“… Your Computer might be at risk”, you must have seen this error message popping now and then near clock area of system tray. This message can appear due to 3 reasons including: firewall disabled, automatic updates disabled and no Anti-Virus software on the computer.

Steps to disable this Pop-up

1. Click Start > Settings > Control Panel.
2. Click on Security Center shield icon.
3. On left side under resources, see last option ‘Change the way security center alerts me’.
4. Uncheck all or few options for: Firewall, Automatic updates, Virus protection and click on OK.

Steps to see hidden Files & Folders

1. Double click on My Computer icon or press Win+E keys.

2. Click menu option Tools, then click on Folder options.

3. In new window, click on view tab.

4. Select ‘Show Hidden Files & Folders’ option.

5. Click on Apply and OK.

Now you will see hidden files and folders with faded icons. Right click on file and folder with faded icon or display, uncheck hidden option and click on apply. Now specific file or folder is NOT hidden and is like normal folder or file in Windows.

How to Clean your RAM

You may recognize that your system gets slower and slower when playing and working a lot with your Desktop or a laptop. That’s because your RAM is full of remaining progress pieces you do not need any more.

1. Open the Notepad and type:

FreeMem=Space(64000000)

2. Save it as RAMcleaner.vbs (You should choose the “All Files” option when you save it.)

3. Run the file and your RAM may be cleaned.
Of course you can edit the code in the file for a greater “cleaning-progress”.

For Example: FreeMem=Space(128000000)

Open a text file in notepad and write:

Dim msg, sapi
msg=InputBox(”Enter your text”,”Talk it”)
Set sapi=CreateObject(”sapi.spvoice”)
sapi.Speak msg

Save the file with a (*.vbs) extension, it will create a VBScript File.
It will prompt you for a text when u open the file, input the text and press ok.”

U will hear what u typed

This works in xp,may be in vista also.

Everybody knows that you can find almost any song at YouTube - even the most obscure ones. And most everybody knows that you can download the videos.

Download the FLV file from YouTube. There are many methods to do this; but this is the easiest.

Go here:

http://www.videodl.org/

Paste in your YouTube link, and download the FLV. You may have to rename the file to .FLV.

I’m going to use this link as an example.

Now you have the FLV file saved to your computer. Huzzah.

Now comes the fun part.

Download this program (40KB): Here

Run FLVExtract, and drag your FLV file into it.

Now you have 3 files, an AVI video file, an MP3 audio track, and a text file.

Delete the AVI and text file. And guess what’s remaining. Your MP3 audio file, directly ripped from a YouTube video!

To create a Windows XP Live CD we will require

1. Bart PEbuilder

2. A CD burner like Nero

3. A bootable Windows XP CD and

4. Some pebuilder plugins to customize the CD.

Step 1:
Download PeBuilder from here and install it.

Make sure you have enough free space on the drive where you install the program. After you have finished adding all programs it will create an ISO to be burned into a disk. The size of the ISO will depend upon how many programs you add to your live CD. I would recommend atleast 700MB of free space.

Step 2:
You may want to set a wallpaper that will appear on the desktop when you boot the CD. For this open the folder where you have installed PEbuilder and replace the file bartpe.bmp with the wallpaper of your choice.

Step 3:
Download XPE plugin from here .

It’s the GUI shell of the XP Live CD that will create the XP start button and taskbar. You are free to download as many plugin (applications) you want. Currently there are more than 500 applications to choose from. Both freewares and commercial applications are available. Antivirus programs like Kaspersky, NOD32, Avast; burning program Nero; media players like VLC; OpenOffice, Foxit PDF reader, Acrobat Reader etc are available.

More Plugins Download From Here

1. http://www.bootcd.us/BartPE_Plugins_Repository.php

2. http://oss.netfarm.it/winpe/plugins.php

Step 4:
After you have finished downloading all your favourite programs, open PEbuider and specify the source path to the Windows XP installation bootable CD. You can copy the CD to your hard disk and point the source to the copied file

Step 5:
Click Plugins and add all the plugins you have downloaded. Since we have added XPE, disable nu2shell and the startup group from the list of plugins.

Step 6:
Specify the ISO image file and click Build. The program will integrate the plugins and create an ISO image.

Step7:
Burn the image into a disk using any burning software and your live CD is ready.

XP’s successor Vista displays a thumbnail preview of programs that are open when the mouse is pointed to a minimized program in the Taskbar. This can easily be done in Windows XP too. All you need is the Visual Tooltip freeware. It creates thumbnails for the Taskbar which can be positioned as you like. The tool also replaces the Taskbar with a three dimensional Doc like Apple MAC if needed. It is available for free download on Download Here.

Installation of Visual Tool Tip:

Unzip the archive in a folder of your choice and start the ‘VisualToolTip.exe’ file. Select ‘English’ in the first dialog box and click ‘OK’. The tool appears in the system tray after you start it. Right-click it and select ‘Options’.

Configuration:

You can set the image size, background color and transparency in the ‘Thumbnails’ tab. Now switch to the ‘Display’ tab. Activate ‘Start with Windows’. By default, there is a slight delay before the animated view appears.

It opens faster when you reduce the value ‘700′ in the ‘Delay in showing thumbnail’ field or set it to ‘0′. If you want this to happen even faster, set both the combination fields ‘Thumbnail display animation’ and ‘Thumbnail close animation’ to ‘none’.

You can also pull a thumbnail at any place on the screen by dragging and dropping it. It then remains in the foreground and is updated regularly. A lengthy video conversion can be monitored with this. When you are done with using the window, you can hold the mouse pointer over it and click the pin symbol in the title.

Replacing the Taskbar:

Visual Tooltip can replace the Taskbar with a three-dimensional bar similar to the dock on Mac computers. You can set this in the ‘Dock’ tab. At least activate the ‘Put automatically all thumbnails in the dock’ and ‘Put tray icon on dock’ options. Set the rotation and transparency and test the alternative bar. If you prefer it that way, you can even turn off the Windows Taskbar by activating the "" option in the ‘Taskbar’ tab.

NOTE: If you start the tool with Windows and hide the Taskbar before the new bar is configured correctly, you will not be able to access your programs anymore. If this happens, open the Windows Explorer with [Windows] + [E], navigate to ‘VisualToolTip.exe’ and restart it. The Taskbar will be displayed with Options.

Moving too many windows opened simultaneously is very tedious. Besides, the budget is too small to procure a giant TFT. If you are short on desktop space, you have the option of virtually enlarging the monitor with Virtual Desktops. With Multiple Desktops in one Monitor, You can then group communication and Internet programs, on one desktop and office applications on the other.

The advantage here is that you need not search for the window of the mail program, for example, amongst multiple work-related windows.The ‘Virtual Desktop Manager’ from the XP PowerToys is a simple and free tool for enabling virtual desktops. The tool collection is available at the Download Here

The tool is ready-to-use immediately after installation, even if you don’t notice any changes. Simply right click anywhere in the taskbar and select ‘Toolbars > Desktop Manager’. Now you will see the ‘MSVDM’ toolbar for quick screen changes in the taskbar.

However, the displayed text does not have any function, in fact, it only wastes space. In order to get rid of it, remove the taskbar lock first by right clicking on it and selecting the ‘Lock the taskbar’ context command. Now right click on the Start bar of the toolbar and untick the ‘Show title’ option.

Clicking once on the ‘Preview’ symbol will show an overview of all the four virtual desktops. It is possible to define different background wallpapers as well as custom key combinations for quickly switching between the individual screens through the context menu of the toolbar.

You can determine through the ‘Shared Desktops’ option in the context menu whether the taskbar should display only the window of the current screen or all windows together. With the activated setting, you can fetch windows by clicking on the desktop which is active at that moment.

After arranging everything, deactivate the option such that you can view only the current desktop. Dexpot is another free utility with a larger functional scope, which can be run under all versions of Windows. You can fnd it from the website http://dexpot.de/index.php.

Did you ever get frustrated with those PDF files which are locked? Generally PDF authors will apply these restrictions to prevent their content from being copied, printed etc. Sometimes the author’s may forget the password.

If you want to unlock the Locked or Password protected PDF files you need to have the password. If you don’t have one here are some easy ways by which you can bypass the restrictions applied on PDF files.

• Generally the software which are used to unlock PDF files are expensive. But here is a open-source command line utility for Linux and Windows to crack PDF passwords with ease, the software uses wordlist and brute force password cracking methods to get its work done.

You can download it here: PDFCrack

• If you don’t want all those command line things there is also a simple procedure to Unlock PDF Files Online where you have to just upload your files and a unlocked version will be displayed in another window.

Click here to unlock them online

you can also unlock excel files by using an excel locker in the above site by following the same procedure

• The best way to unlock PDF Files is a free ware utility called Freeware-PDF Un-locker. Using this software is very easy. You just have to drop your locked PDF files on the shortcut after you install it. Then it will create an unlocked version on the same folder.

Download it here: Freeware-PDFUnlocker

These methods are enough to unlock PDF files of any type of restrictions and If you have any better ways you can share them here.

PDF is one of the popular file format for documents. It is widely used everywhere but is difficult to create one as it requires a professional licensed PDF editing software. If you are home users and don’t want to spend on the tool, you may want to try doPDF, A Free PDF Convertor which can convert any Document files into PDF format for free. It installs as virtual PDF printer driver so you can find it in Printers and Faxes list.

In order to use this software, Download and install it into your Windows PC. To convert any Microsoft documents(Microsoft Word, WordPad, NotePad etc), go to File -> Print and you will notice a new ‘printer’ with the name of ‘doPDF v6’. Simply click ‘OK’ and it will convert your whole documents to PDF format instantly and store it in your selected folder.

Features..

• Free to use
• 32-bit and 64-bit support
• Customizable resolution
• Predefined/custom page sizes
• Search for text within the created PDF file
• Multi-language

Paint.NET. a free Photo Editor comes to the rescue as a great replacement, therefore, its name is prefixed with ‘Paint’, and the ‘.NET’ denotes the framework programming language it is based on.

With Paint.net, you have everything that you need like a resizing tool, layers, history bar, photo manipulation tools such as color balance, hue-saturation, advanced effect tools such as red-eye correction, blur, artistic effects, etc. Its interface, usability, icons, tools as well as shortcuts pretty much reinforce this. Of course, if you already have Adobe Photoshop you won’t need this. But for everyone else, this photo-editor is a blessing in disguise. The best feature is the availability of downloadable plugins for extra features.

Download Paint.NET Here

Microsoft’s IE8 is open for download. It offer loads of new features including faster browsing, web slices and accelerators. We already discussed about IE8 ToolKit for developers. If IE 8 failed to attract you and If you want to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 from your Computer easily, here is a way that will remove IE 8 completely.

To do this, You have to download a uninstaller from Microsoft’s website. It is called ‘fix it’ un-installer and it will remove Internet Explorer8 in few simple mouse clicks. Click Here and download the uninstaller and then click ‘Microsoft Fix it’ icon.

Then click on run button on the pop up window or open the uninstaller, follow the on-screen instructions and remove Internet Explorer8 easily. You can also check out different ways of uninstalling or removing IE8 like editing registry and other alternate steps etc from the same page above. This is the simplest and fastest method to remove Internet Explorer 8.

All the Shortcuts have an arrow, and it’s irritating to a few people (like me). If you want to remove the arrows, open the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons. If this key does not exist, create it.

Now, create a new String value inside this key and name it “29”. Set the value of this String value to “C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll,52”, which is basically an empty icon. Now close the Registry Editor and restart your computer to see the arrows disappear.

If you’re doing something important,and don’t want to restart just yet, you can force Windows to redraw all the
icons by doing the following:

Right-click on the Desktop, select Properties. Now click on the Appearance tab and click Advanced.

From the drop-down list, choose icon, and change the value (the default is 32). Click OK and then Apply. Now go back and restore the value to 32 and click OK, Apply, and then OK. This will bring you back to your desktop, and you will find all those pesky arrows gone.

You can also replace the arrows with something else. Just change the path provided in the Registry hack mentioned
earlier (“C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll,50”) to the path of the icon you want to use.

This is very useful to those people who don’t want others to access their information or data they store on thheir Hard Disks. We can redtrict the acess by using Group Policy Editor. This is used in order to make modifications in the XP as per our needs. I will be posting more on this later. First let us see how to prevent access to drives from My Computer.

1. First Goto Start then to Run.
2. In run type gpedit.msc and press Enter.
3. Then you can see a window. On the left side click on User Configuration.
4. Expand Administrative Tempelates and in that click on Windows Explorer
5. On the right side you can find the option "Prevent access to drives from My Computer"
6. Double click on it. A new window will get opened.
7. In that window select Enable. ( here you have the option of selecting the specific drive to restrict or you can restrict all drives by choosing from the drop down menu below the options )
8. Click Apply. Then OK

Note:Â The affect will take place immediately

If you use System Restore, you must have noticed the System Volume Information folders in the root of each of your drives. This folder stores the files used by System Restore. Their sizes can sometime balloon to gigabytes, because System Restore doesn’t delete your older restore points when creating a new one. Moreover, every time you try to access the folder, you get the Access Denied error. Oh, and you can’t delete the folder, either. So what do you do when you want to view its contents?

Here is the error you’ll see when trying to access the System Volume Information

In an Explorer Window, go to Tools> Folder Options > View. Here, choose Show Hidden Files and Folders. Uncheck Hide Protected Operating System Files and Use Simple File Sharing. You should now be able to access the System Volume Information folder; if not, you’ll have to add yourself to the list of users allowed to access the folder.

Right-click on System Volume Information and go to Properties > Security. Click Add under Groups or User names and enter your username in the dialog that appears. Click OK, and in the bottom half of the Security tab, grant yourself all the permissions.

When you switch on your computer it takes some time to load. I know everyone knows this piece of information but my intention was not to explain about the booting process, but to give you a trick to speed up the booting time or windows start up time. I tried this registry hack as I was very much vexed up with the time taken to start my computer and it worked too.

Here is the way to turn on your PC in much less time:

• First click on the start button and press R it will take you to Run.
• Then type Regedit and Press Enter.
• This will open Registry Editor.
• Now look for the key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex

• In the resultant result find the Key Called “Startup Delay”
• Double Click On It.
• Click Decimal where it is base.
• Now its Default Value Is 4800000.
• Change The Value To 40000.
• Now close the Registry Editor and Restart Your Computer.
• You’ll See The Result after restarting the computer.

Note: Always back up your registry before doing any tweaking it.

The most important thing for any one who owns a Computer or laptop is their DATA. This data or iinformation or whatever it may be will sometimes contains private items and also some confidential items. But these days the data can be easily copied by the pen drives or USB drives. This is mianly happening just because we will be a little careless about the security of this data. Also the PC will be vulnerable to viruses as USB’s contain them the most.

So in order to prevent this data theft we have something which doesn’t require any software installations. We will block or restrict the USB drives in our Computer so that it doesn’t work and this involves a small registry hack. I was going through some registry hacking books and came to know about this trick. In order to do this

1. First Go to Start -> Run then type Regedit and ENTER.
2. You will see a window which is called Registry Editor.
3. In that window Go to Hkey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlset\Services\USBStor
4. In the right pane, look for value Start and have value as 0000000(3)
5. Double click on that and change that value to 4.

The effect can be seen after a reboot of your system. This is very useful trick to make your data safe and secure. If you want to unlock the drives you can always do it by changing the value again to 3.
Have a safe PC..!!

Ever wondered how would it be if the start menu of Windows Xp has your name instead of START. There is a small registery hack to make this tweak.

To change name of START menu :

1. Copy EXPLORER.EXE in your Windows directory ( The direectory is found in the drive where you have installed youe XP ) to another directory
   Start a hex editor (use resource hacker)
2. Edit EXPLORER.EXE
   go to “string table” & to “37″ click on 1033
   you will see “start” written on the next table
   Now just replace the Start letters with any of your choice (up to 5 characters only IMPORTANT).
3. Compile the script & save it.
4. Rename this file as any name say explorer1.exe
   copy it in your windows directory.

Open registry editor navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon double click “shell” &
enter name of your new explorer(explorer1 )in this case.
restart to see changes.

P.S: Remember to make up a back up copy of your registery before making this hack as there is a chance of crashing of your system.

If the crash occurs you can recover your system. To do this

• Open the TASK-MANAGER and in new task enter “regedit”
• In the resultant window undo the changes which we have made before ( i.e., renaming explorer1 to explorer again)

So Go ahead and surprise all your friends with your name as the start menu button. Happy hacking..!!

Mouse is some thing which makes our life so easy. Everything can be done at the click of a button. The Windows context menu is a trusted tool, and I rely on it heavily. We can use this context menus in a way we like i.e., personalizing them or creating our own context menus.

Moo0’s Right Clicker makes several welcome additions to the default options. I particularly like the folder bookmarking feature, which makes it a snap to navigate between folders in any explorer view. Couple it with the copy to and move to features, and managing files and folders in Explorer is much simpler.

It also adds a "go up" option to the menu - much quicker than mousing up to the Explorer toolbar - and the ability to copy a file’s name or full path to the clipboard. Right Clicker’s duplicate feature will spawn a new window with the current location (even from a file dialog). I find this particularly useful when I’m uploading or editing something and notice some file system untidiness that needs to be addressed immediately.

Right Clicker is available in free and paid versions, and my only real gripe is that the advanced options are all visible but grayed out. You know, just to remind us what we’re missing out on. Still, it provides a nice set of functions that context menu aficionados are sure to welcome. Try it. Its worth it.

Context Menu’s are Menus which are specifically allotted for a particular application. In other words they are the menus which will be opened when you right click a particular application. You ca tweak the context menus by simple registry hacks. In this tutorial we are adding an Insert option in the CD Drive’s Context Menu which can be used to open the CD drive to Insert the CD. Here is the step-by-step procedure:

1. Download the file cdeject.zip from http://tinyurl.com/38xklh, extract it and copy the DLL file to the %windir%\System32 folder.

2. Copy the following code into Notepad:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{02A07E8
0-EFA2-11D4-8306-A7EBD4C50C7C}]
@=”CDEject Context Menu Shell
Extension”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{02A07E8
0-EFA2-11D4-8306-
A7EBD4C50C7C}\InprocServer32]
@=”C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\cdeject
.dll”
“ThreadingModel”=”Apartment”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shellex\
ContextMenuHandlers\{02a07e80-
efa2-11d4-8306-a7ebd4c50c7c}]
@=”{02a07e80-efa2-11d4-8306-
a7ebd4c50c7c}”

3. Save the file with any name, but the extension must be .reg.

4. Run the file; it’ll ask for permission. Grant it.

5. You’ll now get the Insert option in the CD drive context menu!

First of all, Navigate to:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

Create a new key here called "Copy To". Change the "(default)" value to
{C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Then, in the same key (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers),

Create a new key called "Move To".

Change its "(default)" value to {C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13} and the change will be effective immediately and you can see the options in the context menu of any folder or file.

After you do the above registry edits, you can see a window like above which will pop up after you click copy to folder in your right click context menu. So, now you can easily copy anything to a specific folder directly without opening every file and folder.

When you right-click on a file, one of the options you see is “Open With”. These usually contain what Windows thinks are valid programs to open particular file types. Now, sometimes, when you have bad installers or uninstallers, some programs leave their mark on this context menu. Basically, if you want to clean out this long list of junk that accumulates here, you have to edit the Registry.

Open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts

Now, for example, if you have to remove programs from the Open With menu for AVI files, find the extension on the left that corresponds to AVI files and click on the “+” sign to expand it and find the “OpenWithList” key. In the right pane you should see a list of programs, such as “wmplayer.exe”, “notepad.exe”, “mspaint.exe”, etc. Select the ones you don’t want and delete them.

Next, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and find the same extension. Again, navigate to “OpenWithList” and delete the unwanted programs. This key is where Windows reads from when using the All Users profile. Now you will only see the programs that you want in the Open With list… well, most of the time; the problem is that Windows also reads the Open With list from another registry key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\

Here’s where it reads the default Open With list from, but I strongly advise you against changing it because it might affect multiple file types.

In Explorer, when using the File > New option, or when right-clicking and selecting New, you get a list of files that you can create, including text documents, folders, images, sounds, Excel spreadsheets, etc. If you want to be able to make new items, such as HTML files or RTF documents, you will have to edit the Registry.

Open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Here, find the extension of the file type you want to be able to create, such as .htm or .rtf, and then find the key called ShellNew. If the file type does not have a ShellNew key, create one.

Now, in the right-pane of the Registry Editor, create a new String value called NullFile. Now you need to close the Registry Editor and restart Windows.

The next time you right-click, you will be able to create a new file (.htm in our example) by selecting File > New. A zero byte file will be created, which you can then edit.

One of the most frequently accessed places on your desktop will be your Windows System tray. What is good about this little tray is that it gives access to some of your running programs through a tiny icon. But when the installed programs are more it will occupy most of the space in the taskbar. Although there is an option of hiding the inactive icons so that only some are visible , for a person like me who dont use the windows system tray that much often it will be cool to disable it completely.

For this all you got to do is a manual Registry hack :

• Open the run programs dialog box (either by hitting Win+R or finding the Run icon in the Windows Start Menu)
• Type “regedit” to open the Windows Registry Editor
• Find this section: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
• Create a new 32 bit DWORD Value by right-clicking and selecting new DWORD or clicking Edit, then New, then DWORD
• Name your DWORD Value NoTrayItemsDisplay
• Set the value to 1

And it is done. After Next time you log out of Windows or reboot your system tray should be gone. All of your programs will continue to run, but you won’t see any icons at the bottom right of your screen. You can even remove the clock by right clicking on the tray and disabling the clock.

This hack will not disable the applications , it just disables the tray. The useless applications should be disabled individually

To remove the hack, just delete the key, or change the value to 0. Note that the same registry key may exist in more than one location, so if you are trying to reverse this hack, you should search the registry for NoTrayItemsDisplay.

NOTE : you can use this hack in the reverse way that is if your system tray is disabled and you don’t know why, you should check this registry key.

If you use the command line window a lot, this hack will let you open a command prompt at the selected directory. This trick will add a right click context menu option for opening Command Prompt in every folder. To perform this registry hack..

Navigate to:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell

Create a new sub-key called Command under the main key (that is, the new key will be HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Command).

Change the value of “(Default)” within that key to the text you’d like on the right-click menu.

For example, “Open A Prompt Here!”

Create another, new sub-key under the key created above, again called “command” (so this key will be
HCR\Directory\shell\Command\command).

Change the value of “(Default)” here to “cmd.exe /k cd %1”, without the quotes. Now right-click on a folder, and voila! you can see an option to open command prompt.

You can change the start up tune of Windows XP to the tune you like. This involves a simple procedure and by doing that you can make your own start up and turn off tunes. All the sounds in Windows XP are in WAV format. So if you want to change any of the system sound you should replace it by a sound of .wav format.

The following steps will help you change the system sounds:

• First pick a sound or music you like. If it is not in WAV format convert it by some audio converters like mp3 to wav converter or Total Audio Converter etc. Make sure that the length of the sound should match up the time the sound plays. here I m doing the start up tone.
• After you made the sound into wav format goto > control panel > Sounds and Devices

• In the resultant window select SOUNDS and program events: select the desired one you want to change like
• Then browse for the location of you wav file and then click Apply and OK.

Changing IP address often involves some third party software or some serious procedures. IP address is the only thing which identifies your computer in the internet. This can be changed at will and can be done by following some simple steps. This will be helpful for Anonymous surfing or when you are downloading a file from Rapidshare or other sites which will prevent multiple downloads from same IP address. The procedure is as follows..

1. Click on "Start" in the bottom left hand corner of screen

2. Click on "Run"

3. Type in "command" and hit ok. You should now be at an MSDOS prompt screen.

4. Type "ipconfig /release" just like that, and hit "enter"

5. Type "exit" and leave the prompt

6. Right-click on "Network Places" or "My Network Places" on your desktop.

7. Click on "properties"

You should now be on a screen with something titled "Local Area Connection", or something close to that, and, if you have a network hooked up, all of your other networks.

8. Right click on "Local Area Connection" and click "properties"

9. Double-click on the "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" from the list under the "General" tab

10. Click on "Use the following IP address" under the "General" tab

11. Create an IP address (It doesn’t matter what it is. I just type 1 and 2 until i fill the area up).

12. Press "Tab" and it should automatically fill in the "Subnet Mask" section with default numbers.

13. Hit the "Ok" button here

14. Hit the "Ok" button again
You should now be back to the "Local Area Connection" screen.

15. Right-click back on "Local Area Connection" and go to properties again.

16. Go back to the "TCP/IP" settings

17. This time, select "Obtain an IP address automatically"

18. Hit "Ok"

19. Hit "Ok" again

20. You now have a new IP address

With good practice you can perform the whole operation in some seconds which will be the easiest way to change IP address.

Note :

Here are some 10 quick tips to speed up your computer. I have already posted about ways of speeding up your computer. These will help your XP run faster.

1. Defrag Disk to Speed Up Access to Data

One of the factors that slow the performance of the computer is disk fragmentation. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk when the file is opened to piece it back together. To speed up the response time, you should monthly run Disk Defragmenter, a Windows utility that defrags and consolidates fragmented files for quicker computer response.

* Follow Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
* Click the drives you want to defrag and click Analyze
* Click Defragment

2. Detect and Repair Disk Errors

Over time, your hard disk develops bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing difficult or even impossible. To detect and repair disk errors, Windows has a built-in tool called the Error Checking utility. It’ll search the hard disk for bad sectors and system errors and repair them for faster performance.

* Follow Start > My Computer
* In My Computer right-click the hard disk you want to scan and click Properties
* Click the Tools tab
* Click Check Now
* Select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box
* Click Start

3. Disable Indexing Services

Indexing Services is a little application that uses a lot of CPU. By indexing and updating lists of all the files on the computer, it helps you to do a search for something faster as it scans the index list. But if you know where your files are, you can disable this system service. It won’t do any harm to you machine, whether you search often or not very often.

* Go to Start
* Click Settings
* Click Control Panel
* Double-click Add/Remove Programs
* Click the Add/Remove Window Components
* Uncheck the Indexing services
* Click Next

4. Optimize Display Settings

Windows XP is a looker. But it costs you system resources that are used to display all the visual items and effects. Windows looks fine if you disable most of the settings and leave the following:

* Show shadows under menus
* Show shadows under mouse pointer
* Show translucent selection rectangle
* Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
* Use visual styles on windows and buttons

5. Speedup Folder Browsing

You may have noticed that everytime you open My Computer to browse folders that there is a little delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing speed, you can disable the “Automatically search for network folders and printers” option.

6. Disable Performance Counters

Windows XP has a performance monitor utility which monitors several areas of your PC’s performance. These utilities take up system resources so disabling is a good idea.

* Download and install the Extensible Performance Counter List (http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/existing/exctrlst-o.asp)
* Then select each counter in turn in the ‘Extensible performance counters’ window and clear the ‘performance counters enabled’ checkbox at the bottom button below

7. Optimize Your Pagefile

You can optimize your pagefile. Setting a fixed size to your pagefile saves the operating system from the need to resize the pagefile.

* Right click on My Computer and select Properties
* Select the Advanced tab
* Under Performance choose the Settings button
* Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
* Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.

Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.

8. Remove Fonts for Speed

Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.

* Open Control Panel
* Open Fonts folder
* Move fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:\FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.

9. Use a Flash Memory to Boost Performance

To improve performance, you need to install additional RAM memory. It’ll let you boot your OS much quicker and run many applications and access data quicker. There is no easiest and more technically elegant way to do it than use eBoostr (http://www.eboostr.com/).

eBoostr is a little program that lets you improve a performance of any computer, powered by Windows XP in much the same way as Vista’s ReadyBoost. With eBoostr, if you have a flash drive, such as a USB flash thumb drive or an SD card, you can use it to make your computer run better. Simply plug in a flash drive through a USB socket and Windows XP will use eBoostr to utilize the flash memory to improve performance.

The product shows the best results for frequently used applications and data, which becomes a great feature for people who are using office programs, graphics applications or developer tools. It’ll surely attract a special attention of laptop owners as laptop upgrade is usually more complicated and laptop hard drives are by definition slower than those of desktops.

10. Perform a Boot Defragment

There’s a simple way to speed up XP startup: make your system do a boot defragment, which will put all the boot files next to one another on your hard disk. When boot files are in close proximity to one another, your system will start faster.

On most systems, boot defragment should be enabled by default, but it might not be on yours, or it might have been changed inadvertently. To make sure that boot defragment is enabled:

* Run the Registry Editor
* Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
* Set the Enable string value to Y if it is not already set to Y.
* Exit the Registry
* Reboot

Make Your Windows Xp Run Faster Than Never Before

These Are Some Tricks That Make Use Of Programs Listed In This Guide And Nothing Will Happen Even If You Go

DISABLE INDEXING SERVICES

Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you don’t search your computer often, or even if you do search often, this system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:

1. Go to Start

2. Click Settings

3. Click Control Panel

4. Double-click Add/Remove Programs

5. Click the Add/Remove Window Components

6. Uncheck the Indexing services

7. Click Next

OPTIMISE DISPLAY SETTINGS

Windows XP can look sexy but displaying all the visual items can waste system resources. To optimise:

1.Go to Start

2. Click Settings

3. Click Control Panel

4. Click System

5. Click Advanced tab

6. In the Performance tab click Settings

7. Leave only the following ticked:

- Show shadows under menus

- Show shadows under mouse pointer

- Show translucent selection rectangle

- Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop

- Use visual styles on windows and buttons

DISABLE PERFORMANCE COUNTERS

Windows XP has a performance monitor utility which monitors several areas of your PC’s performance. These utilities take up system resources so disabling is a good idea.

To disable:

1. download and install the Extensible Performance Counter List(http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/remove404.mspx)

2.Then select each counter in turn in the ‘Extensible performance counters’ window and clear the ‘performance counters enabled’ checkbox at the bottom.button below.

SPEEDUP FOLDER BROWSING

You may have noticed that everytime you open my computer to browse folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing significantly:

1. Open My Computer

2. Click on Tools menu

3. Click on Folder Options

4. Click on the View tab.

5. Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box

6. Click Apply

7. Click Ok

8. Reboot your computer

IMPROVE MEMORY USAGE

Cacheman Improves the performance of your computer by optimizing the disk cache, memory and a number of other settings.

Once Installed:

1.Go to Show Wizard and select All

2.Run all the wizards by selecting Next or Finished until you are back to the main menu. Use the defaults unless you know exactly what you are doing.

3.Exit and Save Cacheman

4.Restart Windows

OPTIMISE YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION

There are lots of ways to do this but by far the easiest is to run TCP/IP Optimizer.

1. Download(www.speedguide.net/files/tcpoptimizer.exe) and install

2. Click the General Settings tab and select your Connection Speed (Kbps)

3. Click Network Adapter and choose the interface you use to connect to the Internet

4. Check Optimal Settings then Apply

5. Reboot

OPTIMISE YOUR PAGEFILE

If you give your pagefile a fixed size it saves the operating system from needing to resize the page file.

1. Right click on My Computer and select Properties

2. Select the Advanced tab

3. Under Performance choose the Settings button

4. Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change

5. Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.

Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.

RUN BOOTVIS - IMPROVE BOOT TIMES download from(www.majorgeeks.com)

BootVis will significantly improve boot times

1. Download and Run

2. Select Trace

3. Select Next Boot and Driver Trace

4. A Trace Repetitions screen will appear, select Ok and Reboot

5. Upon reboot, BootVis will automatically start, analyze and log your system’s boot process. When it’s done, in the menu go to Trace and select Optimize System

6. Reboot.

7. When your machine has rebooted wait until you see the Optimizing System box appear. Be patient and wait for the process to complete

REMOVE THE DESKTOP PICTURE

Your desktop background consumes a fair amount of memory and can slow the loading time of your system. Removing it will improve performance.

1. Right click on Desktop and select Properties

2. Select the Desktop tab

3. In the Background window select None

4. Click Ok

REMOVE FONTS FOR SPEED

Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.

1. Open Control Panel

2. Open Fonts folder

3. Move fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:\FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.

DISABLE UNNECESSARY SERVICES

Because Windows XP has to be all things to all people it has many services running that take up system resources that you will never need. Below is a list of services that can be disabled on most machines:

Alerter

Clipbook

Computer Browser

Distributed Link Tracking Client

Fast User Switching

Help and Support - (If you use Windows Help and Support leave this enabled)

Human Interface Access Devices

Indexing Service

IPSEC Services

Messenger

Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security)

Portable Media Serial Number

Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)

Remote Procedure Call Locator

Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)

Remote Registry Service

Secondary Logon

Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)

Server

SSDP Discovery Service - (Unplug n’ Pray will disable this)

Telnet

TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper

Upload Manager

Universal Plug and Play Device Host

Windows Time

Wireless Zero Configuration (Do not disable if you use a wireless network)

Workstation

To disable these services:

Go to Start and then Run and type “services.msc”

Doubleclick on the service you want to change

Change the startup type to ‘Disable”

TURN OFF SYSTEM RESTORE

System Restore can be a useful if your computer is having problems, however storing all the restore points can literally take up Gigabytes of space on your hard drive. To turn off System Restore:

Open Control Panel

Click on Performance and Maintenance

Click on System

Click on the System Restore tab

Tick ‘Turn off System Restore on All Drives’

Click ‘Ok’

DEFRAGMENT YOUR PAGEFILE

Keeping your pagefile defragmented can provide a major performance boost. One of the best ways of doing this is to creat a separate partition on your hard drive just for your page file, so that it doesn’t get impacted by normal disk usage. Another way of keeping your pagefile defragmented is to run PageDefrag. This cool little app can be used to defrag your pagefile, and can also be set to defrag the pagefile everytime your PC starts. To install:

Download(www.sysinternals.com) and Run PageDefrag

Tick “Defrag at next Reboot”,

Click “Ok”

Reboot

SPEEDUP FOLDER ACCESS - DISABLE LAST ACCESS UPDATE

If you have a lot of folders and subdirectories on your computer, when you access a directory XP wastes a lot of time updating the time stamp showing the last access time for that directory and for ALL sub directories. To stop XP doing this you need to edit the registry. If you are uncomfortable doing this then please do not attempt.

Go to Start and then Run and type “regedit”

Click through the file system until you get to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Cur rentControlSet\Control\FileSys tem”

Right-click in a blank area of the window on the right and select ‘DWORD Value’

Create a new DWORD Value called ‘NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate’

Then Right click on the new value and select ‘Modify’

Change the Value Data to ‘1′

Click ‘OK’

DISABLE SYSTEM SOUNDS

Surprisingly, the beeps that your computer makes for various system sounds can slow it down, particularly at startup and shut-down. To fix this turn off the system sounds:

Open Control Panel

Click Sounds and Audio Devices

Check Place volume icon in taskbar

Click Sounds Tab

Choose “No Sounds” for the Sound Scheme

Click “No”

Click “Apply”

Click “OK”

IMPROVE BOOT TIMES

A great new feature in Microsoft Windows XP is the ability to do a boot defragment. This places all boot files next to each other on the disk to allow for faster booting. By default this option in enables but on some builds it is not so below is how to turn it on.

Go to Start Menu and Click Run

Type in “Regedit” then click ok

Find “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\M icrosoft\Dfrg\BootOpt imizeFunction”

Select “Enable” from the list on the right

Right on it and select “Modify”

Change the value to “Y to enable”

Reboot

IMPROVE SWAPFILE PERFORMANCE

If you have more than 256MB of RAM this tweak will considerably improve your performance. It basically makes sure that your PC uses every last drop of memory (faster than swap file) before it starts using the swap file.

Go to Start then Run

Type “msconfig.exe” then ok

Click on the System.ini tab

Expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign

Click on new then in the blank box type”ConservativeSwapfileUsage =1″

Click OK

Restart PC

MAKE YOUR MENUS LOAD FASTER

This is one of my favourite tweaks as it makes a huge difference to how fast your machine will ‘feel’. What this tweak does is remove the slight delay between clicking on a menu and XP displaying the menu.

Go to Start then Run

Type ‘Regedit’ then click ‘Ok’

Find “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\”

Select “MenuShowDelay”

Right click and select “Modify’

Reduce the number to around “100″

This is the delay time before a menu is opened. You can set it to “0″ but it can make windows really hard to use as menus will open if you just look at them - well move your mouse over them anyway. I tend to go for anywhere between 50-150 depending on my mood

MAKE PROGRAMS LOAD FASTER

This little tweak tends to work for most programs. If your program doesn’t load properly just undo the change. For any program:

Right-click on the icon/shortcut you use to launch the program

Select properties

In the ‘target’ box, add ‘ /prefetch:1′ at the end of the line.

Click “Ok”

Voila - your programs will now load faster.

IMPROVE XP SHUTDOWN SPEED

This tweak reduces the time XP waits before automatically closing any running programs when you give it the command to shutdown.

Go to Start then select Run

Type ‘Regedit’ and click ok

Find ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\’

Select ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’

Right click and select ‘Modify’

Change the value to ‘1000′

Click ‘OK’

Now select ‘HungAppTimeout’

Right click and select ‘Modify’

Change the value to ‘1000′

Click ‘OK’

Now find ‘HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop’

Select ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’

Right click and select ‘Modify’

Change the value to ‘1000′

Click ‘OK’

Now find ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Cur rentControlSet\Control\’

Select ‘WaitToKillServiceTimeout’

Right click and select ‘Modify’

Change the value to ‘1000′

Click ‘OK’

SPEED UP BOOT TIMES I

This tweak works by creating a batch file to clear the temp and history folders everytime you shutdown so that your PC doesn’t waste time checking these folders the next time it boots. It’s quite simple to implement:

1. Open Notepad and create a new file with the following entries:

RD /S /q “C:\Documents and Settings\”UserName without quotes”\Local Settings\History”

RD /S /q “C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\History”

RD /S /q “D:\Temp\" all file "Deletes temp folder, type in the location of your temp folder”

2. Save the new as anything you like but it has to be a ‘.bat’ file e.g. fastboot.bat or deltemp.bat

3. Click ‘Start’ then ‘Run’

4. Type in ‘gpedit.msc’ and hit ‘ok’

5. Click on ‘Computer Configuration’ then ‘Windows Settings’

6. Double-click on ‘Scripts’ and then on ‘Shutdown’

7. Click ‘Add’ and find the batch file that you created and then press ‘Ok’

SPEED UP BOOT TIMES II

When your PC starts it usually looks for any bootable media in any floppy or cd-rom drives you have installed before it gets around to loading the Operating System from the HDD. This can waste valuable time. To fix this we need to make some changes to the Bios.

1. To enter the bios you usually press ‘F2′ or ‘delete’ when your PC starts

2. Navigate to the ‘Boot’ menu

3. Select ‘Boot Sequence’

4. Then either move your Hard drive to the top position or set it as the ‘First Device’

5. Press the ‘Escape’ key to leave the bios. Don’t forget to save your settings before exiting

Note: Once this change has been made, you won’t be able to boot from a floppy disc or a CD-rom. If for some strange reason you need to do this in the future, just go back into your bios, repeat the steps above and put your floppy or CD-rom back as the ‘First Device’

SPEED UP BOOT TIMES III

When your computer boots up it usually has to check with the network to see what IP addresses are free and then it grabs one of these. By configuring a manually assigned IP address your boot time will improve. To do this do the following:

1. Click on ‘Start’ and then ”Connect To/Show All Connections’

2. Right-click your network adapter card and click ‘Properties’.

3. On the ‘General’ tab, select ‘TCP/IP’ in the list of services and click ‘Properties’

4.I n the TCP/IP properties, click ‘Use the following address’ and enter an IP address for your PC. If you are using a router this is usually 192.168.0.xx or 192.168.1.xx. If you are not sure what address you could check with your ISP or go to ‘Start/run’ and type ‘cmd’ and then ‘ipconfig/all’. This will show your current IP settings which you will need to copy.

5. Enter the correct details for ‘Subnet mask’, ‘Default gateway’ and ‘DNS Server’. Again if you are not sure what figures to enter use ‘ipconfig/all’ as in stage 4.

FREE UP MEMORY

I found this useful app via FixMyXP. ClearMem Is an Excellent Tool for speeding up your XP Computer (especially if your system has been on for awhile and you have a lot of applications open). What it does, is it Forces pages out of physical memory and reduces the size of running processes if working sets to a minimum. When you run this tool, the system pauses because of excessive high-priority activity associated with trimming the working sets. To run this tool, your paging file must be at least as large as physical memory. To Check your Paging File:

1. Go to your control panel, then click on ‘System’, then go to the ‘Advanced’ Tab, and Under ‘Performance’ click ‘Settings’ then the ‘Advanced’ Tab

2. On the Bottom you should see ‘Virtual Memory’ and a value. This is the value that must be at least as large as how much memory is in your system.

3. If the Virtual Memory Value is smaller than your system memory, click Change and change the Min Virtual Memory to a number that is greater than your total system memory, then click ‘Set’ and Reboot.

4. Once you have rebooted install ClearMem

ENSURE XP IS USING DMA MODE

XP enables DMA for Hard-Drives and CD-Roms by default on most ATA or ATAPI (IDE) devices. However, sometimes computers switch to PIO mode which is slower for data transfer - a typical reason is because of a virus. To ensure that your machine is using DMA:

1. Open ‘Device Manager’

2. Double-click ‘IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers’

3. Right-click ‘Primary Channel’ and select ‘Properties’ and then ‘Advanced Settings’

4. In the ‘Current Transfer Mode’ drop-down box, select ‘DMA if Available’ if the current setting is ‘PIO Only’

ADD CORRECT NETWORK CARD SETTINGS

Some machines suffer from jerky graphics or high CPU usage even when a machine is idle. A possible solution for this, which, can also can help network performance is to:

1. RightClick ‘My Computer’

2. Select ‘Manage’

3. Click on ‘Device Manager’

4. DoubleClick your network adaptor under ‘Network Adapters’

5. In the new window, select the ‘Advanced’ tab

6. Select ‘Connection Type’ and select the correct type for your card and then Reboot

REMOVE ANNOYING DELETE CONFIRMATION MESSAGES

Although not strictly a performance tweak I love this fix as it makes my machine ‘feel’ faster. I hate the annoying ‘are you sure?’ messages that XP displays, especially if I have to use a laptop touchpad to close them. To remove these messages:

1. Right-click on the ‘Recycle Bin’ on the desktop and then click ‘Properties’

2. Clear the ‘Display Delete Confirmation Dialog’ check box and click ‘Ok’

If you do accidently delete a file don’t worry as all is not lost. Just go to your Recycle Bin and ‘Restore’ the file.

DISABLE PREFETCH ON LOW MEMORY SYSTEMS

Prefetch is designed to speed up program launching by preloading programs into memory - not a good idea is memory is in short supply, as it can make programs hang. To disable prefetch:

1. Click ‘Start’ then ‘Run’

2. Type in ‘Regedit’ then click ‘Ok’

3. Navigate to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Cur rentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\ ‘

4. Right-click on “EnablePrefetcher” and set the value to ‘0′

5. Reboot.