Disabling Recent Documents History

Windows XP includes a feature that keeps track of all recent documents you have opened or used. The idea is that you can select Start/Recent Documents History and quickly reopen any document you have recently used. I use many documents each day and never

use the feature myself. In my opinion, I can keep up with what I want to use without
Windows XP doing it for me.

The bad thing about Recent Documents History is that Windows XP has to calculate what should be put there each time you boot Windows, which can slow things down. So, if you never use the Recent Documents History, it's a good idea to disable it. Here's how:

1. Open the Registry Editor (select Start/Run, type regedit, and click OK).
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mcft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
3. Create a NoRecentDocsHistory D_WORD key. Double-click the value to open it onceit is created.
4. Set the Data Value to 1 to enable the restriction.
5. Click OK and close the Registry Editor. You'll need to restart the computer for the change to take effect.
   

Disabling the Boot Logo

You can remove the boot logo that appears when you start Windows XP. This little tweak probably shaves only a few seconds off your boot time but seconds count if you are serious about trying to get Windows XP up and running as quickly as possible. The only negative is that if you remove the boot logo, you will also not see any boot messages, such as check disk. (But if you are not having problems with your computer, this isn't such a big deal.)


To remove the boot logo, follow these steps:

1. Select Start/Run, type msconfig, and click OK.
2. In the System Configuration Utility, click the BOOT.INI tab.
3. On the BOOT.INI tab, click the NOGUIBOOT check box option. Click OK.
   

Removing Unwanted Fonts

One trick that increases your boot time a bit is to lose any fonts in the Fonts folder in
Control Panel that you never use. The more fonts you have, the more processing
Windows XP has to do to prep all of those fonts for use. You must be a bit careful here to
not remove fonts that you might want, but there is a good chance that you can live
without many of them. For instance, you may have foreign language fonts and other
symbol fonts (such as Wingdings) that you never use.

To delete unneeded fonts, follow these steps:

1. Open the Fonts folder in Control Panel.
2. Select Edit/Select All and then Edit/Copy.
3. Create a new folder on your desktop, open it, and select Edit/Paste.
4. In this new folder, delete any of the fonts you do not want.
5. Return to the Fonts folder in Control Panel. Right-click the selected fonts and click Delete.
6. Go back to your new desktop folder and click Edit/Select All.
7. Return to your Fonts folder and click Edit/Paste. You now have only the desired fonts in the Fonts folder.
   

Tip:

You can directly delete fonts from the Fonts folder without creating the secondary folder. However, I recommend the preceding steps to help ensure that you do not make a mistake in the deletion process.


Stopping Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop Sharing

In Windows XP Professional, you have two remote networking features called Remote
Assistance and Remote Desktop Sharing. These remote networking features are very
helpful in a variety of situations but if you don't use them, it is good idea to disable them to save boot time. You can always enable them later if you want to use them.

1. Open the Start menu, right-click My Computer, and choose Properties.
2. Click the Remote Tab.
3. Clear both check boxes to disable Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop.
   

Speeding Up the Dual-Boot Timeout

If you dual-boot your computer with Windows XP and another operating system, you see an operating system selection menu on startup. If you typically boot into Windows XP and not the other operating system, you can speed up the dual-boot timeout value so that you do not wait so long for the boot process to select your default operating system and continue with the boot process. The default timeout value is 30 seconds but you can change this setting to 10. This gives you enough time to select the alternate operating system if you want but also speeds up the boot process. You can skip this section if you do not use a dual-boot configuration.

Follow these steps:

1. Locate the boot.ini file on your computer. It is a hidden file by default; mine is located in C:\boot.ini.
2. Open the file with Notepad (which is what opens it by default).
3. Change the Timeout value to 10 (see Figure 4-11).
4. Select File/Save and close Notepad.
   

Speeding Up Your PPPoE Connection

If you use a Point-to-Point Protocol connection over Ethernet (PPPoE), you may notice a delay in using the PPPoE connection after startup. By default, there is a 120 second delay
but you can stop this behavior by manually configuring an IP address for the network
adapter card. If you do not use a PPPoE connection, you can skip this section.

1. Select Start/Connect to/Show All Connections.
2. Open the TCP/IP properties for your LAN network interface card.
3. Manually set the IP address on the TCP/IP properties to an appropriate IP address and subnet mask for your network.
   

Reducing the Wait Time

When you start to shut down Windows XP, it has to quit, or "kill," any live applications
or processes that are currently running. So close all applications first. However, some
applications and processes are always running in the background. You can reduce the
amount of time that Windows XP waits for those applications and processes to close
before Windows XP kills them. Edit three different Registry settings to change this:

1. Open the Registry Editor.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Select WaitToKillAppTimeout and set the value to 1000.
3. Select the HungAppTimeout value and set it to 1000 as well.
4. Navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. Set the WaitToKillAppTimeout and set the value to 1000. Select the HungAppTimeout \newline value and set it to 1000 as well.
5. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contro l. Select the WaitToKillServiceTimeout value and set it to 1000.
6. Close the Registry Editor.
   

Automatically Killing Tasks on Shutdown

You know the drill. You start to shut down the computer, you wait a few moments, and then you see a dialog box asking if you want to kill an application or service that is
running. Instead of prompting you, you can make Windows XP take care of the kill task
automatically. Here's how:

1. Open the Registry Editor.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.
3. Highlight the value AutoEndTasks and change the value to 1.
4. Close the Registry Editor.
   

Cridit: Cyberphreaking