Tips and Tricks for Windows 2000 Professional

gtb55447

Member
Mar 22, 2000
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Anyone have any good tips and tricks for Windows 2000 Professional? Lets get a good thread going here.
 

Auric

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
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I'm not keen on bloat, especially on my boot drive, and do regular imaging so I set the DLL cache to zero and purged it. There is also a seperate Driver Cache with SP1 that is presumably supposed to save you the trouble of keeping the CD or the i386 dir on hand.

I discovered the DLL cache when I first installed and was confronted with MS's fetish about including Mine Sweeper et al with every OS. I wanted to delete the games but found they were being zealously protected in the cache. So...

sfc /cachesize=xx

where xx represents the maximum size in MB for the Dllcache folder. Also, after restarting:

sfc /purgecache

This deletes the current cache and allows SFC to rebuild the DllCache to the specified size.


Also, it's not so much a tweak but if you don't have the SP1 CD then it's EZ to make an integrated bootable install CD to work with.

There are some good tweaks at Tweak3D, particularly in the Memory/HD category.
 

AndyHui

Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member<br>AT FAQ M
Oct 9, 1999
13,141
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Drag My Computer into the Start Menu.

Cascade your way through your file system rather than looking through Explorer.
 

SUOrangeman

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
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The &quot;Run As ...&quot; service is a beast! I may never log in as Administrator again. I have successfully run Windows Update and other Admin-only tasks using this service.

I wholeheartedly recommend NOT giving yourself full administrative rights at all times. Use such powers only when they are needed. Your heart will thank you one day. :)

-SUO
 

gtb55447work

Member
Jun 26, 2000
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this is great, lets keep it going... I'm looking for some good registry tweaks as well... I hate Tweak UI... so... I saw a good one on here for increasing performance in Explorer, but since then redid my system.... anyone have any other tips/tricks?

 

mpancha

Member
Jun 12, 2000
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you can also drag it to the taskbar. also works with network neighborhood. ANd you can do it in win98 too.
 

mpancha

Member
Jun 12, 2000
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guess I shoulda specified what it was... you can drag the my computer and network neighborhood, and whatever other Dir you want, to the taskbar, and just navigate through the tree to get to whatever files and folders you want. It makes looking for stuff on a network easier.
 

gtb55447work

Member
Jun 26, 2000
108
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For an IE boost....try this registry hack...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings. Where it says MaxConnectionsPerServer and MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server set those to 16 or so. 4 is the default.
 

easternerd

Member
Sep 15, 2000
146
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Hai,
Here is a fine trick:

Hidden in the C:\WINNT\INF directory is a file called sysoc.inf. In Windows 2000 , this file contains the the code for the Extra Components in Windows2K.

The key here is the section titled &quot;old base components.&quot; If you remove the &quot;,HIDE&quot; text (or, &quot;,hide&quot; in some cases) from the lines in that section, those components will show up in Add/Remove Programs. You can also remove the &quot;,hide&quot; text from the Image Vue and Fax entries above it if you so desire. When you're done editing the file (it's wise to make a backup first just in case), save it and re-run Add/Remove Programs.

And now u get the Original Addremove Programs.
With this simple editing session, the Windows Component Wizard (again, launched from Add/Remove Programs) now allows you to uninstall the following components .

Accessibility Wizard
Accessories - Calculator, Character Map, Clipboard Viewer, Desktop Wallpaper, Document templates, Mouse pointers, Object Packager, Paint, Screen Savers (OpenGL and Standard), WordPad
Communications - Chat, HyperTerminal, Phone Dialer
Games - FreeCell, Minesweeper, Pinball, Solitaire
Imaging
Microsoft Fax Service
By removing the components you don't want and will never use, you can save hard drive space and tweak your system the way you want, not the way Microsoft hands it to you.
 

gtb55447work

Member
Jun 26, 2000
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You can usually choose if you want to install those applications during the initial install process as well, but thanks for the tip!
 

easternerd

Member
Sep 15, 2000
146
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hi,GTB
These options include Games and a other stuff in accesories
like Fax etc.. which are not available for u to uninstall
during setup..
Atleast i have never come across any win2K setup with the
following custom options....
 

easternerd

Member
Sep 15, 2000
146
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hi,
few more tips to enjoy! (mostly what was in 98) :)
1)
The visual 'enhancements' made to Windows 2000 can slow down routine operations substantially, and therefore we recommend turning them off:
The first thing to do is turn off the transition effects for menus and ToolTips. Right click on any empty spot on the desktop and choose 'properties'. Next, select the effects tab, and in that page click the check-box for transitional effects.

A)
The Cursor Shadow doesn't help with speed any, so turning it off is good thing =). To do this go to Start>Settings>Control Panel, click on the Mouse Icon, go to the Pointers tab and deselect the check box saying 'Enable Pointer Shadow'.

B)
The next visual change to make isn't truly a speed-up to the operating system, but gives the feeling that it is more responsive. Sub-menus under regular menus, such as the 'Programs' folder on the start menu have a delay before they pop out; this default delay is 200 milliseconds, or two seconds. This can slow operations down greatly when trying to look quickly through the start menu or just get to a program fast. The way to decrease this time for this delay is to use the Windows Registry Editor, regedit32.exe. This can be opened by going to Start>Run and typing 'regedit'. Hit OK after that and a program similar to Windows Explorer will open up, and this can be browsed in the same way. Once into the program, go to the key 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop'. In the right pane of the Window you will find an item called 'MenuShowDelay', and the value for it should be 200, or something near that. Change that value to 0 by right clicking it and selecting modify, then type in the 0 value in place of the current number. Alternatively, you can use TweakUI to perform the same operation. The place in that program to change the menu speed is under the Mouse tab.

C)
Another visual option that can cause slowdowns is the integration of Web into usual Windows operations such as the control panel or Windows Explorer. The integration is called active desktop, and is despised by many people as it rarely comes in useful and usually just slows down normal tasks. The way to turn this feature off is to go to open up Windows Explorer, or anything that displays the contents of a folder, and go to the tools menu, select 'Folder Options', then change the radio button from 'Enable Web Content in Folders' to 'Use Windows Classic Folders'. Also, while in that dialogue box you can turn off Active desktop completely by pressing the 'Use Windows Classic Desktop' button which turns off active desktop.

D)
This tip isn't truly for Windows 2000; rather a program ran under it, but this option effects Windows 2000 programs too. In Internet Explorer, there is an option called 'Smooth scrolling'. While this is a nice feature at times, it can slow down scrolling greatly when there are many graphics on a page since the browser or program that's running has to refresh the screen with new information many times instead of once as the user scrolls down a page. The way to turn this off is to go to Start>Control Panel> and click the Internet Settings icon. Once the dialogue box opens, go to the advanced tab and in there you will find an option called 'Use Smooth scrolling', named appropriately. Deselect this. Once that happens you get to zoom down pages at a much better rate =).


e)
There are a few other visual settings that can decrease performance and shouldn't be used. One is backgrounds, they look nice, but they don't help your computer one bit. Whatever size they are is taken in memory, and if it's a big .bmp file this can actually take up a fair chunk (2-4mb). The other visual performance problem is icons. Lots of them on the desktop can slow down the loading of Windows, and after running a full screen program you may notice sometimes your hard drive chugging away as it reloads all the images for the icons. Try to keep any shortcuts to programs on the start menu or in folders on the desktop.
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2)
Memory Tweaks :
A)
The first is making sure the role of your machine is set to running applications, and not operating as a server. This can be confirmed by pressing your Windows Key and the Pause/Break key, or going to Start>Settings>Control Panel, clicking on the System icon, and this will open System Properties box. Once that is opened, click on the advanced tab and click the Performance Options button. Check to make sure the radio button next by Applications is selected, and not Background services. This will make Windows optimize itself for running applications/games instead of serving up files to clients.

B)
Many services run while Windows is running...some of these aren't of any use to some users, such as the Task Scheduler. While I can't tell people what they do and do not need running, I can say where to go to disable these services if they are of no use. To get to this area, either right click on the My Computer icon and select 'Manage', or go to Start>Settings>Control Panel, click the Administrative Tools Icon, then select Computer Management from there. Once this is done, a Window with two panes will open. On the left side you will see a number of icons that can branch out. Click the plus sign next to the Services and Applications icon, then select the Services Icon. On the right you will see all of the services currently available on your computer, and which ones are running. Increasing the size of the description area or right clicking any service and selecting properties will allow you to see what the program does. To turn a service off, right click the service, select properties, and under the Startup Type pull down menu and choose disabled. You can also choose manual, click OK, then right click the service again and click 'Stop'. Use care when stopping or disabling services, some may not seem necessary, yet are vital to Windows properly running. In general, deleting any security-related services probably isn't a good idea, even if they seem to be of no use.

C)
Disk defragmentation and scanning were fairly obvious in previous versions of Windows, but the scanning portion is a bit more tucked away in Windows 2000. Disk defragmentor can still be located under Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools, but Scandisk isn't there. Instead, you have to go to Windows Explorer (or My Computer) and right click on the hard drive you want to check for errors, go to tools, and choose check now under the error checking area of the dialogue box. This operation can also be selected by right clicking on the hard drives through Storage under Computer Management from the previous tweak, and following the same instructions as when right clicking on it through explorer.

D)
The last change to the memory system of Windows 2000 would be setting a fixed page file. This is the memory that is used by the computer when random access memory (RAM) is completely used up. It is a file on the hard drive, and is also called virtual memory because it is a 'fake' in that Windows pretends it is extra RAM for programs running, so that they will fit into there instead of reporting that there is no free memory. Generally, a 256MB paging file is sufficient. The reasons for a fixed size is that resizing the page file eats up processor time, and if this has to be done often it can cause slow downs. To set the fixed size, go to the system properties dialogue box by pressing the Windows key and the pause/break key simultaneously, or going to Start>Settings>Control Panel and clicking on the System Icon. Next, go to the advanced tab, and click on the performance options button. Click the change button towards the bottom. Now this next box will give you the options of what size swap files to set and which drives to set them on. For optimal performance, put them on a separate drive from the Windows installation if available, otherwise set it to your current Windows drive. Then, in the initial size and maximum size area put 256. This creates a 256mb file called pagefile.sys on the drive selected.
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Miscellaneous Tweaks

In Internet Explorer 5 or 5.5, there is a limit to how many simultaneous downloads you can have per server. For instance, say someone was downloading two files from our site, and tried to download a third one. That third file wouldn't proceed to download until one of the first two completed. This also applies to a page with many images-as each one is a file-only two can download at a time per connection. This problem doesn't hinder analog modem users very much, as two files being downloaded at once is an overload for them, but for broadband users such as those with Cable Modems, or DSL lines this can significantly slow the loading of a page down. To remove this limit, one has to edit the registry. Open up the registry editor by going to Start>Run, and typing regedit. Browse to this key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings. Then, on the right pane of the Window in an open area, right click and select New>DWORD Value. Enter the name of &quot;MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server&quot;. Then, create another DWORD value and enter the name &quot;MaxConnectionsPerServer&quot;. Now, right click on MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server and select modify. Click the decimal radio button to change the values you see to decimal instead of hexidecimal. Then, enter the value 16. Now, do the same for MaxConnectionsPerServer, except enter the value of 8 for this item. You can raise these or lower them depending on your connection speed. Setting higher values would be ideal for extremely fast connections. On a cable modem with usual speeds of 1.5Mbps, a value of 32 and 16 seems to be the optimal settings.


This tweak won't increase your daily Windows operations, but it can speed up matters when installing any new devices. When you install Windows, it only puts on the device drivers for the current devices you have in your computer, and not for any others. Whenever you install something else, you have to insert the Windows 2000 CD-Rom. To get around this problem, one can copy their entire Windows 2000 files from the CD-Rom to the hard drive, and point the registry entry that tells Windows where to look for extra files from the CD-Rom drive to the Windows 2000 disc contents now stored on the hard drive. The files that are needed to be copied are the ones in the root directory of the CD-Rom, and anything in the i386 folder and its sub-folders. You can put these anywhere on the hard drive. Now, to tell Windows it no longer should look for extra files on the CD-Rom drive, and instead look in the directory just created, the registry will need to be changed. Open up the registry editor by going to Start>Run, and typing regedit. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup. In this entry exists the keys ServicePackSourcePath and SourcePath. Change both of these values by right clicking on them and selecting modify, and entering the directory created from the files transferred to the hard drive from the Windows 2000 CD-Rom.


Another little performance improvement is to disable system sounds. These are sounds that happen for specific task, such as when a program is opened, closed, or when the recycle bin is emptied. Whenever the operation is performed, the sound as to be retrieved from wherever it is in memory (and if it's still on the hard disk, it has to be dug up from there, which can be a nuisance). Disabling this also frees any memory space that may be taken up from the sound files. To remove the sounds, right click on the volume-speaker icon on the right side of the start menu, and select 'Adjust Audio Properties'. Then you can select the sounds for any specific operations and choose 'none' as the sound file associated with it.
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My goodness this is sure big!!!!
Phew got tired! typing a big one such as this
...

 

1KrazyFool

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
323
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0
Yes, TweakUI 1.33 is nice little program to use. Get the new version (1.33) SUO linked. Its small, and non-bloat. Simple to install (right click .inf and install). Has some neat features for Win2k in it.