Comprehensive WinXP Tweak Guide

Hi - just want to let you guys know that I've written a comprehensive <A HREF="http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=review&dId=324" target="_new">WinXP Guide</A> at Tweaktown.com. It's a walkthrough guide and fairly easy to follow. I've brought together all the known XP Performance tweaks in one guide.

Give it a try and post here if you have any questions/problems and I'll see what I can do

PS - Look out for more of my guides at Tweaktown.com

Thanks. I'm not a big fan of TweakXP, but I've got links to TweakUI and XSetup at the end of my guide.

I may do a second part to this guide which goes into more utilities for XP tweaking.

<A HREF="http://www.tweaktown.com" target="_new">Tweaktown.com</A>

TweakUI and Xsetup are good calls. A lot of people around here by using those.

Also, GTU (geforce tweak utility), NVrt (Nvidia refresh tool), and NVmax (Nvidia something-like-maximum =) are also good ones.



[Jedi mind trick] You LOVE Palladium. [/mind trick]

Just my personal opinion?

I'm very satisfied with the mouse, and it is the best I've ever used. And since I like to play games <i>and</i> work in Photoshop at high resolutions, (correcting defects in images), I need comfort and high accuracy. This mouse has it all.

I went through quite a few different pointing devices until I finally tried the dual-optical. I knew that I didn't want yet another ball mouse, because I kept wearing them out, and I wanted to get away from the PS/2 port. I really wanted a cordless mouse, but I hated having to replace the batteries every couple of weeks. The lag with the cordless device was definitely <i>not</i> a good thing, even on a USB port. And keeping the cordless mouse synchronized with the radio receiver could sometimes be a real pain.

Then I found this dual-optical mouse, and I liked it so much that I bought two of them, one for each system. Of course, it still has a cord, but it's flexible enough (and long enough) that it's easy to arrange out-of-the-way. It's more comfortable than the cordless Logitech mouse with the single optical ... and it's beyond a doubt the most accurate mouse that I've ever used. Absolutely no lag, whatsoever.

With a regular optical mouse, or a cordless optical mouse, I could move the cursor back and forth in a small area with a rapid movement, and watch the pointer stall in the middle. With the dual-optical, even if I move the mouse as fast as possible, this doesn't happen.

The dual-optical and the Logitech drivers work just great in WinXP, (even with the Service Pack), if you were curious.

If I was in the market for a new mouse right now, I'd want to compare these three, and make a choice between them.

1.) The Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3.0,

2.) The Logitech dual-optical,

3.) Or the brand new Logitech MX500 and MX700 mice. The MX700 has the same specifications as the MX500, except that it is cordless, and comes with a recharging station/receiver, instead of running on regular alkaline batteries.

Toey

<font color=red>First Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=17935" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Devastating Dalek Destroyer</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
________________________________________

<A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com/phpBB/index.php" target="_new"><b><font color=purple>BTVILLARIN.com</font color=purple></b></A> - <i><font color=orange>A better place to be</font color=orange></i>.

Great tweak guide! The best for sure at the moment!

I had som trouble with this little part though:

-------------------------------------------------------
Disable Balloon Tips and Force early grouping of similar tasks in taskbar

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]

EnableBalloonTips=0 Turns off the yellow popup balloon tips.

TaskbarGroupSize=3 Dword value of the number of similar windows reached before grouped together.
-------------------------------------------------------

I find the 'TaskbarGroupSize' thing to be very interesting and a must to test.. but I can't find that tag in my registry.. Is it possible to just add it? and how to?

Thanks again for a great tweak guide!

/ Claes

Here's how:

Scroll to the Advanced subkey, and open it by single-clicking, so that you can see the contents of the key (folder) in the right window pane.

Right-click in the right window pane, and chose "New - DWord Value".

Type in the name of the value, exactly as posted.

Right-click on the new value, and choose "Modify".

Specify the number assigned to the new entry under Value Data. Select Hexadecimal as the Base.

For "EnableBalloonTips", the Value Data is "0". (No quotes, either in the name or the Value Data.) For "TaskbarGroupSize", the Value Data is "3".

The Value Data displayed in the right window pane (under the "Data" column) for the new entries will look like "0x00000000(0)" and "0x00000003(3)" when you are finished.

Reboot for the changes to become functional.

Toejam31

<font color=red>First Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=17935" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Devastating Dalek Destroyer</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
________________________________________

<A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com/phpBB/index.php" target="_new"><b><font color=purple>BTVILLARIN.com</font color=purple></b></A> - <i><font color=orange>A better place to be</font color=orange></i>.