Permanently
delete files
If you want to permanently delete files without moving them
to Recycle bin, hold down the Shift key while pressing delete.
If you don't want the recycle bin altogether, right-click the
Recycle Bin and click on Properties. On the Global Tab, select
Do not move files to the Recycle Bin. If you enable configure
drivers independently, you can set this up for the drivers you
want.
Windows
System Configuration
A very useful tool included with Windows is the System Configuration
Utility. Select Start > Run and type 'msconfig' in the Open
box to launch the application. The system Configuration utility
makes fiddling with programs to launch at Startup or editing
autoexec.bat, config.sys etc. a lot easier. To system Configuration
Utility also allows you to crease a backup of your system files.
It would be a good idea to use this before you begin making
changed.
Preview
Images
You can easily preview your Image files by enabling "Web View"
from the toolbar or from the Windows Explorer menu, select View
> As Web page. A better way to preview images is as thumbnails
instead of icons. To enable this view in Windows Explorer, right-click
the folder you want to preview and click on Properties. Check
the box against Enable thumbnail view and click OK to exit the
dialog box. Now, form the View menu, select Thumbnails.
Optimizing
the Swap File
Windows uses a portion of the hard disk as RAM, constantly swapping
data between RAM and hard disk as required. The speed of your
hard disk is in the order of 1000 times slower than that of
your main memory. Inefficient use of the swap file could considerable
slow down your system to a very great extent. One of the best
ways to speed up the swap file usage is to create a permanent
swap file. In a permanent swap file, the file used for swapping
information has a fixed size and location on your hard disk.
When a temporary swap file is used, the location and size of
the file is determined by application being used and is not
predictable. Also, since a temporary swap file is constantly
written to and is not fixed in size, it would be highly fragmented
across the partition that holds it. A better option is to create
the swap file on a dedicated partition on your hard disk. By
doing this, the swap file will never be fragmented since that
partition is only being utilized by the swap file itself. You
can configure the swap file size and location from Control Panel
> System > Performance > Virtual Memory. The size of
the swap file should be around 2.5 times the amount of RAM on
the system.
Dummy
entries in Add/Remove Programs list
Sometimes, even after program are uninstalled, or due to the
files being deleted instead of a uninstalled, the entry in the
Add/Remove Programs list does not get deleted. To remove it
form the list: 1. Start the Registry Editor. 2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
\CurrentVersion\Uninstall. 3. Delete the program entry here.
You can also use TweakUI to do this.
Restart
only Windows
When restarting Windows, you don't always need to go to thought
the BIOS initialization and POST. Instead of simple clicking
on Restart form the Shut Down Windows dialog box, help down
the Shift key as you click on OK. This will restart only Windows.
This is particularly useful when you change some registry entries
or a few system settings.
Improve
Removable Disk Drive Performance
Windows gives you the option to use write-behind caching to
improve the performance of removable disk drivers.
-
Open
control Panel > System > Performance and click on File
System.
-
Check
the Enable write-behind caching on all removable disk drives
check box under the removable Disk tab and click OK
Note:
If this result in a problem with disk operations, uncheck the Enable
write-behind caching on all removable disk drives check box.
MS
Office memory hoggers
A typical installation of MS Office installs Find Fast, an indexing
utility that loads at startup. This hogs system resources by regularly
indexing the entire hard disk(s). You can improve performance of
your computer by removing Find Fast form your Startup folder. To
reclaim the space used by the Find Fast index, open Control Panel
> Find Fast, select your hard drives(s) and form the Index menu,
click on Delete Index. When you've deleted your Index, click on
Close and Stop form the Index menu. Another item installed in the
Startup folder is named Microsoft Office. This does nothing apart
from loading all MS Office libraries at startup to speed up launching
of any Office applications. Since this is not necessary, you can
delete this shortcut, too.
Stop
Automatic Dialing
Many Internet applications or software are often set to automatically
dialup and connect. To setup automatic dialing, open Control
Panel > Internet Options. Under the Connections tab, enable
Never dial a connection.
Automatic
maintenance
The Windows Maintenance Wizard can automate a lot of routine
system maintenance tasks. To open this wizard, choose Start
> Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Maintenance
Wizard. It sets up the Task Scheduler to regularly run Scandisk,
Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup.
Clean
Desktop
To hide all the icons on your Desktop, open the Registry Editor
and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft \Current
Version\Policies\Explorer. Add a DWORD value and name it NoDesktop.
Change it's value to 1. Close the Registry Editor and restart
Windows.
ToolTips
To disable ToolTips in Windows, open the Registry Editor and
navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. Double-click
UserPreferencemask and change its value to 3E 00 00 00. Chose
the Registry Editor and restart Windows.
Speed
up your modem
Even if your modem if apparently working well, the baud rate
of your COM Port might not allow you to reach top-speed. To
improve your port's speed:
-
Click
Start >Settings > Control Panel > System.
-
Click
the Device Manager tab, and click on the "+" sign next to
Ports (COM & LPT).
-
Select
the port your modem uses, click Properties, then click the
Port settings tab and set the Bits per second to 115200 bps.
That way you won't have a sort of filter on the Port.
Associations
in a jiffy
To associate files of a certain type with a different program,
hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file of that
type and click on Open With... from the context menu. Select
the program you want to open files of this type with and enable
Always use this program to open this type of file. Henceforth,
the file will always open with this program when double-clicked.
A
clean Registry
As time passes the computer's registry accumulates a lot of
corrupted, unused, and unnecessary register keys, especially
if keys are not removed when you uninstall a program. As a result,
you might experience problems and your machine might function
slower than expected. The latest version of Microsoft's RegClean
could delete a lot of such registry junk. You can download this
from zdnet
Just search for RegClean and it will let you download it. Best
of all, it is free !!
Assigning
passwords to folders in win 98 and 2000
Right-click on empty space in the folder which you want to protect
and
select CUSTOMIZE THIS FOLDER, then choose CREATE HTML DOCUMENT
FOR THIS
FOLDER. Once the document is opened in Notepad, scroll down
until you see
<script language>="JavaScript"> Insert a
blank line after this string.
Then insert the following text.
var
pass = prompt("Enter the password")
if(pass != "YOURPASSWORD")
{window.location="C:"}
Hit the Enter key on your keyboard
Put
a password in the place of YOURPASSWORD but leave the quotes.
Save the
document, exit Notepad,
refresh the folder (or hit F5), enter your new password, and
the next time
you try to enter that folder,
you'll be prompted for your password. If you enter a wrong password
you'll
end up in C: drive!
This
works on Windows 98 and 2000.
|
Cool Links 
Channels 
