Windows XP 100 tips tricks (4)

Performance Increase Through My Computer
Easy enough tweak to usually find out about it on your own, but still, some of us still don't find it right away. So here it is:
· Start > right-click on My Computer and select Properties.
· Click on the "Advanced" tab.
· See the "Performance" section? Click "Settings".
· Disable the following:
Fade or slide menus into view
Fade or slide ToolTips into view
Fade out menu items after clicking
Show Shadows under menus
Slide open combo boxes
Slide taskbar buttons
Use a background image for each folder type
Use common tasks in folders
There, now Windows will still look nice and perform faster.

Reduce 10 Second Scandisk Wait Time
· Start MS Dos Prompt (Start run CMD), and type: CHKNTFS /T:4
where 4 is the amount of wait time.
CHKNTFS /?
for more info.

DMA Mode on IDE Devices
Just like Windows 2000, Windows XP still fails to set the DMA mode correctly for the IDE device designated as the slaves on the primary IDE and secondary IDE channels. Most CD-ROMS are capable of supporting DMA mode, but the default in XP is still PIO. Setting it to DMA won't make your CD-ROM faster, but it will consume less CPU cycles. Here's how:
· Open the Device Manager. One way to do that is to right-click on "My Computer", select the Hardware tab, and select Device Manager.
· Expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and double-click on "Primary IDE Channel".
· Under the "Advanced Settings" tab, check the "Device 1" setting. More than likely, your current transfer mode is set to PIO.
· Set it to "DMA if available".
· Repeat the step for the "Secondary IDE Channel" if you have devices attached to it.
Reboot.

Load Internet Explorer the Fastest Way Possible
· Edit your link to start Internet Explorer to have -nohome after it. For Example:
"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" -nohome
This will load internet explorer very fast because it does not load a web page while
it is loading. If you want to go to your homepage after it is loaded, just click on the
home button.

Remove Messenger
· Go to Start/Run, and type: "rundll32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection BLC.Remove 128 %SystemRoot%\INF\msmsgs.inf"

source:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/191328/Windows-Xp-100-Tips-Tricks