Windows XP has many startup points locations. From Startup folder inside Start Menu, Win.INI and registry. This time, I want discuss about startup points in registry because many viruses infected and put its trigger string in registry value so as the virus will triggered every you restart computer.

To look your startup program which triggered by registry, open your Regedit first by click Start - Run menu, type regedit in box and then press Enter key. Regedit has some startup keys location:
1. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. In this key every string inside it will run every startup.
2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce, in this key every program inside it will run once and registry will remove it after executed.
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, this key has same function with point 1 but if in HKEY_CURRENT_USER will run on your account only but in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE will trigger on every account on your computer.
4. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce,
this key has same function with point 2, but startup item in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE will trigger on every account on your computer.

So, if you computer infected by viruses, try to look on those keys registry first.

If you often play with registry, I make sure that you'll need to explore its keys too. Usually, I open Registry Editor and point to my key because Registry Editor will open your last opened key by default. Microsoft provides another way to make it more effective.

The tool called Regjump, and you can find it on Microsoft website.
To use it, download it first, extract it because Microsoft give Regjump in ZIP file, extract it into your own folder but I suggest you to extract it into root folder or C:\Windows folder so you can call it although you currently in different folder with Regjump folder because C:\Windows folder is folder that included in %PATH variable environment value. To configure Windows Environment Variable you can learn on Otak Atik.
In fact, Regjump will help you pointing to certain key in Registry Editor.
Using Regjump is very easy. Regjump is a MS-DOS tool but you can call it through Run menu. OK to begin use it, click Start - Run menu, type regjump in box and then click OK button to test Regjump and if you run for first time, you'll confirm for its Term, just click Agree button and you won't to ask again at next time.
And to using it just type in Run textbox: regjump "registry_path". For example, if you want to open "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows" path, just type in textbox regjump "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows" and then press Enter. And Registry Editor will open with "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows" has opened.

Registry is very important for Windows series system because entire Windows Configurations are saved inside Registry. So, that's very important to backup it (especially for users who like to 'play' with the registry value).

You can find several ways to backup the registry, but according to my experiments, the easiest way is export the value to single .reg file. To create the registry backup is so easy, just pointing to key which you want backup, right click that key and then click Export menu on context menu. In Save dialog, choose your folder where you want to put the backup file, type your file name and then click Save button. Done!
For example, if you want to backup HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run key, right click it, click Export menu, give it a file name and click Save button.

If you want to backup entire registry, in Save dialog, click All option inside Export Range frame. Or click My Computer key first, right click it, choose Export menu and next steps are same as above steps.

Start Menu is our gate to go everywhere in our computer. And that's useful for us. But on other side if another user can modify your Start Menu, you can get a trouble with it. To make is safer, just disable right click ability in Start Menu. Because if you right click the Start Menu item, they can modify it, including delete it.

To disable it, we'll play with registry again. OK, like usual to modify registry we'll need Registry Editor and to open it click Start - Run menu, type regedit in box and then press Enter to execute it. In Registry Editor, pointing to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Policies | Explorer path. Then, create NoChangeStartMenu DWORD value if you don't find it by right click on empty space at right panel, click New - DWORD value menu and then replace the key name with NoChangeStartMenu name.
If NoChangeStartMenu has created, double click it and replace the value with 1.
Close Registry Editor and restart your computer. Now, your user can't right click in Start Menu.

By default, Windows XP or Vista will save all of your changes when it shut down or restart. This is giving us some benefits because you don’t need to rearrange your Desktop or others Windows settings so that appropriate with your need. But on other hand, this is bringing some negative effect such as if your computer use by more than a user, I sure they will change your settings according they like.

So, to prevent it, set your system so that Windows doesn’t save the settings changed.
To set it you need modify your registry system. So, open your Registry Editor first by click Start – Run menu, type regedit in textbox then press Enter button. Then point the cursor to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion|Policies | Explorer path. Locate the NoSaveSettings key and if you don’t find it create it by right click on empty space of right panel, choose New – Dword value menu. Replace the original key name to NoSaveSettings. Then change NoSaveSettings value to 1 by double click it then type 1 in Value data field and click OK to confirm it. Close your Registry Editor and then restart your computer.
Now, your Windows won’t save the system settings changes. And if you want to make it save settings again, just change NoSaveSettings value to 0.

Add a new printer driver on Windows XP is very easy. Even it’s too easy. That’s very good to user to add printer onto Windows XP but on other side if all user can add it easily, that’s can be an irritating problem. The solution is restricting the access to install a new printer driver.

To doing it, we’ll play with registry. So, open your Registry Editor first by click Start – Run menu, type regedit then hit Enter key.
In Registry Editor, pointing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Policies | Explorer path. Inside this registry path, find NoAddPrinter key but if you don’t find it, create new it manually. To create it, right click on empty space in right panel then choose New – DWORD Value menu (You also can right click on Explorer key). Then replace your new DWORD value(usually its name is New Value #1) to NoAddPrinter value. Double click NoAddPrinter value, replace its value to 1 then click OK button. Close your Registry Editor.
Now, try to add a new printer and if you’re doing this trick right you’ll get a restriction message but if it doesn’t appear, try to restart your computer.
If you want to open the restriction, just change 1 value to 0 or delete the NoAddPrinter key.

By default, Windows XP has multiple accounts inside it. Usually when Windows XP installed for the first time, Windows put at least two accounts within it, the accounts are Administrator and Guest. If you're an Administrator for your office's LAN, I am sure you won't give administrator's accounts right for your clients. Usually, you would give them Power User or User right. Also, some programs will configure to run in Administrator permission only. So when you works at client computer that logged as User right, you'll get trouble when you're open a program which needs Administrator right to run. Yup, you can log off then login as Administrator but that's not an efficient way. Then, Microsoft gave us RunAs command to make it be easier.

The RunAs command allows you to work with the command shell using any user account that has sufficient permissions to perform a task from the command line. And don't forget that RunAs command is not run to run an application as an Administrator account only but you can run as your own account. RunAs is similar with sudo command in UNIX console but if sudo run for Administrator privilege only.

Actually, you also can use Run As ability in context menu when the EXE file is right clicked. But this time we will discuss about RunAs command in MSDOS console.
Open your MSDOS console first to try this command, by click Start - Run menu, type cmd in textbox then press Enter. At console prompt type runas to display all its parameters.
RunAs command requires the Secondary Logon service to run. To check the service status, open Control Panel - Administrative Tools then double click Services icon. Find Secondary Logon service in the list, double click it to see the status (by default, Windows has been enable it), if it is in Stop status, just click Start button. Or you can do it through MSDOS console, type in its prompt : net start seclogon then hit Enter key.
OK back to RunAs command, RunAs has syntax to run like this runas /parameter(s) program_to_run.
And here are its parameters :

/profile : Loads the user profile for the user specified in the /user parameter.
/noprofile : Specifies that no user profile is to be loaded.
/env : Specifies that the current environment, rather than the network environment, should be used.
/netonly : Indicates that user access specified in the /user parameter is for remote access only.
/savecreds : Uses the credentials (username and domain name) the user has saved instead of loading a new copy.
/smartcard : Indicates that the smart card is to be used for supplying user credentials.
/trustlevel : Indicates the level of authorization at which the user can run the application.You can use the /showtrustlevels parameter to display a list of available trust levels.
/showtrustlevels : Displays a list of options for the /trustlevel parameter.
/user:UserAccountName : Specifies the name of the user account to be used to run the program.The user account name following the RunAs command must be specified in the username@domain or domain\username format.
program : Specifies the command, program, or application to be run under the credentials of the user specified in the /UserAccountName parameter.

And these some examples of RunAs command :
runas /user:Administrator winword.exe
runas /user:Farrel "notepad c:\data\manual.txt"

I hope this article can make you understand the runas command easily.

Sometimes maybe you want to modify the Windows XP Registered Owner's name. Maybe you bored with its name. Just change it.

You have to use the Registry Editor to do it because to modify Windows XP Registered Owner's name you must play with registry.
OK, in your Registry Editor pointing your cursor to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SOFTWARE | Microsoft | Windows NT | CurrentVersion path. In CurrentVersion, look for RegisteredOwner key. To modify its value, just double click it then replace the previous value then click OK button.
Close Registry Editor then restart the computer. After computer restarted, right click My Computer then click Properties context menu and look the Registered To field, if it has change to yours, it means it works.

Hi, I'm back... I'm got cold for three days because in my city the rain begin to fell this month. OK, I want to write about how to disable Windows XP's ZIP function and I know that's a great software which has provides by Microsoft but as you know, we have some complaints for XP's ZIP function. Finally, we have to turn to 3rd party software again.

And you can find many ZIP softwares out there, such as WinZip, WinRAR, etc. So if you already install 3rd party software, I suggest to you to disable the Windows XP's ZIP function.
To disable it is very easy, just open Start - Run menu, type regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll then hit Enter key. Don't forget to restart the computer for apply it.
To re-enable it you can do it with the same way but without /u parameter, so you type regsvr32 zipfldr.dll then hit Enter. And then restart your computer to bringing the built-in ZIP function back.

As you know, Start menu has so many sub menu inside it. To expand them you must move over your mouse cursor to the menu or click to make it faster. And I think if you have to click it one by one to expands every sub menu that will opened, usually we will just expands it by move our cursor over the menu but if we're using this way it will delayed and if you felt that's so slow to expanding the sub menu, just make it faster..

To adjust the delay value you have to modify it via registry. The delay time that configured by Microsoft is 400 miliseconds. That's mean you must wait for 400 miliseconds for expanding the sub menu when your cursor over the menu.
OK, open your Registry Editor first, by click Start - Run menu, type regedit in textbox then hit Enter. In Registry Editor, drive your cursor to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Control Panel | Desktop then look for MenuShowDelay entry. To modify its value, double click it then type your own value then click OK button. I prefer to set it to 100-150 because if you adjust it too small, your system will works too hard, specially the hard drive. So, try it by yourself until you find the 'comfort' value.

If your computer is used by all members of family, maybe you need set a message that will shown every computer booting up. You can put your own message in there, so you don't necessary to warn every user who will use your computer.

OK, to do it we need to modify registry. So you need open Registry Editor to modify your registry, just click Start - Run menu, type regedit in textbox then hit Enter to open Registry Editor.
In Registry Editor, drive your cursor to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SOFTWARE | Microsoft | Windows NT | CurrentVersion | WinLogon path. Then look for LegalNoticeCaption and LegalNoticeText keys. Modify LegalNoticeCaption will set the message title window and LegalNoticeText will set the message content. To modify them just double click on the keys. Begin from LegalNoticeCaption value first, double click it then type your desire title and then click OK button to confirm the modified value.
Then double click LegalNoticeCaption then type the message content and last click OK button to confirm it.
Close your Registry Editor and then restart your computer. When Windows XP screen appears you'll see your message box in there. And Windows XP will wait until you click OK button at message window before Windows XP continue the boot up progress.

If you're boring with My Computer label that attached to My Computer icon or if you want to know the current login name/user name, try this trick.

We'll play with registry again. So you need open Registry Editor first to modify them. To open the Registry Editor, click Start - Run menu, type regedit in textbox then hit Enter.

In Registry Editor, drive your cursor to registry path : HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT | CLSID | {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}. Then find LocalizedString key. You can modify its value directly but I suggest just renaming it because if you want back to old value you can rename it again. So, rename LocalizedString key to LocalizedString.old then create a new REG_EXPAND_SZ key by right click on empty space in right panel then choose New - Expandable String Value menu and give it name LocalizedString. After LocalizedString is created, modify its value by double click on the key or hit Enter key, the value is %USERNAME% on %COMPUTERNAME% (you can change the word but not the variable).
Close Regedit Editor and then restart your computer. Now, look your change of your My Computer label.

By default, Windows XP always pointing installation program to C:\Program Files\ folder as their installation result destination. Also, Common files which always using by other softwares save in C:\Program Files\Common Files\.

But don't worry, you can modify its setting and pointing to other folder. For example, if you have 3 partitions and you want all installed softwares put in second partition and the second partition named drive D: and you want all softwares intalled in D:\Program Files, you don't need to 'sweating' to do it, just modify a key value in your registry.
Is like usual, to open Registry Editor, click Start - Run menu, type regedit in textbox then press Enter. In Registry Editor, pointing the cursor to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SOFTWARE | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion path.
In CurrentVersion key, look for ProgramFilesDir, by default Windows XP give it value C:\Program Files\ if you want to change it, double click ProgramFilesDir key then change to your own folder such as D:\Program Files\. If you want change the Common folder too, highlight the CommonFilesDir key, double click it and then give it your own folder such as D:\Program Files\Common.
Restart your computer, now your Program Files folder has change to your owns.

Microsoft had been bundling Dr.Watson since Windows NT launched. Dr.Watson has function to backup RAM contains if your computer crashed. Yup, it looks very useful but on other side it makes your computer be slower and we must provide hard drive space for it. So, if your computer has enough of stability, just remove it. It will save your hard disk and memory.

When your computer crashed, you'll asked to send report to Microsoft and Dr.Watson will create that report that contains your RAM contains and if you're working on Microsoft Word and writing a secret or confidential report, your report will sent to Microsoft too. So, we have enough of reasons to try removing it.

To Remove Dr.Watson, we will using Registry Editor (open it by click Start Menu - Run, type regedit then press Enter). Pointing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | Software | Microsoft | WindowsNT | CurrentVersion | AeDebug path. If AeDebug is already higlighted, press Del key and answer Yes when you confirmed. Close your Registry Editor and restart your computer. Then Dr.Watson has gone.

To reinstall Dr.Watson, just type in Run menu : drwtsn32 -i.

If you right click your Taskbar you'll get its Context Menu. From the menu you can explore and manage your Taksbar configurations. You can auto hide it, lock the taskbar, show/hide Recent Documents menu, change to classic start menu, manage start menu item, clear Recent Documents list, hide/show clock, show/hide the quick launch bar, and others. And to configure it, it's so easy. Just check and uncheck some options in there and it'll works. directly and that's will help us to configure it faster but that's a gate to screw up your computer too and to fix it will waste your time, so make a preventing action to make it safe.

To make it safe, that's easy, just disable the context menu. This time, we'll playing again with registry. OK, like usually open your Registry Editor first (by click Start - Run menu, type regedit in textbox then hit Enter key) then pointing your cursor to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Policies | Explorer then create a DWORD key (right click on empty space in right panel) in there, replace original name with NoTrayContextMenu the double click it then change its value to 1. (If NoTrayContextMenu key has exist, just change its value to 1)
If it's done, close Registry Editor and restart your computer to apply it but when I've try it, I did not necesarry to restart my computer to apply my registry changed.
Now, try to right click your taskbar, if its context menu doesn't show up, it means your work is success.

If you want to make your Start Menu be more private, try to hide your user name from it. Yup, that's not give a warranty that your computer be secure, but at least you'll give again 1 point to your computer security.

Be default, Windows XP will display current login user name in above of start menu. And to hide it, we'll play with Registry Editor again. Like usual, just click Start - Run menu, type regedit in textbox then hit Enter key. In Registry Editor, drive your cursor to registry path : HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Policies | Explorer. Find NoUserNameInStartMenu key but if you don't find it, just create it. To create it, right click on empty space on right panel of HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Policies | Explorer key, then choose New - DWORD key menu. Replace original name with NoUserNameInStartMenu key. After NoUserNameInStartMenu created, double click it then change the value to 1.
Close your Registry Editor and restart your computer. Now, open your start menu to look the effect....

Today, I want make a joke for my friend. That joke is make his drives letter in computer be disappear. Usually, drive letter will shown after drive label, like MyHarddisk(C:), DVDROM(D:) and we will remove C:, D: and so on letter. So, if you want to make it to your friend too, just read this....

Hehehehe, he's be angry when he knows if the drives letter is gone and little confuse. Beside to makes a joke this trick can also makes your my computer be more clean.
OK straight forward, open your Registry Editor, click Start - Run menu then type regedit in textbox then hit Enter key.
Pointing to : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Explorer path. After Explorer key is higlighted then move your cursor mouse to the right panel and right click on empty space and then choose New - DWORD key. Replace the new key name with ShowDriveLettersFirst then press Enter key to execute it. Double click or press Enter key on ShowDriveLettersFirst to change its value to 2. After the value change to 2 from 0, close your Registry Editor then restart the computer.
Now, try to explore your drives via My Computer and if you've follow steps correctly, then you don't see all drives letter anymore.
To appear your drive letter again, just delete ShowDriveLettersFirst key or change its value to 0.

With Disable Manager the user can to force close an applicaton and that is a great way to close troubled application. But on other hand, the naughty user can makes trouble in your computer, for example, close Antivirus application or any applications that should not closed.
To prevent that, just disable your Task Manager to safe your computer from unauthorized user.

Usually if we want to open Task Manager, we'll press Ctrl + Alt + Del keys. To disable it, we'll use Registry Editor. Click Start - Run menu, type regedit in textbox then hit Enter key to execute it. Then pointing to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Policies | System path. Then create a DWORD key (to create it just right click on empty space in right panel) and give it a new key DisableTaskMgr name. And change DisableTaskMgr to 1 (from its original value, 0). Close your Registry Editor then restart your computer.
After restarted, try to press Ctrl + Alt + Del keys then you'll get a message that says the Task Manager has disabled by Administrator.

Find/Search menu is a gateway to exploring your entire harddrive easily. User just need to type in search box and your files will found. And if you want to make your computer be more secure, remove Find menu to preventing the unwanted accidents.

To remove it just add a key in registry. First, open your Registry Editor tool with click Start - Run then type regedit in textbox then press Enter key. After Registry Editor is opened, go to : HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Policies\Explorer path. Find NoFind key in right panel and if you're not find it just create it by right click on empty space then click New - DWORD key menu then give it name NoFind then press Enter key. Still with NoFind key highlighted then double click it and then change its original value from 0 to 1.
Close your Regedit Editor and restart the computer and your Find menu has gone now. To show it again just change NoFind value to 0 or delete that key.

Windows NT was giving us a new partition that's more powerful than previous partition (FAT32). It was come with many features, such as smaller cluster unit, bigger capacity, safer than its 'ancestors'. So, if you install Windows NT or above make sure that you're configure your harddrive partition become NTFS format. And because it has smaller cluster than FAT series partition, so NTFS will save your harddrive space too.

NTFS partition will update timestamp data for Last Access field, so if you open a folder where contains so many files inside it, it'll takes times. But I get a trick to make it faster, the point is configure NTFS doesn't update the Last Access data so it'll save your time.

We'll play with registry again this time, open your Registry Editor (You can open it via Start - Run then type regedit in textbox) then drive your registry to path : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem then create a new DWORD key and give it name NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate, after NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate has created then changes its value with 1 (original value is 0).

Hmmmm, I still have a trick for NTFS partition, the trick is disable writing files in 8.3 mode (MSDOS format), to configure it we still play with registry. Open Registry Editor again and then pointing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem then create a new DWORD key and gives it name : NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation then changes its value become 1.

Restart your computer and retry to open a folder that contains so many files, and you'll get it be faster.