Disable The Disk Performance Counter(s)

Windows XP contains a built in performance monitor that is constantly examining various areas of your system. This information can be called up using the performance monitor application found in control panel\administrative tools. Of course, most of us have little interest in this sort of performance statistics monitoring, that being more the territory of systems administrators than individual users.

The thing is, XP is still monitoring away, and some of its observation tools can use a considerable amount of resources. The disk monitoring is an example of this, and it's a good idea to turn the disk monitors off if you are not planning to use the performance monitor application.

To do this:
Go to the command prompt ('start\run' then type 'cmd') and type 'diskperf -N'

Alternate Method:
Win XP comes with many inbuilt performance monitoring applications that constantly examine various parts of the system. This information can be of real use to a system administrator for collecting performance statistics. However, for a home user, these statistics hold no value and since the monitoring happens all the time, it consumes a good deal of system resources. “Disk monitoring”, for example, happens in the background, and turning it off is advisable if you will not be using the performance monitoring applications. To turn it off, type in “diskperf -N” at a command prompt. To bring up the command prompt: go to Start>Run, type in “cmd” and press [Enter].

Increasing Internet Band-Width By 20%

Microsoft reserves 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes like Windows Updates and interrogating your PC etc. Click Start then Run and type gpedit.msc. This opens the group policy editor. Then go to: Local Computer Policy-->Computer Configuration-->Administrative Templates-->Network-->QoS Packet Scheduler and then to LimitReservableBandwidth. Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab i.e."By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default." So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO. This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.It works on Windows 2000 and XP as well.

Shortcuts - Run Commands

You can directly open 'Run' by pressing Windows+R keys at a time and type the following to commands open corresponding programs:
cmd - To run MS - DOS (.com, .pif)
calc - To run calculator (.exe)
control - To open Control Panel (.exe)
defrag - To defrag the hard disk drives (.exe)
dialer - For dialing seups (.exe)
dosprompt - To get a minimized DOS window (.pif)
explorer - To open Windows Explorer (.exe., .scf)
ftp - For File Transfer Protocol if internet is connected (.exe)
ms- dos~1/ms-dos~2 - for fully MS-DOS mode. No Windows O.S. (.pif)
net - For net information cum help (.exe)
ping - For bytes information and bandwidth of internet connection information (.exe)
regedit - To open Registry (.exe)
telnet - Command runner if the system is conncected in a UNIX system network (.exe)
tuneup - For Task Scheduling wizard, i.e. Task Maintanance (.exe)
notepad - To run Notepad (.exe)
write - To run WordPad (.exe)
scanregw - To scan the Registry and to backup it (.exe)
progman - To maintain, run and view the files in all drives (.exe)
directcc - To join your computer in cable connection with other computers (.exe)
scandskw - To open Scandisk to scan the hard drives (.exe)
winfile - Windows File Manager
taskman - To manage current running open programs or files. Nice replacement for default Windows taskbar
msconfig - To maintain the configuration of computer. It will show the options like General, Startup including files Autoexec.bat, Config.sys, System.ini and Win.ini. (Autoexec.bat & Config.sys are MS-DOS files)
winrep - To run Windows Report Tool - Accessories>System Tools>System Information(.exe)
winver - To know the version of Windows
packager - Insert objects in documents, presentations or worksheets
winfile - Another Windows Explorer (.exe)

Disable The Booting Logo in Windows XP

One can remove the boot logo that appears when you start Windows XP. This little
tweak saves a few seconds of 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.

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.
4. Restart your computer to check the results.



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