Xp Tricks Contd..
[10:18 AM | Comments ]

Make your folders invisible...:)

1)Right Click on the desktop.Make a new folder
2)Now rename the folder with a space(U have to hold ALT key and type 0160).
3)Now u have a folder with out a name.
4)Right click on the folder>properties>customize. Click on change icon.
5)Scroll a bit, u should find some empty spaces, Click on any one of them.

click ok



Easily Disable Messenger


Go into: C:/Program Files/Messenger. Rename the Messenger folder to "MessengerOFF".
Remove Messenger

· Go to Start/Run, and type: "rundll32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection BLC.Remove 128

%SystemRoot%\INF\msmsgs.inf"



Turn Off Autoplay for Program CDs



How can you stop Windows XP from launching program CDs?
· Click Start, click Run, type GPEDIT.MSC to open Group Policy in the Microsoft
Management Console.

· Double-click Computer Configuration, double-click Administrative templates,
double-click System, and then click Turn off autoplay.

· The instructions on your screen describe how to configure this setting. Click
Properties to display the setting dialog.

· Click Enabled, and choose CD-ROM drives, then click OK, to stop CD autoplay.
This setting does not prevent Autoplay for music CDs.




Change Drive Letters in Windows XP


When you add drives to your computer, such as an extra hard drive, a CD drive, or a
storage device that corresponds to a drive, Windows automatically assigns letters to the
drives. However, this assignment might not suit your system; for example, you might have
mapped a network drive to the same letter that Windows assigns to a new drive. When you
want to change drive letters, follow these steps:

· Right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.

· Under Computer Management, click Disk Management. In the right pane, you'll see
your drives listed. CD-ROM drives are listed at the bottom of the pane.

· Right-click the drive or device you want to change, and then click Change Drive
Letter and Paths.

· Click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the drive letter you
want to assign, and then click OK.



Do Not Highlight Newly Installed Programs



Tired of that annoying little window that pops up to tell you that new software is
installed? If it gets in the way when you're logging off, turn it off completely. To do
this:

· Click Start, right-click at the top of the Start menu where your name is displayed,
and then click Properties.

· In the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, on the Start Menu tab, click
Customize.

· Click the Advanced tab, and then clear the Highlight newly installed programs check
box.

· Click OK, and then click OK again




Change the Default Opening Folder in Windows Explorer


By default, Windows Explorer opens showing the My Documents folder. To change the
default setting so that all top-level drives and folders are shown, follow these steps:

· Click Start > Programs > Accessories, then right-click Windows Explorer, and click
Properties.

· Under Target field, which reads %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe, add to make the line
read:

%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /n, /e, /select, C:\



Close Multiple Windows


If you just opened a number of separate, related windows (a folder inside a folder,
and so on), there's an easier way to close them all than one-at-a-time:
· Hold down the shift-key as you click the X caption button in the upper-right corner
of the last window opened. Doing so closes that window and all windows that came before it


change fat -> ntfs

To change ur File system from command prompt
type: convert c:/fs:ntfs(ex:'c' is the drive letter)
Read more >>

How to do Overclocking = Increase Speed of PC
[10:17 AM | Comments ]

Overclocking is the act of increasing the speed of certain components in a computer other than that specified by the manufacturer. It mainly refers to making your CPU run at a faster rate although it could also refer to making your graphics card or other peripherals run faster. For example if you have a 300MHz PII CPU, you could probably overclock it easily to 350 or even 400MHz. The latest P4 processors also appear to be overclockable through the FSB (front side bus) even though they are advertised as being clock-locked.

So, now that you now what overclocking is, let's see how you can actually overclock your CPU. You can do this using any of the following 3 methods: 1. Through your BIOS, 2. By changing the multiplier settings, 3. By changing the Bus speed!

The formula for processor speed is: frontside bus x multiplier = processor speed.

BIOS: In some BIOS's you are given the option to alter your CPU speed. Using this method, you won't even have to open your computer case. When you first boot your PC enter your BIOS (usually by pressing Del, F1, or F10) and start looking for any option that allows you to change your CPU speed or voltage. If you do find it, then it's as simple as changing the current number to a higher value.

Bus Speed: When increased, it makes the whole system run faster and not only the CPU. Most PC's have a speed of 66MHz or 100MHz. Mainly, it defines the speed that your motherboard and other components run at. To change your bus speed appropriately, see the table below.

Multiplier Settings: Multipliers are located on your motherboard and come in the forms x1, x1.5, x2, x2.5, etc... When the Bus speed is multiplied by any one of these numbers, it results in the final CPU speed. For example, if you have a bus speed of 100 and a multiplier of x4, your CPU speed is 400MHz. Clear? The table below shows how you can change your bus speed/multiplier settings depending on your CPU.

Summary: The best way to overclock your PC is to alter the bus speed and multiplier settings. To do that, look at the table below and you should straight away realize how beautifully it has been put together. For example, if you have a Pentium 166MHz CPU (which is set up on a 66MHz bus speed and a multiplier setting of x2.5) you can see straight away that you only have 1 choice and that is to increase the multiplier setting tox3 to get a net speed of 200MHz!

Other processes to try out:

You must understand that to overclock you MUST buy a heatsink or an additional fan because your motherboard will be producing more heat. Ask your local hardware store for help with fitting these. Also, make sure you download a benchmarking utility to know how much speed you've gained, check out SiSoft Sandra 98 from the Speed Apps section.

Now that you know what you'll need and what your options are, let's take a look at how you can actually speed up your PC:

(1) Take off your PC's lid and play around with your Motherboard's jumpers. Making sure you've got your Motherboard manual in hand, you can see how you should fit your jumpers for each CPU speed. Simply reposition the jumpers for a faster CPU by altering the bus and multiplier setting jumpers. (see table below)

(2) Software. I would recommend you use software since it's easier. Go to h-oda.com and download a program called SoftFSB. Follow the instructions and then overclock your CPU one step at a time (rebooting after each time) to check and see if you've been successful. If Windows crashes for no apparent reason then your processor is probably overheating and you need to undo your last speed jump.

(4) To prevent overheating your CPU, download and try CPUidle from cpuidle.de and Waterfall Pro from rocketdownload.com. Alternatively, you can buy heatsinks/fans for your CPU.

Overclocking Risks: Overclocking comes with many risks, such as overheating, so you should become familiar with all the pros and cons before you attempt it. Additionally, the major chip manufacturers don’t support overclocking, which means overclocking your CPU will void your warranty. Overclocking can also decrease the lifespan of the CPU, cause failure in critical components and may even result in some data corruption. You may also notice an increase in unexplainable crashes and freezes.

You can find many complete step-by-step guides available online that details the actual process of overclocking. If you've decided to take the plunge and overclock your CPU, we recommend you don't start with your only usable system (try using outdated and cheap hardware to practice with) and be sure to find a knowledgeable source and read some of the overclocking information and Web pages listed below in the links section to get you started in the right direction.

Did You Know :
"Multiplier locking forces the CPU to use a multiplier that is preset by the manufacturer. Intel has been quoted as saying they use multiplier locking to prevent unscrupulous retailers from overclocking processors to higher speeds, and selling overclocked systems to consumers for the same, higher price as the faster retail model."

This article described how to overclock your computer to achieve hiegher sppeds. If you are willing to overclock your computer or are having any problem doing so.... put up a post and there will be always someone around to help you.

Overclocking a Pentium or a locked processor, it's not a big issue as long as you can increase the FSB, but, the main issue about increasing the FSB, is that everything has to be compatible, as the FSB increases, not just the processor speed will increase, the RAM speed may increase too, cause the FSB increases the Bus Speed.
So, maybe some of you won't be able to increase the FSB too much, or maybe won't be able to increase it. Or if you increase it, although your CPU might support more, your RAM might not.
The best overclocking speed to increase is 10%.

When overclocking you should frequently check your CPU temperature. If everything is OK, then proceed overclocking a little bit more. Although CPUs supports more than 40°C, it's not recommended to overpass that temperature.
Also, when overclocking the voltage may increase.

Just one more thing, you may have issues, your computer may be unstable, that's a bad overclock, you should decrease a little bit, usually generated by incompatibility of the Bus Speed with the CPU/RAM.

Sometimes you may not even be able to boot up your PC, neither go to the BIOS, you might see only a black screen. That's a bad overclock, and won't work.

If you want to fix that, please read this post "How to Reset your BIOS / CMOS Password".

Note that using Software won't be available. You should remove your CMOS and put it back again.
I'll just warn you that everything you modified from the BIOS will be resetted.
Read more >>

A Great Way to Speed up Your Applications
[10:16 AM | Comments ]

Click on: Start Menu
Go To: Run
Type: Regedit
Look for the keys: HKEY_LOCAL_MECHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentConrolSet\Control \Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters
Now look for the DWORD KEY : ENABLEPREFETCHERA
Its default value Is: 3
change the value to: 6

Now close the registry editor and restart your computer

Note: If you change its value to 1 it will be very slow
Read more >>

10 reasons why PCs crash U must Know
[10:14 AM | Comments ]

Fatal error: the system has become unstable or is busy,” it says. “Enter to return to Windows or press Control-Alt-Delete to restart your computer. If you do this you will lose any unsaved information in all open applications.”

You have just been struck by the Blue Screen of Death. Anyone who uses Mcft Windows will be familiar with this. What can you do? More importantly, how can you prevent it happening?

1. Hardware conflict:
The number one reason why Windows crashes is hardware conflict. Each hardware device communicates to other devices through an interrupt request channel (IRQ). These are supposed to be unique for each device.

For example, a printer usually connects internally on IRQ 7. The keyboard usually uses IRQ 1 and the floppy disk drive IRQ 6. Each device will try to hog a single IRQ for itself.

If there are a lot of devices, or if they are not installed properly, two of them may end up sharing the same IRQ number. When the user tries to use both devices at the same time, a crash can happen. The way to check if your computer has a hardware conflict is through the following route:

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager.

Often if a device has a problem a yellow ‘!’ appears next to its description in the Device Manager. Highlight Computer (in the Device Manager) and press Properties to see the IRQ numbers used by your computer. If the IRQ number appears twice, two devices may be using it.

Sometimes a device might share an IRQ with something described as ‘IRQ holder for PCI steering’. This can be ignored. The best way to fix this problem is to remove the problem device and reinstall it.

Sometimes you may have to find more recent drivers on the internet to make the device function properly. A good resource is driverguide com. If the device is a soundcard, or a modem, it can often be fixed by moving it to a different slot on the motherboard (be careful about opening your computer, as you may void the warranty).

When working inside a computer you should switch it off, unplug the mains lead and touch an unpainted metal surface to discharge any static electricity.

To be fair to Mcft, the problem with IRQ numbers is not of its making. It is a legacy problem going back to the first PC designs using the IBM 8086 chip. Initially there were only eight IRQs. Today there are 16 IRQs in a PC. It is easy to run out of them. There are plans to increase the number of IRQs in future designs.



2 Bad Ram:
Ram (random-access memory) problems might bring on the blue screen of death with a message saying Fatal Exception Error. A fatal error indicates a serious hardware problem. Sometimes it may mean a part is damaged and will need replacing.

But a fatal error caused by Ram might be caused by a mismatch of chips. For example, mixing 70-nanosecond (70ns) Ram with 60ns Ram will usually force the computer to run all the Ram at the slower speed. This will often crash the machine if the Ram is overworked.

One way around this problem is to enter the BIOS settings and increase the wait state of the Ram. This can make it more stable. Another way to troubleshoot a suspected Ram problem is to rearrange the Ram chips on the motherboard, or take some of them out. Then try to repeat the circumstances that caused the crash. When handling Ram try not to touch the gold connections, as they can be easily damaged.

Parity error messages also refer to Ram. Modern Ram chips are either parity (ECC) or non parity (non-ECC). It is best not to mix the two types, as this can be a cause of trouble.

EMM386 error messages refer to memory problems but may not be connected to bad Ram. This may be due to free memory problems often linked to old Dos-based programmes.

3 BIOS settings:
Every motherboard is supplied with a range of chipset settings that are decided in the factory. A common way to access these settings is to press the F2 or delete button during the first few seconds of a boot-up.

Once inside the BIOS, great care should be taken. It is a good idea to write down on a piece of paper all the settings that appear on the screen. That way, if you change something and the computer becomes more unstable, you will know what settings to revert to.

A common BIOS error concerns the CAS latency. This refers to the Ram. Older EDO (extended data out) Ram has a CAS latency of 3. Newer SDRam has a CAS latency of 2. Setting the wrong figure can cause the Ram to lock up and freeze the computer’s display.

Mcft Windows is better at allocating IRQ numbers than any BIOS. If possible set the IRQ numbers to Auto in the BIOS. This will allow Windows to allocate the IRQ numbers (make sure the BIOS setting for Plug and Play OS is switched to ‘yes’ to allow Windows to do this.).



4 Hard disk drives:
After a few weeks, the information on a hard disk drive starts to become piecemeal or fragmented. It is a good idea to defragment the hard disk every week or so, to prevent the disk from causing a screen freeze. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Defragmenter

This will start the procedure. You will be unable to write data to the hard drive (to save it) while the disk is defragmenting, so it is a good idea to schedule the procedure for a period of inactivity using the Task Scheduler.

The Task Scheduler should be one of the small icons on the bottom right of the Windows opening page (the desktop).

Some lockups and screen freezes caused by hard disk problems can be solved by reducing the read-ahead optimisation. This can be adjusted by going to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System Icon-Performance-File System-Hard Disk.

Hard disks will slow down and crash if they are too full. Do some housekeeping on your hard drive every few months and free some space on it. Open the Windows folder on the C drive and find the Temporary Internet Files folder. Deleting the contents (not the folder) can free a lot of space.

Empty the Recycle Bin every week to free more space. Hard disk drives should be scanned every week for errors or bad sectors. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-ScanDisk

Otherwise assign the Task Scheduler to perform this operation at night when the computer is not in use.

5. Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors:

Fatal OE exception errors and VXD errors are often caused by video card problems.

These can often be resolved easily by reducing the resolution of the video display. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Display-Settings

Here you should slide the screen area bar to the left. Take a look at the colour settings on the left of that window. For most desktops, high colour 16-bit depth is adequate.

If the screen freezes or you experience system lockups it might be due to the video card. Make sure it does not have a hardware conflict. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager

Here, select the + beside Display Adapter. A line of text describing your video card should appear. Select it (make it blue) and press properties. Then select Resources and select each line in the window. Look for a message that says No Conflicts.

If you have video card hardware conflict, you will see it here. Be careful at this point and make a note of everything you do in case you make things worse.

The way to resolve a hardware conflict is to uncheck the Use Automatic Settings box and hit the Change Settings button. You are searching for a setting that will display a No Conflicts message.

Another useful way to resolve video problems is to go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Performance-Graphics

Here you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left. As ever, the most common cause of problems relating to graphics cards is old or faulty drivers (a driver is a small piece of software used by a computer to communicate with a device).

Look up your video card’s manufacturer on the internet and search for the most recent drivers for it.

6. Viruses:
Often the first sign of a virus infection is instability. Some viruses erase the boot sector of a hard drive, making it impossible to start. This is why it is a good idea to create a Windows start-up disk. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs

Here, look for the Start Up Disk tab. Virus protection requires constant vigilance.

A virus scanner requires a list of virus signatures in order to be able to identify viruses. These signatures are stored in a DAT file. DAT files should be updated weekly from the website of your antivirus software manufacturer.

Norton antivirus, by far is the best, though it consumes a bit of resources. Another one is Mcafee.

7. Printers:
The action of sending a document to print creates a bigger file, often called a postscript file.

Printers have only a small amount of memory, called a buffer. This can be easily overloaded. Printing a document also uses a considerable amount of CPU power. This will also slow down the computer’s performance.

If the printer is trying to print unusual characters, these might not be recognised, and can crash the computer. Sometimes printers will not recover from a crash because of confusion in the buffer. A good way to clear the buffer is to unplug the printer for ten seconds. Booting up from a powerless state, also called a cold boot, will restore the printer’s default settings and you may be able to carry on.

8. Software:
A common cause of computer crash is faulty or badly-installed software. Often the problem can be cured by uninstalling the software and then reinstalling it. Use Norton Uninstall or Uninstall Shield to remove an application from your system properly. This will also remove references to the programme in the System Registry and leaves the way clear for a completely fresh copy.

The System Registry can be corrupted by old references to obsolete software that you thought was uninstalled. Use Reg Cleaner by Jouni Vuorio to clean up the System Registry and remove obsolete entries. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), Windows Millennium Edition (ME), NT4 and Windows 2000.

Read the instructions and use it carefully so you don’t do permanent damage to the Registry. If the Registry is damaged you will have to reinstall your operating system. Apps like Reg Cleaner and others can be useful.

Often a Windows problem can be resolved by entering Safe Mode.

Safe Mode loads a minimum of drivers. It allows you to find and fix problems that prevent Windows from loading properly.

Sometimes installing Windows is difficult because of unsuitable BIOS settings. If you keep getting SUWIN error messages (Windows setup) during the Windows installation, then try entering the BIOS and disabling the CPU internal cache. Try to disable the Level 2 (L2) cache if that doesn’t work.

Remember to restore all the BIOS settings back to their former settings following installation.

9. Overheating:
Central processing units (CPUs) are usually equipped with fans to keep them cool. If the fan fails or if the CPU gets old it may start to overheat and generate a particular kind of error called a kernel error. This is a common problem in chips that have been overclocked to operate at higher speeds than they are supposed to.

One remedy is to get a bigger better fan and install it on top of the CPU. Specialist cooling fans/heatsinks are available now.

CPU problems can often be fixed by disabling the CPU internal cache in the BIOS. This will make the machine run more slowly, but it should also be more stable.

10. Power supply problems:
With all the new construction going on around the country the steady supply of electricity has become disrupted. A power surge or spike can crash a computer as easily as a power cut.

If this has become a nuisance for you then consider buying a uninterrupted power supply (UPS). This will give you a clean power supply when there is electricity, and it will give you a few minutes to perform a controlled shutdown in case of a power cut.

It is a good investment if your data are critical, because a power cut will cause any unsaved data to be lost.
Read more >>

Speed Up Ur Acrobat Reader
[10:13 AM | Comments ]

Do u get irritated when acrobat reader takes 5/10 seconds to load when you want to open a pdf document. There is a way to speed up the loading.

1. Go to the installation folder of acrobat reader
(C:\program files\adobe\acrobat\reader\.. whatever)

2. Move all the files and folders from the "plugins" directory to the "Optional" directory. (I repeat.. cut and paste the files NOT copy & paste).

Also make sure that acrobat reader is not open else it will lock the files and not allow you to move the files).

Now your acrobat reader will load very fast
and almost as good as notepad..
the same.
Read more >>