Windows Tips

This page includes Windows 98 and XP tips that may be useful in your environment. If you have tips you think will benefit others, feel free to send them to wilson@wssystems.com.

For more tips and tweaks for Windows XP, visit TweakXP.com.
 

WINDOWS UPDATE FAILS AFTER UPGRADING FROM XP HOME TO XP PRO

Download the Standalone version of Windows Update Agent 3.0, saving the WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe in a folder named "C:\Downloads" and executing "C:\Downloads\WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe" /wuforce (including *all* blanks and quotes!) under "Run" in the Start menu:
http://download.windowsupdate.com/v7/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe

 
Afterwards revisit the Windows Update site, let the offered update for WUA3.0 install and see the updates downloading and installing fine. 

ACCELERATE WINDOWS BY TWEAKING VIRTUAL MEMORY (From PC World)

If you have only one hard drive, just leave well enough alone. But if you have two or more internal or external hard drives (not just disk partitions), your PC will be peppier if you keep the default paging file (what Microsoft calls the virtual memory disk space) on your boot drive (the one that holds Windows) and add a paging file to the second drive.

To do so, log in to Windows as an administrator and verify that you have more than one hard drive in your computer: Click Start, Run (just Start in Vista), type diskmgmt.msc, and press <Enter> to open the Disk Management utility (click Continue in the User Account Control, if necessary). The bottom pane shows each disk on your system and the drive letter that corresponds with each partition. To have only one new paging file, choose the fastest drive you have. Remember that an internal drive will be faster than an external drive in most cases. Note the drive letter(s) you'll use.

Now right-click My Computer (Windows 2000 and XP) or Computer (Vista) and choose Properties. In Windows 2000 and XP, select the Advanced tab; in Vista, pick Advanced system settings in the task pane on the left.

Bonus tip: In Vista, you can open the System Properties dialog box directly to the Advanced tab by clicking Start, typing systempropertiesadvanced, and pressing <Enter>. As with the preceding method, you may have to click Continue in the User Account Control dialog box.

In the Performance section, click Settings (Performance Options in Windows 2000) and then the Advanced tab (in XP and Vista). Under Virtual Memory, click Change. In Vista, uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives. You'll see a paging file size already listed on your Windows drive; leave it alone, or Windows won't be able to create a memory dump file with debugging info in the event of a particular type of system error.

Next, in the drive list select a partition on a different drive where you want to add another paging file. Select Custom size if you want to set the size yourself and type in the initial and maximum size (Microsoft says making them the same amount is most efficient); Microsoft's rule of thumb is to make the file 1.5 times the amount of RAM in your system. Or select System managed size to let Windows determine the size (XP and Vista only). Click Set, then OK.

If the partition you selected contains another installation of Windows, you'll receive an error message warning that the file pagefile.sys already exists there. As long as the two operating systems are not running at the same time using virtualization software, it's safe for you to overwrite or delete pagefile.sys, since Windows will re-create the file automatically the next time you boot that partition's Windows installation.

You'll see a reminder that the changes will take effect the next time you restart your system. Windows will most often use the paging file on the least-busy drive, which means your new paging file will do most of the work.

SLIPSTREAMING WINDOWS XP WITH SERVICE PACK 2 (SP2)
If you installed Windows XP SP1 from your original Windows CD and have upgraded to SP2, you may have problems attempting to use your original CD for a "Windows Repair" or other functions that require your original installation CD. But what, exactly, is slipstreaming, you ask? Back when Microsoft was developing Windows 2000, the company decided to create up a more elegant way of integrating service packs and other fixes back into the core OS, so that enterprise customers could always maintain an install set of the latest version of Windows, ready to be installed at any time on new machines. In the NT days, this process was convoluted at best, and service pack installs often required users to reinstall components that had previously been installed. It just wasn't elegant, but Windows 2000 fixed all that, and in XP the slipstreaming process is largely unchanged.

For end users, slipstreaming can also be useful. For example, you can copy the installation directory from your XP CD-ROM to the hard drive, slipstream the XP SP2 files into that installation directory, and than write it back to a recordable CD, giving you a bootable copy of the XP setup disk that includes SP2 right out of the box (so to speak). Click here for detailed instructions on slipstreaming.

HOW TO DISABLE DUMP REPORTING TOOL ON WINDOWS XP (From Eddie On Everything)

If you’ve ever had to use the task manager (CTRL-ALT-DELETE) to kill a “Not Responding” program, you’ve probably been frustrated by the time it takes for the program to actually disappear from your screen. What’s going on here is that a Microsoft provided tool called “Windows Error Dump Reporting,” or “dumprep.exe,” is creating a file containing information about the error that can later be sent back to Microsoft, where it will be summarily ignored along with millions of other error reports.

You can safely disable this largely useless feature (and thus speed up your computer in crash-situations) by taking the following steps.

How to disable dumprep.exe:

• Right click on “My Computer,” choose “Properties” from that menu.

• Click on “Advanced tab,”

• Click the “Error Reporting” button.

• Check the “Disable error reporting” box. You may choose to uncheck the the box below it, “But notify me when an error occurs,” if desired.

• Voila, the annoying dumprep.exe tool is now disabled!

CLEANING UP AFTER WINDOWS XP HOT FIXES (From PC Magazine)
If you've followed PC Magazine's recommendations, your system is now configured to accept Windows updates automatically. When any security update or other critical update is released, you get it without having to lift a finger. Along with each hotfix that Windows automatically installs, you get a couple of bonuses—an Add/Remove Programs entry for that hotfix and a folder containing the files required to uninstall it. Upgrading to Windows XP SP2 clears out the Add/Remove Programs entries, but leaves the folders behind. You may have 60 or 70 of these, subfolders of C:\Windows with names like $NtUninstallKB810217$. Quite a few readers have asked whether they can safely discard these.

Microsoft's official position is that with modern large hard drives it shouldn't really be necessary to remove the uninstall folders. But they admit that there's little reason to retain uninstall data for hotfixes predating the current service pack. If you're squeezed for space, you can delete any of those $NtUninstallKBxxxxxx$ folders whose date/ time stamps clearly show them to be older than the latest service pack you've installed.

The uninstall data for Windows XP SP2 itself resides in a folder named C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$, and the storage cost for this folder can be considerable—400MB or more. Microsoft does not recommend deleting the folder. By doing so you'll give up the possibility of uninstalling SP2. But if you're 100 percent happy with SP2 and desperate for space, you can delete the folder and all its contents without affecting ongoing use of your computer. If after doing so you attempt to launch the SP2 uninstall routine from Add/Remove Programs, Windows will point out that the data is not available and offer to remove the item from the Add/Remove Programs list.

SKIP WINDOWS XP LOGON

Of course, subsequent Windows updates are likely to bring back that unwanted account. For a more permanent solution, download TweakUI from Microsoft. Install and launch TweakUI; unlike earlier versions, the utility launches from the Start menu rather than the Control Panel. Double-click on the Logon item to open it and then click on Autologon. Check the box titled Log on automatically at system startup, enter your user name and password, and click on OK. Now TweakUI will log you on using your user name and password even if more than one account exists.

In the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Keyboard Layout, create a DWORD value named Attributes, if it isn't already present. Double-click on it, then choose Hexadecimal, and set its value to 00010000. Now, when you press and release the Shift key while the Caps Lock is active, Caps Lock will turn off.

This tip applies to both Windows 2000 and XP. But it won't take effect until you restart the computer. After you make this change, the Caps Lock key always turns Caps Lock on; you can no longer use it to turn Caps Lock off. You must turn Caps Lock off by tapping either Shift key. This tip reduces the chances of looking up at your screen only to find that you've typed a whole paragraph in uppercase.

Make sure Outlook isn't running, and choose Start | Run. Enter Regedit, choose OK, navigate to:

HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\ Security.

Then choose Edit | New | String Value and name it Level1Remove. Right-click on Level1Remove, choose Modify, and for its value enter the list of extensions you want to allow, using semicolons to separate the items. Close Regedit and you're done. Outlook will stop blocking files with the extensions on the list.

BALLOON TIPS

Right-click on the right pane, create a new DWORD value, and name it EnableBalloonTips. Then double-click on the new entry and give it a value of 0 (zero). Close the Registry editor and restart Windows.

Note that this change will turn off all the balloon tips, which means that you may have to adjust some other options. If, for example, you have Automatic Update set to notify you before downloading anything, notifications of critical updates won't be as obvious. You may want to change your Automatic Update options or update manually.

CLEANUP

REMOVE WINDOWS MESSENGER IN XP

ADD EXPLORER TO YOUR QUICK LAUNCH TOOLBAR

The next time you want to use Explorer, click once on its Quick Launch icon.

SHUT DOWN WINDOWS FAST!

• SHUTDOWN -s -t 01

To continue, click Next. When the next page appears, type:

SHUT DOWN NOW!

in the Select a Name for the Shortcut text box, and click Finish. Now, when you're ready to shut down Windows, close all your applications as you normally would and then just double click on the new Shut Down Now! icon.

If you're running XP, right-click on the icon, click "Change Icon" and select the XP shutdown icon.

If you have MS IE 5 or later, you can organize your Start Menu alphabetically by right-clicking on any program in the Programs menu and choosing "Sort by Name."

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QUICK RESTART
You can restart just the Windows session without having to go through the whole arduous startup process. Just go to Start, Shut Down, Restart, and hold down the shift key when you hit OK. This will just reload Windows-- and your changes-- without the whole long startup.

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SEE THE MOTHERBOARD AND BIOS ID
To see the motherboard and BIOS ID without opening the case without opening the case (in Windows 98 SE and perhaps earlier versions) try Start, Run, and enter HWINFO /UI. The UI switch is important.

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QUICK INSTALLATIONS
If you have hard disk space to spare and you frequently install and uninstall Windows components, you can speed things up by copying all the CAB files from your Windows CD to your hard drive. Then let Windows know where to look by editing the Registry. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup

In the right pane, highlight SourcePath and choose Modify. Type in the complete path of the folder containing your CAB files.

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CHANGE USER NAME IN WINDOWS REGISTRY
Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion. In the right pane, right-click on register name and organization in turn and select Modify and edit the information.

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ADD DELETE .TMP FILES COMMAND TO START-UP FOLDER
Right-click Start and pick Explore. Navigate to \PROGRAMS\STARTUP. In the \STARTUP folder, right-click and select New Shortcut. Type the following in the Command-line box:

COMMAND /C DEL C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\*.TMP

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DISPLAY FILE TYPES IN EXPLORER
If you are having problems renaming files in Explorer, or just want to see the file types: Open Explorer, click on View, then Folder Options, and select the View Tab. Uncheck "Hide file extensions for known file types."

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CREATING A FAVORITES WEB PAGE
If you would prefer a larger view of your Favorites menu, why not turn it into a web page? To do so, pull down the File menu and select the Import and Export command. Then, use the Import/Export Wizard to export your Favorites menu to an HTML file. To load the file into Internet Explorer, pull down the File menu, select the Open command, and use the Open dialog box to locate the file.

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Clean Out Temporary Files
In Internet Explorer, adjust your settings to clean out the Temporary Internet Files folder each time you close the browser. To do this, select Internet Options from the Tools menu. Then choose Advanced, scroll down to the Security heading, and check the box next to "Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed."

In Netscape, you have to do this procedure manually. From the Edit menu, select Preferences. Then choose Advanced, and select Cache, then click on both "Clear Memory Cache" and "Clear Disk Cache."

Clean Out History
In Netscape, select Preferences from the Edit menu. In the same window you use to specify your home page, you'll see two buttons near the bottom. One is labeled "Clear History" and the other is labeled "Clear Location Bar." Click both buttons and Navigator will forget everything it has remembered about where you've been surfing.

For Internet Explorer 5 or higher, select Internet Options from the Tools menu. Then on the General tab, click the "Delete Files" button, as well as the "Clear History" button.

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Revised: November 05, 2007