Unlocking WinXP's setupp.ini

WinXP's setupp.ini controls how the CD acts. IE is it an OEM version or retail? First, find your setupp.ini file in the i386 directory on your WinXP CD. Open it up, it'll look something like this:



ExtraData=707A667567736F696F697911AE7E05

Pid=55034000



The Pid value is what we're interested in. What's there now looks like a standard default. There are special numbers that determine if it's a retail, oem, or volume license edition. First, we break down that number into two parts. The first five digits determines how the CD will behave, ie is it a retail CD that lets you clean install or upgrade, or an oem CD that only lets you perform a clean install? The last three digits determines what CD key it will accept. You are able to mix and match these values. For example you could make a WinXP CD that acted like a retail CD, yet accepted OEM keys.



Now, for the actual values. Remember the first and last values are interchangeable, but usually you'd keep them as a pair:



Retail = 51882 335

Volume License = 51883 270

OEM = 82503 OEM



So if you wanted a retail CD that took retail keys, the last line of your setupp.ini file would read:



Pid=51882335



And if you wanted a retail CD that took OEM keys, you'd use:



Pid=51882OEM

Cleaning Recent Docs Menu and the RUN MRU

The Recent Docs menu can be easily disabled by editing the Registry. To do this go to the following Key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Now in the right pane, create a new DWORD value by the name: NoRecentDocsMenu and set it's value to 1. Restart Explorer to save the changes.


You can also clear the RUN MRU history. All the listings are stored in the key:
HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU
You can delete individual listings or the entire listing. To delete History of Find listings go to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU and delete.

disable or enable recent documents history

This can be done at:

HKEY_CURRRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\
this key should already be present - if it isn't you'll need to add it:
reg_Binary "NoRecentDocsHistory"
modify it so that value reads 01 00 00 00

Grouping multiple open windows

WinXP will group multiple open windows (IE windows for example) into one group on the task bar to keep the desktop clear. This can be annoying at times - especially when comparing different web pages because you have to go back to the task bar, click on the group and then click on the page you want and then you only get one page because you have to click on each one separately. I think the default for this is 8 windows - any combination of apps or utilities open.

You can modify this behavior by adding this reg key at:

Change number of windows that are open before XP will start
grouping them on the Taskbar

HKEY_CURRRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\
add reg_Dword "TaskbarGroupSize"

modify "TaskbarGroupSize" entry to be the number of windows you want open before XP starts to group them on the task bar.
A value of 2 will cause the Taskbar buttons to always group

Microsoft Natural Keyboard Shortcuts

Windows Logo (Display or hide the Start menu)
Windows Logo+BREAK (Display the System Properties dialog box)
Windows Logo+D (Display the desktop)
Windows Logo+M (Minimize all of the windows)
Windows Logo+SHIFT+M (Restore the minimized windows)
Windows Logo+E (Open My Computer)
Windows Logo+F (Search for a file or a folder)
CTRL+Windows Logo+F (Search for computers)
Windows Logo+F1 (Display Windows Help)
Windows Logo+ L (Lock the keyboard)
Windows Logo+R (Open the Run dialog box)
Windows Logo+U (Open Utility Manager)

Adopted from Jack D. Lewis

Hide Computer Drives

This is yet another trick you can play on your geek friend. To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer go to :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Now in the right pane create a new DWORD item and name it NoDrives. Now modify it's value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal) Now press F5 to refresh.
When you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown. To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item.

adopted from:majid hussain

Turn Off "Low Disk Space" Warning

Annoyed by the Low disk space warning that comes in the tray icon whenever your disk runs out of space ? Do you want to turn of the Low disk space warning ?

* Open your registry editor by typing " REGEDIT " in the run prompt
* Navigate as follows : HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ Explorer.
* Now Right Click in the right pane , Click New -> Dword and name it as NoLowDiskSpaceChecks.
* Double-click on NoLowDiskSpaceChecks, and enter the value as 1, and press OK.

Thats it. From now on you wont get annoying Low disk space error

Great Tips for Browser

Here's a great tip to speed up your browsing of Windows XP machines. Its actually a fix to a bug installedas default in Windows 2000 that scans shared files for Scheduled Tasks.And it turns out that you can experience a delay as long as 30 seconds whenyou try to view shared files across a network because Windows 2000 is usingthe extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Note thatthough the fix is originally intended for only those affected, Windows 2000 userswill experience that the actual browsing speed of both the Internet & Windows Explorersimprove significantly after applying it since it doesn't search for Scheduled Tasks anymore.

Here's how : Open up the Registry and go to :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace Under that branch, select the key :
{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF} and delete it. This is key that instructs Windows to search for Scheduled Tasks.If you like you may want to export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary. This fix is so effective that it doesn't require a reboot and you can almostimmediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes.

Power Booster With Clean Ram...

Here's an old trick that may help some of you who do not have that much RAM. You may have noticed that your PC gets slower and slower when you do a lot of things with it like playing games, then using different applications.
The reason for the slowdown is that your RAM is full of remaining progress pieces you do not need any more. You need to free it to gain some speed. Here's a simple trick to do it : open Notepad and type FreeMem=Space(128000000).



Save it as RAMcleaner.vbs then run it. It could could free up some RAM. You can edit the code to have a better cleaning power. You can type FreeMem=Space(256000000) and see the result.