Sometimes pop-up blockers or No-Flash still will not stop adverts in IE. I go to Bullzeye.com for a relative dose of T&A, and their contant Flash content was driving me crazy. I viewed the page source and then put these two lines under my browsers Restricted Sites:
http://ads.gorillanation.com
http://gorillanation.com
http://media.fastclick.net
One problem solved.
What are you Tips & Tweaks? Do we have enough good tips to make this a sticky?
Lets see.
This is all the info from my site cannedinfo.tripod.com
You can visit it if you want something less cluttered than this :]
Its basic, but it works.
Services
Here is a complete list of services that you can disable for XP to speed up the efficency of your computer resources.
Disabling these services will not interfere with your computer if it shares an internet connection over your home network or even if you do not have a home network.
Remember to back up your computer should anything happen.
To begin click on your start button and select settings and then control panel.
Now click on the Administrative Tools option and select Services.
Here is the list of the following services you should disable...
++++++
Alerter
Error Reporting Service
Event Log
Fast User Switching Compatability *If you dont switch users normally*
Help and Support *Will re-enable itself if you open the help button on the start menu*
IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service *Disable if you dont burn CDs*
Messenger *Disabling does not interfere with instant messenging programs*
Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing *Big security risk*
Nvidia Driver Helper Service
Portable Media Serial Number *If no portable mp3 device*
Print Spooler *If no printer is attached*
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry *HUGE security risk disable it*
Removable Storage
Secondary Logon
Smart Card
Smart Card Helper
Telnet *disable so remote users cannot access your computer and do bad things to it*
Themes *disable if you do not like the windows xp them disbaling will make it look like windows 98 and go faster*
Uninterruptable Power Supply
Windows Image Aquisition *If no scanner is attached*
Windows Time *Disconnects from evil microsoft servers :] *
Wireless Zero Configuration *Disable if no wireless internet*
Misc Windows
Here are some miscellaneous windows tweaks you can do to maximize performance.
Right click on the icon labled My Computer, and select the properties option.
Click on the advanced tab, and for the section labeled performance select the settings button.
Now select the option that says adjust for best performance.
Apply the settings and close out the window you just used.
Now under the advanced tab click on the button labeled error reporting and select the option that says to disable it but only appear for critical errors, after that close out that window.
Click on the tab labled remote, and uncheck the box that says allow remote assistance.
Internet Explorer
Some ways you can keep your IE nice and healthy are...
To totally clean house of all the dirty websites you go to :]
Go to tools menu and select the option labled internet options, go to the section of the properties window that says temporary files.
Click on the options that say delete cookies, delete files, and select the option labeled settings next to the two options you just selected.
Move the bar all the way to the left for only storing 1MB of files on your hard disk, which frees up tons of stuff.
Now go back to the main window and set the number of days to store links to 1 days.
From there click on the content tab located in the main window and make sure the following are unchecked (forms, passwords, user) and make sure the prompt for password save is also unchecked.
After that select the two options at the bottom to clear out any more information left.
NVIDIA based cards
Here are some ways you can tweak out your Geforce video card.
Right click on your desktop and select the option labled properties.
Click on the tab labeled settings, and then click on the advanced button in the lower right of the window.
Click on the window that says the name of the card you have, now click in a blank space in that window that doesnt have a button, or wont select anything.
A small window should popup giving you a drop down box, choose the one labeled performance and slide all the selection bars to the left.
Next inside the drop down box the option labled direct3d settings, for the minmap detail level select in the drop down box the option labled best performance.
Now go back to the options menu you were just at and select the option labled opengl, and set the verticle sync to always off.
Hard drives
For those of you who do not know, windows secures itself 10% of your hard drive for space for the recycle bin.
Untill you either run out of space in your recycling bin or delete the files yourself manually these files will continue to sit in there and take up space.
I dont know about you but every bit of space for my hard drive is always the more the better.
Right click on your recycling bin and select the properties option.
Click on the hard drive you wish to configure, and check off the box that says delete the files immediately after being deleted.
Now you have 10 % more free space.
Thats all the stuff from my site.
Enjoy.
When something goes wrong right clicking on My Computer/Manage and checking out the Event Viewer is a good start to finding a solution to your problem. It shows what's been happening lately, both good and bad, and the Events Properties hold some clues.
Thread stickied.
Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.
Hunter delete Kyles post, and kick him in the nuts, and then delete this post.
Kyle - go away
.
Here's something I regularly find when helping with other people's PCs. By default Windows sets the size of the temp internet files folder to something amazing...hundreds of MB. A total waste of space. 10MB is plenty as long as every now and then you delete it, as in Omyn's post. (IE6>Tools>Internet Options>Settings).
If your browser has ground to a halt for no apparent reason empty this folder and watch it come back to life.
The worst case I heard of was from a friend who does a lot of builds and repairs...he came across a PC with a temp internet files folder filled up with 2GB of crap!
edit: Oh yeah...sorry Omyn...just scanned your post again and I see I duplicated...well reading it twice didn't hurt me so I left it in anyway.
Paging File.
This is Hard Drive space that Windows uses as though it is RAM. Probably it's less important for lots of people now that 512MB and 1GB and more of RAM is commonplace, but still some applications seem to use as much as you can feed them. If you have more than one HDD in your PC allocate the paging file to a different HDD than the one Windows is installed on. It must be a physically different drive, not a partition on the same drive. If you have one drive with partitions let Windows allocate the paging file by default to the same partition as the OS. Do it here: Control Panel>Performance & Maintainance>System>Advanced >Performance settings>Advanced>Virtual Memory - Change.
System Restore
If you have reliable hardware, your XP OS is a clean install and not an Upgrade and your valuable data is backed up on a different physical drive to your OS then switch off System Restore, at least on the C drive. You don't need it and it takes up a lot of space and has a major impact on XP's performance. It must be the reason everyone said XP was slow when it first appeared because switch off System Restore and XP flies.
If you have upgraded over 98 or ME then back up all your data, format your C drive, make a proper clean install and then do the above.
Windows Utilities
(Mostly suck)
Get a good 3rd party defragmenter because the one that's built into Windows is truly hopeless. Executive Diskeeper is excellent and there is a legit free home user edition. If you get the full Pro edition it has a scheduler and also smart scheduling....set it and forget it and your HDDs will never be fragmented again.
Checkdisk is good but set it to run at boot up occasionally or as Windows determines.
Windows accumulates junk like dogs accumulate dust, fleas and bad smells...just can't shake'em off. You could spend half your life picking your way around the registry, and hunting your C drive for shortcuts that lead nowhere etc etc....or find a utility that does it for you....but be careful because there are some bad ones and ones that should only be used by people who could do it the hard way anyway....you can break your OS if you screw your registry. Lots of people hate Norton but Systemworks Pro 2003 or 2004 will keep XP running sweetly. Don't forget to switch off all the stuff you don't need (and/or just install exactly what you do need as far as possible) and again it's an application you can schedule so all your maintainance can be done without you having to remember to do anything....which means it does actually get done:upside . There are other similar utility suites that do similar things and it's worth asking around because different people have different needs/preferences/experiences. I can recommend Norton because I've used it for ages, have installed it on plenty of other people's PCs alongside XP and Diskeeper and never had one single problem or complaint.
Multiple HDD & Optical Drives
HDDs and CD-RW and DVD-RW drives have come past affordable and arrived at cheap ...and it's all thanks to us nice p2p filesharers for creating massive demand:bling :bling
But how to fit all this stuff in your case? I now have 3 large HDDs and 3 optical drives(1 x DVD-ROM, 1 x DVD-RW, 1 x CD-RW) and they all serve a purpose. Easy right? Buy a PCI Raid/ATA controller card and just stick it all together. Nope. What you don't find out because until recently it wasn't an issue is that despite what it says on the box you can't run a DVD-RW or a CD-RW on a PCI IDE controller card. It will cause the drive in question to at best routinely cease to function and perform weird unpleasantness on your other IDE controllers too so it isn't obvious at first what is happening. And at worst your beautiful new DVD-RW gets killed. Which is upsetting when you kill 3 drives in one week this way(yes I did....warranties are great aren't they?:devil ) Searching the www a few months ago I found 2 other people on the planet who had been thru the same thing. I've experimented with different Motherboards, IDE controller cards and drives and it seems you can only run a ROM not a RW from the PCI based controller. Don't try it! This is a problem that will probably get more common as people hook up more stuff than ever used to be envisaged.
The best approach to system maintainance is to make it preventative and to make it easy for yourself. Avoid installing every piece of free crap that comes on the cover CD of a magazine or off kazaa or ed2k or whatever. In particular anything that adds or changes a driver on your OS that isn't well written and tested is a source of trouble. Just because people who write code know more than you and work for big or famous companies it doesn't mean they are any good at it. Seriously. Much of the software out there is deeply flawed, the rest only partially. You can learn this by installing it all :cross . If you have a little spare cash get yourself an old underpowered PC and use that to try out stuff. Be kind to your main PC. PIIIs are cheap and PIIs are almost given away. I even have a Pentium with a 75Mhz CPU that someone did give to me....it may yet become a hardware firewall or a linux learning tool. It can be a lifesaver if when you have problems with your PC and you have stuff like spare soundcards, graphics cards, controller cards etc that you can swap to locate and prove hardware problems.
"You have already proven what you are...
a troll chucking flaming spam out..".....who me?
that was mean
pop-up stoper, www.panicware.com
-NEVER ARGUE WITH A FOOL; HE WILL SOON BEAT YOU WITH EXPERIENCE
-EAT AND SLEEP. YOU MIGHT THINK THAT'S A GIVEN BUT NO-IT'S NOT. EAT AND SLEEP. IDIOT.
Another great post by begoodbebad
"Paging File.
This is Hard Drive space that Windows uses as though it is RAM. Probably it's less important for lots of people now that 512MB and 1GB and more of RAM is commonplace, but still some applications seem to use as much as you can feed them. If you have more than one HDD in your PC allocate the paging file to a different HDD than the one Windows is installed on. It must be a physically different drive, not a partition on the same drive. If you have one drive with partitions let Windows allocate the paging file by default to the same partition as the OS. Do it here: Control Panel>Performance & Maintainance>System>Advanced >Performance settings>Advanced>Virtual Memory - Change. "
Please do NOT set this to the drive or IDE bus that you use for P2P, the contant read\write cashing of P2P will rob you of the benifits that is intended here !!!!!!!!!!!
heres TIP . . .
READ THE FINE PRINT
heres an example, this is from the Messenger Plus! setup . . . riddled with spyware!
Messenger Plus! comes with an optional sponsor program. Installing it will help keep your favorite MSN Messenger add-on alive. If you do not wish to support the developer, you are allowed to refuse and proceed without installing the sponsor. . . .
(LOL) PRIVACY POLICY
Your privacy is very important to C2 Media Ltd. ("C2"). C2 provides you with the software product known as lop.com . . .
INFORMATION C2 COLLECTS INCLUDES:
• Standard web log information and computer settings such as your Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, operating system, CPU speed, browser type and version, screen resolution, time zone selected and the version numbers of some of the software installed on your computer.
• Information about your current web browser home page and search page settings -- this information includes the URL of your home page, default auto search page, and error pages, and how and when you selected a particular website as your home page, search page, or error page. Your web browser's home page URL, search page URL, and error page URL are the only URLs collected by the Software and the Software does not collect URLs of the other websites you visit.
• Your Software ID is a numeric identifier that is generated by the Software and the Time and Date that you accepted this Agreement and Privacy Policy. This Software ID does not include any personally identifiable information, such as name, age, address, telephone number or e-mail address.
• A historical record of content and advertisements delivered by the Software, and the response rate associated with the content and advertisements that was delivered to you through the Software application.
• Information provided to any C2 employees, contractors, or technical support members may be stored on C2 servers in archives of C2's support and customer service department, but such information will not be associated with the information collected or stored in association with your Software ID that may be provided to third parties or the provision of additional content. . . . .
AdIntelligence LLC
SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Please read the AdIntelligence LLC Privacy Statement and End User License Agreement ("EULA") (collectively "Terms and Conditions") carefully and make sure you understand them. They contain important information that you should know before accepting any AdIntelligence LLC Software (defined below). . . . . . .
The AdIntelligence AdServer technology identifies the interests of anonymous Subscribers based on their computer usage and web surfing behavior, including the URLs of Web pages viewed by Subscribers and other criteria but does not intentionally collect ANY personally identifying information. The AdIntelligence AdServer displays AdIntelligence Ads on computer screens on behalf of the AdIntelligence Network's advertising clients and not necessarily on behalf of the Web site the Subscriber may be viewing when the ad appears. In fact, the AdIntelligence Network's advertising clients may be competitors of the publishers whose Web pages Subscribers may be viewing, or may have recently viewed.
The AdIntelligence Ad Server is delivered with software applications developed by other companies ("Third Party AdIntelligence-Supported Software"). Unless otherwise specified, these Terms and Conditions do not apply to Third Party AdIntelligence-Supported Software. Third-party AdIntelligence-Supported Software is governed by that third-party's legal agreements. . . .
This setup program DOES give you the option to NOT install the spyware, but not all setups do!
Bottem line, dont install spyware then complain about needing more 3rd party software to rescue youre arse, then further bitch about why the two softwares subsequently dont work, as they battle it out.
THINK before you install.
.
1st: Thanks:angelOriginally Posted by Krell
2nd: that is a very good point!....especially as it probably applies to every single person who'll read it. :tilted
Good idea for the thread....have you finally got sick of fixing the p2p world's PCs one at a time? :error
I just added a big edit to my post about rw optical drives and secondary IDE controller cards...any ideas why the damn things don't work together? btw the reason I keep the DVD-ROM cos it is the best drive I've found for DAE, has C2 correction and doesn't cache audio...never fails to make a good rip....can't live without it.
"You have already proven what you are...
a troll chucking flaming spam out..".....who me?
I think this is a good thread to encourage people to use Spybot and it's Immunize feature to prevent spyware.
"CompuGeek your geekiness is unsurpassed except by your virginity." - Trilobyte
Adding on to the paging file bit, Defragmenting is also a nice topic, PLEASE,PLEASE DO NOT SAY IT DOSN"T DO ANYTHING CAUSE IT DOES, even if you don't think so. www.diskeeper.com has a nice little program that makes defraging easy for the lesser-knowledged
i coulda swore you said sausage...http://home.comcast.net/~eddyisgreat/Sig0183.jpg
Block dangerous sites in your Restricted zone.
IE-SPYAD is a Registry file (IE-ADS.REG) that adds a long list of sites and domains associated with known advertisers, marketers, and crapware pushers to the Restricted sites zone of Internet Explorer. Once this list of sites and domains is "merged" into your Registry, most marketers, advertisers, and crapware pushers on the Net will not be able to use cookies, ActiveX controls, Java applets, or scripting to compromise your privacy or your PC while you surf the Net. Nor will they be able to use your browser to push unwanted pop-ups, cookies, or auto-installing programs on you.
More here:
http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ehowes/main-nf.htm
Nice to go along with your SpywareBlaster.
Copyright © 2003 MarkB Inc. All rights reserved.
This is something broadband users can try out. If your running XP like me, the default TCP/IP recieve window is 16K. This is fine for dial up, but isn't sufficient for broadband use. Why?
In order to insure delivery of each packet, the receiver must acknowledge successful receipt by sending an acknowledgment packet to the sender. ( ACK ) If the sender doesn't recieve the ACK packet, then it assumes the packet has been lost and retransmits. The sender can keep transmitting data packets prior to receiving acknowledgments up to a maximum "window" size advertised by the receiver. ( The reciever being you! ) If the window is too small, which is the case with a 16K window on broadband, your download will lag due to the fact that all packets will have been recieved and your waiting on an ACK. With a larger 32K or 64K ( depending on latency issues ) window, more packets will be recieved before you have to wait for an acknowledgement. But larger windows can require more packets to be retransmitted when a transmission error occurs.
So the recieve window needs to be large enough to keep data flowing continuously, but not too large because transmission errors will occur. What a bitch huh? So how do you know what window size is good for you?
The key is latency. If you are on a high speed network with low latency ( say about 20 - 40 ms ), then window's default recieve window size is suficient. Why? Because that ACK packet gets back to the sender so quick that having a larger window will not help much at all. But it wouldn't have any adverse effects either. But if you have high latency ( say about 100 - 200 ms ) then increasing your recieve window's size should help you quite a bit. How to check latency?
Just go to the cmd prompt ( Krell's favorite ) and ping www.yahoo.com ( or any other website ) and in the ping reply there is a "time=" portion. That would be your latency. Make sure p2p programs are turned off by the way.
How to do it? Just change these settings in the registry. Note: If you have a bandwidth optimizer, it probably already messed with your registry, so it's better not to fool with it further. Second: Save your registry incase you don't feel confortable with what you did.
This will set window to 32K
Windows XP/2000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Tcpip\Parameters]
"GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize"=dword:00007fff
Windows NT
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Tcpip\Parameters]
"TcpWindowSize"=dword:00007fff
Windows 95/98/Me
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\VxD\MSTCP]
"DefaultRcvWindow"="32767"
Want to know if it will work? Go to this bandwidth meter before making the change. http://www.2wire.com/meter/bm.html
Then return after making the change. May help, may not. But if it doesn't, just change the registry setting back to the way it was. Remember to restart after introducing the new values to the registry.
If you grab them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
For better visual quality change the refresh rate of your monitor.
For me I was using default for years but when I went up to 85 it made a considerable better viewing quality for me anyway.
Right click desktop, properties, settings, advanced, adapter, list all modes, then choose your resolution, color depth, and your refresh rate, the higher the better.
Also reduces eyestrain and headaches alot too, helps tons.
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