image file you want displayed.The file can be a BMP or JPEG image. If you want to tile the image, set the value of the ‘TileWallPaper’ entry to 1. If you want to stretch the wallpaper, set the value of the ‘WallPaperStyle’ entry to 2.

When this tweak is applied,the device manager in Windows 2000/XP willshow an extra tab called ‘Details’. Selecting this tab will provide additionalinformation about the device. Go to

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Environment

Here,you’ll find a string entry with the name ‘DEVMGR_SHOW_DETAILS’; if there isn’t one, create it.Assign this entry a value of ‘1’if you want the system to display the details tab; to hide the tab, assign it a value of ‘0’.

Windows XP sometimes takes a really long time to open folders with AVI files.This is because XP tries to get information about the files.To disable this feature, open the registry and go to

 HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}

Append a [-] (a minus sign) in front of the ‘{87D…’ key, so that it becomes something like ‘- {87D…’.

At times, when there’s a dearth of RAM, the system will move some portion of the main memory to the hard disk. Obviously, this slows down the system, but there’s nothing much that can be done about it. In case your system is blessed with loads of RAM (256 MB or more) and runs Windows NT, 2000 or XP, you can use this tweak to prevent the kernel mode code from being moved to the hard disk. While this will improve system performance, it may affect programs that rely on Windows swap^? space. So if you notice any eccentric behaviour after applying this setting, revert to the previous setting. Go to

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\MemoryManagement.

Look for a DWORD entry called ‘DisablePagingExecutive’ ; set it to ‘1’to disable the kernel being paged. if you face problems,set it back to ‘0’.

All open windows are refreshed at a predefined interval; but when there’re too many windows open, and a paucity of memory, they often appear blank—a file copied to a folder may not appear immediately on the window. This tweak allows you to set a faster refresh rate for open windows.Go to

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Update

Create or modify the DWORD key called ‘UpdateMode’. Assign it a value of ‘0’ for a faster refresh rate, and ‘1’ for default.

When a menu is opened, Windows opens the menu after a small delay. For example, after clicking on Start, the Programs menu takes ages to expand. This is because the ‘Menushowdelay’ entry has been given a large value.Open the key

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

and modify or create a string value named ‘MenuShowDelay’. In this entry, give the required delay in milliseconds; the accepted limit is 0 to 999.

Windows XP will show a warning message whenever the drive is low on disk space. For some reason, whether we have an 8 GB or 80 GB hard drive, it’s never enough, and this message just gets irritating after a while.To suppress it, go to

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

and create or modify the DWORD value called ‘NoLowDiskSpaceChecks’. A value of ‘1’ will disable the warning message, ‘0’ will enable it.

Internet Explorer incessantly creates the ‘Links’ folder under the Favourites section, even if the user deletes it.You can get rid of it permanently by going to

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\Toolbar

Set the value of the ‘LinksFolderName’entry as a blank string. Now, open IE and delete the Links folder. It will no longer be displayed under Favourites.

When you right-click a file, you get a menu called context menu. This tweak shows you how you can add two useful entries to it, namely,‘Copy To’ and ‘Move To’.Therefore, copying and moving files can be done in 2 steps. To add the ‘Copy To’ option, go to

 HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlersand

create a subkey called ‘CopyTo’. Select the key you created and in the right pane, modify the value of the ‘Default’ entry to ‘{C2FBB630-297111d1A18C00C04FD75D13}’.
Similarly,navigate to

 HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

and create a sub-key named ‘Copy To’and give the same default value as above. For the ‘Move To’ option, duplicate the above mentioned steps, but rename the subkeys as ‘Move To’ and the Default values as: ‘{C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}’. Now when you right click on any file or folder—except on the Desktop you will get these two options.

Using this tweak, you can open applications from the context menu of the Startbutton, i.e. by right-clicking on the Start button. Open the registry and select the

 HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell

key.Create a new sub-key named after the program you want to associate it with, say, Notepad. Now select this key and create another sub-key named ‘Command’ and set its ‘Default’ entry value as the path to the executable for example, ‘C:Windows\notepad.exe’.

Most users don’t use all the items in the Start menu.Entries such as Help are sometimes or never used at all. Using this tweak, you can selectively remove items from the Start menu. Go to :

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

and add a DWORD entry for each item you want to remove.
Here’s some examples of items: ‘NoRecentDocsMenu’ removes the Documents menu. ‘NoFavoritesMenu’ removes the Favourites menu. ‘NoFind’ removes the Find command from the Start menu.‘NoRun’ removes the Run command.‘NoClose’ removes the Shutdown command (be careful as it prevents you from shutting down Windows ). ‘NoSetTaskbar’ removes the Taskbar command in the Settings subfolder on the Startmenu. Adding this entry will also prevent a user from making changes to the taskbar by right-clicking on the taskbar and selecting Properties. In Windows 2000 and XP,adding ‘NoSMHelp’ will remove thehelp item and ‘NoCommonGroups’ will remove all the entries located in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu and its subfolders.After adding any entry,assign it a value of ‘1’ to remove the item from the Start Menu, or ‘0’ to bring it back.

If you’re tired of having to delete things twice and the Recycle Bin seems redundant, you can remove it. Using this tweak, you can force Windows to delete files directly—be sure that you don’t want files to be stored in the Recycle bin. Go to

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BitBucket

and create a DWORD entry named ‘NukeOnDelete’.Give this a value of ‘1’ to disable the Recycle bin and ‘0’ to enable it.

Certain program entries do remain in the Add/Remove programs list owing to an uninstallations that go haywire. This tweak enables you to do away with those. Go to

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Uninstall.

Under this key,you will find sub-keys for each program installed.Right-click and delete all the entries you want removed from the Add\Remove programs list.

By default the text in Firefox appears jagged compared to IE on LCD screen under Windows. Looks like IE7+ uses ClearType by default, but you need to turn it on system-wide for other programs to use it in Windows XP. How do you turn on antialiasing in Firefox ? Follow these steps to enable Cleartype for smooth edges for screen fonts:

Desktop -> Right Click -> Display Properties -> Appearance -> Effects

Then enable "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts:" choose ClearType as your option and then apply the settings, that’s it you are done. Now the windows, Firefox and IE displays the text or font properly rendered with smooth or soft edges.

To further adjust cleartype experience, use ClearType Web tuner or downloadable PowerToy Tuner from the Microsoft typography page.

Reason 1: The ESC button is stuck.Solution: Re-hit Esc. You can try this out. Press and hold the Esc (Escape) button on your keyboard and try to drag-and-drop icons or files. They won't budge, trust me. I truly cannot believe my luck.
Reason 2: Sometimes has to do with installation of new hardware (particularly mice), sometimes may follow installation of new registry editing software, sometimes the cause is unknown. Solution:

1. Create a backup of your registry
2. Copy the text from the code box (below) into an instance of notepad (or another pure text editor).
3. Save the text as "dragdropfix.reg"
4. Double click on the file in Windows to merge it with the registry.
5. The drag-drop issue should be repaired.

 Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{0000010e-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
 @="IDataObject"
 
 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{0000010e-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\NumMethods]
 @="12"
 
 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{0000010e-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\ProxyStubClsid32]
 @="{00000320-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
 
 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{00000320-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
 @="oleprx32_PSFactoryBuffer"
 
 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{00000320-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\InprocServer32]
 @="C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\ole32.dll"
 "ThreadingModel"="Both"

More reasons...

After almost everybody knows the <<EventID 4226: TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts>>, I used a day to create for educational purpose a fix for this argumentative feature.
Unfortunately there exists no REG-key which could easily be set (would be so nice and easy, right? *smile*). The file TCPIP.SYS in the directory C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS and C:\WINDOWS\SERVICEPACKFILES\I386 has to be changed (system dependend eventually in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DLLCACHE, too).
Fixed by LvLord patch.

Vuse installed the "askservice.exe" annoyance even though I told it not to. It installs as a windows service, that's why it automatically restarts. -- To disable (XP): Start / Administrative Tools / Services / AskService right click and Stop, then AskUpgrade - right click and Stop - then for both: right click > Properties > General (tab) > Startup Type > Disabled, then as an added precaution - Recovery (tab): Change all "Restart the Service" to "Take No Action".
Nice tool to find such annoyances is HijackThis.

Problem discussed here1 and here2.
Tools that help:

1. VAIOsoft Recovery Manager
2. HDD Low Level Format Tool
3. diskmgmt.msc
4. registry editing: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies\WriteProtect(DWORD)=0

A windows ext2/ext3 driver writen by Stephan Schreiber that supports read/write and many other operations except for permissions modification and defragmentation. The driver is implemented at the kernel level, so all Win32 programs will have direct access to ext2/ext3 partitions.
Or, try ext2fsd

Branches for 32-bit applications are created not in HKLM\SOFTWARE, but under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node

Run regedt32, find the registry entry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services, look for the service there and delete it. You can look at the keys to know what files the service was using and delete them as well (if necessary).
Alternatively, you can also use command prompt and delete a service using following command:

 sc delete <service name>

Set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameterssubkey : "IPEnableRouter" to 1 and restart Windows.(from here)

http://www.linux-sxs.org/networking/openssh.putty.html

1. First you need to get the DirectShow filter.
2. Then you'll need WMP Tag Support Extender.
3. Avoid codec packs. Stick to individual official codecs - it helps a lot with troubleshooting. There's a list of filters.