Professional Information Technology-Programming Book part 173 pdf

bootup (F8 for Windows 95 or CTRL for 98/Me). The boot menu allows you to selectively boot Windows in different modes, including Safe Mode and Command Prompt Mode. Display the Windows Splash Screen While Loading (Windows 95/98/Me) Popular When Windows is loading normally you see the Windows clouds splash screen, this can be disabled to show the background DOS boot process. Disable Ability to Skip Startup Programs (Windows NT/2000/XP) Normally if you hold the Shift key while Windows is loading you can prevent the Startup applications from being launched. This setting disables the ability to by- pass these programs. Automatically Reboot on the 'Blue Screen of Death' (Windows NT/2000/XP) Windows will usually freeze when getting a dreaded 'Blue Screen of Death' (BSOD). Changing this setting will force Windows to automatically reboot when it crashes instead. Power the Computer Off After Shutdown (Windows NT/2000/XP) Popular This setting controls whether Windows should automatically power down or reboot your computer once it has finished the shutdown process. Disable the Creation of Last Known Good (Windows NT/2000/XP) This setting allows you to disable the creation of the LastKnownGood configuration, which stores a copy of the configuration after each successful boot- up. Allow Portables to Undock Before Logon (Windows XP) This setting controls whether users with portable computers have the option to undock the system before they have logged onto the computer. Use Crtl + Alt + Delete to Restart the Computer (Windows 3.1/95/98) Normally when you press Ctrl + Alt + Delete the Windows task list is displayed. Using this tweak the key combination will instead reboot the computer. Disable Automatic Modem Connections at Startup (All Windows) If remote connections are enabled in Windows, the system may try to initiate an Internet connection at Windows startup or at the start of many applications. This setting disables that behaviour. Change the Startup and Shutdown Screens (Windows 95/98/Me) Popular Microsoft has a knack for making the Windows startup and shutdown screens pretty boring. Luckily it's relatively easy to replace these images with pictures of your own. Home : Windows : System Scripts Enhancements and Settings for System Scripts Services Windows Service Settings and Enhancements Windows File Checker Enhancements for the System File Checker Change System Environment Variables (Windows NT/2000/XP) This key contains the Windows system environment variables, the variables include Path, Temp, Windir and any other defined values. Disable Automatic Daylight Savings Adjustment (Windows NT/2000/XP) Windows will normally attempt to automatically adjust the system clock for daylight saving changes based on the computer timezone. This tweak allows you to disable the automatic adjustment. Change the Number of Page Table Entries (Windows 2000/XP) Page Table Entries (PTEs) may become depleted or fragmented on systems that perform a large number input/output (I/O) actions. When they become completely depleted the system may show a Stop error and halt. This tweak allows you to increase the number of PTEs available on the system. Control Microsoft VM Garbage Collection (All Windows) This tweak allows you to specify the quantity of new memory that Java can consume before garbage collection is initiated. Garbage collection (GC) consumes a lot of system resources and can severely affect performance. Automatic Download of COM Components (Windows 2000/XP) Windows can be configured to automatically download missing COM classes and objects over the network. This setting allows you to disable or enable this feature. Change the Library Search Order (Windows 2000/XP) This setting controls the order in which directories are searched for DLL (Dynamic Link Library) files. This may be useful to ensure that a local DLL is used when a program is being run over a network or to resolve issues where incompatible system DLL files are being loaded first. Configure Windows Software Update Services (Windows 2000/XP) These settings allow you to configure Windows client machines to use custom Microsoft Software Update Services (SUS) located on an internal corporate network instead of the Windows Update Internet site. Disable Update Device Driver Wizard (Windows 98/Me/2000/XP) This tweak allows you to disable the ability to use Windows Update to locate updated drivers for hardware in Device Manager. Increase the USB Polling Interval (Windows 98/Me/2000/XP) By default the USB polling interval is once every millisecond (ms). Even if no USB devices are connected the polling operation is still performed and the processor may not be able to enter power-saving state. Use this tweak to increase the polling interval. Disable OS/2 and POSIX Subsystems (Windows 2000/XP) To conserve system resources you may want to prevent the Windows session manager (SMSS) from loading any optional subsystems, such as OS/2 or POSIX. This tweak can be used to disable these optional subsystems. Hide Computer Management Option (Windows 2000/XP) This setting allows you to remove the "Manage" option from the My Computer context menu. The Computer Management program is used to configure the system. Manage the CPU Task Priority (Windows 95/98/Me) This setting allows you to manage how the system processor should prioritize foreground and background tasks. System Board and Memory Optimizations (Windows 95/98/Me) These settings allow you to optimize the AGP and PCI buses along with the system memory by reducing the number of wait states (idle time). Manage Automatic Windows Updates (Windows 2000/XP) These settings can be used to configure how Automatic Updates are applied to the Windows system. It includes the ability to disable automatic updates and to set the installation schedule. Increase Application Keyboard Response Time (Windows 95/98/Me) When running more than one application at a time, you may find that your system's keyboard response is slower. To alleviate this, you can adjust the amount of time allocated to processing keystrokes. Disable the Windows Key (Windows NT/2000/XP) Popular This tweak disables the Windows key that is found between the Ctrl and Alt keys on a Windows enhanced keyboard. Change Power Management Configuration (All Windows) This parameter allows you to specify the primary role of the computer so that predefined power management configurations can be used. For example a laptop will have different power saving features than a home desktop PC. Configuring the Registry Size Limit (Windows NT/2000/XP) The Registry Size Limit, or RSL, controls the total amount of space the may be consumed in paged pool memory and disk space by registry data. The RSL is a kind of "global quota" for registry space. Control the Display of Popup Error Messages (Windows NT/2000/XP) This tweak is used to control which error messages are displayed as popups, and also allows you disable the use of popup error dialog boxes entirely. Change Foreground and Background Task Priority (Windows NT/2000) This setting is used to manage the relative priority between foreground and background applications, this is normally accessed through Control Panel > System > Performance. Change the Number of Spare Stack Pages (Windows 95/98/Me) Windows sets aside a number of extra memory pages (spare stack pages) to be used temporarily to prevent a system "crash" due to a stack overflow condition. Sometimes all the spare pages can be used, and an error message is shown, this tweak allows you to increase the number available. Show Run in Separate Memory Space Option (Windows 2000/XP) This setting controls whether the "Run in Separate Memory Space" option is shown in the Run box, which allows you to run 16-bit programs in a dedicated Virtual DOS Machine (VDM) process. Modify the Paged and Non Paged Pool Memory Sizes (Windows NT/2000/XP) Windows normally calculates the paged and non paged pool memory sizes using complex algorithms based on physical memory size. These settings allow you to override and manually specify values. Force Windows to Unload DLLs from Memory (All Windows) Popular Windows Explorer caches DLLs (Dynamic-Link Libraries) in memory for a period of time after the application using them has been closed. This can be an inefficient use of memory on low memory systems, and may cause problems or delays for programmers developing with Windows DLL files. Improve Core System Performance (Windows NT/2000/XP) Popular On systems with large amount of RAM this tweak can be enabled to force the core Windows system to be kept in memory and not paged to disk. Use an Alternative User Interface (Windows NT/2000) This setting allows you to specify an alternate shell to use as the Windows user interface instead of the default explorer shell. Enable Plug and Play on Windows NT (Windows NT 4.0) Windows NT4 does not support plug-and-play devices out of the box, but it can be configured to a least partially support some PnP features with a little help. Control the Default Virtual Machine Option (Windows NT/2000/XP) When starting a 16bit application you have the option of running each in a separate virtual machine (VDM). With this setting you can change the default value. View Which Hot Fix Patches Have Been Installed (Windows NT) Periodically Microsoft releases Hot Fix's to patch bugs in Windows and other products, this key contains information about which Hot fix's have been installed. Home : Windows : System : Scripts Windows Script Host Settings (All Windows) These settings allow you to configure some of the Windows Script Host (WSH) features, including the option to disable the engine. Configure Windows Script Signature Security (All Windows) This setting is used to define whether trusted and untrusted scripts should be . NT4 does not support plug-and-play devices out of the box, but it can be configured to a least partially support some PnP features with a little help. Control the Default Virtual Machine Option. Microsoft releases Hot Fix's to patch bugs in Windows and other products, this key contains information about which Hot fix's have been installed. Home : Windows : System : Scripts