oase`s blog

to uninstall things like msn messenger and other hidden installs thru add remove programs, do this:

find sysoc.inf (you might have to enable “show hidden files” and “show hidden/protected system folders” in explorer) and open it in notepad
replace all “,hide” with “,” (both with out quotes) which is easiest to do with the replace all command under edit
then in add/remove programs under add/remove windows compnents and whole new list of things to uninstall and add are now listed (such as internet explorer)

Start button-all programs-accessories-system tools-cleanup-more options. You will have the option of deleting your restore points. I had over 2 gigabytes of restore points. When your done creat one restore point as a back up.

Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
Select Enable from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to Y to enable and N to disable.
Reboot your computer.

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:

1. Open the Device Manager. One way to do that is to right click on “My Computer”, select the Hardware tab, and Select Device Manager.
2. Expand “IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers” and double-click on “Primary IDE Channel”
3. Under the “Advanced Settings” tab, check the “Device 1″ setting. More than likely, your current transfer mode is set to PIO.
4. Set it to “DMA if available”.

Repeat the step for the “Secondary IDE Channel” if you have devices attached to it. Reboot.

For a Microsoft artical on setting the DMA mode Click Here.

One feature that I can do without is error reporting. Every time a program crashes I do not want to send a report to microsoft. Read below to find out how to disable this stupid feature.

Open Control Panel
Click on Preformance and Maintenance.
Click on System.
Then click on the Advanced tab
Click on the error reporting button on the bottom of the windows.
Select Disable error reporting.
Click OK
Click OK