Windows XP Tips Page 4

1. Disable Error Reporting to Microsoft

Whenever a program crashes, an error-reporting window pops up, prompting you to send an error report to Microsoft. This can be quite annoying, especially if you have a particularly recalcitrant application. Turning this feature off can really save time – and lets face facts: you don't really want to help Microsoft debug XP now do you?

You can disable this feature or have it appear on a program-by-program basis. To disable error reporting:

  1. Choose Performance and Maintenance from Control Panel.

     

  2. Choose System and click on the Advanced tab.

     

  3. Click on the Error Reporting button.. The Error Reporting dialog box will appear, shown in Figure 1.

     

  4. Click on Disable Error Reporting to turn off the warning. If you'd like Error Reporting disabled, but want to be informed of dangerous system events, check the box next to But notify me when critical errors occur.

To decide on a program-by-program basis whether to use error reporting:

  1. From the Error reporting dialog box, choose the Enable Reporting radio button, and click on Choose Programs. The Choose Programs dialog box appears.

     

  2. Click on All Programs in this list, and then check boxes next to those programs for which you want error reporting, and uncheck those boxes for which you don't want error reporting. By default, the only choices you have are Programs from Microsoft, or Windows components. To add more choices to the list, click on Add, and then browse to the programs you want to add to the list.

     

  3. You can also exclude specific programs from error reporting. Under the Do not report errors for these programs setting, click on Add, and then when the program appears, make sure its box is checked

 

 

2. Remove "Uninstallable" XP Components

There are a number of Windows components-notably Windows Messenger and WordPad—that don't show up on the list of uninstallable components on the Windows Component Wizard. There's no apparent way to uninstall them. But you can, in fact, remove these components.

XP has a Setup Information file that controls what appears in the Windows Component Wizard. If you edit this file, you can remove these components as you would any others.

To start, use Notepad or another text editor to open the Setup Information file, sysoc.inf, which is generally found in the \WINDOWS\INF folder. Look for the line describing the program that you want to uninstall. Lines in the file have the format:

program=dll.inf entry, OcEntry, program.inf entry, numeral

Programs that are uninstallable all have the word hide or HIDE embedded in the string. Next, delete the word hide from the entry that refers to the component that you want to remove. For example, if you wanted to remove Pinball, you'd edit its entry by changing

Pinball=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,pinball.inf,HIDE,7

to

Pinball=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,pinball.inf,,7

Save the sysoc.inf file, then run the Windows Component Wizard by choosing Add or Remove Programs from Control Panel, and clicking on Add/Remove Windows Components. The component will now show up in the wizard. Remove it as you would any other component.

Keep in mind that not all of the entries in sysoc.inf are as easy to understand as Pinball and WordPad. For example, if you want to remove Windows Messenger, edit the entry for msmsgs, and if you want to remove the Accessibility Wizard, edit the entry for AccessOpt. The following table lists the "uninstallable" programs and what their entries are in the sysoc.inf file.

 

 
   
Entry What Entry Refers To
 
AccessOpt Accessibility Wizard
 
MultiM Multimedia components, including Media Player, Volume Control, and Sound Recorder
 
CommApps Communications components, including Chat, Hyperterminal, and Phone Dialer
 
AutoUpdate Windows Automatic Update
 
TerminalServer         Terminal Server
 
Dtc Distributed Transaction Coordinator
 
Com COM+
 
WBEM Windows Management Instrumentation
 
Pinball Pinball game
 
MSWordPad WordPad
 
msmsgs Windows Messenger
 

Alas, this isn't perfect. on some systems, you simply won't be able to remove Windows Messenger - Windows Messenger won't show up on the Windows Component Wizard even after you edit the sysoc.inf file. And some components such as Terminal Server will show up in the wizard if you edit the sysoc.inf file, but the wizard still won't let you uninstall them.

3. Remove Orphaned Entries in Add or Remove Programs

Sometimes, after you uninstall a program, its entry still remains in the Add or Remove Programs dialog box. When you click on Change/Remove in the dialog box, you get an error, telling you that the program no longer exists. This can be a major headache, if you install and test a lot of different programs.

You can remove these orphan entries:

  1. From a command line or from the Run line, run regedit. This opens the Registry Editor.

     

  2. Select the folder HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and follow the folder path \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall.

     

  3. Click on the + sign to expand the listing.

     

  4. Look for the name of the program with the orphaned entry.

     

  5. Delete the entire listing for the software with the orphaned entry, by highlighting it and pressing the Delete key.

     

  6. Close the Registry. The orphaned entry will be gone.

     

    Note, editing the registry is not for everyone. You can really mess up your system if you have problems. Make sure you back up your registry before doing anything else. You do this by selecting the "Export Registry" option in the Registry menu in RegEdit.

 

 

4. Change the Amount of Time Before Programs Time Out

When an application hangs and no longer responds, XP displays a dialog box that prompts you to kill the application, or wait a while longer. By default, the dialog box appears after the application hasn't responded for a half of a second. If you've built some of your own applications, this might be too short a time – and it can be extremely annoying.

You can increase or decrease the amount of time it takes before XP reports that the program has hung:

  1. From a command line or from the Run line, run regedit. This opens the Registry Editor.

     

  2. Select the folder HKEY_CURRENT_USER and follow the folder path \Control Panel\Desktop.

     

  3. Select the HungAppTimeout entry.

     

  4. Edit it to input a new value, in milliseconds. The default is 5000.

     

  5. Exit the Registry. You may need to reboot for the new setting to take effect.

5. Disable XP's Highlighting of Newly Installed Programs

When you install a new program in XP, its entry on the Start menu is highlighted. You can, however, disable that feature so that new programs are not highlighted after you install them:

  1. Right-click the Start menu and choose Properties.

     

  2. Choose the Start Menu tab and click on Customize.

     

  3. Click on the Advanced Tab.

     

  4. Uncheck Highlight newly installed programs. Newly installed programs will no longer be highlighted.

6. Balance System Performance and Visual Effects

Using Windows XP's visual effects such as fading and sliding menus, and drop shadows for icon labels makes your system look pretty cool. However, they can take a big toll on system performance.

You can balance these visual effects against system performance by turning off all visual effects, letting your system decide which to use, or picking and choosing which effects to turn on and off.

  1. Right-click on My Computer, choose Properties, and then click on the Advanced tab. The System Properties dialog box appears.

     

  2. Click on Settings under the Performance section. The Performance Options dialog box, shown in Figure 2, appears.

     

  3. The default to let Windows determine which visual effects to turn on and off. To turn off all effects, choose Adjust for best performance. To use all visual effects, choose Adjust for best appearance. To turn on and off individual effects, choose Custom, then check the effects you want to use, and uncheck the ones you don't.



 

 

7. Switch the Task Manager to Stripped-Down Mode

If you want to run the Task Manager without its title bar, menu bar, tabs and status bar, you can switch it to the stripped-down view. To do it, first run the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Once it's running, double-click anywhere except inside the list box that shows running processes and programs. To toggle back, double-click in the same place again. We're not sure why you'd want to do this, but the stripped down version certainly looks awesome.

8. Customize the CPU Cycles Given to Programs and Processes

XP assigns every program and process running on your PC a priority which determines the relative amount of CPU power that it gets compared to other programs. The priorities that XP assigns are: Low, BelowNormal, Normal, AboveNormal, High and Realtime.

Most programs are assigned the Normal priority, but using the Task Manager, you can change the priorities assigned to any process or program. If you've got a lot of applications running, but want one – like a 3D shooter -- to get most of the processor's attention, this can really speed it up.

To change the priority of a running program or process:

  1. Run the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

     

  2. Click on the Processes tab.

     

  3. Right-click on the program or process whose priority you want to change, highlight Set Priority and choose the priority for the program.

When you assign a new priority to a process or program, that new priority sticks only as long as the program or process is running. Once the program or process ends, and you restart it, it defaults to the priority assigned to it by XP.

 

 

9. Customize Your Paging File Size

Windows uses a hidden file called a swap file or a page file when there is no more room in RAM to run programs or store data, but it takes up space on your hard drive. By default, the initial paging file is 1.5 times the amount of your RAM. You may want a larger swapfile if you routinely keep a lot of tasks open simultaneously – or a smaller one if you have a hard-drive space crisis.

To see the size of your swap drive, look for the file pagefile.sys, typically found in the root directory of the drive that holds the operating system. Note: You'll only be able to see it if you've turned on the XP option for displaying hidden and system files.

Windows allows the swap file to shrink and grow, depending on whether it needs more or less memory.

To customize the size of your paging file:

  1. Choose Performance and Maintenance from Control Panel.

     

  2. Choose System from Performance and Maintenance and in the System Properties dialog box that appears, click on the Advanced tab.

     

  3. Click on Settings in the Performance section.

     

  4. From the Performance Options dialog box that appears, click on Advanced.

     

  5. In the Virtual memory section, click on Change, and the Virtual Memory dialog box, pictured in Figure 3, will appear. It displays the location and minimum and maximum sizes of your paging file.

     

  6. To change the minimum and maximum size of the paging file, choose the Custom Size radio button, and enter the new initial size and maximum size of the file. Click on Set and reboot.

     

  7. To let XP manage the size of the file, choose the System managed size radio button, click on Set and reboot.

     

  8. To run XP without a paging file, choose the No paging file radio button, click on Set and reboot. This is a dangerous option, and could lead to out of memory errors, so it's not a good idea to choose it.


 

Windows XP Tips Page 5