Registry Tweaks For XP

Most of the settings in xp can change easily. But sometimes we need to modify registry to change some settings. Here I am giving some registry tweaks for xp .
To open registry editor go to start–>RUN –>type regedit and press enter
Hide an User account from logon screen
This tweak allows an account that is normally displayed on the Welcome screen to be hidden from view. To log on using the hidden account it’s necessary to use the Log On dialog box similar to the one in Windows 2000 .
Note : If you have welcome screen , Press alt+ctrl+del two times to get logon dialog box.
Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\
CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList
Create a DWORD value with the name of user account to be hiddden ,and give the data value either 0 ( to hide the account) or 1 ( to dispaly the account)
Disable/Enable Task Manager
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
Create/Modify DWORD value DisableTaskMgr and give the data value either 0 ( enable-default ) or 1 ( disable )
Speed Up start menu display
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Desktop Create/Modify String Value MenuShowDelay
and adjust the data value to preference ( default =400 , make it less than 400)
Speed up shutdown process
If your system is shutting down slowly, follow the steps given below
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop Change the following string values
PowerOffActive = 1

AutoEndTasks=1

HungAppTimeout=4000

WaitToKillAppTimeout=4000

WaitToKillServiceTimeout=4000

Close regedit and restart the system .

Fix for shutting down automatically

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Change the value of PowerdownAfterShutdown to 1
Defrag system files at every boot
To increase system performance, we can enable defragmentation of system files at every boot by using the following registry tweak
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction and change the value of Enable to Y
Disable the Security Center warnings
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center and change the DWORD values for the following keys
AntiVirusDisableNotify =1
FirewallDisableNotify =1
Make NTFS file system faster
If you are using NTFS file system, you can improve the performance by changing the following entry in registry
(Note : check the properties of C: drive to find the type of file system)
Go to KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Filesystem
change the following registry values, as you wish:
DisableNTFSLastAccessUpdate = 1 (last file access is no longer registered).
NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation = 1
NtfsMftZoneReservation = 2 (with this tweak there will be no more fragmenting of the MFT( master file table) default value = 1, range 1-4)
Identify the reason for windows crash
If you would like to know the reason why there was a sudden crash of Windows,
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Reliability
change the DWORD-value for ShutdownReasonUI temporarily to 1 and restart the PC .After a reboot you will find the reason why your Windows shuts down suddenly in the logs.
Note : To open logs go to start–>RUN–> type eventvwr.msc and press enter . Change the value ShutdownReasonUI back to 0 after analyzing.
Low disk space warning
Probably you have seen the irritating ‘low disk space’-warning if your hard disk reaches full capacity. This warning message can be turned off by adding the DWORD-value.
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MicroSoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Create a DWORD NoLowDiskSpaceChecks with value 1