Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Customize Windows XP

Note 0:Read the whole post completely before attempting these!!!And read Note 1(at the end of this post)

There have been comments on the previous post saying I've been too lazy not updating this blog even after a week!!! So here are some things I was experimenting with all these days...and this is original work.

Ala ©Naveen Kumar M.

I begin by telling you that you are doing this at your own risk and do create a restore point before you do this...I had some problem remembering all the changes I did in this program called "gpedit.msc" .

Check out the screenshots

This is a better approach than using msconfig.exe because the changes in msconfig can too easily changed accidentally.

Without further ado let us start off.

1.Click on Start button and select "Run"(or alternatively Windows Key + 'R').
2.Enter gpedit.msc and press Enter.
3.You will see a window with the title "Group Policy"

Now under "Local Computer Policy", choose Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Windows Components

Windows Messenger


Most of us do not use Windows Messenger ,so we can actually disable it.
Choose Windows Messenger and on the right-pane you will see two items.Double click on them and choose Enable.

Digital Rights Management


Again, how many of us do actually purchase music...and that too on the net.Disable Windows Digital Rights Management by choosing the same in the left pane and modifying the value of the item on the right to "Enabled".

Windows Update


Assuming that all of you use pirated versions of Windows(or even otherwise), you would not want your computer to work slower just because Windows is contacting some microsoft.com

Select Windows Update in the left pane and then you will see a list of items in the right pane,11 in all.Arrange them in alphabetical order by clicking on "Setting".Now I will list out the values of these in that order.
First four :"Disabled"
Next two :"Enabled"
Then "Disabled",again "Enabled" and then all the other three "Disabled".

Recycle Bin


This probably is the most important feature you will be using :-)
If you are a person who consistently uses "Shift+Delete" instead of "Delete", then you must be a person absolutely confident of what you want on your computer and what you don't.How about making "delete" work the same as "Shift+Delete".

Under "Local Computer Policy>User Configuration>Administrative Templates>Windows Components>Windows Explorer" .

In the right pane, you have the option "Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin" option(Here is the screenshot).Just "Enable" it.

And if you are absolutely sure of what you are deleting, then the next option "Display Confirmation dialog while deleting files" can be set to "Disabled". This is highly not recommended, though.



Thats it for now,we'll discuss more advanced security features(most of them won't be important to you but in case somebody is very much interested in using these Power Features ...then have fun!)in the next post.

Note 1: Please use the picture links provided for reference in case you have a doubt.Actually I wanted to include them in the post itself but have some problem aligning them in proper positions.