Windows XP: Windows XP for experienced

With the fame of Brian Livingston you can not argue. Although the sequels of his first best-selling "Secrets of Windows 3.1" were, to put it mildly, rather weak. Apparently, and the motivation for their release has been constantly decreasing, eventually even going to zero ("Windows XP Secrets" is not even foreseen). Perhaps the fault is the Internet, in which information (both reliable and not so) is distributed "at the speed of thought." Nevertheless, we will risk offering readers some tips and tricks, but we will focus not on specific settings, but on the most effective ways of finding and regulating them.

Let's begin with the traditional reminder that any "tuning" is a fascinating occupation, so dangerous. Changing various options and options without understanding what and how they can affect, it's very simple to spoil everything. Therefore, first of all, you need to provide yourself with reliable ways to retreat, good, Windows XP has for this even redundant means: Backup, System Restore, ASR, not to mention the programs and utilities of third-party developers. For details, we refer readers to the documentation and help system.

For the same reason, preference will be given not to direct editing of the registry, but to the use of various utilities, both built-in and additional ones, so that it does not turn out after the number is released to the Microsoft technical support unit. Perhaps this is not "cool", but not as an example more convenient and reliable.

Finally, the last excuse concerns the differences between Professional and Home versions. All this information is valid for the corporate version, in the home version - in view of its known limitations - some options and utilities will be unavailable.

Interface

All the visual effects settings are collected in two main places: Display Properties> Appearance> Effects> and System Properties> Advanced> Performance Options. Experiment with them you can how much the soul wants, reboot is not required, and something to spoil, fortunately, just can not. In particular, the first parameter is the smoothing of the screen fonts. In Windows XP, in addition to the standard algorithm, ClearType is also available. It turns out that this technology developed for LCD-panels can be used with a conventional CRT-monitor. The result is really interesting: small characters become much more readable, although in some cases they acquire a color border. In any case, it's worth a try. In addition, Microsoft on its website has posted an additional page for fine-tuning ClearType, where six different modes are available.

Naturally, not all options can be accessed in an elementary way - many are safely hidden in the depths of the registry. Therefore, some of the GUI settings can be better configured with additional programs, and it's worth starting with the updated TweakUI, which is developed by Microsoft employees and distributed as part of the PowerToys for Windows XP package (www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp). With its help, for example, you can turn off all the "bells and whistles" of the system search utility and give its panels a previous ascetic look, customize the buttons for quick selection of folders of standard Open / Save dialog boxes or remove / display the OS version number on the desktop. By the way, PowerToys also have a lot of other useful tools, in particular, an improved window switch for .

As you know, the user interface of Windows XP is redesigned and supplemented not only externally, but also functionally. But it can be customized, right up to the point that it can be made almost indistinguishable from Windows 2000 if desired. Nevertheless, some functions and solutions certainly deserve more attention. Do not, say, hurry to disable the grouping of similar buttons on the taskbar - to begin with, experiment with this function using the same TweakUI.

A few more tricks can be attributed to the category of undocumented (perhaps it was done deliberately due to their ambiguity). For example, fans working with the mouse can drag the deleted files into the system tray, even if its icon is not visible. It's enough just to "lay" the pointer's route through the free space on the taskbar, with all windows automatically collapsing.

In Windows XP, finally, it became possible to simultaneously rename a group of files. True, it works in a somewhat unusual way, which limits the scope of its application. It is necessary to allocate the necessary files and change (through the context menu) the name of the first to the required filename, while the rest will be automatically named filename (1), filename (2), etc. The name extension can not be changed in this way.

Standard utilities

In general, Windows - quite a "smart" OS, which should be a system for "housewives", i.e., calculated (including) not for professionals. And from version to version the built-in "intelligence" improves. Most of the settings are performed automatically - optimally for a certain "average" PC - and to adjust them manually, generally speaking, is not necessary. In Windows XP, for example, quite correctly (at last!) Include DMA modes for IDE-devices, and for the relatively old video cards the most resource-intensive visual effects are turned off. On the other hand, this "averaging" is not always optimal for each particular machine: for example, the weakness of the graphics subsystem (at least when it comes to the user interface) can completely compensate for a powerful processor. In such cases, the additional adjustment will not only be justified, but also partly necessary.

Windows XP has numerous configuration applets, by no means always, by the way, obvious (perhaps, just because of its multiplicity). For example, by default Windows uses simplified resource sharing. If you want to manage them at the user level, you can disable this mode, but for some reason, in the View tab of the Folder Options dialog box.

Since in Windows XP the consumer and corporate versions of the OS have merged, it is only natural that it adopted the best features of both predecessors. Windows 2000 very much missed the utility MSConfig, and Windows XP fixed this defect. With this small program, you can monitor automatically launched tasks and services, as well as edit boot.ini and other configuration files.

On the other hand, users familiar with Windows 2000 users will find all the usual administrative tools from the control panel. Security fans should study the Local Security Policy. For example, here you can force the OS to clean up the paging file every time it reboots (the Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile option). The same applet provides access to a powerful device for rules of using software, designed to reliably protect the PC from both viruses and unskilled user actions.

But the real highlight is the group policy editor. It can be started by specifying the name of the gpedit.msc file in the Run window, or from the TweakUI. Here are just two examples of its application:

• Windows Messenger annoyance is well known to all Windows XP users. Nevertheless, it is completely fixable. The first key in the Computer Configuration> Administrative Templates> Windows Components> Windows Messenger folder allows you to prevent this program from running even if you try to start it manually;
• In the Computer Configuration> Administrative Templates> Network> QoS Packet Scheduler folder there are various settings for the Quality of Service scheduler, including Limit reservable bandwidth, which determines the share of connection bandwidth that can be reserved by the system. The default limit is set to 20%. It is believed that lowering it to 0 makes it possible to significantly accelerate network interactions, although in a typical office network where intelligent routers and other equipment with QoS support are not used, any change in this parameter (from 0 to 100%) has no effect.

However, the merger of the two operating systems also has negative consequences, in particular, Windows XP automatically installs almost all the programs and utilities available in its arsenal, including games and MSN Explorer, which are quite ridiculous on corporate PCs. Correctly to remove them it is possible only with the help of the special trick known, however, still on Windows 2000. It is necessary to find in a folder Windows \ INF a file sysoc.inf, to open it in Notepad and all lines of type

Msmsgs = msgrocm.dll, OcEntry, msmsgs.inf, hide, 7

Turn into

Msmsgs = msgrocm.dll, OcEntry, msmsgs.inf ,, 7

That is, remove the word hide from them, while retaining all the commas. After that, a huge number of new records will appear in the standard applet for adding or removing Windows components.

Additional resources

As usual, third-party developers do not slumber. Almost all the configuration utilities that we have ever written about have been updated with the advent of Windows XP:

• X-Setup 6.1 knows a lot about the new OS, although not all. Perhaps this is not the most convenient program, but it's free and suitable for customizing not only Windows, but also many popular applications (due to plug-ins);
• Tweak-XP from a simple "tweaker" has turned into a kind of "Swiss knife" - here you have an ad breaker on Web pages, and a pop-up blocker browser, and a RAM optimizer, and of course, various tricky OS settings, and Much more. Conveniently, all this - "in one package," but for convenience, as you know, you need to pay. In this case, $ 30;
• Customizer XP most resembles TweakUI, combined with a memory optimizer, although it still has some interesting features (for example, it allows you to edit OEM information). For everything about everything - $ 24.
There was also something new. The small freeware utility XP-AntiSpy (www.xp-antispy.de) provides easy access to the configuration of various functions that one way or another can "light" you on the Web. Of course, not all of them really should be banned (unless you suffer from paranoia), but even to form a general idea - and that is useful. And something (at least a limitation on running Windows Messenger) will come in handy anyway.

Seriously serious users and developers will find a lot of interesting on the site www.collakesoftware.com, the creator of which, in particular, together with Steve Gibson developed a tool for shutting down the function of raw sockets in Windows XP ("Computer Review", # 33, 2001). Here are some more clever utilities, including IsEval for figuring out whether the OS is installed by the trial version and when its expiration date, and SetSfc for disabling Windows File Protection (although this is a rather risky step, if necessary, replace some The system files are enough just to copy them to the \ Windows \ system32 \ dllcache folder first).