Windows - Tips & Tricks

Microsoft reserves 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes like Windows Updates and interrogating your PC etc. Click Start then Run and type gpedit.msc. This opens the group policy editor. Then go to: Local Computer Policy-->Computer Configuration-->Administrative Templates-->Network-->QoS Packet Scheduler and then to LimitReservableBandwidth. Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab i.e."By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default." So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO. This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.It works on Windows 2000 and XP as well

One can remove the boot logo that appears when you start Windows XP. This little
tweak saves a few seconds of your boot time, but seconds count if you are serious about trying to get Windows XP up and running as quickly as possible. The only negative is that if you remove the boot logo, you will also not see any boot messages, such as check disk.

To remove the boot logo, follow these steps:

1. Select Start-->Run, type msconfig, and click OK.
2. In the System Configuration Utility, click the BOOT.INI tab.
3. On the BOOT.INI tab, click the NOGUIBOOT check box option. Click OK.
4. Restart your computer to check the results.

To remove the Log Off button from your Start Menu do the following registry tweak. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Create a new DWORD value and name it NoLogOff. Now add the value 1 to the key. You

go to tools --> options to disable it. If you don't have an account, as it won't let you change the options without first logging on to an account. Click on the Start-->Run and type in regedit, then go to, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\Run Delete the key that says, MSMSGS - REG_SZ - "C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe" /background