Customize XP Tips

1.      Disable XP Error Reporting

a.       Right click on My Computer choose Properties

b.      In System Properties click on Advanced

c.       In Advanced click on Error Reporting

d.      Check "Disable error reporting"

e.       Leave unchecked field "But notify me when critical errors occur"

 

2.      Hide User Accounts from users

a.       Go to Start/Run, and type: GPEDIT.MSC

b.      Open the path User Config > Admin Templates > Control Panel

c.       double-click "Hide specified Control Panel applets"

d.      put a dot in enabled, then click Show, click Add button, type nusrmgt.cpl into the add box

 

3.      Create Your Own Logon Message

a.       Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

b.      Drill down to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

c.       Right-click LegalNoticeCaption, click Modify, type My Windows XP Machine, and then click OK.

d.      Right-click LegalNoticeText, click Modify, and then type your message.

e.       Close the editor and your new message will appear at every log on.

f.       This tip applies to computers that are part of a domain.

g.      For stand-alone or peer-to-peer networks, the custom screen appears just before the Welcome screen.

 

4.      Disable balloon tips

a.       Run regedit and Navigate to Key: HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentV ersion\Explorer\Advanced

b.      then set the value of 'EnableBalloonTips' to 0.

 

5.      Create your own popup menu in the taskbar

a.       You can create your own popup window other than START MENU in the taskbar.

b.      Put all the shortcuts to the applications that you want to popup in a folder.

c.       Then you right click on taskbar >toolbars >new toolbar > and select the folder

 

6.      Reset Your Password On XP

a.       Restart you computer, press F8 and select "Safe Mode"

b.      After getting to the user menu. Click on a user and this time it will not ask you for a password

c.       Go to Start >Run and type "CMD"

d.      At command prompt type in "cd C:\Windows\System32".

e.       For safety purposes first make a backup of your Logon.Scr file. You can do this by typing in "Copy to Logon.scr to Logon.bak"

f.       Then type "copy CMD.EXE Logon.scr"

g.      Then type this command, assuming that you want to set Administrator password to "MyNewPass"

h.      Type this "net user administrator MyNewPass"

i.        You will get a message saying that it was successful, this means Administrator's new password is "MyNewPass"

j.        Restart the PC and you will login as Administrator with your chosen password

 

7.      Shutting down Windows XP faster

a.       Click on Start, run, type REGEDIT

b.      Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentCo ntrolSet\Control

c.       Click on the "Control" Folder.

d.      Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" Right click on it and select Modify.

e.       Set it a value lower than 4000

 

8.      Start up without needing to enter a user name or password.

a.       Select Run from the start menu and type "control userpasswords2" which will open the user accounts application.

b.      On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK.

c.       An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.

 

9.      Disable the SP antivirus and firewall functions

a.       HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\

b.      AntiVirusDisableNo tify=dword :00000001

c.       FirewallDisableNot ify=dword: 00000001

d.      AntiVirusOverride=dword:00000001

e.       FirewallOverride=dword:00000001

 

10.  Turn off Auto Updates

a.       HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update\

b.      AUOptions=dword:00000001

c.       HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center

d.      UpdatesDisableNotify=dword:00000001

 

11.  Turn off the SP2 firewall

a.       HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsFirewall\DomainProfile

b.      EnableFirewall=dword:00000000

 

12.  turn off firewall policy for domain profile

a.       HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsFirewall\StandardProfile

b.      EnableFirewall=dword:00000000

Repairing Windows XP

Most of us have seen it at one time or another; perhaps on our own PC, the PC of a loved one, or perhaps a PC at your place of employment. The system spends weeks or months operating in a smooth fashion, taking you to the far reaches of the wide, wibbly web, and after one particularly late evening of browsing and gaming, you shut your PC off and go to bed. Millions of people across the globe do just this every night, but a few of us have turned our PCs on the next day not to the standard Windows XP loading screen, but instead this dreaded error:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\CONFIG\\SYSTEM

You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup using the original Setup CD-ROM.

Select 'R' at the first screen to start repair.

Which renders your PC inaccessible from the standard boot procedures of Windows XP. You try safe mode, to no avail. You're particularly savvy and try issuing the FIXBOOT and FIXMBR commands in the Windows recovery console, but after each reboot, you're merely greeted with the same obnoxious and terrifying blue screen of death that's preventing you from accessing your precious data.

Perhaps you've also seen these error screens:

Windows NT could not start because the below file is missing or corrupt:

X:\\WINNT\\System32\\Ntoskrnl.exe
_________________

Windows NT could not start because the below file is missing or corrupt:

X:\\WINNT\\System32\\HAL.dll
_________________

NTLDR is Missing
Press any key to restart
_________________

Invalid boot.ini
Press any key to restart

Get to the Windows Recovery Console for your particular Windows installation, navigate to the root letter of your installation ( C: in most cases), issue eight commands, and reboot. The cornerstone of this process is a command called "BOOTCFG /Rebuild" which is a complete diagnostic of the operating system loaded into the recovery console; the purpose of the command is to remove/replace/repair any system files that were preventing the operating system from loading correctly. Amongst the files it fixes are:

• Windows Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)
• Corrupt registry hives (\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\CONFIG\\xxxxxx)
• Invalid BOOT.INI files
• A corrupt NTOSKRNL.EXE
• A missing NT Loader (NTLDR)

The command process may apply to other types of blue screens or Hive/HAL/INI/EXE/DLL-related stop errors, but I have not had the luxury of computers in this type of disrepair. The process I am about to outline is virtually harmless, and if you feel you may be able to correct your PC's boot-time blue screens and stop errors with the sequence, feel free to try.

Let us now begin with a step-by-step instruction for correcting these issues.

Getting to the Windows Recovery Console

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD and assure that your CD-ROM drive is capable of booting the CD. Configuring your computer to boot from CD is outside of the scope of this document, but if you are having trouble.
2. Once you have booted from CD, do not select the option that states: "Press F2 to initiate the Automated System Recovery (ASR) tool." You're going to proceed until you see the following screen, at which point you will press the " R" key to enter the recovery console:
3. After you have selected the appropriate option from step two, you will be prompted to select a valid Windows installation (Typically number " 1"). Select the installation number, (As mentioned, "1" in most cases), and hit enter. If there is an administrator password for the administrator account, enter it and hit enter. You will be greeted with this screen, which indicates a recovery console at the ready:

Proceeding With the Repair Functions

• There are eight commands you must enter in sequence to repair any of the issues I noted in the opening of this guide. I will introduce them here, and then show the results graphically in the next six steps. These commands are as follows:
  • C: CD ..
  • C: ATTRIB -H C:\\boot.ini
  • C:ATTRIB -S C:\\boot.ini
  • C:ATRIB -R C:\\boot.ini
  • C: del boot.ini
  • C: BOOTCFG /Rebuild
  • C: CHKDSK /R /F
  • C: FIXBOOT
• To "Go up a directory" in computing is to revert back to the directory above the current folder you're operating in. If, for example, I'm in the C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32 directory, and I want to get at a file in the WINDOWS directory, I would merely type CD .. and I would be taken out of the SYSTEM32 folder and up one level to WINDOWS. We're going to do the same thing here from the WINDOWS folder to get to the basic root of C:

Now that we are at C: we can begin the process of repairing the operating system and that begins with modifying the attributes of the BOOT.INI file. Briefly, BOOT.INI controls what operating systems the Windows boot process can see, how to load them, and where they're located on your disk. We're going to make sure the file is no longer hidden from our prying eyes, remove the flag that sets it as an undeletable system file, and remove the flag that sets it as a file we can only read, but not write to. To do this, we will issue three commands in this step:

• C:ATTRIB -H C:\\BOOT.INI
• C:ATTRIB -R C:\\BOOT.INI
• C:ATTRIB -S C:\\BOOT.INI

to remove the Hidden, System and Read Only flags.

Now that we've modified the attributes for the BOOT.INI file, it's up for deletion. The syntax for it is simple: { DEL | FILE NAME }, e.g., C:DEL BOOT.INI deletes the BOOT.INI file.

Now for the most important step of our process, the BOOTCFG /REBUILD command which searches for pre-existing installations of Windows XP and rebuilds sundry essential components of the Windows operating system, recompiles the BOOT.INI file and corrects a litany of common Windows errors. It is very important that you do one or both of the following two things: First, every Windows XP owner must use /FASTDETECT as an OS Load Option when the rebuild process is finalizing. Secondly, if you are the owner of a CPU featuring Intel's XD or AMD's NX buffer overflow protection, you must also use /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN as an OS Load Option. I will demonstrate both commands for the purpose of this guide, but do not set NOEXECUTE as a load option if you do not own one of these CPUs. For the "Enter Load Identifier" portion of this command, you should enter the name of the operating system you have installed. If, for example, you are using Windows XP Home, you could type "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" for the identifier. This gives the process some authenticity, if you're keen on being a perfectionist.

This step verifies the integrity of the hard drive containing the Windows XP installation. While this step is not an essential function in our process, it's still good to be sure that the drive is physically capable of running windows, in that it contains no bad sectors or other corruptions that might be the culprit. No screenshot necessary here! Just type CHKDSK /R /F at the C:> prompt. Let it proceed; it could take in excess of 30 minutes on slower computers, when this is finished move on to the seventh and final step.

This last step also requires no screenshot. When you are at the C:> prompt, simply type FIXBOOT. This writes a new boot sector to the hard drive and cleans up all the loose ends we created by rebuilding the BOOT.INI file and the system files. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are " Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ?" just hit "Y," then enter to confirm your decision.

Results and Wrap-Up

It's time to reboot your PC by typing EXIT in the Windows Recovery Console and confirming the command with a stroke of the enter key. With any luck, your PC will boot successfully into Windows XP as if your various DLL, Hive, EXE and NTLDR errors never existed. You've just saved yourself from many hours of work, frustration, potential data loss and shelling out your hard-earned greenbacks at a brick'n'mortar operation.

Keep in mind that this solution is only designed to resolve the issues introduced in the preface if the cause is unrelated to spyware and viruses If you believe your PC has affected one of these symptoms due to spyware or viruses, today's fastest-growing PC nuisance, please  do a removal and repair.

Uninstall Windows Componants

Uninstall Windows Messenger
Click Start > Run and type the following command: Rundll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

Removing and then Reinstalling NetMeeting
1. Copy the Msnetmtg.inf file from the %SystemRoot%\Inf folder to your desktop.

2. Click Start, click Run, type the following command: Rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection NetMtg.Remove 132 msnetmtg.inf
NOTE: This command is case-sensitive so you must type it exactly as it appears.

3. Right-click the Msnetmtg.inf file that you copied to your desktop, and then click Install. If you are prompted, insert your Windows 2000 CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive.

4. After the installation procedure is finished, restart your computer.

How to Make the (bootsect.dos) file

MAKE THE BOOT SECTOR FILE

You must now make a BOOTSECT.DOS file from the boot sector of the DOS partition and store it on C:\ (i.e., in the root directory of the NTFS partition).

Note that you cannot simply copy a BOOTSECT.DOS file from another installation, because the boot sector contains an internal table (used to locate the root directory) that describes the physical layout of the drive and partition on which it was created, e.g., the number of heads, the number of sectors per track, the location of the partition in sectors from the start of the drive, the size of the File Allocation Table, etc. This physical information will not, in general, be correct unless you're copying it from a system with an identical partitioning layout on an identical hard drive (not just the same capacity, but the same number of cylinders, heads, and sectors per track).

To capture the DOS partition's boot sector, log on to your NT system as Administrator. Copy the following text into a new file called READ.SCR:

L 100 * 0 1
N C:\BOOTSECT.DOS
R BX
0
R CX
200
W
Q

...where the "*" in the first command is replaced by the number corresponding to the drive letter of the DOS partition. Use 2 = C, 3 = D, 4 = E, and so on (the letters are those assigned to the partitions when running under NT). As an example, if the DOS partition is drive letter E:, the command would be "L 100 4 0 1". Note that the partition number is entered in hexadecimal, so that drive letter J: is 9, K: is 0A, L: is 0B, etc.

Once you have made this text file, start an NT command prompt, change directories to the location of this text file, and run the DEBUG program as follows:

(debug <read.scr)

This will create the file C:\BOOTSECT.DOS from the boot sector on the DOS partition. If the DEBUG command reports any errors, check your text file carefully to see if you made an error in entering the commands.

You can verify that the boot sector was correctly written to the BOOTSECT.DOS file by examining the file with a hex dump program (or by using DEBUG). Look at the first few bytes and also at the last few bytes for the following strings:

First bytes           Last bytes            Boots Which Operating System
--------------------  --------------------  ----------------------------
MSDOS5                IO SYSMSDOS SYS       DOS
MSDOS5                NTLDR                 Windows NT
MSWIN4                WINBOOT SYS           Windows 95 

USING NT DEBUG TO VIEW THE BOOTSECT FILES

1. Start an NT command prompt.
2. Enter the command "debug c:\bootsect.dos" (or "debug c:\bootsect.w40").
3. At the "-" prompt, enter the command "d 100 L 100" to see the first half of the file.
4. At the "-" prompt, enter the command "d 200 L 100" to see the second half of the file.
5. At the "-" prompt, enter the command "q" to quit back to the command prompt.