Tips and Tricks By M.C Systems Integration
Copyright 2002 M.C. Systems Integration, All Rights Reserved

Close Parent Windows Automatically (All Versions)
Have you ever had a screen full of explorer windows on your desktop after digging through heaps of directories?

Expand and Contract Folders With Ease (All Versions)
It can be a time-consuming process to expand a folder by clicking on the (+) for each and every sub-directory. This tip lets you expand and contract them all at once

Launch the Task Manager Quickly (Windows NT/2000/XP) Popular
Launching the Task Manager can sometimes be difficult depending on the situation. Some people didn't know that the Task Manager can actually be launched in at least three different ways to make it easier to use when you need it the most.

Hiding Control Panel Applets (Windows 9x/Me) Popular
This tweak allows you to show or hide any of the applets found in the Windows Control Panel.

Disable Compressed Folders (Windows Me/XP)
Windows Me and XP include a built-in feature to manage compressed ZIP files and folders. This tweak allows you to disable it and install a third-party application.

Change the Start Button Text (All Versions) Popular
Would you like to change the Start button to say something else, perhaps your name, company or any other 5 or less letter word? This article explains the procedure to manually modify the text of the Windows Start button.

Including Manufacturer and Support Details (All Versions) Popular
This tip lets you include a company logo and contact information in the System Properties dialog box. This is especially useful if you run a computer store and want your customers to be reminded where they bought their PC and where to get technical support.

Secure Access to Removable Drives (Windows NT/2000/XP) New
This setting determines whether the ability to access removable drives is available to other users.

Control Whether Windows Reboots After a Crash (Windows NT/2000/XP)
This parameter controls whether Windows should automatically reboot after a crash or system failure.

Prompt for Password on Resume (Windows XP) New
This setting allows you to configure the computer to always lock and require a password after resuming from hibernate or suspend mode.

Deny Access to the Display Settings (All Versions) Updated
This option disables the display settings control panel icon, and stops users from accessing any display settings.

Hide Control Panel on Start Menu (All Versions) Updated Popular
This setting allows you to hide the Control Panel options from the Start Menu.

Restrict Access to the Passwords Control Panel (Windows 9x/Me)
This options disables access to the Passwords icon on the control panel, therefore stopping users from changing security related settings.

Require Users to Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete Before Logon (Windows 2000/XP) Updated
This setting controls whether users are required to press Ctrl + Alt + Delete as a security precaution before logging into the system.

Power the Computer Off After Shutdown (Windows NT/2000/XP) Updated
This setting controls whether Windows should automatically power down or reboot your computer once it has finished the shutdown process.

Hide A Machine From Network Neighborhood (All Versions)
For security reasons, it's sometimes desirable not to have a machine show up in Network Neighborhood--or in anything that displays the browse list. An easy way to hide a machine is to type the following at the command prompt

Automatically Close Non-Responding Applications (Windows NT/2000)
Occasionally when Windows NT shuts down, a task will return as 'Not Responding' and you are given the option to end the task. This tweak automatically closes any non-responding applications.

Enable Command Line Completion (Windows NT/2000)
Command completion allows you to type only a portion of a file name, and then have the system complete the rest by pressing the specified key. This is similar to the UNIX shell command completion feature.

Change the Message Shown on the Logon Box (Windows NT)
You can personalize (or legalize) the message displayed on the logon box above the user name and password

My outlook .pst file is corrupt what can I do? . Windows 95, Outlook 98 and Outlook 2000 all ship with the 'Inbox Repair Tool' which can be used to scan and fix a corrupted .pst (post) file.

How can I tell if my Windows 2000 installation is registered?

How can I force a check of protected system files in Windows 2000? Windows 2000 includes a new component which protects critical system files and if they are replaced by an application the correct original file will be replaced by the process. This should fix the common "DLL Hell" scenario.

How can I create my own tips to be shown when NT starts? The tips that NT displays are stored in key

Displaying Your Company Logo (or other bitmap) during logon.
Design an appropriate bitmap and place it in your NT directory as Your Logo Name .BMP. Use 8.3 naming convention.

How can I improve I/O performance?
If your system is fairly I/O intensive, you may benefit from raising the I/O Page Lock Limit, which can increase the effective rate the OS reads or writes data to the hard disks.

Close Parent Windows Automatically (All Versions)
Have you ever had a screen full of explorer windows on your desktop after digging through heaps of directories? This tip lets you close the current window and all it's parent windows in one easy step.
To close a folder and all its open parent folders, simply press the SHIFT key while clicking on its Close box or alternatively press ALT + SHIFT + F4.

Last Modified: April 28, 2002

Expand and Contract Folders With Ease (All Versions)
It can be a time-consuming process to expand a folder by clicking on the (+) for each and every sub-directory. This tip lets you expand and contract them all at once, with one keystroke.
While in any application that is based on the explorer interface (e.g. Windows Explorer) simple highlight the parent folder you wish to expand and press '*' (asterix on the keypad) and all the sub folders will expand out, press '-' (minus on the keypad) and they'll all contract back again.
Hint: This works in regedit.exe as well!

Last Modified: April 28, 2002

Launch the Task Manager Quickly(Windows NT/2000/XP) Popular
Launching the Task Manager can sometimes be difficult depending on the situation. Some people didn't know that the Task Manager can actually be launched in at least three different ways to make it easier to use when you need it the most.
First Method:
Press CTRL + ALT + DELETE and click on the 'Task Manager...' button on the Windows NT Security dialog.
Second Method:
Right click on the Windows NT taskbar and chose 'Task Manager...'
Third Method:
Press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC and the Task Manager will be launched instantly.

Last Modified: April 28, 2002

Hiding Control Panel Applets(Windows 9x/Me) Popular

This tweak allows you to show or hide any of the applets found in the Windows Control Panel.
Open CONTROL.INI (usually found in the C:\WINDOWS) and add the following lines under the "[don't load]" subsection. If the "[don't load]" section doesn't already exist then create it be adding it on a new line at the end of the file.
For each control panel applet to be hidden add a new line with text in the format
Exit the registry and restart Windows for the change to take effect. Related Tweaks

Hiding Control Panel Applets (Windows NT/2000)

Last Modified: April 28, 2002

Disable Compressed Folders(Windows Me/XP)
Windows Me and XP include a built-in feature to manage compressed ZIP files and folders. This tweak allows you to disable it and install a third-party application.
To disable the compressed folder feature click on Start -> Run and enter the following command:
regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll
To enable ZIP folder support runs this command: regsvr32 zipfldr.dll
Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

Last Modified: April 28, 2002<

Change the Start Button Text(All Versions) Popular
Would you like to change the Start button to say something else, perhaps your name, company or any other 5 or less letter word? This article explains the procedure to manually modify the text of the Windows Start button.
Manually changing the Start button requires the use of a binary file editor (Hex editor) to alter a critical Windows system file, it is therefore not recommended for inexperienced users. This method has been successfully tested on Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 and XP and therefore should be quite safe, although we do not accept any responsibility for system problems or data loss.
As mentioned before you will need to have a hex editor installed, there are many different products available and if you don't have one already a quick search of a shareware site should provide many choices, for this tweak we only require basic features.

The file that needs to be changed is Windows Explorer, and it is essential to make a backup before you modify anything. "Explorer.exe" can be found in the Windows directory, usually C:\WINDOWS for Windows 95, 98, Me & XP and C:\WINNT for Windows NT/2000. Make a copy of "Explorer.exe" and place it into another directory, C:\BACKUP might be a good choice.
Make another copy of the original "Explorer.exe" and name it "Explorer1.exe", then open "Explorer1.exe" in your hex editor.
You now need to find the word "Start", although there are many entries for "Start" in the file only one is used for to label the Start button. Use the search function in the hex editor to find all the strings equal to "S t a r t" which is represented as "53 00 74 00 61 00 72 00 74" in hex values. As there are many different "Start" strings keep searching until you find one located just before this text "There was an internal error and one of the windows you were using has been closed.". Below is a list of offsets to help you locate the correct text.

Windows 98
Offset: 0x00028D6E - 0x00028D76
Windows NT4
Offset: 0x00028BEE - 0x00028BF6
Windows ME
Offset: 0x00033DDE - 0x00033DE6
Windows 2000
Offset: 0x0003860E - 0x00038616
Windows XP
Offset: 0x000412B6 - 0x000412BE

The result should look similar to the image below, depending on the display from your hex editor.

Once you have located the string, you can then replace the letters in "Start" with five other characters. You must use exactly five characters, if the word you want to use is less, replace the remaining characters with the space key. In this example we have replaced "Start" with "Guide", alternatively a three-letter word would look like "A B C" (note the spaces). Once you have changed the letters the result should look similar to the image below.

Now save the modified "Explorer1.exe" in the Windows directory, and confirm that you now have the two Explorer files in the Windows directory, they both should be the same file size but have different modified dates.
The next step is different depending on your operating system. Only do the step required for your version.

Windows 95, 98 & ME
Exit to DOS (or use a boot disk for Windows ME) and at the command prompt change to the Windows directory and rename "explorer.exe" to "explorer.old". Then copy the newly modified Explorer "explorer1.exe" to "explorer.exe". Do a directory listing and confirm that "explorer.exe" has the most recent modified date and time. Restart the computer and Windows should reload along with the new Start button text.
Windows NT
First close any open applications and open a new Command Prompt window, then switch back to the GUI and open the Task Manager. Find the "explorer.exe" process and end it, you should now be left with only the command prompt and task manager. Switch back to the command prompt and change to the Windows directory, rename "explorer.exe" to "explorer.old", and copy the newly modified Explorer "explorer1.exe" to "explorer.exe". Do a directory listing and confirm that "explorer.exe" has the most recent modified date and time. Switch back to Task Manager and launch a "New Task" called "explorer.exe" this should reload the shell along with your modified "Start" button.
Windows 2000 and XP
Open your registry editor and find the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]. Find the value named "Shell" and change it to equal the filename of the new explorer "explorer1.exe". Exit your registry editor and restart Windows for the change to take effect. The reverse the change, modify the value of "Shell" and set it back to "explorer.exe".

If everything has gone successfully you will now have a new Start button, and also hopefully learnt something about the Explorer file structure. If you do have problems replace the faulty Explorer with the backup made during the first step.

Including Manufacturer and Support Details (All Versions) Popular
This tip lets you include a company logo and contact information in the System Properties dialog box. This is especially useful if you run a computer store and want your customers to be reminded where they bought their PC and where to get technical support.
To add the manufacturer and support information you need to create two new files in the Windows system directly, normally 'c:\windows\system' for Windows 95, 98 and Me and 'c:\winnt\system32' for Windows NT/2000.
The first file is a text file called 'OEMINFO.INI'. To create the file open notepad and copy the template below, make any changes and save the file in the System directory.

[General]

Manufacturer=Your Company, Inc.

Model=Your Computer Model

SupportURL=http://your.support.site/

LocalFile=c:\your\local\support\file.htm

[Support Information]

Line1=first line of support information

Line2=second line

Line3=third line

Line4=fourth line

...

LineN=nth line

; Create as many lines as you need by incrementing the Line number

The other file you need to create is a logo file. This is a standard Windows bitmap file (172 x 172 pixels), saved as 'OEMLOGO.BMP' in the Windows System directory.
Once you've created both these files open System Properties from Control Panel and your company information and logo will be displayed. The details you entered in the [Support Information] section will show up when you click on the Support Information button.

Secure Access to Removable Drives (Windows NT/2000/XP) New

This setting determines whether the ability to access removable drives is available to other users.
Open your registry and find the key below.
Create a new string value, or modify the existing value, called "AllocateDASD" and set it according to the table below.

0 - Administrators only
1 - Administrators and power users
2 - Administrators and the interactive user

Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

Create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value, called 'PromptPasswordOnResume' and edit the value according to the settings below.
Exit your registry, you may need to restart or log out of Windows for the change to take effect.

Create a new string value, or modify the existing value, called PowerdownAfterShutdown and set it to "1" to power off the computer at shutdown, or "0" to reboot.

Restart Windows for the change to take effect.
Note: This feature must be supported by the computer's BIOS.

Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.

Hide A Machine From Network Neighborhood (All Versions)
For security reasons, it's sometimes desirable not to have a machine
show up in Network Neighborhood--or in anything that displays the browse list. An easy way to hide a machine is to type the following at
the command prompt:
Net Config Server/Hidden
This command configures the server service and works on Windows NT
Workstation and Server. The command creates a dword value "hidden" with
the value set to 1 in the Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
This parameter works with the server service, so you can still attach
to shares on the hidden machine, which is something that hiding a machine by stopping the server service wouldn't allow. And although
this change hides the machine, it doesn't mask the workgroup or domain.

If you don't want a suspicious-looking empty workgroup, you can put the
machine in a group with other, visible members. For more information on These changes, including how to undo it, see Microsoft Support Online
article Q128167.

Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.
Last Modified: April 28, 2002

Automatically Close Non-Responding Applications (Windows NT/2000)
Occasionally when Windows NT shuts down, a task will return as 'Not Responding' and you are given the option to end the task. This tweak automatically closes any non-responding applications.
Open your registry and find the key below.
Modify the value of 'AutoEndTasks' to equal '1' to automatically end tasks or '0' to prompt for action.
The default time-out before ending the task is defined by the value of 'WaitToKillAppTimeout' located in the same key, this value is in milliseconds (default = 20000 i.e. 20 seconds). You can therefore additionally change this value to speed the process up. Note: This change will affect all users but value can also be changed on a user-by-user basis by modifying [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] and the same values.

Last Modified: April 28, 2002

Enable Command Line Completion(Windows NT/2000)
Command completion allows you to type only a portion of a file name, and then have the system complete the rest by pressing the specified key. This is similar to the UNIX shell command completion feature.
Open your registry and find the key below.
Create a new DWORD value, or modify the exist value called 'CompletionChar' set the value to equal '9' (for the TAB key).

Exit your registry, you may need to restart Windows for the change to take effect.
Now when you type the first part of a filename then press the TAB key, Windows will complete the filename for you. Pressing TAB multiple times will scroll through all the options.
For Windows 2000 users you can also create an additional key named 'PathCompletionChar' to configure an alternate directory completion character.

Note: Changing the value of 'CompletionChar' changes which key executes command completion i.e. '09' is the TAB key.

<NT drive>:\Program Files\Windows Messaging
<NT drive>:\Program Files\Common Files\system\Mapi\1033\NT

If its not there try a search of the entire boot partition
C:\> dir/s scanpst.exe
Once located execute and you will be asked for the location of your .pst file and click start. If it finds errors it will fix them. I would advise to backup your .pst file first as sometimes it wipes out most of the content!

If you file was corrupt a folder "lost and found" will be created and you should create a new set of folders and drag items from the "lost and found" folder into their new/correct location. To create a new set of folders perform the following:

Start Outlook with the profile that contains your Recovered Personal Folders.
On the Tools menu, click Services.
On the Services tab, click Add to open the "Add Service to Profile" dialog box.
In the Available Information Services list, click to select Personal Folders, and then click OK.
In the "Create/Open Personal Folders File" dialog box, select a directory and file name for the new Personal Folders file (*.pst), and then click Open.

Click OK to close all dialog boxes.
Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.

Last Modified: April 28, 2002

How can I tell if my Windows 2000 installation is registered?
When Windows 2000 is registered, it updates registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\RegDone with registration information. If the registry value is blank, then your Win2K version isn�t registered. I don't know the exact format that the RegDone value will take because you can't register yet.
Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.

Last Modified: April 28, 2002

How can I force a check of protected system files in Windows 2000?
A. Windows 2000 includes a new component which protects critical system files and if they are replaced by an application the correct original file will be replaced by the process. This should fix the common "DLL Hell" scenario.
A utility is supplied called SFC.EXE (System File Checker) which can be used to perform various checks and configuration for this service.
To force a check of files at any time just type:
C:\> sfc /scannow
A check of your system files will then be carried out. You may need to insert your Windows 2000 CD-ROM.
You can also use switches:

/SCANONCE Scans all protected system files once at the next boot.
/SCANBOOT Scans all protected system files at every boot

Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.

Last Modified: April 28, 2002

How can I create my own tips to be shown when NT starts?
A. The tips that NT displays are stored in key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Tips, and can easily be edited using the registry editor. You will notice that the names of the values are incremented by one so to add a new tip just either edit an existing one or create a new value (of type string) and set its name to the next available number.
The tips are displayed sequentially and the counter is stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Tips\Next and can be changed if you want. The values are stored in hexadecimal.
To control if tips are shown set the value HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Tips\show to 01000000 to display and 00000000 to not display.

Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.

Last Modified: April 28, 2002

Displaying Your Company Logo (or other bitmap) during logon.
Design an appropriate bitmap and place it in your NT directory as YourLogoName.BMP. Use 8.3 naming convention.
Edit: HKEY_USERS \.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
Double click or Add Value REG_SZ of Wallpaper and set it to the full path to YourLogoName.BMP.
Double click or Add Value REG_SZ of TileWallpaper. 0 is Don't tile, 1 is tile.
Double click or Add Value REG_SZ of WallpaperStyle. 0 is normal, 2 is stretch to fill the screen (which is mutually exclusive with TileWallpaper = 1).
If you use a normal, not tiled logo, you can position it by adding the following REG_SZ values:
WallpaperOriginX set to the number of pixels from the left hand edge of the screen.
WallpaperOriginY set to the number of pixels from the top of the screen

Reboot to view your handywork

Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.

Last Modified: April 28, 2002

How can I improve I/O performance?
A. If your system is fairly I/O intensive, you may benefit from raising the I/O Page Lock Limit, which can increase the effective rate the OS reads or writes data to the hard disks.

First, benchmark your common tasks. See how long it takes to load and save large files, how long it takes to search a database or run a common program; just do your normal tasks, timing them to record how fast they are. Then follow these steps:

Start the registry editor (regedit.exe)
Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
Double click IoPageLockLimit
Enter a new value.
This value is the maximum bytes you can lock for I/O operations. A value of 0 defaults to 512KB. Raise this value by 512KB increments (enter "512", "1024", etc.), then exit regedit.exe and benchmark your system after each adjustment. When an increase does not give you a significant performance boost, go back and undo the last increment.
Caution: There is a limit to this. Do not set this value (in bytes) beyond the number of megabytes of RAM times 128. That is, if you have 16 MB RAM, do not set IoPageLockLimit over 2048 bytes; for 32MB RAM, do not exceed 4096 bytes, and so on.
Click OK.
Close the registry editor

Unless you do little I/O, this should give you a significant boost in performance.
I have recently learned that this value specifies the maximum amount of application memory that can be locked into physical memory at any given point in time. Device drivers typically lock user buffers in order to transmit them to a hardware device. If the limit is exceeded an I/O operation will simply return a STATUS_QUOTA_EXCEEDED error to the application. Thus, the value should only be raised if I/O operations begin returning this error, and it has absolutely no effect on performance/
Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.

Last Modified: April 28, 2002