ADJUST GRAPHICS FOR SPEED:

Windows XP - has a lot of new cool looking visual elements however, those new elements take up more RAM and cause your computer to be less responsive. By tweaking your graphics settings, you can increase the performance of your computer.

To get started, Let's reduce the color quality. This setting determines how many colors are displayed on your screen.

1. Right click on your desktop and select properties.
2. Click on the settings tab and adjust the color quality drop down box to Medium (16 Bit).
3. Click OK.

Next, let's use the windows performance settings to optimize your computer for performance. This will revert back to the old Windows 2000 look as well as take away a lot of the fancy graphics effects. However, if you are really into performance, this is the price you have to pay.

1. Right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop or in your start panel and select properties.
2. Next, Click on the Advanced tab and hit the setting button under performance.
3. On the visual effects tab, select Adjust for Best Performance and hit OK.
4. Hit OK once more to exit system properties.

Now your computer will run slightly faster!

BETTER DISK CLEANUP

A Better Disk Cleanup

This tip will show you how to create an unattended disk cleanup which will also empty your prefetch folder. This tip assumes you have Windows XP installed in c:\windows.

Step 1.
Create a new text file and place the following contents inside:

c:\windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe /dc /sageset: 1
c:
cd \
cd c:\windows\prefetch
del *.* /q

Step 2.
Save the file, changing the extension from .txt to .bat
For this tip's purpose, we will call it clean.bat

Step 3.
Execute the file. This will run the Disk Cleanup program in a special mode which asks what items you will want cleaned when Disk Cleanup performs an unattended cleanup. Check the items you wish to have cleaned up, then click OK.

Step 4.
Right-click on the clean.bat file and click edit. Change the first line to read:

c:\windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe /dc /sagerun: 1

Step 5.
Save the file. You can execute this file in place of running Disk Cleanup, or, to have this program run unattended, run the Add Scheduled Task Wizard in the Control Panel and create a scheduled task using the clean.bat file you just created.

Note: This cleanup script will also clear windows prefetch directory. Often this directory can become cluttered with old appication and a cleaning would free up disk space but it will result in a one time performance decrease and windows has to rebuild the cache with active software afterwards.

PASSWORD FOR GUEST ACCOUNT:

Passwording Guest Account

After reading Joseph Doyle's submission regarding this I would like to point out that you can set a Guest account password by simply doing this. This method is somewhat simpler in that you do not have to mess around with CMD.exe.

1. Make sure you are logged on as an Administrator.
2. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management.
3. Select the "Users" folder under "Local Users and Groups".
4. Right click on the "Guest" account and click "Set Password". When a dialog comes up warning you of the possible consequences click "Proceed". You will then be given a dialog that lets you set a new password.

I have always considered security a top priority and considering the ease of doing this I would highly recommend that everyone sets a Guest account password. Even though the Guest account is disabled by default, why not do this just for the extra bit of security?

Local Users and Groups is not available in XP Home. A way to set a password for the guest account in Home and Pro: click start - run - type: cmd - in the command window type: net user guest * - hit Enter - you will be prompted for the password to use.

How to remove recycle bin from your desktop Tip:

Open Regedit by going to START - RUN and type Regedit and hit enter. Then you should navigate to following entry in registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} and delete it. This action should remove recycle bin from your desktop.

How to improve on shutdown time ? Close apps automatically & quickly at shutdown tip:

Open Registry by going to START-RUN and typing REGEDIT. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\CONTROL PANEL\DESKTOP and look for AutoEndTasks. On my computer default value is 0. Change it to 1. Thats all. Further more you can reduce the time it takes for Windows to issue kill directive to all active/hung applications.
In doing this only constraint that you should make sure exists is that HungAppTimeout is greater than WaitToKillAppTimeout. Change the values of WaitToKillAppTimeout to say 3500 (since default value for HungAppTimeout 5000 and for WaitToKillAppTimeout is 20000)

Keep Your Favorite Programs on Top of the Start Menu tip:

Do you have a favorite program that you frequently use? Elevate its priority on the Start menu by putting it at the top of the list. This ensures that the program will remain on the Start menu and cannot be bumped by other programs, even if you use the others more frequently.
Right-click the link to your favorite program on the Start menu and select Pin to Start Menu.
Your program will be moved permanently to the top part of the list, just below your browser and e-mail programs.

How to avoid auto play of CD ?

Hey this time no registry trick even though there are ways in registry to do it. In earlier operating systems only those CD that had autorun.inf file in their root directory were able to execute on its own but with advent of WINDOWS XP it has become possible with just about anything. Well sometimes it is good but there are other times when you want to avoid this part of automation. What would I do. Simply press SHIFT key when you enter a CD in your CD drive. It won't Auto play. For those of you, who do want a registry hack. Here it is:
Open Registry and navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer] and look for key "NoDriveTypeAutoRun" and set its value to 185 (decimal). This would stop autoplay.