Tweaks For Windows That I Use Myself




Unload .dll's to Free Memory

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.

1. Find the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer].
2.
Create a new sub-key named 'AlwaysUnloadDLL' and set the default value
to equal '1' to disable Windows caching the DLL in memory.
3. Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

I tried this after running a intense program, then watched the task manager; memory recovered it self.





Turn off Indexing to speed up XP

Windows XP keeps a record of all files on the hard disk so when you
do a search on the hard drive it is faster. There is a downside to this
and because the computer has to index all files, it will slow down
normal file commands like open, close, etc. If you do not do a whole
lot of searches on your hard drive then I suggest turnning this feature
off:

1. Control Panel
2. Administrative Tools
3. Services
4. Disable Indexing Services




Stop Jerkey Graphics

I have for a long time had
problems with "jerky" graphics in some 3d games and 3dmark, and have
had relativly high cpu loads in idle condition.
The cpu load would pulse from 1-2% up to 10-12%-load with about three-five seconds intervals...(in idle)
The jerking has not been due to low perfomance hardware or old drivers and I have had the problems on two seperate systems.
If you are connected to a LAN and have similar problems, this might be the solution:

1.RightClick "MyComputer"
2.Select "Manage"
3.Click on "Device Manager"
4.DoubleClick on your NIC under "Network Adapters"
5.In the new window, select the "Advanced" tab
6.Select "Connection Type" and manuelly set the value of your NIC. (Not "Auto Sense" which is default.)
7.You should reboot...
On my systems the "jerking" in 3D games was completly gone, and so was the high idle cpu load.

This tip also applies to Win2K.







Speed up menu display


When using the start menu the you will notice a delay
between different tiers of the menu hierarchy. For the fastest
computer experience possible I recommend changing this value to -100.
This will allow the different tiers to appear instantly.

1. Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to this FAQ on how to get started.
   
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
   
3. Select MenuShowDelay from the list on the right.
   
4. Right on it and select Modify.
   
5. Change the value to -100
   
6. Reboot your computer.
   

Speed up boot by disabling unused ports

You may have tried many tweaks like modifying windowsXP start-up
applications, prefetches, unload DLLs method,etc. And yes those
methods do work for me.
I have just accidentally found out another way to give you an extra
boost in windowsXP's boot performance. This is done by disabling your
unused devices in Device Manager.
for example, if you don't have input devices that are connected to
one of your USBs or COM ports, disabling them will give you an extra
perfromance boost in booting.
Yes i've tried this. I've disabled every devices that currently has
no use for my pc and it worked great. My booting time is much faster
than before.

Go to Control Panel -> System -> Hardware tab -> device manager
Disable devices that you don't use for your PC and then restart.




Optimise NTFS

NTFS is a great filesystem, but its feature-set comes at a slight cost
in performance. You can negate this a little with the following tips:

*
By default NTFS will automatically update timestamps whenver a
directory is traversed. This isn't a necessary feature, and it slows
down large volumes.

Disable it by pointing regedit to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem and set 'NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate' to 1.

*
NTFS uses disparate master file control tables to store filesystem
information about your drives. Over time these core MFT files grow and
become fragmented, slowing down all accesses to the drive. By setting
aside a little space, MFT's can grow without becoming fragmented. In
the same key where you disabled the last access feature creat a new
DWORD value called 'NtfsMftZoneReservation' and set it to 2.

Note: This tweak will not work on FAT32 file systems!

Modify application timeout


The operating system has a set amount of time that a program
must be frozen for before it is timed out. Often this number is set too
high. But in some circumstances it is set too low. Depending on if
the program is doing a lot of calculations in the background the computer may
think that it is timed out. To prevent this increase the value of the timeout in
the registry.

1. Start Regedit.
   
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
   
3. Select HungAppTimeout from the list on the right.
   
4. Right on it and select Modify.
   
5. Change the value to the new timeout value.
   
6. Reboot your computer.
   

Memory Performance Tweak

hese Settings will fine tune your systems memory
management -at least 512MB of ram recommended
go to start\run\regedit -and then to the following key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
1.DisablePagingExecutive -double click it and in the decimal put a 1
- this allows XP to keep data in memory now instead of paging sections
of ram to harddrive yeilds faster performance.
2.LargeSystemCache- double click it and change the decimal to 1
-this allows XP Kernel to Run in memory improves system performance alot
Reboot and watch your system fly.





Make icons in windows appear quicker

n Windows XP everytime you open My Computer to browse folders XP
automatically searches for network files and printers. This causes a
delay in displaying your icons. You probably see the "default" windows
icon and as you scroll it changes to the correct icon. This is how to
stop that...

1. Open My Computer
2. Click on the Tools menu and select Folder Options...
3. Under Folder Options select the view tab.
4. Uncheck the very first box that reads "Automatically search for network folders and printers".
5. Click "Apply" or "OK"

You should see a dramatic increase in speed when Windows displays your icons.





Intel Application Accelerator - speed up disk access

It would be great to download drivers that sped up your hard-disk
access by 10's of percent wouldn't it? Well perhaps you can, Intel has
made their Application Accelerator (IAA) available since last
September. It reduces storage sub-system bottlenecks apparently. If you
have a compatible Intel chipset (810 to 860) and a Pentium Celeron, III
, 4 or Xeon chip then get on down to :

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa

Read
through everything before you start downloading and installing. You may
need to pre-install the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility if
you have XP running on a 830 or 845 chipset. Intel also provide a
chipset identification utility if your unsure of what you have - it's
linked from the same page.

Intel claim very significant
increases in boot times and application speed. On a personal note, on
my P4 2GHz, applications do start a lot faster. I suggest you do some
benchmarking first (a stopwatch is an easy way to measure boot time). I
would be interested in results people have had. This also works for
98SE,ME,NT4 and 2000.

NOTE: This will not work correctly if you have a lightscribe burner installed so do not use this if you do.



Getting More Processing Power

In the Run box, type Rundll32.exe
advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks This frees up any idle tasks running in the background so that Windows XP can devote its full attention to what you want it to do. For example playing graphic intensive games."



Enable or disable boot defrag


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.

1. Start Regedit.
   
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
   
3. Select Enable from the list on the right.
   
4. Right on it and select Modify.
   
5. Change the value to Y to enable and N to disable.
   
6. Reboot your computer.
   

Decrease system loading time by changing network settings

When you start up your computer and you are connected to a LAN and your computer
is set to DHCP and your computer has to search for the DHCP server and then
request and IP address and all other configuration. This process takes up
some time and slows down the time it takes to boot the computer up.
Following the directions below will help your set a static IP address.
Even if your ISP says to use DHCP this tweak may still work for you, but you are
warnned!

1. Click Start and click on Run.
   
2. Type command in the text box and click OK.
   
3. In DOS, type ipconfig and hit enter.
   
4. This
   will show you your current IPs that your NIC and PPPoE adapters have.
   Only pay attention to your Ethernet Card Adapter, not to the PPP
   adapter.
   
5. Next, right click My Network Places and select
   Properties from the drop down menu. This will open up the Network
   Connections window. In here, locate your Local Area Network connection
   and right click it, select Properties from the drop down menu.
   
6. When the next Window that opens up, select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click Properties at the bottom.
   
7. In
   the next window, click 'Use the following IP Address'. This is where
   that DOS window comes in handy. Copy the same exact IP Address from
   your Ethernet card (in the dos window) and place it where it says IP
   Address. Same goes for the Subnet Mask and Default Gateway. If your
   Default Gateway is blank, then just leave it blank. Click Ok, then Ok
   again.
   
8. In the DOS window type exit dos then enter. Reboot your machine.
   

Now there is absolutely NO loading. You can connect as soon as you see your desktop.

Quick
Note: If you use DHCP (Dynamic IP Address) to connect to the net, you
may find that your net connection does not work after this. So if some
day your network connection stops working, just go back into the NIC
card properties and select automatically get IP address and reboot.

Correcting System Hang at Startup

If your system hangs about 2 or 3 minutes at startup, where you can't
access the Start button or the Taskbar, it may be due to one specific
service (Background Intelligent Transfer) running in the background.
Microsoft put out a patch for this but it didn't work for me. Here's
what you do:

1. Click on Start/Run, type 'msconfig', then click 'OK'.
2. Go to the 'Services' tab, find the 'Background Intelligent Transfer' service, disable it, apply the changes & reboot.




Contiguous File Allocation size

This setting optimizes the contiguous file allocation size for the
file system and can be especially useful for disk intensive
applications. Open up your registry and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
Create a DWORD value named 'ConfigFileAllocSize' and set the value to '200' (in hex) or 512 (decimal)





Clicking AVI Files on explorer causing 100% CPU Usage

Well windows seem to have a REALLY big problem when it comes to reading
AVI files. It seems that when you click on an AVI file in explorer,
it'll try to read the entire AVI file to determine the width,height,
etc. of the AVI file (this is displayed in the Properties window). Now
the problem with Windows is that if you have a broken/not fully
downloaded AVI file that doesnt contain this info, Windows will scan
the entire AVI file trying to figure out all these properties which in
the process will probably cause 100% CPU usage and heavy memory usage.

To solve this problem all you have to do is the following:

1. Open up regedit
2. Goto HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler
3. Delete the "Default" value which should be "{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}"

Voila!
Please not that this will no longer provide you with the windows
properties displaying the AVI file information such as width, height,
bitrate etc. But its a small price to pay for saving you resources.





Clean your prefetch to improve performance

This is an unique technique for WinXP. We know that it is necessary to
wash registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodly. Prefetch is a
new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP
some time, the prefetch folder can get full of rarely used or obsolete
links which can slow down your computer noticeably. My suggestion is:
open C(system drive):/windows/prefetch, delete all files (or at least
those more than 3 weeks old), reboot. I recommended that you do this
every month.

Note:Deleting prefetch files too often (Every reboot) can decrease system performance!



Application Defrag

This type of defrag pushes all commonly used programs and boot files
to the edge of the hard drive for faster access. Windows XP normally
schedules this every three days when it is idle, however you can force
it to do this by using the b switch anytime Just open your start menu and type this into your run box then hit enter. defrag c: -b



Adjust Browser Cache Sizes

The maximum size of your Internet Explorer browser cache is ###
megabytes. Generally, cache sizes above 80 megabytes waste disk space
and can actually cause slower performance.
Solutions

How to adjust the IE cache size

Start Internet Explorer
Select Tools | Internet Options | General tab
Under Temporary Internet Files click the Settings button.
In the box for the amount of disk space to use, enter a value between 5 and 80 megabytes.
Click OK to accept the changes.


Note: Since I have a very fast Internet Connection I have
found that setting my temp Internet Files to one Megabyte gives me the
best performance.



Allow more than 2 simultaneous downloads in IE

This is to increase the the number of max downloads to 10.

1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).

2. Locate the following key in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings

3. On the Edit menu, click Add Value (a dword) , and then add the following registry values:

"MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server"=Dword:0000000a
"MaxConnectionsPerServer"=Dword:0000000a

4. Quit Registry Editor.








Broadband Internet Connection Tweaking

If you are reading this then you are looking to maximize your bandwidth
by tweaking your computers registry and other settings. There are a few
things you must know and understand prior to optimizing your
connection.

• Your goal in
tweaking is to get 90% of your ISPs bandwidth caps, but remember that
sometimes due to factors beyond your control such as routers, nodes,
distance from your CO or congestion etc. you WILL NOT obtain that goal.

• You
need to know your ISPs caps in kilobits, for example I have Cox
Internet Service and my caps are 3000/256. This information is usually
found on your ISPs website.

• You need to download CableNut from here, it is the most comprehensive internet connection tweaking app available.

• You need to know what your maximum anticipated latency is by following the instructions here.

• Once you know what your ISPs caps and your maximum anticipated latency are you just need to input it into the CableNut Live
webpage. Our own Moderator here j79zlr made this page and it uses the
proper formula for finding all you optimum registry settings.

• You
need to make sure your MTU (maximum transmission unit) is set properly
since other settings are based on this, to check yours do a TCP/IP Analyzer Test.
This will tell you what your current TCP/IP registry settings are. The
proper MTU values are as follows, make sure yours is set accordingly:
Cable – 1500, Normal DSL – 1500, PPPoE DSL – 1492, XP Native PPPoE DSL
– 1480.

If you are using XP's native PPPoE setup and
your MTU is not set to 1480 then copy and paste the following and make
it a .reg file and merge it into your regstry to correct it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NdisWan\Parameters\Protocols]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NdisWan\Parameters\Protocols\0]

"ProtocolType"=dword:00000800
"PPPProtocolType"=dword:00000021
"ProtocolMTU"=dword:000005c8

• It
is important to test your speed properly, the most accurate test is to
download a large file from a fast reliable FTP server such as the
following two:

OOL FTP TEST

AOL FTP TEST

RoadRunner FTP Test (Tampa FL)

Another
fairly reliable test is from Speakeasy, it is a java based test and
isn’t as accurate but if you do multiple tests from around the US it
will give you a fairly accurate result. Here is a full list of their
test sites:

New York City
Chicago
Washington D.C.
San Francisco
Denver
Dallas
Atlanta
Boston
Philadelphia
Los Angeles
Cleveland
Houston
Miami
Minneapolis/St. Paul
Seattle

Make sure you clear your browsers cache prior to each test.

For all the definitions to the values in CableNut read here.

The Windows 2000 White Papers – The official Microsoft papers on how TCP/IP works in Windows 2000 & XP.

Along
with properly optimizing your TCP/IP & AFD values there are also a
number of other things you can do to help maximize your bandwidth.

• Setting your NIC (Ethernet card) duplex mode properly. Duplex modes are as follows:

Cable Modem – 10mb half duplex*
DSL – ISP dependant
If using a router set it to 100mb full duplex.
*OOL users should set their duplex mode to 100mb full duplex

To set yours do the following:

Open
your control panel – select the network icon – right click on your LAN
connection and select properties - under the ethernet adapter icon
click the button configure - select the advanced tab - in the property
box, the property name to be selected varies according to model of
ethernet card. Examples are: Network Link Selection, Media Type,
Connection Type, Duplex Mode, or any similarly named property which can
have Values looking like Auto-Negotiation, or 10BT, or 10BaseT - in the
Value box, select a value which either (a) explicitly says half-duplex
or semi-duplex, or (b) at least does not say full-duplex [e.g. 10BaseT
on its own is OK] – if there is a choice between 10 and 100 with
half-duplex, choose the 10. Do not choose 10Base5, 10Base2, or AUI -
click OK to exit the Adapter settings - click OK to exit the connection
properties.

• Setting your TCP/IP metric setting properly, it should be set to a value of 1. To do so do the following:

Open
your control panel – select the network icon – right click on your LAN
connection and select properties – highlight Internet Protocol TCP/IP
and select properties – advanced – select the IP settings tab – in the
interface metric box put the value 1 – ok.

• Speeding up network browsing.

Open regedit and navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Delete the key: {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

• Faster webpage tweak by giving priority to DNS lookup.

Copy and paste the following and make it a .reg file and merge it into your regstry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ServiceProvider]

"DnsPriority"=dword:00000001
"HostsPriority"=dword:00000001
"LocalPriority"=dword:00000001
"NetbtPriority"=dword:00000001

• Forward buffer memory tweak, this controls how much RAM TCP/IP uses for storing packet data in the router packet queue.

Copy and paste the following and make it a .reg file and merge it into your regstry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]

"ForwardBufferMemory"=dword:00024a00
"NumForwardPackets"=dword:0000024a
"MaxForwardBufferMemory"=dword:00024a00
"MaxNumForwardPackets"=dword:0000024a

• By
default Windows 2K & XP cache everything in the DNS cache service,
both correct and faulty DNS lookups. To increase performance by
eliminating the caching of faulty DNS lookups, copy and paste the
following and make it a .reg file and merge it into your regstry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters]

"NegativeCacheTime"=dword:00000000
"NetFailureCacheTime"=dword:00000000
"NegativeSOACacheTime"=dword:00000000

• Internet Explorer important settings:

Open
Internet Explorer and select Tools - Internet Options - under the
General tab in the Temporary Internet files section select the Settings
button.

Select "Every visit to the page" and set the amount of disk space to use: to no more than 80MB. Now select the Connections tab and select LAN Settings make sure EVERYTHING there is unchecked and select OK.

For
IE6 ONLY - select the Privacy tab and choose Advanced check the box
"Override automatic cookie handling" and for First-party Cookies -
Accept, Third-party Cookies - Block and check "Always allow session
cookies. Now NO MORE SPYWARE COOKIES.

Another thing to do
about once a week if you modem is on 24/7 is to power cycle your modem,
just completely disconnect power from it for at least 15 seconds and
then power it back on.

Set your temporary internet files to 80mb and delete them regularly.

• DSL users may want to check out the DSL Wiring Guide for possibly increasing your DSL speed.

DSL
users also want to make sure they do not have any halogen lights close
to their modems or 900mhz or 2.4ghz phones in the same room.

• Always
connect your modem via ethernet (Network Interface Card) instead of
USB, ethernet is faster and much more stable. Also ALWAYS make sure you
have the latest drivers for your NIC from the manufacturer NOT
Microsoft, usually the drivers from the manufacturer have advanced
settings that help optimize the performance of your NIC that the native
Microsoft drivers don't have. If you are using a router always keep
your firmware up to date.

• Remove any uneeded protocols:

Open
your control panel – right click your LAN connection - properties -
general tab, uninstall all the protocols there that you do not need. If
you are a stand alone pc then all you need Internet Protocol TCP/IP. If
you are on a network then you will need them except QoS Packet
Scheduler, it is never needed.

Change IE Title Text

1. Open regedit navigate to this key:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
   
2. Change (or create) the value of the string Window Title
   to whatever you want on the titlebar of Internet Explorer - to have no
   title except the title of the web pages you are browsing do not enter
   anything for a value.
   

Faster browsing on the Internet or your Network

By doing the following steps you can browse on the Internet or Network faster. It uses the same tecnique as http://localhost. When you type http://localhost you will be redirected to your own ip. By adding some lines you could reach your ip by just typing http://l. Observe that some names can effect your network.
1. Find out which ip you would like to have a name for. It could be
a website, a place on your network or anything else that got an
ip-number. The localhost uses the ip 127.0.0.1. To find out a website's
ip just type "ping www.website.com" (without the "")in the command prompt (start>run>cmd.exe).
2. Browse to WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc. Open the file called hosts in notepad.
3. Below "127.0.0.1 localhost" type the ip followed by a name. Read in the file itself for more information.
4. If you for example type 216.239.51.99 search (the ip belongs to www.google.com) and saves the file, you will end up on google's site if you type search in the adress bar in your Internet Browser.




Fix slow web page loading on DSL or any connection
This tweak is also valid for any windows version, and I have heard other operating systems to include Linux.
Symptom: 10 to 30 seconds delay or maybe even up to 1 minute when
loading any web page. Once a web page is up, full internet speed is
available, also downloads are not affected by speed loss. If you have
TCP/IP version 6 installed this is highly likely the problem.
How to check if IPv6 is installed (Windows XP): Open up the control
pannel. If it is titled "pick a category", click "switch to classic
view." Open "Network Connections." Here there should be a list of
your internet connections, they could be network cards, dial-up
connections, or others. Find the one you connect to the internet with,
for example "Local Area Connection #1" Right-click on its icon and
choose properties. In the middle of the properties window you will see
a smaller window that is titled "This connection uses the following
items." Some of the common items are: "Client for microsoft networks"
"Internet Protocal (TCP/IP)"
How to fix (Windows XP): In this windows if you see one of the
items labeled "Microsoft TCP/IP version 6" select it and click the
uninstall button. DO NOT UNINSTALL "Internet Protocal (TCP/IP)" this
will disable your internet connectivity completely.
Other Notes: As far as I know this will be the next internet
standard, but for now using the standard "Internet Protocal (TCP/IP)"
will work. You shouldn't find any problems uninstalling IPv6. You may
ask how did this get installed? IPv6 is listed in windows updates and
could be installed this way. I am guessing that IPv6 slows down web
connections because most web servers aren't using it yet.





Change Internet Explorer Logo
his Tweak Changes the Small logo at the top right corner of your browser.

1. Click Start > Run > Type gpedit.msc
2. Click User Configuration > Windows Setting > Internet Explorer Maintenance > Browser User erface
3. Double click on Custom Logo
4. Click on Customize The Static Logo Bitmaps
5. Click on Browse...
6. Browser for your new Logo
7. click Ok
8. An error will popup ``You have selected to customize a setting but provided no
value. The behavior of this will be to delete the setting. Are you sure you want
too continue?``
9. Click yes

Note: The Logo have to be (22X22) Small and (38X38) Large and have to be bitmap.
When
you save your Logo, you have to save in 256 or 16bit color.This Tweak
Changes the Small logo at the top right corner of your browser.

1. Click Start > Run > Type gpedit.msc
2. Click User Configuration > Windows Setting > Internet Explorer Maintenance > Browser User Interface
3. Double click on Custom Logo
4. Click on Customize The Static Logo Bitmaps
5. Click on Browse...
6. Browser for your new Logo
7. click Ok
8. An error will popup ``You have selected to customize a setting but provided no
value. The behavior of this will be to delete the setting. Are you sure you want
too continue?``
9. Click yes

Note: The Logo have to be (22X22) Small and (38X38) Large and have to be bitmap.
When you save your Logo, you have to save in 256 or 16bit color.




Change the Logon Screen Saver

Change the Logon Screen Saver
Click Start , click Run , type regedt32 , and click OK .


Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_USERS\DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop


In the details pane (right-side), double-click the SCRNSAVE.EXE string value item.


In Value data , type the path and name of the screen saver, and then click OK .

IMPORTANT
: Make sure that you specify the path correctly to the screen saver. If
the screen saver is located in %SystemRoot%\System32, the explicit path
is not required.


You have now changed the logon screen saver.





Change XP Boot Screen

If you would like to change your boot up screen follow the directions
below. These instructions assume that you have a place to download the
boot screen from the net. If you would like to download a boot screen,
visit http://www.themexp.org

1. Backup (copy) the file %windir%\system32\ntoskrnl.exe (most likely C:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe - the boot screen)
2. Download the .zip to your computer (important: make sure to get the right version, XP or XP SP1)
3. Extract ntoskrnl.exe to a directory other than %windir%\system32 (most likely C:\windows\system32)
4. Reboot your computer into Safe Mode (hit F8 before the boot screen) or into true DOS (from a boot disk)
5. Overwrite the file %windir%\system32\ntoskrnl.exe (which should have been backed up) with the extracted exe
6. Reboot your computer as you normally would.




More Tweaks & Tips To Come Soon.

Changing DNS Settings on Windows