These are tweaks I found around the place, basicly they are here as a reference
for myself as i keep losing them and then needing them later. feel free to use
them yourself but dont come crying to me if you fuck up, i will only laugh at you.

here are a few other sites i suggest you check out if you want something thats
not listed here. I would suggest searching forums if they have them.

TweakXP  Google Groups  annoyances.org
ActiveWin Doug Knox's site Infinisource 
Kellys Korner   

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Win XP Tweaks/Fixes
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***Problem: windows XP keeps nagging me for some sort of "activation" thingy
when it seems to be working alright for around 30 days after i install then it
stops working.

***Solution: MS seem to have broken the OS in many ways, but this is constanly
happening and is realy serious, but the fix is luckily quite easy.
You will need a hex editor or you can download a pre fixed version or fix
it yourself.

make a copy of c:\windows\system32\winlogon.exe somewhere and open
it in your hex editor. 

If you have just installed windows go to location 00039660h, otherwise search
for string:

8B D1 57 33 C0 89 02 89 42 08 and change it to C7 06 01 00 00 00 83 EE 04 C3

once you have done this save the file and reboot into safemode. once booted you
need to replace a couple of files. rename the originals to .bak then put the fixed 
file in their place.

c:\windows\system32\winlogon.exe
c:\windows\system32\dllcache\winlogon.exe

reboot and it should no longer hassle you about activation. 

After applying some patches windows will overwrite the winlogon with ANOTHER
broken copy of the file. often it can be fixed by searching for and replacing that
string again, or just putting the old fixed file back again.

***Problem: I installed some software (in my case PGP Freeware to stop the
government spying on my top secret plans to assasinate George Dubya Bush)
and my networking has completely broken.

***Solution: for some reason the IP stack has been messed up, just
open a cmd prompt window and type (or paste):

sc config ipsec start= system

it should say something along the lines of "[SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS"
now reboot your machine, it should be fine from now. 

***To change the interval that Windows updates the time using the internet time servers via regedit, navigate to:

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services \W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient 
2. Select "SpecialPollInterval" 
3. Change decimal value from 604800 to a different value in seconds.


***Problem: Windows starts running realy slow, as explorer.exe takes up all my
CPU time, this happens more after i have been watching some privately made and
recorded videos saved in an AVI format.

***Solution: its a stupid bug to do with "usefull" features like thumbnails of movies,
i personaly cant realy imagine life without being able to see a thumbnail representation
of my movies taken from the first frame which is almost always PLAIN BLACK!!!!
anyhow to fix it go delete some registry entries, these ones are what i would
suggest, but you can get rid of some others too if you want.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler
delete the default data value in the right hand pane.

If you have installed SP1 amongst all the other things it fucks up it also brings
this bug back even if the above value is gone, in this case also remove the
following registry key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}\InProcServer32

***Problem: Windows runs realy slow. 

***Solution: Im telling you its meant to do that, but here is some stuff that 
could make it go a little faster.

Memory Performance Tweaks

These Settings will fine tune your systems memory management at least 256MB 
of ram reccommended. regedit 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 Kernal to Run in memory improves system performance alot 


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win9x tweaks
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---=== Memory Optimisation ===---

Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > System Properties 

Under the Performance tab click on the file system button. Under hard disk
settings change the typical role which your computer plays to network server.
This will boost the performance of your hard disk.

For even better performance (if you have 64 megs or more of ram) make a .reg 
file containing the following then import it to the registry. Then switch the role 
to max cache. Its around 150 time as much as a network server : )

-------------- copy below -------------------
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates]
@="Max Cache"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Max Cache]
@="Max Cache"
"NameCache"=hex00,18,00,00
"PathCache"=hex80,00,00,00
-------------- to above -------------------

Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > System Properties 

Click the performance tab then click the virtual memory button in the bottom right.
Click on "Let me specify my own virtual memory setting". Set minimum and
maximum to 2.5 times the installed RAM.

Edit the c:\windows\System.ini file, under its [386Enh] section add:

ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

Type sysedit in your Start > Run dialog box and navigate to "System.ini". 
(in WinME its named msconfig)

Look for [cache] and add the following: 

MinFileCache= nnn 
MaxFileCache= nnn 
ChunkSize= nnn 

(nnn represents a number, multiple of 2). 'MinFileCache' and 'MaxFileCache' should
be about 25% of your RAM. 
'ChunkSize' should generally be '512'

Warning: As data is written in cache (rather than directly written to disk) this
could result in data loss due to power failure or a system crash.

Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > System Properties 

Under File System, click on Troubleshooting and then click on 
Disable Synchronous Buffer Commit. While here also click the floppy disk tab 
and uncheck the box marked search for new floppy on boot.

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Windows ME specific tweaks
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---=== Disable System Restore ===---

1:   Open Control Panel -> System -> Performance Tab -> File System - >
Troubleshooting area.		Tick Disable System Restore 

2:   Uninstall Pc Health.
Run the following command
c:\windows\pchealth\support\pchsetup /uninstall

Run Windows Explorer and click on Tools / Folder Options / View and select 
"Show hidden files and folders"  then  browse the c drive and delete the 
_Restore  folder.  Hold your shift key so it doesn't move it to the recycle bin 
while you press del. This folder can have hundreds of megs of temp files if you
have been running ME for a while with the system Restore and PC Health on. If
you get an error message saying there is a sharing violation you haven't 
successfully turned off Pc Health and Restore. The _Restore folder should NOT
appears again in the future (unless you update a key Microsoft program like IE).

Sometimes you still cant delete the folder. In these cases try booting off a boot
disk (or into linux) and deleting them from there. And then just for good measure
make a file named _restore so that a folder of the same name can not be made
there : )

---===Turn off Automatic Updating===---

Control Panel / Automatic Updates      and turn OFF Automatic Updating

	Disable these settings in the start menu.
Run Msconfig, then click on Startup  and  UNCHECK PcHealth, StateMgr,
SchedulingAgent and Taskmon. Then allow the system to reboot so all these
changes will take effect.

Notes:

Don't let windows run HTA, SHS and VBS Script automatically.
Those file associations allow viruses to infect your system. Open
Windows Explorer and click Tools / Folder Options / File Types and
delete HTA, SHS and VBSscript. It is very unlikely a normal PC user
would need those file associations turned on.