One Tip A Day » Registry Tweaks

TweakNow: Tweak Your XP Or Vista Machine Safely

Tony Williams — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:51:35 +0000

Many PC tweaking utilities can be risky to use as they present you with dozens of options at a time, and when you change a dozen things at once something is bound to go wrong. The problem in this situation normally is, how do you roll back so many changes?

TweakNow may finally make tweaking Vista and XP machines even safer for novices. Not only does it provide quick access to some useful PC tweaks, but it also keeps a record of your previous settings so that rollbacks can be performed quickly and safely. Within TweakNow you can edit:

Applications
Control Panel
Desktop
Miscellaneous
Network & Internet
OEM Info
Special Folders
Start Menu
User Accounts
Windows Core
Windows Explorer

More: TweakNow

Improve PC Gaming By Disabling Windows Key

Tony Williams — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:11:37 +0000

Mr Byte has produced a very clear guide to disabling the Windows key on keyboards. If you’re a keen gamer, this guide could prove handy as the Windows Key is right bang in the middle of important gaming keys like CTRL and ALT, so it can be easily pressed. Pretty annoying if you are in the middle of a fire-fight and suddenly your PC switches to the desktop.

If like me you never use the Windows Key, then here is how to disable it:

Goto Start -> Run and Type Regedit and press Enter (In Vista, type ‘Regedit’ in Search Box under Start)
Browse to ‘My Computer\ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ Leyboard Layout‘
On the right hand side pane, right click and move over ‘NEW‘ and Click ‘Binary Value‘
This would have created a new entry with the name ‘New Value #1‘ with Type ‘REG_BINARY‘ and Data as zero-length binary value.
Right Click ‘New Value #1′ and rename it to ‘Scancode Map‘
Right Click again and click ‘Modify Binary Data’ and enter ‘00000000000000000300000000005BE000005CE000000000‘
Close everything and restart your computer.

if you want to restore your Windows Key, then just delete the new entry that you’ve just created.

Use Any USB Drive With Windows Vista Readyboost

Tony Williams — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:24:53 +0000

ReadyBoost is a disk caching system introduced in Windows Vista that relies on flash memory to boost system performance. At the moment only certain flash drives are compatible with Readyboost, but gHacks have found a way so that any USB drive can be used with ReadyBoost.

Right-click the device that you want to use for Readyboost and select properties.
Switch to the Readyboost tab and uncheck “Stop retesting this device when I plug it in”. Then unplug the device from the computer before you proceed.
Open Regedit and go to the key HKLM (Local Machine) -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows NT -> CurrentVersion -> EMDgmt which displays a list of all known USB devices on your computer. Choose the one that you want to use for Readyboost and edit the following keys in the right pane:

Device Status – Change that value to 2
ReadSpeedKbs – Change the value to 1000
WriteSpeedKbs – Change the value to 1000 as well

After that is done you can use the USB device for Readyboost.

Faster Windows XP Menus

Tony Williams — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 20:24:38 +0000

Sometimes making your PC ‘run’ faster is just about changing the way programs run e.g disabling splash screens. This tip will make your machine feel faster, by increasing the speed with which menus load, by removing the delay between clicking on a menu and that menu being displayed, which is enforced by XP.

To enable this tweak do the following:

Go to the Start Menu and then click on ‘Run’
Type in ‘Regedit’ then click on ‘Ok’
Navigate to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\’
Once you’ve found this registry key, select ‘MenuShowDelay’
Right click on ‘MenuShowDelay’ and select ‘Modify’
Lower the speed to somewhere between 100 and 400
Close the registry editor

This is the delay time before a menu is opened measured in ms. You can set it to “0″ but it can make windows really hard to use as menus will open automatically when a mouse is just hovered over them. I personally go 100ms but experiment until you find a timing you like.