Useful computer tips

Permanently delete files
If you want to permanently delete files without moving them to Recycle bin, hold down the Shift key while pressing delete. If you don't want the recycle bin altogether, right-click the Recycle Bin and click on Properties. On the Global Tab, select Do not move files to the Recycle Bin. If you enable configure drivers independently, you can set this up for the drivers you want.

Windows System Configuration
A very useful tool included with Windows is the System Configuration Utility. Select Start > Run and type 'msconfig' in the Open box to launch the application. The system Configuration utility makes fiddling with programs to launch at Startup or editing autoexec.bat, config.sys etc. a lot easier. To system Configuration Utility also allows you to crease a backup of your system files. It would be a good idea to use this before you begin making changed.

Preview Images
You can easily preview your Image files by enabling "Web View" from the toolbar or from the Windows Explorer menu, select View > As Web page. A better way to preview images is as thumbnails instead of icons. To enable this view in Windows Explorer, right-click the folder you want to preview and click on Properties. Check the box against Enable thumbnail view and click OK to exit the dialog box. Now, form the View menu, select Thumbnails.

Optimizing the Swap File
Windows uses a portion of the hard disk as RAM, constantly swapping data between RAM and hard disk as required. The speed of your hard disk is in the order of 1000 times slower than that of your main memory. Inefficient use of the swap file could considerable slow down your system to a very great extent. One of the best ways to speed up the swap file usage is to create a permanent swap file. In a permanent swap file, the file used for swapping information has a fixed size and location on your hard disk. When a temporary swap file is used, the location and size of the file is determined by application being used and is not predictable. Also, since a temporary swap file is constantly written to and is not fixed in size, it would be highly fragmented across the partition that holds it. A better option is to create the swap file on a dedicated partition on your hard disk. By doing this, the swap file will never be fragmented since that partition is only being utilized by the swap file itself.

You can configure the swap file size and location from Control Panel > System > Performance > Virtual Memory. The size of the swap file should be around 2.5 times the amount of RAM on the system.

Dummy entries in Add/Remove Programs list
Sometimes, even after program are uninstalled, or due to the files being deleted instead of a uninstalled, the entry in the Add/Remove Programs list does not get deleted. To remove it form the list:

1. Start the Registry Editor.
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows CurrentVersionUninstall.
3. Delete the program entry here. You can also use TweakUI to do this.

Restart only Windows
When restarting Windows, you don't always need to go to thought the BIOS initialization and POST. Instead of simple clicking on Restart form the Shut Down Windows dialog box, help down the Shift key as you click on OK. This will restart only Windows. This is particularly useful when you change some registry entries or a few system settings.

Improve Removable Disk Drive Performance
Windows gives you the option to use write-behind caching to improve the performance of removable disk drivers.

Open control Panel > System > Performance and click on File System.

Check the Enable write-behind caching on all removable disk drives check box under the removable Disk tab and click OK
Note: If this result in a problem with disk operations, uncheck the Enable write-behind caching on all removable disk drives check box.

MS Office memory hoggers
A typical installation of MS Office installs Find Fast, an indexing utility that loads at startup. This hogs system resources by regularly indexing the entire hard disk(s). You can improve performance of your computer by removing Find Fast form your Startup folder. To reclaim the space used by the Find Fast index, open Control Panel > Find Fast, select your hard drives(s) and form the Index menu, click on Delete Index. When you've deleted your Index, click on Close and Stop form the Index menu. Another item installed in the Startup folder is named Microsoft Office. This does nothing apart from loading all MS Office libraries at startup to speed up launching of any Office applications. Since this is not necessary, you can delete this shortcut, too.

Stop Automatic Dialing
Many Internet applications or software are often set to automatically dialup and connect. To setup automatic dialing, open Control Panel > Internet Options. Under the Connections tab, enable Never dial a connection.

Automatic maintenance
The Windows Maintenance Wizard can automate a lot of routine system maintenance tasks. To open this wizard, choose Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Maintenance Wizard. It sets up the Task Scheduler to regularly run Scandisk, Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup.

Clean Desktop
To hide all the icons on your Desktop, open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoft Current VersionPoliciesExplorer. Add a DWORD value and name it NoDesktop. Change it's value to 1. Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows.

ToolTips
To disable ToolTips in Windows, open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktop. Double-click UserPreferencemask and change its value to 3E 00 00 00. Chose the Registry Editor and restart Windows.

Speed up your modem
Even if your modem if apparently working well, the baud rate of your COM Port might not allow you to reach top-speed. To improve your port's speed:

Click Start >Settings > Control Panel > System.

Click the Device Manager tab, and click on the "+" sign next to Ports (COM & LPT).

Select the port your modem uses, click Properties, then click the Port settings tab and set the Bits per second to 115200 bps. That way you won't have a sort of filter on the Port.

Associations in a jiffy
To associate files of a certain type with a different program, hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file of that type and click on Open With... from the context menu. Select the program you want to open files of this type with and enable Always use this program to open this type of file. Henceforth, the file will always open with this program when double-clicked.

A clean Registry
As time passes the computer's registry accumulates a lot of corrupted, unused, and unnecessary register keys, especially if keys are not removed when you uninstall a program. As a result, you might experience problems and your machine might function slower than expected. The latest version of Microsoft's RegClean could delete a lot of such registry junk. You can download this from zdnet Just search for RegClean and it will let you download it. Best of all, it is free !!

Assigning passwords to folders in win 98 and 2000
Right-click on empty space in the folder which you want to protect and select CUSTOMIZE THIS FOLDER, then choose CREATE HTML DOCUMENT FOR THIS FOLDER. Once the document is opened in Notepad, scroll down until you see Then insert the following text.

var pass = prompt("Enter the password")
if(pass != "YOURPASSWORD")
{window.location="C:"}
Hit the Enter key on your keyboard

Put a password in the place of YOURPASSWORD but leave the quotes. Save the document, exit Notepad, refresh the folder (or hit F5), enter your new password, and the next time you try to enter that folder, you'll be prompted for your password. If you enter a wrong password you'll end up in C: drive!