WINDOWS GOOD TRICKS-2

Increasing Graphics Performance


By default, WindowsXP turns on a lot of shadows, fades, slides etc to menu items. Most simply slow down their display.

To turn these off selectively:
- Right click on the My Computer icon
- Select Properties
- Click on the Advanced tab
- Under Performance, click on the Settings button
- To turn them all of, select Adjust for best performance
- My preference is to leave them all off except for Show shadows under mouse pointer and Show window contents while dragging



Disabling Balloon Tips


To turn off balloon tips in applications that support XP Themes:

Start Regedit

Go to
Code:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\

Create a DWORD value of EnableBalloonTips

Give it a value of 0




Speeding the Startup of Some CD Burner Programs


If you use program other than the native WindowsXP CD Burner software,
you might be able to increase the speed that it loads.
Go to

Code:

Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services

- Double-click on IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service

- For the Startup Type, select Disabled

- Click on the OK button and then close the Services window




Increasing the Folder Cache

The default setting for WindowsXP is to cache the Explorer settings for 400 folders.
To increase it:
Start Regedit
Code:

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam

Change the vaule of BagMRU to whatever size you want (hex)

Code:
1000 - 3e8
2000 - 7d0
3000 - bb8
4000 - fa0
5000 - 1388


Stop Password Expiration

If you want to do this for all users, enter:

Code:
Start / Run / net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited

If you are getting an error message that your password is about to expire:
- Right click on the My Computer icon
- Select Manage
- Go to Local Users and Groups / Users
- Right-click on the user you want to change
- Select Properties
- On the General tab, check Password never expires
- Click OK

By Rajendra