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Ways to use Msconfig In Windows to Speed Up Windows Startup

Musab Zain — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:52:08 +0000

Once we start our Windows computer then numerous other applications also start in addition to the system. Many of them are necessary system programs which might be meant for a successful Windows startup while a few are unwanted and could be ignored.

When we install a growing number of applications on the pc, the startup time increases and then the computer gets slow mainly because numerous programs add themselves automatically towards the startup list. Thus, the outcome is sluggish Windows startup together with a sluggish computer overall.

Just how can we take care of the problem? Well, Windows contains a System configuration utility (MSCONFIG) which will help us resolve Windows startup problems. You may stop a number of needless applications from opening when loading Windows.

This approach applies in all the 3 versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Step 1. Start off your pc to check out which programs load automatically you don’t require (example – MSN messenger, Yahoo messenger etc ). These kinds of applications can invariably be manually started subsequently when you require them.

Step 2. Press start button and head over to Run (by entering “Run” on the search box) or push Windows Key +R button.

Step 3. Type msconfig on Run panel.

Step 4. Your Computer Settings shall be open. Now go to the Startup tab at the top.

Step 5. You can now find all the startup applications of the Windows computer. System configuration even shows you all of the basic information regarding startup programs like name of manufacturer, directory of file loading during startup.

In the event you don’t need to run needless applications like Adobe Acrobat Reader or Yahoo messenger that startup with windows, it is possible to remove them by just unchecking the box close to program name.

Do not attempt to disable any unfamiliar program or any program you just aren’t certain of by means of MSCONFIG. A couple of programs are required to run while starting windows. Just disable those programs that you believe are affecting Windows startup speed.

Step 6. Right after unchecking all the required boxes press OK button. It would prompt you to restart your computer. Just click on Restart button. You may even exit without restart and carry on doing your work. Later on when you restart the system, changes are going to be applied and you’ll notice a faster startup.

That’s it! You need to now notice a substantial improvement in the loading time of your computer as you restart the system.

How to Add Recycle Bin Icon to Windows 7 Taskbar

Musab Zain — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:28:41 +0000

If Windows 7 is in your use for some time now, you might have noticed that it does not allow you to pin icons directly on to the taskbar. For instance, if you have tried dragging and placing ‘Recycle Bin‘ on the taskbar, you probably might have noticed that it gets pinned under the Windows Explorer rather than appearing as a separate icon on the taskbar as it normally would appear in Windows Vista orWindows XP.

In order to place a ‘Recycle Bin’ you’ll need to tweak it a little bit. The idea is very simple; create a shortcut and point it to the original Recycle Bin and then place that created shortcut onto the taskbar. Now the question is how are we going to point a shortcut to the original Recycle Bin folder? Simple; add a small snippet (code) to it.

This is what you will have to do to place an icon on to the taskbar;

Step #1. Right-Click on the desktop and go to New->Shortcut (its the second option from above);

Step #2. Now add the following line in the item box;

%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe shell:RecycleBinFolder

Step #3. Hit Next, type a new name, in this case; Recycle bin and hit Enter;

Once the new icon is created, you’ll notice that it does not have the right icon image. In order to counter this problem, Right click on the icon, select Properties from the menu,

Step #4. A new pop-up window will now appear, click on the ‘change icon‘ button (as shown below) and hit Enter;

Step #5. A small window will pop out, type the following code inside the item box;

%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll

Step #6. Now look for the appropriate Recycle bin icon, once you have found it, select and hit OK. Reference screenshot below;

The last step is to drag and drop the newly created icon onto the taskbar. You can then delete the original icon if you want to. Told you it was simple! Image Courtesy: TweakWin7

How To Make Hidden And Unsearchable Folders in Windows XP and Vista

Musab Zain — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:30:49 +0000

In one of our previous posts we showed you how to create an ultra hidden folder in Windows within a couple of minutes, using the ALT+0160 technique. However, there were generally two downsides to this trick. First was that you can only hide the folder on the desktop, the reason behind it was that users can easily change the background color of the desktop in order to merge with the folders surrounding, but it was almost impossible to hide a folder in any directory or folder.

Secondly, the hidden folder was still search-able and any one who was looking for that folder could easily type the folder name in Windows Search box and steal any confidential stuff from within it. Certainly no one wants this to ever happen. Luckily, there is another more powerful technique that not only works within the directory or folders, but its also un-searchable. If you want to provide maximum security to your confidential files and folders, read on…

Create Hidden and Unsearchable Folder in Windows

Step #1. Go to Start->Run or use WindowsKey+R keys combination,

Step #2. Open Command Prompt by typing cmd

Step #3. Inside the window go to that folder that you wish to hide. In our case for instance, we’ll be hiding a folder name Private that is residing in Drive E, inside another folder named DCIM. The final path would be, E:DCIM

Notice the commands we have used to reach the destination of that folder,

Step #4. Once you are there, type in the following command in DOS,

attrib +s +h MyFolder

where attrib stands for ‘attribute’, +h means ‘hide folder‘ while +s means ‘unsearchable‘

For example, we’ll replace MyFolder with Private, since our folder name is Private, and hit Enter. Reference screen-shot above,

Now if you go to that path where the target folder was residing, you no longer will see that folder. Try searching this as well and surprising it won’t appear in the search results. Your friends or clients won’t even know the folder ever existed!

You can easily make this folder visible and searchable again, simply repeat the process up till Step #3, then use the following command to unhide the folder,

attrib -s -h MyFolder

where -h means ‘Unhide folder‘ while -s means ‘Make the folder searchable‘. Notice we have used minus (-) sign instead of plus (+) to un-hide the folder,

Tip: If the folder that you want to hide contains a space, simply enclose the folder name in double quotes, as shown below.

Have you tried any of these methods? Which method do you prefer the most and why?

How to Disable Windows Defender in Windows Vista

Musab Zain — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:01:50 +0000

Mircosoft’s Windows Defender, is a software that prevents, removes and quarantines spyware in Windows. It is included in Windows Vista and Windows 7 by default. However, if you have your own Anti-virus or Anti-spyware software such as KasperSky or AVG you probably won’t need Windows Defender help to protect your system.

Unfortunately, Windows hasn’t provided any mechanism to un-install it and you will have to manually do the labor to disable it as it is using precious resources of your system. If you are confident about the antivirus/antispware software you are using, here’s what you have to do to disable it permanently.

Turn off Windows Defender in Windows Vista

1. Go to Start and in the search box type, Windows Defender or search for it inside the All Programs menu,

2. A small window will pop out, click ‘Tools‘ button,

3. Under the ‘Tools and Settings‘ section click Options,

4. Scroll down to the end. Under the Administrator Options, un-check the ‘Use Windows Defender‘ box,

5. Once you hit the Save button, a ‘Windows Defender is turned off‘ dialog message will appear, confirming that the Windows Defender has been disabled

In addition to that a notification message will be displayed above the system tray, warning users that the security functionality is no longer working. If you are an above average user you can permanetly disable this warning using the hack mentioned here. I won’t advice novice users to follow this hack as this will prevent them knowing about any security changes that may occour if they have accidently disabled any security feature.

How To Disable Security Center Alerts in Windows XP and Vista

Musab Zain — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:29:10 +0000

One of the most annoying things that I find in Windows XP and Windows Vista is that when ever you disable an important security setting, a Windows Security Center Alert icon will pop up at the taskbar. If you are looking it from a security perspective its a good way to notify a novice user about any changes he/she has made that could eventually threaten the security of the system.

In general this alert will be triggered each time you Disable a security program, such as Firewall or antivirus, especially when you uninstall an anti-virus or its signatures get out-dated. Besides that there are several other reasons where this pop up can appear. None the less, most users hate when a pop up message is displayed. If you are looking for a way to turn off this feature, read on…

Disable Security Center Alerts in Windows Vista

step #1. Go to Control Panel and under Security, click ‘Check this Computer’s security Status‘ link,

step #2. A small window will pop out. At the left side of the pane, click ‘Change the way Security Center alerts me‘. Reference screen-shot below,

step #3. Again a small window will appear, here three options are provided namely;

Yes notify me and display the icon
Don’t notify me, but display the icon
Don’t notify me and don’t display the icon

step #4. Select the last option.

step #5. Restart system for changes to take effect.

Disable Security Center Alerts in Windows XP

Same procedure goes for Windows XP. However, after step #4 an Alert Settings dialog box will appear. Clear the Firewall, Automatic Updates, and/or Virus Protection check boxes to disable the respective component’s alert. Source

How to Make Windows XP Shutdown Faster?

Musab Zain — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:01:59 +0000

You are probably reading this article because your Windows XP takes a lot of time before it shuts down and you want a way to solve this problem once and for all. So why does your Windows take eternity to properly shut down?

This problem is caused by third party applications and sometimes by Microsoft apps themselves that need to be properly cleaned up when exiting. Windows will keep on trying this until its done and this will generally take 1-2 minutes before it shuts down. This could even take more time if the number of third party applications increases overtime.

Fortunately, there is a registry tweak to force Windows XP to shut down as quickly as possible. When applied can drastically shave of some time. But before you begin, don’t forget to backup your registry in case anything goes wrong.

Cut short time and boost up Windows XP Shutdown speed

1. Click on Start Menu -> Run,

2. Enter: regedit

3. A Registry Editor window will pop up, look for HKEY_CURRENT_USER, click on the folder,

4. In the drop down menu click on Control Panel folder, next click on Desktop,

5. On the right side of the pane, you’ll see a list of files, scroll down to HungAppTimeout,

6. Double click on the file, a small window will pop out. Under the value data, the default value is set to 5000, change this to 1000. Click OK when finished.

7. Now scroll down in the same list and click on WaitToKillAppTimeout, change this value to 1000 as well. Default is set to 20000. Click OK when done.

Next up is to go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, click on the ‘+‘ (plus) sign to expand the folder,

1. Inside it look for the System folder,

2. Next click on CurrentControlSet and then Control,

3. On the right side of the window, search for WaitToKillServiceTimeout, and set it to 1000,

In the end, go to HKEY_USERS \ DEFAULT \ Control Panel \ Desktop,

1. Change HungAppTimeout to 1000 and click OK,

2. Scroll down and also change WaitToKillAppTimeout to 1000,

Save changes and reboot your system to see whether it work or not. In case it doesn’t start from 10000 and then decrease the count. The reason lower values like 1000 might not work is because some of the programs may be performing cleanup maintenance.

Play around with the values to see which works for your system. Note, if you do change these values, make sure they are uniform throughout each setting.

However, if you are afraid to use this hack, you can download User Profile Hive Cleanup Service as an alternative to this hack. Basically, this tool helps to ensure user sessions are completely terminated when a user logs off.

We would love to hear your views about this article. Image Courtesy: HowToGeek

Why Windows Vista forgets Folder settings? Here’s how you fix it

Musab Zain — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:10:12 +0000

Previously we discussed one of the fundamental problems that exists in Windows XP was that it kept on forgetting your folders view and arrangement settings and all those settings were lost after the 400 folder limit was reached. If you are using Windows XP and want to expand this capacity, read this article.

Although this limit was increased in Windows Vista to 5000 folders. You can still exceed this limit in case you have a very large Hard Disk Drive or you have a huge volume of folders.

The good news is that you can combat with this problem in Windows Vista as well. Here is a simple tweak which will allow you to expand this capacity to upto 10,000 folders. But before you begin, make sure you have made a backup of your registry.

1. Click Start Menu, in the search bar type Run,

2. Inside the Run window, type REGEDIT and hit ENTER,

3. Locate the path as shown below:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

In case you can’t understand the path as shown above, try locating one by one; for instance look for HKEY_CURRENT_USER first, then inside it Software, then inside this folder look for Microsoft and so on…

4. Once you are inside the Shell folder; you will see a file, named BagMRU Size,

5. Right click on the file name click modify; you may double click the file to modify it,

6. The default value is set to 5000 in decimal (or 1388 in Hexadecimal), choose Decimal from the radio button and enter the value; 10,000 for instance.

6. Click OK and reboot your system for changes to take place.

Easy isn’t it? If you are having some trouble following this procedure, drop us a comment below.

Why Windows XP forgets Folder View Settings? Reason & Solution

Musab Zain — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:01:39 +0000

How many times have you customized your folders in Windows XP by changing their position or display settings, just to find out that all your hard work of re-arranging those icons was lost the next time you restarted your computer?

This is due to a subtle fact that Windows XP by default only remembers the settings for upto 400 folders, therefore if you make more changes to your folders, those changes might not get reflected the next time you restart your PC, because the 400 limit was reached.

If you are interested in expanding this limit to let say 5000 or 6000 (Note: Maximum limit is 8000 for Windows XP), here’s what you have to do, but before you begin make sure you have made a backup copy of your registry in Windows.

1. Click Start Menu, Open Run and type REGEDIT and hit ENTER.

2. Locate the path as shown below:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

3. Once you are inside the Shell folder; Right Click New->DWORD (32 bit) Value - Reference screenshot

4. Type BagMRU Size, and then press ENTER.

5. Right click on the same file that you have named and click Modify.

6. Click the “Decimal” Radio button and type the BagMRU Size to ‘5000‘ or up to 8000, and then click OK.

Voila! Now your Windows XP can hold settings up to maximum 8000 folders. If you have any trouble applying this tweak, feel free to ask.

How to make a Registry Backup in Windows XP and Windows Vista

Musab Zain — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:44:04 +0000

Windows Registry is a key component for a smooth running of your system. If by chance it gets corrupted or damaged due to an accumulation of junk information such as obsolete, incorrect, or malicious registry keys, it can cause severe damage to your operating system.

The best thing to do is to save your Registry by creating a backup. There are no quick methods provided by Microsoft to make a Registry Backup, you’ll have to do this manually.

There are various methods by which you can create a backup copy of your system’s registry; we’ll discuss only the easiest one.

Creating a Registry Backup by exporting

1. Go to Start menu, select Run, type REGEDIT, and press ENTER,

2. Locate the file that you are about to make changes to,

3. Right click on that folder and choose Export,

4. In the Save in box, select a location where you want to save the Registration Entries (.reg),

5. Type the name of the backup file in the File name box,

6. Next, in the Export range section, to back up the entire registry, select All and to back up a portion of the registry, choose Selected Branch and type the name of the branch you want to back up in the text box,

7. Select Save to create the backup file.

Restoring Registry Backup After Saving the File

Once your registry is created, make sure that you place it in a safe place. You can restore the settings by just double-clicking the REG file. It merges the contents to the Registry automatically.

If you are interested to read more on this topic, take a look at this article.

Skidzopedia » Windows Tips

Ways to use Msconfig In Windows to Speed Up Windows Startup

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