China DOS Union

I’ve been using XP for several months already, and I’ve tested and organized quite a few very interesting registry tweaking tips. I’m writing them down here for everyone’s reference. Speaking of registry modifications, there’s one sentence that always has to be mentioned: be careful and cautious. You must back up before making changes; one wrong step may make your machine turn against you completely. In the descriptions below, if the specified location does not have the key/value mentioned here, then you need to create it yourself. Unless otherwise specified, all the values discussed here are of type REG_DWORD.
1. Improve XP’s response speed

Find the HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop subkey and modify the HungAppTimeout value. The HungAppTimeout value indicates the time limit before the system requires the user to manually end a suspended task. The default value is 5000, and the type is REG_SZ. Reducing this value can lower the system’s response delay in certain special situations. For example, you can set this value to 1000. When adjusting this key value, you should note: if some software on your system already runs very slowly, setting this key value too low may cause XP to mistakenly think that software currently running has already hung. If that happens, you can gradually increase the HungAppTimeout value by 1000 each time, until XP no longer mistakes running software for “Not Responding”.

2. Increase the display speed of Start menu submenus

Reduce the MenuShowDelay value (same location as above). This value is of type REG_SZ, default 400, and you can set it to 50. If this value is set too low, for example 0, submenus will appear immediately when the mouse pointer passes over the menu, interfering with the user’s selection. According to testing, setting it to 50 allows submenus to appear as quickly as possible while avoiding the visual interference caused by submenus popping out too fast.

3. Reduce the delay when browsing a LAN

Just like Windows 2000, XP also has the annoying delay problem when browsing a LAN, but materials introducing this problem are very hard to find. If you browse a Win 9x machine, for example by entering “\computername” in the address bar of Network Neighborhood, the XP machine will check “Scheduled Tasks” on the machine it is connecting to. This search process may cause a delay of up to 30 seconds. If you directly open a shared resource, for example by entering “\computernameshare” in the address bar of Network Neighborhood, then this delay process will not occur. To avoid XP searching “Scheduled Tasks” and improve network browsing speed, you can delete the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerRemoteComputerNameSpace{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF} subkey. The type of this key is REG_SZ.

4. Disable balloon popup messages

Find the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced subkey and set the hexadecimal value EnableBalloonTips to 0.

5. Show hidden files

Under the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrent VersionExplorerAdvanced subkey, there are several values that affect the display of hidden files and folders. To make XP display hidden files and folders, set Hidden to 1. To show file extensions, set HideFileExt to 0. To show protected operating system files, set ShowSuperHidden to 1. Note: the settings in this section can also be modified through the “View” tab in the “Folder Options” dialog box.

6. Show the Map Network Drive button

Find the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced subkey and set MapNetDrvBtn to 1. The Map Network Drive button will appear on the toolbar of Windows Explorer and “My Computer”.

7. Clean up the Start menu

Find the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer subkey. If you want to remove all user folders except “My Documents”, then set NoStartMenuMyMusic, NoSMMyPictures, NoFavoritesMenu, and NoRecentDocsMenu to 1. If you also want to disable the “My Documents” menu, then set NoSMMyDocs to 1 as well.

8. Prevent modification of user folders

Find HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer. If you want to lock the physical locations of user folders such as “My Pictures,” “My Documents,” “Favorites,” and “My Music,” set the following keys to 1 respectively: DisableMyPicturesDirChange, DisablePersonalDirChange, DisableFavoritesDirChange, DisableMyMusicDirChange.

9. Clear the virtual memory page file at shutdown

This registry modification is mainly for data security, but in many situations it has little practical value. Find the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management subkey and set ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 1.

10. Run programs in different memory spaces

Find the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer subkey and set MemCheckBoxInRunDlg to 1. The “Run dialog box” in the Start menu will gain an option called “Run in separate memory space”.

Finally, a reminder not to forget to use the Favorites feature in XP’s Registry Editor. You can use the “Favorites” function in Regedit to mark a certain location, so later you won’t have to search down through the subkeys layer by layer again. The specific method is: run Regedit, find the target key (for example HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows), select the subkey you want to add to Favorites (for example CurrentVersion), click the menu “Favorites | Add to Favorites”, give that favorite an easy-to-remember name, then click “OK”. It is recommended to use some naming scheme that helps you identify the subkey location, for example “HKLM...CurrentVersion”, or “HKLMSMSWinCV”.

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