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101 Tips and Tweaks From PCstats
Hello,
With
the holiday season in full swing, we're happy to give you all a little
pre-festivities gift in the form of 101
Tips and Tweaks for Windows! At 36 pages in
length, this is one of the most comprehensive Beginners Guides PCstats has
assembled to date, and I'm sure beginners and experts alike will find many
tips of interest.
Now if the words "raw performance" and "money is no
object" pique your curiosity, then sit back and read our look at the
absurdly expensive, and equally fast, 3.2GHz Intel
Pentium4 Extreme Edition. If you can
afford it, this CPU would make for a very cool stocking stuffer.
Next in line is Crucial's
'Gizmo' - and no, I'm not talking Gremlins the movie.
After that, the PCstats Newsletter tests out Albatron's
newest i848P Pentium4 motherboard, and a rather quiet
aluminum power supply from Vantec. The
400W Stealth PSU is jet black, and offers several modes of
operation depending on how loud, and how cool you'd like your PC to
run.
And now for something completely different. I'm looking for topics
for new Beginners Guides, so if you have any ideas or questions
that you think PCStats ought to tackle, please email me with
your suggestions. Who knows, we may just cover your topic in the very
next PCstats Beginners Guide! PCstats Industry Insights
column looks at XGI's Volari GPU this week, so don't forget to give it a read as well!
 From performance to security and privacy
tips; from essential advice for beginners to registry tweaks, PCstats 101 Tips
Guide will help you get the most out of your current PC!
We'd like to present you with our first tip
guide for Windows XP; 101 useful and sometimes spicy tips that may improve
your experience with the operating system. Some you might know already,
some you might not want to use, but we bet that everyone will find lots of
interesting advice in here. From beginner's tips to registry tweaks, it's
all present and accounted for. This list is presented in two sections. The
first is composed of tweaks and tips you can implement using options
already present in the Windows XP interface. The second is composed of Registry tips which
require the use of the REGEDIT program. Instructions are included, so read
on, and enjoy!. Continue
Here>>
| Performance Tips
(1-12)
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Essential advice for beginners
(59-80)
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- Turn off or reduce system restore to
save hard drive space
- Altering page files
- Clean out prefetch folder
- Set priority for individual programs
- Cleaning up unwanted startup
programs
- Defrag your hard drive
- Disable unnecessary services
- Disable the Disk performance
counter(s)
- Turn Off Windows Indexing service
- Increasing desktop Graphics
Performance
- Check and set the DMA mode on your
drives
- Smooth out your mouse
movement
Useful Tips for WindowsXP
(13-30)
- Resize screen fonts on the fly in
Internet Explorer
- Mouse Sonar
- Quick back and forward commands in
Internet explorer
- Mount a new hard drive as a folder
in your C: drive
- Enable clear type
- Create a keyboard shortcut to a
folder or program
- Use remote desktop to connect to
your PC from anywhere (XP Pro only)
- XP Powertoys
- Backing up or transferring your
email manually with outlook express
- Running legacy software in Windows
XP
- Compressing files and folders to
save space
- Open explorer window from current
command prompt directory
- Using Quick Edit in the Command
Prompt
- Select 'No to all' when copying
files in XP
- Bypass the recycle bin when deleting
a file
- Create a link to shutdown your PC
- Hosting online games through the
Windows XP firewall
- Rename multiple files
simultaneously
Security, privacy and recovery tips
(31-44)
- Use the Windows 2000-style secure
logon screen
- Hiding shared folders with $
- Using advanced file security
settings in Windows XP Home
- Create a password reset disk
- Applying a password to the
'administrator' account in XP Home
- 'Rolling back' a faulty device
driver
- Disable simple file sharing (XP
Professional only)
- Using the Windows XP firewall
- Turn autocomplete off in IE
- Using the Windows XP repair
installation process
- Add, Clear or remove the 'my recent
documents' menu
- Creating a desktop shortcut for
locking your computer
- Giving a password to the 'Guest'
user account
- Use system restore when you cannot
boot your system normally
Customizing Windows XP
(45-58)
- Stop Windows messenger from running
- Run command prompt utilities
successfully from shortcuts
- Remove the XP desktop theme
- Change start menu style
- Add my computer and other missing
icons to your desktop
- Change the picture in the welcome
screen
- Add items to the 'Send To' right
click option
- Automatically run programs when
starting Windows XP
- Create a screensaver from your
pictures
- Modify autoplay for different types
of CD
- Different folder types with XP
- Using 'my computer' as a toolbar
- Enlarge and resize the quicklaunch
bar
- Disable desktop cleanup
wizard
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- Stopping desktop ad popups
- Displaying hidden files and folders
- Convert Your drives to the NTFS file
system
- Formatting a hard drive partition
larger than 32 Gigs with FAT32
- Finding your IP address and other
information with IPCONFIG
- Update your machine automatically
- Logging in as the 'Administrator'
account
- Update your drivers
- Check your PC for spyware and other
nasties
- Show the quicklaunch bar
- Locking the desktop
- Using the Windows Scientific
calculator feature
- Accessibility tools
- Set a new home page in explorer
- Remove the annoying dog from the
search screen
- Change the look of your mouse
pointer.
- Email attachments are the most
common vector for viruses.
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Set monitor refresh rate
- Set power options
- Creating shortcuts
- Create passwords for all your user
accounts!
Registry tweaks For performance
(81-93)
- Backing up and restoring the windows
registry
- How to edit the windows registry
(before other reg tips)
- Keep Windows operating data in main
memory
- Disable the DOS 8.3 naming
convention to save system resources
- Stop the 'last access update' from
taking up system resources
- Clear the Page File (virtual memory)
when shutting down XP
- Get Rid of XP's annoying balloon
tips
- Adding additional Icons to 'my
computer'
- Speed up the Start Menu
- Display message on startup
- Set the default download directory
for Internet Explorer
- Change the size of thumbnail
pictures
- Opening a Command Prompt to a
Particular Directory from Explorer
Miscellaneous registry tweaks
(94-101)
- Disable error reporting on program
crash
- Automatically close non-responsive
programs
- Permanently bypass the recycle bin
when deleting files
- Show administrator account on
welcome screen
- Enable/Disable Active Window
Tracking to Mouse Movements
- Launch Programs at Login Without
Using the Startup Folder
- Force windows XP to reboot upon
crashing
- Disable admin shares
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What, then, is the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition that is purportedly giving
AMD's long-anticipated Athlon 64 a run for its money? Well, if you found
a lot in common between AMD's Opteron and its Athlon 64 FX, then you're
sure to see the similarities between Intel's Xeon and the Pentium 4
Extreme Edition. The most significant departure between today's Pentium 4 and tomorrow's
Extreme Edition are the processors' cache sizes. High-end P4s currently sport 512KB of level 2
cache and 8KB of L1 data cache organized inclusively. Of course,
integrated memory is expensive in terms of die space. Compared to the
"Northwood" core, which weighs in at 55 million transistors, Intel's new
Pentium 4 Extreme Edition consumes no less than 169 million. Perhaps the
most tangible advantage that Pentium 4 Extreme Edition holds over the new
Athlon 64 family is that it works with existing platforms. Our test
platform ABIT IC7-MAX3 didn't even require a BIOS upgrade to function
properly...Continue
Here>>
When it comes to carrying data between
computers, the computing world has come a long way from the venerable
1.44MB floppy drive. First there were Superdisks, then Zip drives, then
Jazz, and CD-RW's. Nowadays, we have solid state, high speed, and nearly
indestructible memory that fits neatly into the smallest of pockets, and
requires nothing more than a free USB port. So long as your PC is running
Windows2000 or higher, you will need no drivers, and installation will only take
but a second before you can access and transfer files to and
from the USB hard drive as you would any other such
device.Continue
Here>>
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Desktop Backgrounds! | |
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Desktop Wallpapers can be a fun way to spice up a boring computer screen, but Windows sometimes isn't very friendly on placement of the pictures. Normally you can only center, tile or stretch the image. Often the picture is smaller than the actual desktop screen size and tiling or stretching makes things look wonky. Luckily with a bit of registry tweaking we can place our desktop pictures anywhere we want.
First load up regedit (Start -> Run -> regedit then press ok) and follow this path HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Control Panel -> Desktop. From there create two new string values Wallpaperoriginx and Wallpaperoriginy. It should be obvious but changing the Wallpaperoriginx changes the pictures horizontal position and Wallpaperoriginy moves the image vertically.
Simply enter the values where you think the wall paper will look best, save and exit (you may need to reboot). Now your wall paper should be located where you said it should be. =)
If you have some spare CPU cycles why not Fold for Team PCStats! You're not just helping us out, you're doing your part to cure the diseases around the world!
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Let's be frank about this, who wouldn't want
to have the best equipment in their PC? I'm going to be buying a new car
soon and I'd love to get a Porsche... but my budget doesn't allow that.
For the average consumer, most view buying a PC hardware in much the same
way - they want the fastest gear, but then reality sets in. So what are
the options? Well for one, a motherboard based on the
newly introduced Intel i848P chipset could work. The i848P's feature set
is almost identical to that of the i865PE except for one thing, there is
only one 64 bit memory controller instead of two. That means the i848P has
half the bandwidth of the i865PE at any given time, and is more suitably
targeted towards value conscious consumers. Continue
Here>>
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Buying a poor quality power supply for a
computer is often like buying cheap tires for a car. They'll work for a
while, probably not very well, and you're only a small steep away from
total disaster. When visiting the local computer stores in my area I
always cringe when I hear "just give me the cheapest power supply you
have" coming from a customer. If there's one thing I've learned from both
testing and troubleshooting PC's, it's that you should never buy a poor
quality power supply for your computer. All too often, I've seen what
happens when a poor quality powersupply fails, taking several hundred, or
thousand dollars worth of high-end hardware down with it. Just recently
one of my friends had everything inside his system completely fried when a
generic 400W PSU popped a capacitor. The only items salvageable were the
videocard, soundcard and memory modules....Continue
Here>>
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PCstats Issue
No.113
Circulation: 244,130
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| Industry Insights |
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The graphics market, once a crowded thoroughfare, has consolidated over the past few years. In recent memory, both 3dfx and Matrox, each company with its own set of strengths and weaknesses, have ceased competing for 3D supremacy (Matrox is able to stay afloat by other means). Now it's just ATI and NVIDIA, brawling on a grand scale for everything from high-end to integrated market share.
Or is it? Back in September, when I was in Taipei for the Computex 2003 trade show, I had the opportunity to sit down with the minds behind Volari, a new graphics chip from XGI. Despite the fact that the company is a marriage of technology from SiS and Trident, two companies unfamiliar with performance gaming, the wares they were peddling actually looked promising.
However, recent reports show the anticipated hardware might be ailing. When I spoke with XGI, I was told retail hardware would be available in a month or two. It's been about that long, and the latest reports indicate we'll have to wait another month or two. Apparently, the card's drivers are still very immature, as anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are still non-functional. Plus, performance doesn't seem up to snuff. Will Volari die stillborn? Only time will tell - we're still hoping for the best, though.
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| Written By |
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Editor-in-Chief
. M. Page
Weekly Tips
. C. Sun
I.I. Columnist
. C. Angelini |
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