<a href="http://www.freewebsitedirectory.com">Free Website Directory</a>

.Shutdown, Restart, And Logoff Icons On The Desktop

You might want to have shortcuts on the Desktop for shutdown, hibernation, etc. Right-click on the Desktop and make a new shortcut by selecting New > Shortcut. Then in the Type the location of the item: box, enter “shutdown.exe -s -t 00”, where “00” is the delay in seconds.
(You can increase it.) You will then be asked to select a name (call it “Shutdown”, for example). After creating the shortcut, you can change the icon assigned to it by right clicking on the shortcut and selecting Properties. The window that comes up next has a “Change Icon” option, which is easy to use. For a Restart shortcut, use “shutdown.exe -r -t 00”. Replacing -r by -l

Limit Logon Hours For Users

Parents might want to limit their children’s computer usage, so they can set a time limit only between which they will be automatically allowed to log into their Windows account. Limited usage for particular users for certain time periods can be set through commands.The command for doingthis is:
net user /time:.

For example, “net user Anu /time:M- F,08:00-17:00” will only let the user Anu log in between 8 and 5 from Monday to Friday.

Startbutton in Windows XP displays the System Time

Download starclock.
This tiny piece of code comes with startclock.ini file for making configuration changes such as 12-hour clock with seconds, 24-hour clock, load program at startup, refresh rate (be careful while changing this setting; smaller the number, more the CPU usage) and hide tray icon. To exit
this program, press “Ctrl+Alt+x”. That’sit, now you can save precious space on the taskbar by replacing the clock from the system tray.

1.Replace Microsoft Windows XP “Copying…”animation

The Windows file copying animation is located in shell32.dll. This animation can be replaced or deleted with the help of a tool called Resource Hacker Download it From
http://files1.softwarepod.com/33821/reshack.zip
Shell32.dll can be found in \WINDOWS\system32 directory. Back up this DLL, and open a copy in Resource Hacker.

Make a USB drive a key to boot into XP

For our task, a USB drive of a capacity ofat least 256 MB is required. If we need to include extra utilities, hotfixes, and sevicepacks, then we need at least a 512 MB drive.

Format the drive using "FAT" filesystem.

Registry hacks to Improve performance of Windows XP

1.Load Applications Faster
The Windows prefetcher aims to load applications faster by “pre-fetching” the application and storing it in the pre-fetch cache. You can speed up application loading by changing the default value of one the settings under the relevant key.
Navigate to:
HLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

The default value for the EnablePrefetchersetting is 3.Change this value to 5to make applications load faster. You can experiment with higher values—up to 9—and see if you get a further
improvement.Since this relates to the system, a reboot is required for the change to take effect.

Joss Whedon on his success

A beautiful note from Joss Whedon to the world, his admirers, and his past self, explaining what it feels like to have directed a movie that broke all box-office records for opening weekend:

What doesn't change is anything that matters. What doesn't change is that I've had the smartest, most loyal, most passionate, most articulate group of -- I'm not even gonna say fans. I'm going with "peeps" -- that any cult oddity such as my bad self could have dreamt of. When almost no one was watching, when people probably should have STOPPED watching, I've had three constants: my family and friends, my collaborators (often the same), and y'all. A lot of stories have come out about my "dark years", and how I'm "unrecognized"... I love these stories, because they make me seem super-important, but I have never felt the darkness (and I'm ALL about my darkness) that they described. Because I have so much. I have people, in my life, on this site, in places I've yet to discover, that always made me feel the truth of success: an artist and an audience

Spectrum Fantastic Art Live convention, May 18-20 Kansas City, MO

Bob Self says:

Baby Tattoo Books is thrilled to be co-presenting a first of its kind art convention built around the Spectrum Fantastic Art community. For nearly two decades, the Spectrum juried competition and resulting art annual have promoted and elevated fantasy, science fiction and other genre art to new levels of respectability in the commercial and fine art worlds. Fantastic art is not only visually stunning, it is as professionally viable and significant as any other art form. Spectrum Fantastic Art Live will be a physical, geographically centered gathering of creators and fans of amazing creativity.

Automate the installation of Windows XP

You can create a CD that can install Windows automatically, putting in all the details and answering all the dialog boxes. The secret behind the unattended nature of the whole thing is the answer file, which tells Windows what to do while it’s installing. The answer file can be created using Windows Setup Manager. Using this tool, you can make the answer file so powerful that you can even tell
Windows to include or exclude individual components, set the display resolution, and
more. Here’s how you do it.

Bypass Windows File Protection in Windows XP

There are two different solutions, depending on whether you have SP2 installed or not.

If you don’t have SP2 installed
Locate the file sfc_os.dll, which should be in your System32 folder. Copy it and name it sfc_os.bak. Open this file using a hex editor such as XVI32,which is an excellent freeware. This is an extremely simple edit and does not require an editor with advanced features. All you need to do is change two values. The location of these values will vary depending on whether you’re using Windows XP without a Service Pack or Windows XP with SP1, but the actual hex values to change will be the same.For Windows XP with no Service Pack installed, go to offset 0000E2B8 (E2B8 hex). For Windows XP with SP1, go to offset 0000E3BB (E3BB hex). At those offsets, change the hex values 8BC6 to 9090.Note: Depending on your hex editor, you may see the value separated by a space, as in “8B C6”. If you can’t find the values, do not proceed. It could be that your version of XP is different. The edit as described here only applies to English retail versions of Windows XP.

Create A Special Folder In Windows Explorer

1.In the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID. Create a new1 key with a Globally Unique Identifier(GUID). The GUID is a 128-bit identifier that is usually generated by Windows. This can be a random number that is used touniquely identify COM objects. Create a key using this random GUID:{FD4DF9E0-E3DE-11CE-BFCF-ABCD1DE12345}

Creating A Windows XP Boot CD With SP2

1. First, create a folder on your hard drive e.g. D:\XPCD. Now, copy the entire contents of existing Windows XP CD to this folder. The Windows XP SP2 executable file is an archive of the Service Pack 2 files, so you can use WinZip and extract SP2 files to another folder say D:\SP2. Now, locate update.exe under D:\SP2. This can be found inside the sub-folder named ‘update’. Go to the DOS command prompt and change your directory to this ‘update’ folder. Run the commandcommand “update where/integrate:"(dir)" “(dir)” is the directory you saved the Windows XP CD files to, ( “D:\XPCD” in ourcase). This will start integrating SP2 into the Windows XP Installation files saved at D:\XPCD. You should get message box confirmation that integration was successful.Now the D:\XPCD folder contains Windows XP installation files with SP2 integrated.

Scheduling Connecting And Disconnecting From Your ISP

With many ISPs using PPPoE-based connections, and many ISPs having awkward schemes such as night-unlimited it’s a good idea to schedule your dialling process rather than staying up late at night.Once connected, your downloads can start. You can also schedule to connect to VPNs.

First we create a batch file. Start Notepad (or any other text editor). Enter the following:
RASDIAL

WINDOWS XP Hidden Applications

 

Go to Start > Run and type the executable name (eg: charmap) to run these applications.

Change Your IP in windows xp

1.Goto start>>run>>type 'command' and hit enter

Now you will get an MSDOS prompt screen.

2. Type "ipconfig /release" and hit enter

Create A Bootable XP CD That Pre-installs Additional Programs

To create a bootable XP CD that pre-installs additional programs, first install Windows Unattended CD Creator (WUCC). You need to have Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 or higher installed.Windows Unattended CD Creator is a very small application that will help you create an user-customized Windows bootable CD. You can choose which drivers, components or hot fixes to be installed and you can even set your network settings. All you need to do in a normal Windows installation is taken cared of by this little application, so you can install your operating system in the fastest way possible