BEFORE WE GET STARTED: I was going to do a bit on straight registry stuff, but I thought a coupla things should be mentioned. if you're already a pro on the basics, go ahead and skip ahead, as I should've mentioned this stuff Day 1... but it still needs mentionin' for the newer users.


TWEAKXP NOTE: I recently ran "TweakXP" for freeing up memory resources... it was only able to free up 4 megs of memory. I decided it was probably taking up more resources running than it was saving... Tweaking always feels rewarding as hell when you can win out an optimizer

WINDOWS UPDATES:

The folks at Microsoft are CONSTANTLY screwing up. Hackers and programmers point out those holes, and then we get an update... if you don't have your updates, you could be missing
something that could improve compatibility and or performance. (there were new updates for Windows Virtual Machine's security TODAY if that gives you the truth of that statement)

HOW TO UPDATE WINDOWS: This is pretty easy stuff. Just go to "Microsoft Internet Explorer", Go to "Tools","Windows Update"... scan for updates, and it should give you a list of stuff you probably should update. Read "Updating Your Drivers" before you update those, but anything labeled "Critical Updates" and "Suggested Updates" are usually pretty decent.

Note that if you have a ripped copy of Windows XP, it will die when combined with Service Pack 1 (saying you don't have a registered number). Also, I've heard from a few folks that Direct X 9 has had issues with the ripped version. You've been warned...

NOTE: I am using a legit copy of Microsoft Windows XP Home for these experiments. If you have Pro, all of these will work, but you have a few other tweaks you can pull to speed up your
network operations and some other stuff... I will probably post these later.

DRIVERS:

THREE DIFFERENT WAYS TO ACCESS THE DEVICE MANAGER:

Control Panel, System, Hardware, Device Manager
Right Click "My Computer", Properties, Hardware, Device Manager

OR

Start, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Device Manager. Now then, the advantage to this route is the fact that you have a lot of other options available to you (check out the pic)




WHATEVER WAY YA WANNA DO IT, just be into your Device Manager.

DRIVERS:

Your drivers tell your software what the hell to do with your hardware. That in itself isn't THAT exciting... but a single crappy driver can cause a LOT of issues. A crap Video Driver can
cause you a LOT of issues... and can serious make your gaming life hell.

Now then... if you have a network card with an "X" on it... it means that it's not connected to anything, and is disabled... this keeps XP from bugging the hell out of you with "A network Device is unplugged"

DETONATOR DRIVERS: There are the video card drivers that came with your card... then there are detonator drives (for GeForce Cards anyway). Check your version under "Nview" in your control panel. Go on the internet and check your version against the latest... Upgrade if ya need to!

When you pull up your device manager... it should be clean. No red "X"s on anything, and no Yellow Questionmarks or exclamation points. Symbols and colors are your enemy in the device manager! Now then, if this list is nice and clean, move on to "updating drivers"... if not, here's a couple of suggestions for you:

Reload the drivers that came with the device. If they still suck, check the company's web-site

for an update...

IF NOTHING HELPS:

Pull the damn thing. It could be it will NEVER load correctly. Sometimes, it's not the driver, it's the device that is bad. If it's not hurting anything, and it works, leave it alone...

Things like Modems will work with a bum driver... not WELL, but they PROBABLY won't affect the rest of the system performance aside from the fact the internet is going to run REALLY SLOW. Sometimes a single bum driver can cause all kinds of crap though...

DRIVER UPDATES:

DON'T DOWNLOAD EVERY NEW DRIVER!!!

I have a web-cam that if I update the driver... my rig won't power down. So, I just ignore it on

the list of "Windows Updates"... If everything is working fine, and the driver in question

doesn't say something to the effect of "this will increase performance"... you should probably

skip it. The exception is Video Drivers... I'd wait a month before loadin' up the latest drivers

just to make sure they are no issues.

ONE LAST THING BEFORE WE GET STARTED:

There is a deal in Windows XP that is called "Prefetch" and it is supposed to help speed up operations... the problem is it collects stuff you'll probably only use once. To get in there,

go to: start, run, "C:/windows/prefetch" (C: being the assumed drive Windows is on) I found a ton of stuff I was REALLY glad to clean off my rig 'cause it was a one-shot deal... or
there were programs I've uninstalled that were still hangin' around in here!

BACK TO THE REGISTRY:

Your registry is a magical place that even my former boss... a guy with 15 years of hard-core time in the computer industry... said he didn't completely understand every part of.

If you use System Restore, this is a GOOD TIME to create a restore point.


GETTING STARTED WITH REGISTRY TWEAKING:

NOTE: Special thanks to "Ice Czar" for posting a neat little list of registry tweaks. I might have forgotten them if he hadn't have posted 'em a little while ago. Most of 'em are here! Thanks dude!


Go to Start, Run and type in "Regedit". This will put you into your registry. I know I've warned ya once before but this is important... I had a neighbor who played with her registry all the time... she was CONSTANTLY having errors and her computer was down more than up.

ALSO NOTE: The only registry tricks I've posted here are things I have tried and tested... If you know some ways to do more registry tweaking, drop me a line... I'll test it out if it looks
promising.

Okay... in the registry, you should see a list that looks like this:



For every other change you make, you should restart your system. This SHOULD tell you what to fix if you need to step back... If you really feel like it, you could restart after every tweak,
but that gets old fast. I wouldn't go more than three tweaks between restarts as if something IS screwed up, trying to remember which ones you changed gets REAL fun.

MEMORY TWEAK:

This tweak forces Windows to cough up those DLLs out of memory:

Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Explorer

You should see two keys in this folder called "Default" and"Icon Underline". Add a DWORD sub-key named 'AlwaysUnloadDLL' (You do this by right clicking, hitting "New" and putting the name in.

Set the value of this key to "1" by right clicking, selecting "Modify" and changing it from 0 to 1.

DARK'S VERDICT: I haven't noticed a real performance boost with this one, but I haven't been running a lot of intensive stuff lately. This just forces Windows to cough back up some of the
memory it loves to keep hold of.

Automaticly Close Hung Apps:

Instead of gettin' bugged with that "End Task in 20 seconds" deal... the friggin' thing'll just shut down!

Go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. change the value of "AutoEndTasks" from "0" to "1".

DARK'S VERDICT: Cool little tweak. Anything that stops crap from poppin' up on my screen is a good thing... I don't like to be bothered when I told the damn thing to shut off anyway!

Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contro l. Change "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" from from 20000 to 10000.

DARK'S VERDICT: Awesome little tweak. Improves performance on a STABLE rig... I had to put this key back on an unstable one because it made it's errors more frequent... you know who you are.

Go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Change "MenuShowDelay" from "400" to "100". This REALLY makes things like going to "My Documents" feel supah-charged!

DARK'S VERDICT: a KICK ASS tweak. Still... same deal as above... it can cause an unstable system to act even stranger. For my system though, it was like throwin' gas on a fire!

NTFS TWEAKS:

Go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentContolSet\Control \Filesystem.

Change "NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate" from 0 to 1. If this key is not already there, go ahead and add it as a "REG_DWORD" registry key.

DARK'S VERDICT: Not a bad tweak... has sped things up a little. This tweak is for disabling "last access date/time updates". If you really like keepin' track of where you were last, you may want to keep this one.

Okay... services like "Gain", "Gator", "SAVENOW" and a couple other REALLY tweak me off. I

absolutely HATE things coming up I didn't ask for.

Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software, and check it out.

Go down and check out which programs you never wanna see again. Make sure to try to nuke 'em out of "Add/Remove Programs" first, also, for more of these Lavasoft's "Adaware" will remove the offending keys... if you wanna make sure, go to the above registry key and wipe out gator.com, savenow, and anything else you can WITHOUT A DOUBT know what the key belongs to that you don't want!


LAST BIT OF ADVICE FOR TODAY:

Tired of having to delete stuff twice? Kill the recycle bin. Right click on "Recycle Bin", Select "Properties", and then the "Global" tab. Check the "Do Not Move Files to the Recycle Bin" box.

(*whew!* this was fun to put together... let me tell ya!)

Good stuff DS, the "waite 20 sec" popup one in particular. I hate it when that damn thing pops up. Like, no I don't really want that program shut down that I just to you to shut down... 8P

wow i never knew it but ive been doing this stuff before! haha i dont feel as dumb anymore! yay for me! i guess thats what happens when you sit infront of the pc for 16hours a day =p

Hey dark do you know the regedit for 98 when you cant get online with explorer? I know some of it but cant rember all of it. I needed it the other day.

Mirage... sorry dude, I don't remember... I never had many problems with IE...

I had "Office" crashing all the time (Win 98 isn't one of my favorites), but no real problems with IE, so I never really bothered with it much.

Most of the machines that came across my desk in my PC repair days were usually denied internet access by a virus or because Windows ME just sucks ass... usually just updating the version fixed the problem.

I actually didn't know there was a reg key for re-establishing a connection... if ya ever find it, let me know!

Thanks for confirming the xp home/pro for me ,now I have to do this to the laptop.

hey dark, nice tweaks, one of them makes it so wen i boot up i canty read the mhz my cpu is operating at for like 5 minutes, dont know wich one i jsut redid them all but the showmenu delay one, just letting peopel know case anyone else has this problem.