Stop Password Expiration

After you have run Windows XP for a while, you may receive this message when you
log on: "Your password will expire in 14 days.....".
By default, Windows XP is set up with passwords which will expire after 42 days. 14
days in advance, Windows will start warning you of this fact. If you do not want your
passwords to expire:

1. Go to Start > Run and in the Open: box type control userpasswords2
2. Select the Advanced tab in the User Accounts window
3. Press the Advanced button below the Advanced user management header
4. Select Users in the Local Users and Groups
5. In the right pane, right-click the user name for which you want to change the
setting, and select Properties
6. On the General tab, check Password never expires
7. Click Apply and OK (all the way out)

Safely Remove Hardware Icon

If you have an USB device attached to your system, you will notice an icon in the
Notification area, which - when clicked - will give you the option to Stop your
hardware, before you unplug it.
It is possible that you never unplug this hardware. So how do you get rid of the icon?
As far as I know the only way is to right-click the notification area, and selecting
Properties. Under the Notification area heading, click Customize. Find the Safely
Remove Hardware icon and select Always hide in the Behavior column next to it
(press OK and Apply to back out).

Multi user features

Like Windows 2000, but unlike Windows 95, 98, and Me, the ability to log in multiple
users simultaneously plays a big role in Windows XP. There is a default Administrator
account set up when Windows XP is first installed, but you can create as many
accounts as you need later, depending on how many people will be using the
machine. Each user, once he or she has an account, can customize XP to his or her
liking. Individual users get their own subfolders in the Documents And Settings
folder; this folder serves as a centralized location for most personalized information,
such as the Start Menu, Favorites, and Documents settings.

Show yourself

Only the Administrator can set up new user accounts (go to Control Panel > User
Accounts > Create A New Account). You can select a picture to identify the account.
When you're logged on to the system under your username, this picture, along with
your username, peeks out at you from the top of the Start menu. There are a slew of
48x48-pixel bitmap images to choose from within XP. They're housed in
D:\Documents And Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account
Pictures\Default Pictures. But why limit yourself? You can also copy any graphic you
want into this folder or browse for another from your hard drive. Usable file types are
BMP, GIF, JPEG, or PNG. However, always use a square picture, to limit the white
space on the side. Your image can be any size but will be displayed as 48x48-pixel
image, so a close-up works best.

Hide yourself

Once you've created a user account, password-protect it to keep other users from
viewing your files, Favorites, and cookies. Why? You may not want your child to see
the note that you're sending to his or her teacher, or you may be planning  someone's surprise party.

(Note: Anyone with an Administrator account can still see them.)

Worried about remembering your password? Create a hint to help you when you
initially create it by following the prompts during setup. XP stores the password hints
in the Registry at Hkey_local_machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Hints.
What if the hint doesn't help? Any user or Administrator can create a password reset
disk, which you can use to log on and create a new password. Go to Control Panel >
User Accounts and select "Prevent a forgotten password" in the Related Tasks box on
the left. Follow the wizard's instructions. After creating the disk, find a safe place for
it. Don't forget the password or where you put the

Not A Tweak, But A Double XP Surprise!

Neither Win2K nor WinME has the ability to create a simple, basic, DOS- based boot
floppy (a "startup disk") unless you jump through hoops or do things in nonstandard
ways. Because XP is the fusion of Win2K and Win9x/ME, I assumed it would follow
the same "no boot floppy" tack. But instead, I was surprised to poke around in XP
and see that the format option there does indeed offer a "Create MS-DOS Startup Disk."

As an experiment, I created a startup disk, and all went smoothly. I was able to use
the disk to boot my PC without any problems. But when it started up, I got the
second surprise. The DOS boot message showed "Microsoft Windows Millennium." To
confirm this, I typed "Ver" to see what version of DOS was running, and the screen
showed: Windows Millennium [Version 4.90.300]

Although it's very strange to see the WinME startup message on an XP-created
floppy, all this means is that Microsoft cribbed a few essential DOS boot files from
WinME, and made it so XP can drop them onto a freshly- formatted floppy for you.
I'm glad they did: It's a very good thing that Microsoft restored the ability to make a
simple boot disk.

Display the Sharing Tab in Folder Properties

In Windows 2000, getting to the Sharing options for a folder was simple: Just right click,
choose Properties, and you'd see a Sharing tab. In Windows XP, this feature is
missing by default, but you can make the system display the Sharing tab if desired.
Simply open up Folder Options (My Computer, then Tools, Folder Options) and
navigate to the View tab. In the Advanced Settings section, scroll down to the
bottom and uncheck Use simple file sharing (Recommended), a Mickey Mouse
feature if there ever was one. Now share your folders on the LAN as you would in
Windows 2000.

Try automatic camera recognition in windows xp

If you have a digital camera, try this trick for downloading pictures to your machine.
Don't load any of the drivers or software that comes with your digital camera.
Instead--if your camera supports USB--connect your camera via a USB port. There's
a good chance that Windows XP will recognize the digicam. After a few moments, the
Scanner And Camera Wizard should start up and walk you through the steps
involved in copying your pictures from the camera to a folder of your choice on your
computer--much faster than doing it manually. You may still need to install your
camera's software if it provides configuration controls you can't access in any other
way, such as those for changing the picture resolution on your camera or the
software's special editing functions.

Disable Automatic Windows Update

Windows XP is configured out of the box to routinely scan for and download updates
to Windows XP automatically. While this can be somewhat convenient for those with
very fast Internet connections and those who would otherwise forget to check for
updates, it can be a nuisance for the rest of us, who are still using 56k or, even
worse 33k modem connections.
To control or disable automatic updating, open the System icon in Control Panel (or
right-click My Computer and select Properties), and choose the Automatic Updating tab.
To check for updates manually, open Internet Explorer and select Windows Update
from the Tools menu.

My Computer Won't Shut Down Itself After Installing XP

There are a number of users who have been complaining that their PC will no longer
automatically power down/shut off without pressing the power off button on the
computers unlike in Windows Me/95/2000. There could be a number of reasons for
this - but the main one seems to be that ACPI is not enabled on the computer or in
Windows XP. Here is how to enable it:
1. Click - Start - Control Panel - Performance and Maintenance - Power Options Tab
2. Then click APM - Enable Advanced Power Management Support

Automatically defrag drives with a new context menu item

Create a new Registry import file named context_defrag.inf in Notepad (be sure to
save with it with the Save as type set to All Files and not Text Documents) and place
the following text inside:
; context_defrag.INF
; Adds Defrag to the right click context menu in Windows XP
[version]
signature="$CHICAGO$"
[DefaultInstall]
AddReg=AddMe
[AddMe]
HKCR,"Drive\Shell\Defrag\command",,,"DEFRAG.EXE %1"
Then, right-click and choose Install. This will add a context menu to XP that allows
you to automatically defrag drives, using the command line version of the built-in
defragmentation utility. To use it, navigate to a drive in My Computer, right-click,
and choose Defrag. A command line window will appear, and that drive will be
defragged. When it's complete, the window just disappears.

Missing Administrator account

Once you have created regular user accounts, the default Administrator account
vanishes from the Welcome screen, which you see when the computer starts up.
Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete twice at the Welcome screen to retrieve the standard logon
dialog. You can log on as Administrator from here. To switch among accounts, just
click the Log Off button on the Start menu. You'll then see the Log Off Windows
dialog box. Click the Switch User button, and you'll be taken to the Welcome screen
where you can select and log on to other accounts.

Disable error reporting

 • Open Control Panel
• Click on Performance and Maintenance.
• Click on System.
• Then click on the Advanced tab
• Click on the error-reporting button on the bottom of the windows.
• Select Disable error reporting.
• Click OK
• Click OK

Adjust various visual effects

 1. Open up the control panel
2. Go under system and click on the advanced tab
3. Click settings under Performance options
4. You can now change various graphical effects (mainly animations and
shadows)

Speed up the Start Menu

The default speed of the Start Menu is pretty slow, but you can fix that by editing a
Registry Key. Fire up the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop\Menu Show Delay
By default, the value is 400. Change this to a smaller value, such as 0, to speed it up.
If this doesn't work for some reason, then you might try the following: Navigate to
Display Properties then Appearance then Advanced and turn off the option titled
Show menu shadow. You will get much better overall performance.

Turn of CD Auto Play

• Open My Computer
• Right click on your CD ROM and choose Properties
• Click on the Auto Play tab
• In the drop down box you can choose the Action for each choice shown in the drop down box
  Or
1. Go to Start->Run->gpedit.msc
2. Computer Config -> Administrative Template -> System
3. Double click Turn off Autoplay
4. Enable it.

Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons

Here's how you can remove those shortcut arrows from your desktop icons in Windows XP.
1. Start regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTlnkfile
3. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.
You may need to restart Windows XP.

Close Multiple Windows : Note works in all versions of Windows

If you just opened a number of separate, related windows (a folder inside a folder,
and so on), there's an easier way to close them all than one-at-a-time. Hold down
the Shift key as you click the X caption button in the upper-right corner of the last
window opened. Doing so closes that window and all windows that came before it.

Disable error reporting

• Open Control Panel
• Click on Performance and Maintenance.
• Click on System.
• Then click on the Advanced tab
• Click on the error-reporting button on the bottom of the windows.
• Select Disable error reporting.
• Click OK
• Click OK

WinXP Clear Page file on shutdown

Go to Control panel Administrative tools, local security policy. then go to local policies
---> security options. Then change the option for "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile"