Tips And Tricks For Your Windows XP PART:2

REGISTRY METHOD FOR REMOVING STARTUP ITEMS.
I prefer to use MSCONFIG selective startup to troubleshoot. To remove entries for good, open the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RUN and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RUN
Delete entries of unwanted startup daemons and tray procedures.

DISPLAY MESSAGE ON STARTUP.
Start regedit, if you are unfamiliar with regedit please see our FAQ.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Modify the key legalnoticecaption with what you want to name the window.
Modify the key legalnoticetext with what you want the window to say. Restart.

REMOVE THE DEFAULT IMAGE VIEWER IN WINDOWS ME/XP.
This tweak works in Windows Me/XP, I have not try it in Windows NT/2000 yet, because i don't have that OS, you can try it if you have.
*This tweak does not work in Windows 95/98
To remove the Windows default Image Viewer, first:
Click Start Menu
Select Run menu
Type "cmd", (for Windows Me, type "command")
Then type "regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll" to unregister this dll. This will stop it from previewing any picture that it support, e.g. JPEG, Bitmap, GIF....
* Before perform this tweak, make sure that you have the alternative Image Viewer installed in you windows e.g. ACDsee, FireGraphics... because once you do this tweak without that application, you can't open and view your image anymore! So, to undo it, type "regsvr32 shimgvw.dll" in command prompt.

SPEED UP BOOT BY DISABLING UNUSED PORTS.
You may have tried many tweaks like modifying windowsXP start-up applications, prefetches, unload DLLs method,etc. And yes those methods do work for me.
I have just accidentally found out another way to give you an extra boost in windowsXP's boot performance. This is done by disabling your unused devices in
Device Manager. for example, if you don't have input devices that are connected to one of your USBs or COM ports, disabling them will give you an extra perfromance boost in booting. Go to Control Panel -> System -> Hardware tab -> device manager Disable devices that you don't use for your PC and then restart.

CLEAR UNWANTED ENTRIES FROM ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS.
Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT).
Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Uninstall Remove any unwanted keys under "Uninstall."

CLICKING * .AVI FILES ON EXPLORER CAUSING 100% CPU USAGE.
Well windows seem to have a REALLY big problem when it comes to reading AVI files. It seems that when you click on an AVI file in explorer, it'll try to read the entire AVI file to determine the width,height, etc. of the AVI file (this is displayed in the Properties window). Now the problem with Windows is that if you have a broken/not fully downloaded AVI file that doesnt contain this info, Windows will scan the entire AVI file trying to figure out all these properties which in the process will probably cause 100% CPU usage and heavy memory usage. To solve this problem all you have to do is the following:
1. Open up regedit
2. Goto HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler
3. Delete the "Default" value which should be "{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}"
Voila! Please not that this will no longer provide you with the windows properties displaying the AVI file information such as width, height, bitrate etc. But its a small price to pay for saving you resources.
NOTE: Please use caution when using regedit. Improper usage may cause windows to behave imcorrectly. Also, I cannot be held resposible. Backup your registry first.

CD ROM STOPS AUTOPLAYING/AUTORUN.
And the AutoPlay Tab has disappeared in My Computer, Devices With Removable Storage, Right Click on CDROM, Properties.
Solution: The service: "Shell Hardware Detection" has been set to Manual or Disabled. Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services. Return this service to "Automatic".

SHUTDOWN XP FASTER 1.
Like previous versions of windows, it takes long time to restart or shutdown windows xp when the "Exit Windows" sound is enabled. to solve this problem you
must disable this useless sound. click start button then go to settings -> control panel -> Sound,Speech and Audio devices -> Sounds and Audio Devices -> Sounds, then under program events and windows menu click on "Exit Windows" sub-menu and highlight it.now from sounds you can select,choose "none" and then click apply and ok. now you can see some improvements when shutting down your system.

SHUTDOWN XP FASTER 2.
Start Regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control.
Click on the "Control" Folder.
Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"
Right click on it and select Modify.
Set it a value lower than 2000 (Mine is set to 200).