Tweaking Optimizing Windows.pdf - GEGeek

11. Adaptive Menus
Microsoft Office 2000 introduced personalized menus (a.k.a. adaptive menus) that remembers which items you use regularly and
hides items you don't. This tweaks allows you to enable or disable this functionality. Exit all open Office 2000 applications, including
Word, Excel, Access and Outlook. Then open your registry and find the key below, if it does not exist create it.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Toolbars]
Create a new DWORD value named 'AdaptiveMenus' and set the value to '0' for disabled and '1' for enabled.
12. Control Smart Menus
Switch them off ! Windows 2000 included a new feature called 'Personalized Menus', which remembers which items you use
regularly and hides items you don't. This tweaks allows you to enable or disable this functionality.
Open your registry and find the key mentioned below.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
Create a new string value, or modify the the existing value, named 'IntelliMenus'.
Modify the value to equal 'YES' to enable smart menus or 'NO' to disable them.
By using the same key except under the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE] tree the tweak can be enforced system wide, instead of only user
based. Restart your machine.
13. Create a Useful Name for My Computer
This tweak will rename "My Computer" to "Username on Computername" making it simple to determine which computer you are
logged on to and which username you are logged on as.
Using REGEDT32.EXE (this is necessary for REG_EXPAND_SZ) open your registry and find the key below.
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}]
Rename the value named "LocalizedString" to "LocalizedString.old". Create a new REG_EXPAND_SZ value named "LocalizedString",
and copy the contents of the original value to the new value except change the words "My Computer" to equal "%USERNAME% on
%COMPUTERNAME%". For example, the new "LocalizedString" value may equal "@C:\WINNT\system32\shell32.dll,-
9216@1033,%USERNAME% on %COMPUTERNAME%".
14. Hide or Display Administrative Tools Menu
As with Windows NT, Windows 2000 has an 'Administrative Tools' folder on the Start Menu. This folder contains powerful
administration utilities and therefore can be hidden to avoid accidental use.
Open your registry and find the key mentioned below.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
For example, the setting may look like:
(Default) (value not set)
StartMenuAdminTools YES
Create a new string value, or modify the the existing value, named 'StartMenuAdminTools'. Modify the value to equal 'YES' to show
the administrative tools folder or 'NO' to hide it. By using the same key except under the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE] tree the tweak
can be enforced system wide, instead of only user based.
Exit your registry and log off for the changes to take effect. Note: Hiding the folder does not stop the use of the tools, it only make
it more difficult to locate them.
15. Show Favorites on the Start Menu
This setting controls whether the Favorites folder is shown on the Start Menu.
Open your registry and find the key mentioned below.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
Create a new DWORD value, or modify the the existing value, named 'StartMenuFavorites'. Modify the value to equal '1' to enable
Favorites or '0' to disable them.
For example, the setting may look like:
(Default) (value not set)
StartMenuFavorites 0x00000001 (1)
By using the same key except under the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE] tree the tweak can be enforced system wide, instead of only user
based. Log off for the changes to take effect.
16. Group Policy Editor in 2000/XP
Various settings can be altered by accessing administrator setup. At the Start\Run prompt type "gpedit.msc". This will open a
management console which gives access to various administrator settings.
17. Hidden Devices
In Device Manager, there is an option to show hidden settings: from the menu go to View/Show Hidden Devices.
I had a couple of items here that were not installed correctly.
18. Disable Last Access Time
To prevent ntfs from updating the last access time of each directory, open the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
Add a new DWord Value and name it NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate: set the value to 1 to disable this feature.
19. Speed up and browse faster
Here's a great tip (a bug actually) to speed up your browsing of 2000 machines. Its actually a fix to a bug that by default of a
normal Windows 2000 setup that scans for shared files for Scheduled Tasks. And its turns out that you can experience a delay as