Here is a list of Windows XP Tweaks and Tips for myself, I used it all the time after a fresh installation of Windows XP.

Tweak #1 - MsConfig

Most of you will be familiar with MsConfig, which is basically a built-in system configuration utility for Windows. Open it up by simply going to Start » Run…, then type “msconfig” in the box and press enter. Now, the tab we are interested in here is the “Startup” tab… simply click on it and you should see a screen similar to the one below.

This box displays all of the programs that will be started when Windows boots up. None of these programs are vital for Windows, so don’t feel worried about removing some of them in experimentation. You can see from the screenshot that I have disabled SOUNDMAN (Soundcard’s start-up program) and qttask (Quicktime, obviously) and another nwiz (don’t know what the heck this is). Now, if you’ve unchecked some boxes, Windows should start up faster and will take less resources by not running these programs in the background.

Tweak #2 - More Startup Tweakage

Now we’re going to take the tweak above and go one step futher. Go to Start » Run again, then type “services.msc“. You should get:

This is a more detailed list of processes that are starting up with Windows. All those items with “Automatic” listed next to their names are booting with Windows. Click on the items to find out just what they do. If you decide you don’t need a certain service, you can simply right-click on it and change it’s properties from “Automatic” to “Manual”.

Tweak #3 - Speeding Up Internet Explorer

This is a handy little trick you can use with Internet Explorer 6 (which ships with XP) to make it boot up extremely fast - instantly, on my system :). This should be familiar to those of you who have created shortcuts for Half-Life mods and the like. For those of you who aren’t familiar, simply right-click on a shortcut to Internet Explorer (such as the one in the Quicklaunch bar) and add the parameter “-nohome” to the end of the command line, like so:

Tweak #4 - Menu Delays

Another minor and easy tweak to remove any delay from menus sliding out. For this you will need to use regedit (open regedit by going to Start » Run…, then typing “regedit” and pressing enter. The key you need to change is located in HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop. The actual key is called MenuShowDelay - all you have to do is change the value to 0. Remember, you will have to re-boot your computer for this tweak to take effect.

Tweak #5 - GPEDIT.MSC And Autoplay

A great tweaking file that comes with XP is gpedit.msc. Go to Start » Run… and then type in “gpedit.msc” and press enter. This is effectively the Policies Editor, and it comes in handy often. For example, if you hate CD autoplay like I do and want to permanently disable it, you can use this tool to do so. Just run gpedit.msc, then go to Computer Configuration » Administrative Templates » System. In here you can see the value “Turn Off Autoplay”. Right-click on it and then click “Properties“.

Now you can simply play around with the settings for this and other values in these folders, customizing appearance and performance issues.

Tweak #6 - Increasing Options In Add/Remove Menu

Not a fan of MSN Messenger? don’t want Windows Media Player on your system? Fair enough, but if you go to Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel, by default none of Windows XP’s ’built in’ programs are visible. it’s fairly easy to change, though… just open the file X:\Windows\inf\sysoc.inf (where X: is the drive letter where Windows XP is installed) in Notepad. You should see a section of the file something like this:

[Components]
NtComponents=ntoc.dll,NtOcSetupProc,,4
WBEM=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,wbemoc.inf,hide,7
Display=desk.cpl,DisplayOcSetupProc,,7
Fax=fxsocm.dll,FaxOcmSetupProc,fxsocm.inf,,7
NetOC=netoc.dll,NetOcSetupProc,netoc.inf,,7
iis=iis.dll,OcEntry,iis.inf,,7
com=comsetup.dll,OcEntry,comnt5.inf,hide,7
dtc=msdtcstp.dll,OcEntry,dtcnt5.inf,hide,7
IndexSrv_System = setupqry.dll,IndexSrv,setupqry.inf,,7
TerminalServer=TsOc.dll, HydraOc, TsOc.inf,hide,2
msmq=msmqocm.dll,MsmqOcm,msmqocm.inf,,6
ims=imsinsnt.dll,OcEntry,ims.inf,,7
fp_extensions=fp40ext.dll,FrontPage4Extensions,fp40ext.inf,,7
AutoUpdate=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,au.inf,hide,7
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7
RootAutoUpdate=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,rootau.inf,,7
IEAccess=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,ieaccess.inf,,7

This is a list of all components installed at the moment. I’ve taken the example of MSN Messenger - the program entry called “msmsgs”, third-last line. You can see the word “hide” highlighted - this is the string which tells Windows not to display the component in the Add/Remove Programs list. Fix this up by simply deleting the word “hide” like so:

msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7

To this:

msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,,7

Now, after restarting, you should be able to see MSN Messenger in the Add/Remove Programs list. If you want to be able to quickly view and remove all components, simply open the sysoc.inf file and do a global find and replace for the word “,hide” and replace it with a single comma “,”.

Tweak #7 - Disabling Windows File Protection

WARNING: Using this tweak means you will be able to delete vital Windows files.

Here’s a quick tweak to be able to totally disable Windows File Protection, the system that prevent users from deleting system and program files. Simply find the key SFCDisable in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon and edit it to hold the value 0xFFFFFF9D.

If you want to re-enable File Protection, just re-set the value to 0.

Tweak #8 - Automatically Kill Programs At Shutdown

Don’t you hate it when, while trying to shut down, you get message boxes telling you that a program is still running? Making it so that Windows automatically kills applications running is a snap. Simply navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop directory in the Registry, then alter the key AutoEndTasks to the value 1.

Note: the key “AutoEndTasks” might not exist. If not, simply create it with a value of 1. To disable the AutoEndTask feature, simply change the value back to 0.

Tweak #9 - Memory Performance Tweaks

There are several memory tweaks that can be performed with Windows XP - all of them are located in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager \ Memory Management section of the registry.

Disable Paging Executive
In normal usage, XP pages sections from RAM memory to the hard drive. We can stop this happening and keep the data in RAM, resulting in improved performance. Note that only users with a large amount of RAM (256MB+) should use this setting. The setting we want to change to disable the ’Paging Executive’, as it is called, is called DisablePagingExecutive. Changing the value of this key from 0 to 1 will de-activate memory paging.

System Cache Boost
Changing the value of the key LargeSystemCache from 0 to 1 will tell Windows XP to allocate all but 4MB of system memory to the file system cache, basically meaning that the XP Kernel can run in memory, greatly improving it’s speed. The 4MB of memory left is used for disk caching, but if for any reason more is needed, XP allocates more. Generally, this tweak improves performance by a fair bit but can, in some intensive applications, degrade performance. As with the above tweak, you should have at least 256MB of RAM before attempting to enable LargeSystemCache.

Input/Output Performance
This tweak is only really valuable to anyone running a server - it improves performace while a computer is performing large file transfer operations. By default, the value does not appear in the registry, so you will have to create a REG_DWORD value called IOPageLockLimit. The data for this value is in bytes, and defaults to 512KB on machines that have the value. Most people using this tweak have found maximum performance in the 8 to 16 megabyte range, so you will have to play around with the value to find the best performance. Remeber that the value is measured in bytes, so if you want, say, 12MB allocated, it’s 12 * 1024 * 1024, or 12582912. As with all these memory tweaks, you should only use this if you have 256MB or more of RAM.

Tweak #10 - Speeding Up Share Viewing

This is a great tweak. Before I found it, I was always smashing my head against the table waiting to view shares on other computers. Basically, when you connect to another computer with Windows XP, it checks for any Scheduled tasks on that computer - a fairly useless task, but one that can add up to 30 seconds of waiting on the other end - not good! Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to disable this process. First, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ RemoteComputer \ NameSpace in the Registry. Below that, there should be a key called {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}. Just delete this, and after a restart, Windows will no longer check for scheduled tasks - much more performance improvement!

Tweak #11 - Prioritizing Individual Processes

This is so simple it’s not funny, but it leads into the next tweak… anyway, if you press Control+Alt+Delete, then click on the “Processes” tab, you should get a dialog like the one above. You can see a list of all the processes running at the time. Now, if you are running a program that you want to dedicate more processing time to - eg, Photoshop, as in my example, you can just right-click on the process, move your cursor down to “Set Priority >”, then select how high you want that program prioritized. While I’m checking my email, I might want a Normal priority for Max, but if I leave my Computer, I can increass it to “RealTime” to get the most rendering done. Easy!

Tweak #12 - Prioritizing IRQs

The last tweak for this guide - and a good one. The main components of your computer have an IRQ number assigned to them. With this tweak we can increase the priority given to any IRQ number, thereby improving the performance of that component. The most common component this tweak is used for is the System CMOS/real time clock, which improves performance across the board. First of all, decide which component you want to give a performance boost to. Next, you have to discover which IRQ that piece of hardware is using. To do this, simply go to Control Panel, then open the System panel (You can also press the shortcut of Windows+Break). Click the “Hardware” tab, then on the “Device Manager” button.

Now, right click on the component you want to discover the IRQ for and click “Properties“, then click on the “Resources” tab.

You can plainly see which IRQ this device is using (if there is no IRQ number, select another device). Remember the number and close down all of the dialog boxes you have opened, then start up RegEdit. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ ControlPriorityControl in the registry. Now, we have to create a new DWORD value - called IRQ#Priority (where ’#’ is the IRQ number), then set the data to 1. For example, the IRQ of my System CMOS is 8, so I would create the key IRQ8Priority.

Now, after restarting, you should notice improved performance in the component you tweaked. I would strongly recommend the CMOS, as it improves performance around the board. Also note that you can have multiple IRQ prioritized, but it is fairly inefficient and can cause instability. To remove this tweak, simply delete the value you created.

Tweak #13 - Shared Documents In My Computer

By default, when you open My Computer in Windows XP, you see some folders above your hard drives. These are “Shared Folders” (see the highlighted section in the above image), and basically provide folders for all users to share things. Personally, having these folders is annoying and unecessary. The solution is to remove these folders from My Computer, and the method is simple; simply navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ MyComputer \ NameSpace \ DelegateFolders in the registry and then delete the key {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}. Next time you open My Computer, the folders will not be there.

Tweak #14 - Removing Restore Points For Disk Space

Windows XP has a feature to create “Restore Points”, which are simply files that contain information about the setup of a system, so that if it crashes, all settings, et cetera, are not lost. However, sometimes Windows creates multiple unnecessary restore points - gigabytes worth in some cases. To delete all but the most recent restore point, simply go to Start » Programs » Accessories » System Tools » Disk Cleanup.

Select the drive you wish to clean up, then “Clean Up…“, and finally, click Yes. Done!

Tweak #15 - Shutdown on speed

By altering a few registry settings, you can dramatically decrease the amount of time it takes for Windows to shut down. To do this, first open up the registry editor and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop. Once there, find the value HungAppTimeout and make sure it is set to 5000 (that’s the default). Now, in the same folder, look for the value WaitToKillAppTimeout. Set this to 4000 (the default is 20000).

Lastly, navigate to the folder HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ Control and change the value WaitToKillServiceTimeout to 4000 as well.

Another thing that helps speeding up shutting down is going to Control Panel » Administrative Tools » Services and then setting the NVidia Driver Help service to Manual.

Tweak #16 - Setting DMA Mode on IDE Drives

For some reason, Windows XP sometimes sets itself to use a PIO transfer mode on IDE channels instead of the DMA mode. If this is the case, you can manually set the IDE channel to DMA mode, which will reduce the amount of CPU cycles being used on that device. To set this, go to Device Manager (press Windows-Break, or right click “My Computer” » Properties, then go to the Hardware tab, then finally click “Device Manager“), then open up the branch labeled “IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers“. Now, double click on “Primary IDE Channel” and go to Advanced Settings.

and check the Transfer Mode scroll boxes. Set them all to DMA If Available, then click OK. Continue to do this for each IDE Controller, and you should be right.

Tweak #17 - Brief Network Fix

This isn’t really a “tweak”, but more of a fix. I had this problem when I first installed XP, though, and it can be incredibly annoying. Basically, in another of XP’s weird quirks, it sometimes disallows network access to people, including the Guest account, meaning that most people cannot connect to your computer and access your shares, etc. To fix up this problem, open the Control Panel, go to Administrative Tools, and open up Local Security Settings. Now go to Local Polices » User Rights Assignments.

Now find the value called “Deny access to this computer from the network“. Right click on it and go Properties. Now, if the Guest account is in here, remove it by clicking it once then going to remove, then close down the properties dialog. While you’re in the User Right Assignments dialog, check the “Access this computer from the network” setting, and make sure “Everyone” is in there.

If you were having trouble trying to access computers over a network, hopefully these few adjustments will help.

Tweak #18 - The XP Prefetcher

With Windows XP comes a service called the Prefetcher. This service monitors which programs initialize when Windows boots, then in future, fetches them quickly. The Prefetcher is enabled by default, but you can improve its performance. Simply navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager \ Memory Management \ PrefetchParameters in the registry and find the value EnablePrefetcher. Most likely, it will be set to 3. The recommended setting for the prefetcher is 5, and that’s what works best for me. Feel free to play around with it a bit, though, and find out what works best for you.

It is possible to disable the Prefetcher by setting the value to 0, but the only reasons you might want to do this is if you wanted to test a machine in a lab environment.

Tweak #19 - ZIP Folders

A really quick tweak… Windows XP has built-in support for .ZIP files, so that you can view them as normal folders. However, the system uses a sizeable portion of resources doing this, so disabling this feature can increase performance. It’s easy to do, you just have to un-register the zipfldr.dll, by going to Start » Run… and typing

regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll

then pressing Enter.

Tweak #20 - Unloading DLLs

Explorer often caches DLL files in memory for a period of time after they have finished being used. This can result in large amounts of memory being taken up by DLL files that are not even being used. To stop this happening, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer. Now, you have to create a new sub-key called AlwaysUnloadDLL with a default value of 1.

If you want to disable this tweak, just delete the key.

NOTE: Windows has to restart for this tweak to take effect.

Tweak #21 - Hibernation

Another really quick and easy tweak - if you’re not going to be using Hibernation (as most people don’t), make sure it is disabled, as Windows reserves an amount of Hard Drive space equal to that of your RAM for hibernation. To disable Hibernation, go to Control Panel » Power Options » Hibernate Tab.

As you can see, for people with larger amounts of RAM, this tweak can free up large portions of space.

Tweak #22 - QoS Tweakage

With Windows XP comes a long acronym - the QoSRRP. This stands for Quality of Service Resource Reservation Protocol. Basically, programs either use QoS APIs and are passed through QoS when trying to access information through whatever bandwidth is available, or they are passed to another API called TCI. One of the differences between QoS and TCI is that it is possible to reserve bandwidth for QoS applications. This is great if you are using QoS applications, but if you don’t use any, it means that a percentage (20% by default) of your bandwidth is sitting unused.

To change this, we have to go to Start » Run…, then type “gpedit.msc“. Now, open the branches Computer Configuration » Administrative Templates » Network » QoS Packet Scheduler.

Now, double-click the option in the right-hand window “Limit reservable bandwidth“, and then set it to Enabled, and the Bandwidth Limit to 0%.

Now, you should have more free bandwidth to play with (20%, hopefully :).

Tweak #23 - L2 Cache Tweakage

The L2, or second-level, cache, is an integral part of your CPU. However, XP is very shoddy at detecting it, so setting it manually is sometimes necessary. It’s easy to do, though, you simply have to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager \ Memory Management in the registry and find the value SecondLevelDataCache. You must then adjust it to the value (in kilobytes) of the L2 Cache of your processor.

You should be able to find the L2 Cache value of your processor from its manufacturer.

NOTE: Sorry about this people, but the original version of this article showed me, in the above tweak, entering data in Hexadecimal mode. The L2 Cache of your processor should be entered in Decimal mode. Sorry, guys

Tweak #24 - Flushing DNS and Prefetch

Go to Run, type in “cmd“, in the window type in “ipconfig/flushdns” and hit Enter.

This should flush all your DNS resolver cache to prevent getting disconnecting from the router or internet.

Deleting Prefetch

Go to Run, type in “prefetch“, just select all the files in this folder and delete all. This would help your Windows run faster.