Bridging Frontiers

Just to suggest some simple tweak in speeding up XP in general. I will not responsible for any crash of your OS after the tweak 

If you have other tweak. You are welcome to share it here. Thanks.

Disable Indexing Services

Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you don’t search your computer often, or even if you do search often, this system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:

Go to Start
Click Settings
Click Control Panel
Double-click Add/Remove Programs
Click the Add/Remove Window Components
Uncheck the Indexing services
Click Next 

Optimise Display Settings

Windows XP can look sexy but displaying all the visual items can waste system resources. To optimise:

Go to Start
Click Settings
Click Control Panel
Click System
Click Advanced tab
In the Performance tab click Settings
Leave only the following ticked:
Show shadows under menus
Show shadows under mouse pointer
Show translucent selection rectangle
Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
Use visual styles on windows and buttons 

Speedup Folder Browsing

You may have noticed that everytime you open my computer to browse folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing significantly:

Open My Computer
Click on Tools menu
Click on Folder Options
Click on the View tab.
Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box
Click Apply
Click Ok
Reboot your computer

Disable Performance Counters

Windows XP has a performance monitor utility which monitors several areas of your PC’s performance. These utilities take up system resources so disabling is a good idea.

To disable:

download and install the Extensible Performance Counter List
Then select each counter in turn in the ‘Extensible performance counters’ window and clear the ‘performance counters enabled’ checkbox at the bottom.button below

Improve Memory Usage

Cacheman Improves the performance of your computer by optimizing the disk cache, memory and a number of other settings.

Once Installed:

Go to Show Wizard and select All
Run all the wizards by selecting Next or Finished until you are back to the main menu. Use the defaults unless you know exactly what you are doing
Exit and Save Cacheman
Restart Windows 

Optimise your internet connection

There are lots of ways to do this but by far the easiest is to run TCP/IP Optimizer.

Download and install
Click the General Settings tab and select your Connection Speed (Kbps)
Click Network Adapter and choose the interface you use to connect to the Internet
Check Optimal Settings then Apply
Reboot

Optimise Your Pagefile

If you give your pagefile a fixed size it saves the operating system from needing to resize the page file.

Right click on My Computer and select Properties
Select the Advanced tab
Under Performance choose the Settings button
Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.
Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.

Run BootVis - Improve Boot Times

BootVis will significantly improve boot times

Download and Run
Select Trace
Select Next Boot and Driver Trace
A Trace Repetitions screen will appear, select Ok and Reboot
Upon reboot, BootVis will automatically start, analyze and log your system’s boot process. When it’s done, in the menu go to Trace and select Optimize System
Reboot.
When your machine has rebooted wait until you see the Optimizing System box appear. Be patient and wait for the process to complete

Remove the Desktop Picture

Your desktop background consumes a fair amount of memory and can slow the loading time of your system. Removing it will improve performance.

Right click on Desktop and select Properties
Select the Desktop tab
In the Background window select None
Click Ok

Remove Fonts for Speed

Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.

Open Control Panel
Open Fonts folder
Move fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:\FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.
Hope you find these 10 tips useful please leave a comment below and please share any other tips you may have with other readers.

Source : connectedinternet

A quick one.

Check the system date & time and reset it to current date & time.

You should be able to activate your Windows XP.

Message number: 32777 when try to perform Windows Activation via internet

Full message :

Message number: 32777

If you tried to remove WinFax Pro and failed. Here is the workaround for Windows XP users.

1. Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove Program Programs

2. Remove WinFax Pro

3. Restart the PC & Follow the instructions.

4. Download Norton Removal Tool and Run it.

This will completely wipe out the program.

Basically the error reports PC Suite software was looking for COM ports and it cannot find any in your system. So the error appears.

To stop this, simply add a COM Port to your system.

Below are the workaround.

> Control Panel. 
> Add Hardware
> Next
> Yes, I have already connected the hardware
> Add a new harware device
> Install the hardware & manually select from a list (Advanced)
> Ports (Com & LPT)

> Left Box click (Standard port types)
> Right Box click Communications Port
> Next. Next, Finish

After that, just restart the system. The CAPI_Worker Module found the port that it needs.

Happy trying & Good luck !

In case you did not receive SP3 updates via Windows Update, you can get a copy of the installer here.

Before you start, check out some of the issues here.

And finally, in case you get “Access is denied” or “Service Pack installation did not complete” error message almost the end of installation. You can get help here. Follow the method 3 as shown.

Happy trying & good luck.

Download hijackthis at merijn.org.

Scan it and remove the following 2 lines.

1. R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Window Title = Hacked by Spiderman 2007-June-10)
2. R3 - URLSearchHook: xxxxxx

Use Bitdefender Internet Security 2008 to scan it thoroughly. Get a 30days trial here.

Contact me for BIS2008 OEM license if you want to keep it & continue using.

Good luck !

If you already have Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed, and you do not want to install Internet Explorer 7, you may be able to resolve problems with Internet Explorer 6 by running the System File Checker. Additionally, running the System File Checker may help resolve issues with Outlook Express.

To run the System File Checker, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run type sfc /scannow, and then press ENTER

2. Follow the prompts throughout the System File Checker process.

3. Restart the computer when System File Checker process is complete.

Reinstall Internet Explorer 6 by using the Ie.inf file

If you already have Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed, and you do not want to install Internet Explorer 7, you may be able to resolve problems with Internet Explorer 6 by using the Ie.inf file to reinstall Internet Explorer 6. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click RUN, type %systemroot%\inf, and then press Enter.

2. Find the Ie.inf file that is located in Windows\Inf folder.

3. Right-click the Ie.inf file, and then click Install.

4. Restart the computer when the file copy process is complete.

More details here.

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I came across this message in Dell Dimension 4300 while trying to boot up.

 ”Previous attemps at booting this system have failed at checkpoint (Time). For help in resolving this problem, please note this checkpoint and contact Dell Technical Support.”

Sometimes, it just stop responding at Dell’s blue logo. No way to hit the F2 & F12 key. It’s just hang there.

I am quite certain that the motherboard is malfunction. HDD, FDD, CDROM & RAM is able to work in other system.

Any suggestions ?

Note : Diagnotic Codes from Dell.

Here is the simple workaround to get back the connection.

1. Open the Bitdefender Security Center and click on settings.
2. Select Firewall, then go to the Zones tab.
3. Add zone, enter the IP address of the servers/workstations, select Trusted, then OK.

You should be able to get back whatever you’ve lost (connection) with above settings.

When your Windows Media Player, Real Player, Divx or any other types of video player having trouble in their display.

For instant, when run .wmv or .avi in your WMP, you can hear the audio but NO video at all. The same goes to all others video player. Audio but NO Video.

Here is the workaround, probably you are using ATI graphic card with the Catalyst Control Center installed.

Basically, what you need to do is just to do switch from Custom to Home in Catalyst Contrl Center under Video > Video Preset.