Windows Tips&Tricks

Add_Remove more Windows Components like MSN Explorer and the Accessories programs

This tweak lets you uninstall Windows Components such as MSN Explorer and programs in the Accessories menu on the 'All Programs' menu.

1. Edit the hidden system file SYSOC.INF in the Windows/System/Inf folder (or WINNT/System/Inf if you upgraded from NT or 2000).
2. Delete all instances of the word HIDE. Don't put any spaces inbetween the commas.
3. Save your changes.
4. Open 'Add or Remove Programs' in Control Panel.
5. Click on 'Add/Remove Windows Components. You will now see options for 'Accessories and Utilities' (the programs in the Accessories menu on the Start panel), MSN Explorer and several other components.
6. Uncheck the tick box to remove that component or check it to install it from your XP CD.

Be careful what components you remove though!

Disable error reporting

Open Control Panel
Click on Preformance and Maintenance.
Click on System.
Then click on the Advanced tab
Click on the error reporting button on the bottom of the windows.
Select Disable error reporting.
Click OK
Click OK

Get Messenger to run again after uninstall
It seems when you uninstall Messenger (using the tweaks on this site) the policy is automatically set to prevent it running.
This causes the symptom of clicking on the Messenger shortcut and seeing an hourglass for a second or two but the program not loading.
To get Messenger installed again requires more than just reinstalling the program from Windows Update or a downloaded installer.
After that you have to change the following registry entry with regedit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client
You should change the PreventRun value from (1) to (0)

Increase available bandwidth for network connections
This will help increase your bandwidth for any network connection in Windows XP PRO.

1. Make sure your logged on as actually "Administrator". do not log on with any account that just has administrator privileges. To log in as an administrator:
-click on start->logoff->logoff
-in the logon screen hold Ctrl+Alt+Del.
-in the user field type 'Administrator' <-case sensitive.
-in the password field type the password for the administrator (if you don't have one leave blank)
-press ok

2. Start - run - type gpedit.msc
3. Expand the "Computer configuration" branch
4. Expand the "Administrative templates" branch
5. Expand the "Network" branch
6. Highlight the "QoS Packet Scheduler" in left window
7. In right window double click the "limit reservable bandwidth" setting
8. On setting tab check the "enabled" item
9. Where it says "Bandwidth limit %" change it to read 0-- Click apply, OK, exit gpedit.msc
10. Go to your Network connections (start->my computer->my network connection-> view network connections). Right click on your connection, choose properties then under the General or the Networking tab (where it lists your protocols) make sure QoS packet scheduler is enabled.
11. Reboot , now you are all done.

This is more of a "counter what XP does" thing. In other words, XP seems to want to reserve 20% of the bandwidth for itself even with QoS disabled. So why not use it to your advantage. To demonstrate the problem, start up a big download from a server with an FTP client. Try to find a server that doesn't max out your bandwidth. In this case you want a slow to medium speed server to demonstrate this. Let it run for a couple of minutes to get stable. The start up another download from the same server with another instance of your FTP client. You will notice that the available bandwidth is now being fought over and one of the clients download will be very slow or both will slow down when they should both be using the available bandwidth. Using this "tweak" both clients will have a fair share of the bandwidth and will not fight over the bandwidth.

Make mIRC identd work!
If you use mIRC then you have noticed that the Ident requests do not get answered and mIRC will only connect to servers that do not require Ident. This is due to the built in "Internet Connection Firewall" in XP. Here is how to get it working without disabling the entire firewall:

1. Go into Control Panel-> Network Connections
2. Right click "Local Area Network" and select "Properties"
3. Left click the advanced tab
4. Left click the settings button
5. Under services, left click the add button
6. For description type "Ident", for Name of IP put the name that identifies your system with your ISP OR your IP if it is static.
7. Both external and internal ports are 113 by default and TCP.
8. Click OK all the way out.
No reboot is needed and the Identd function now goes through without a hitch. This should work for any programs that use port 113 for Identd.
Enjoy your chatting again!

Reduce 10 second scandisk wait time
Start MS Dos Prompt (Start run CMD)
CHKNTFS/T:4
where 4 is the amount of waity time

Speed up browsing with DNS catch

when you connect to a web site your computer sends information back and forth, this is obvious. Some of this information deals with
resolving the site name to an IP address, the stuff that tcp/ip really deals with, not words.
This is DNS information and is used so that you will not need to ask for the site location each and every time you visit the site.
Although WinXP and win2000 has a pretty efficient DNS cache, you can increase its overall performance by increasing its size.

begin copy and paste
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters]
"CacheHashTableBucketSize"=dword:00000001
"CacheHashTableSize"=dword:00000180
"MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000fa00
"MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000012d
end copy and paste
make a new text file and rename it to dnscache.reg. The copy and paste the above into it and save it. Then merge it into the registry

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