For those of you with Win XP, I found this 170 page PDF format tweak guide. It has a lot of good information and is well worth the download.

http://www.tweakguides.com/XPTC.html

Thanks, Ronbo.

YES, that is well worth it, and thank you.

Thanks for the guide.

Rigel

O'Reily books (the ones with all the screwed up aminals on the covers) has a book entitled "Windows Xp annoyances for Geeks" that is also pretty handy. It is at times fairly elementary, but there is a substantial amount of information for those of us that don't mind turning pages in a *ech* real book.

Ditto Ronbo, Thanks, nice guide.

John

I would reccomend xp tune 1.5

and following the service suggestions at www.blackviper.com

wng

Thanks and really comprehensive.

Thanks everybody. I have been gone for the last few weeks and it really makes me feel good to come back and see that people are appreciating this guide. When I first came across the guide I was astonished at the amount of basic information it contains about Windows XP and had to share the find with people who may find it useful. I didn't post the link to the guide because of the tweaks it contains, but because I feel that novice and intermediate XP users could really learn a lot about their systems if they took the time to read this guide, the tweaks it contains are just the icing on the cake to me.

My first thought about it when I read it was that if you removed the word "tweaking" from the title, here was the user guide that Microsoft should be shipping with all its copies of WinXP.

I posted it on a couple of other sites and it was pretty well ignored and quickly dropped out of sight on the forums, one of the sites moved it to the advanced topic forums and then the forums moderators proceeded to carry on about how XP is such a fine OS that there really is no need to do any tweaking to it. I can tell they never even looked at the guide to realize that the main thrust of the guide is to teach people about how XP operates and not necessarily about tweaking your system.

Of all the sites I posted the link at, only Bleeping Computer saw the potential for teaching people about their OS that this guide contains.

My kudos to BC and to whoever made this thread a sticky so others can use and learn from it.

And as long as I am here, the guide has been updated to version 1.05 since I originally posted it so you may want to update your copy of it.

hey, i downloaded the free version of the guide but was unable to open it with adobe?? ne tips?

Hi and thanks for the guide, looks a very good d/load.
cheers Dennis

Did you unzip it first?

thanks!

re:message portion from RONBO:

My first thought about it when I read it was that if you removed the word "tweaking" from the title, here was the user guide that Microsoft should be shipping with all its copies of WinXP.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MSoft dont like end users to know too much about their OS....like why tech supports never tell you why a problem occured and how to fix it. they will fix it and guide you through it but never explain too much...they are scared of losing too much money on tech support help lines from novices...

.if thier customers can fix their own problems we will lose money!...I'm sure thats how the fat cats think!!!!! thanks again I'm looking forward to the read!!!!! :-)

Yeah this guide is great, i've got it to and it does help alot whenever i need to make a fresh install of XP.

im a newbie, only had this computer for about a year, and ive been looking for some kinda guide to how this operates.

Nothing much I would like to say except thanks a lot.

If you haven't yet installed SP2, you'll have better luck installing from the Network Admin install package than from the 'live install' online. You can disconnect from the Net during the install so some dweeb won't slip a virus in while you're downloading the portions of SP2 to install and have your antivirus down...

Just another tip for XP.

Awesome! Thanks!

There is also
http://www.annoyances.org
Which offers free portions of that book (I think its part of that book anyway)

hey,

thanks for the link!

also, for everyone else, my computer kinda sucks and adobe acrobat really hogs memory. i've found that the free foxit pdf reader works about 10 times faster for just reading .pdf files.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Great post Ronbo. Very useful indeed.

hi

anyone knows command lines in win XP,
or have a guid to it

Yes I do on my site. I have a list of 99 Useful Run Commands.

The direct URL to what you are asking for is,
http://www.fixmyxp.com/Fixes/99RunCommands.html

From a new user that just joined BC yesterday...this guide is great! Thanks for sharing such a great tool...I have quite a few beginner computer users I will be sharing BC with!

I joined today! and went to this topic to see what it said and post that link! read it several times to make sure that I had not missed any thing. I have been a member of Geeks To Go and they have a topic like this one that is worth reading.

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Easy_XP_Tweaks-t2780.html

Hi, i downloaded this XP tweak guide and i was looking at how to encrypt individual files and folders (go to file or folder you want to encrypt, right click, properties, advanced, encrypt contents to secure data) however the check box that reads 'encrypt contents to secure data' is shaded out so i cant actually check it. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

thank you. it good

To All,

Just as an FYI to all who have older versions. Ver. 2.0 was released on 18 August 2005. I have not sufficiently compared the older versions. But some have said there are some very good improvements. You may want to look into updating, older versions.

Be (update) Safe

Da Animal

Thanks for the heads up Animal, and by the way; to BC

The updated version 2.0 looks like Microsoft throwing its weight around. It is mainly a rename from The Windows XP Tweak Companion to The TweakGuides Tweaking Companion with some spelling and link editing involved.

I guess I can't really blame M$ though, Windows XP is their copyright after all.

Some of the tweaks really screwed up my computer. Make sure you have a restore point before you try any of these tweaks. The delete indexing make it so I couldn't even search for a *.bat file. Beware.....

Great Guide, very helpful
Joel

Oh that is beautiful, although it helpful it's around two years late. Being homeschooled I tend to finish my subject early. So I have half a day to poke around my computer. I'll always have a fond spot for dell for that was the site of many a cruel experiments.

(I have a nice custom built now)

Thanks for the lead. Nice info to have.

Wow! This is the cat's pajamas--the missing manual found at last!!!

Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer,I need all the help I can get and this is definitely one that I wish I could have found months ago.Thanks for all the work that went into the guide its much appreciated.savage99b

Unfortunately Black Viper's site has been down for several months

Thanks Ronbo!
Has this been mentioned yet?
It's up to v 3.0.
I've downloaded it and will read it when I have some spare hours

wonderfull thanks for the link

When I run my computer, next to the mouse pointer is a (sand dial) that comes on and blinks on and off continually. How can I get rid of it? I also installed spysweeper, but the problem continues. Thanks



Mod Edit: Cleaned up post by closing bb code tags.

I downloaded the tweaking guide for windows xp and it is now at 3.00 released on january 5, 2006 with a hard copy available at mybook@lulu

Nice one

Thanks Ronbo....it helped a looot!!!!
keep going

thanks for guides ;)

hi
i was wondering...theres this program called hijack this. and it helps with spyware and stuff. i used it, and chose to delete everything it told me to. but then i read some user comments and they all said that you're supposed to know what you're deleting because it could be deleting important parts to ur computer. that was my mistake. so now my computer's all weird. and i need to know how to get those files back on my computer. does anyone know how to do that????
i really need help!!!

thank you!!!

Mod Edit: E-mail addy removed in order to protect member from spab bots. ~S

britney
Yes one should never delete any entries from a HJT log, unless they are trained to do so.
Or are being guided by a trained HJT expert.
Doing so can seriously render a system inoperable.

Please post any questions/concerns you may have in the apropriate forum.

Thanks Man!!!!

That helped alot!!

cheers

Thanks ronbo
Cool guide
Reeroxie

Hello,

I am new to this site and would like to ask a question. I would like to buy Window XP and was wondering if anyone know how I could get it at a cheaper price. I found "OEM" Windows XP for $80. And I have seen some for $150. I wonder what everyone's thoughts are about "OEM". Are there any major advantages / disadvantages. Does $80 seem like a scam. Does anyone have any other suggestions on how to get cheaper version of WIndows XP.

I would appreciate any feedback.

Thank you,
Azara