10 Ways to make WinXP Run Better

Microsoft ships each copy of Windows with "default" settings that are designed to be "good enough" for most people. The default settings are a kind of lowest common denominator, ensuring that the operating system will work okay for the mythical "average user."

But, if you're reading this, chances are you're not an average user. You probably know that you can unlock much more of your system's potential by changing Windows' default settings to suit your own particular working style and circumstances.

Today, I'll tell you 10 things I do to make my copies of Windows XP Professional run better. I'll also explain why I make these changes, so you can better decide if using the same tweak (or some variation) will work for you.

Of course, 10 is an arbitrary number. There are actually thousands of possible tweaks; Microsoft's printed "XP Resource Kit Documentation" is 1,699 pages long! Some tweaks listed here are "tip of the iceberg" things, and can lead you to additional sublevels of system adjustments to explore.

Each XP user will approach the operating system in a slightly different way. You might rank-order these 10 tweaks differently or develop an entirely different list. In fact, I hope you do. Please check out my 10 tweaks, and then use the discussion area associated with this article to post your own.

By the time we're done, we should have an awesome collection of real-world, real-life tweaks that can help make XP work just the way we want it to--instead of the way Microsoft wants it to.

Before Digging In
Tweaking isn't for everyone. If you're using XP and you like it as-is, leave things alone. Don't make needless changes to your operating system, especially since some changes are hard to undo. Likewise, weigh each suggestion against the likely benefit you'll gain. Don't tear apart a working operating system or subsystem unless you believe the results are truly worth it.

Of course, before you do significant system work on any operating system, always make a full backup. You need to be able to restore things to the way they were before, if a change doesn't work out the way you intended.

In XP, it's also a good idea to make a "Restore Point" (click Control Panel/Performance and Maintenance/System Restore) and select "Create a restore point" before each and every change. System Restore can roll back many minor system changes without requiring you to restore your full backup.

Also, it makes no sense to try to tune and tweak an operating system that's fundamentally incomplete or broken. So, before you start changing anything, right-click on My Computer and select Properties/Hardware/Device Manager to ensure all your hardware is set up and running properly. In addition, use Windows Update to download and install all current patches and driver updates.

Once you're ready to go, dive in!

1) Tune XP's Visual Performance
Depending on how you set it up, XP may have reserved a substantial amount of your CPU horsepower for things like animating various desktop elements, placing shadows under menus and cursors, and rounding the upper corners of open windows. In the aggregate, these visual effects can slow down screen-drawing operations significantly. Also, XP may have selected a "color depth" for your video system in excess of what you really need; this, too, can slow down screen operations.

To adjust the color depth, right click anywhere on an empty portion of your desktop and select Properties/Settings. For most normal business users, the Color Quality setting should be set to Medium (16 bit). Higher settings do matter in photo/video editing and similar applications, but for mundane things like Web browsing, E-mail, and word processing, the Medium setting is fully adequate, and it's faster.

To adjust XP's desktop animations and visual effects, right click on My Computer and select Properties/Advanced/Performance Settings. You can choose to activate/deactivate individual items or use the general "best performance/best appearance" buttons. When you've made a change, click Apply, and you'll see the effects almost immediately. (By the way: Selecting Best Performance makes your desktop look very much like the classic desktop in Win98/Win2K.) Experiment until you've found the mix of speed and visual effects that works best for you.

2) Improve XP's Folder Views
Windows XP's default folder view, with its giant icons, makes me feel as though I'm staring at a coloring book instead of a business computer. But you can easily change the folder view to something more restrained, space-efficient, and useful.

Open My Documents. In the View menu, select Status Bar, List, and Arrange Icons by Name. Next, right click on an empty spot in the My Documents toolbar and select Customize. Choose any of the Available Toolbar Buttons you wish and click Add. (I select the Undo, Delete, Cut, Copy, and Paste buttons.) Exit the dialog.

Now click to the Tools menu and select Folder Options. Under the View tab, tell XP to show you the full path, to show hidden and system files, not to hide any file extensions, and not to hide protected folders--plus any other settings you want. When you have the folder options set the way you desire, click the "Apply to all folders" button at the top of the dialog. This adjusts all windows opened by Explorer, so they'll inherit the visual choices you made for this one window.

3) Customize the Taskbar
Right click on an empty spot in the Task Bar (the bar next to the Start button). Uncheck Lock the Taskbar. This lets you resize various portions of the taskbar the way you want them. Now, explore the other Taskbar settings to see if any will work for you.

One I always select is Toolbars/Desktop. I place the new Desktop toolbar far to the right on the Taskbar, over by the clock area. Whenever I want access to something on the Desktop that's covered with open windows, I can use this new Desktop toolbar as a shortcut to get to the item on the Desktop without having to close or move any open window.

4) Just Say "No" To Phoning-Home
By default, XP wants to contact the Microsoft servers to auto-search for patches, downloads, and updates. It also wants to send Microsoft information about any crashes you experience. The former can be an annoyance if the auto-update cycle kicks in at an inopportune time. The latter is a potential security hole, because the crash-reporting information includes a mini-dump of XP's memory contents; it can include snippets of open documents, passwords you've recently typed, and so on.

You can turn off both behaviors by right clicking on My Computer, selecting Properties, and first choosing the Automatic Updates tab. Select either Turn Off or, minimally, Notify me.

Now select the Advanced tab and click on Error Reporting. Check "Disable error reporting," but leave "notify me when critical errors occur" checked.

5) Control Your Trash
By default, both the Recycle Bin and Internet Explorer's Cache want to consume ridiculous amounts of your hard drive space. Right click on the Recycle Bin, select Properties, and on the Global tab, decide how much space you want the Recycle Bin to consume, either for all drives in your system, or on a per-drive basis. (It's a percentage of the total space. I adjust the slider way to the left, so I'm using "only" a few hundred megs of space for trash.)

Similarly, open Internet Explorer, and select Tools/Internet Options. Under Temporary Internet Files, click the Settings button and select a reasonable size for this cache area. Generally speaking, if you have a fast connection, 5 Mbytes to 10 Mbytes is adequate; 25 Mbytes or so is usually enough with a slower dial-up connection.

6) Rein In System Restore
Like the items in No. 5, above, System Restore is an incredible space hog. It might be worth it, if System Restore were a truly complete and foolproof form of backup, but it's not. At best, System Restore can and will get the core operating system running again after a bad crash, but it doesn't return all files to the pre-trouble state, and it can't remove all traces of a program that went bad. As a result, System Restore's usefulness is limited, and so should be its appetite for disk space.

Right click on My Computer, select Properties, and select the System Restore tab. Select your main drive (usually C:), click Settings, and move the slider to reserve a reasonable amount of disk space. With a good regimen of daily backups, you can even move the slider all the way to the left. (I do.)

If you have more than one drive, you may wish to turn off System Restore entirely for non-system drives. There's little, if any, benefit to be gained by having them monitored. And if you're really religious about making a full backup before you alter your system or install new software, you may wish to completely turn off System Restore for all drives.

7) Improve XP's Virtual Memory Settings
On its own, Windows places your "swapfile" or "paging file" (a portion of your hard drive that's used as a kind of pseudo-RAM) on your C: drive, and sets it up so it can grow and shrink as needed. However, you may be able to do better. For example, if you have more than one physical disk in your system, you may get better performance from either placing the swapfile on the lesser-used disk (assuming it's the same speed as the primary disk) or by splitting the swapfile across two disks. You also may see modest improvements in responsiveness if you set the swapfile to a fixed size, so Windows won't waste time growing and shrinking the file on demand.

Swapfile management has been somewhat of a black art in previous versions of Windows, but the XP Help System actually has good information on the subject (a first for Windows!). Select Help And Support from the Start menu, and do a search for "virtual memory." Be sure to check out the "related topics" delivered by the search for additional good information.

8) Control XP's Hidden Devices
For reasons known only to the programmers in Redmond, XP may deliberately hide certain system devices from you. While this might make a kind of sense in, say, XP Home edition, these devices remain hidden even in the Professional edition.

For example, if you're used to Windows 98's networking applet, you may be surprised by how clean and uncluttered XP's networking applet is. But XP may simply be hiding lots of networking elements from you. To see if this is the case, right click on My Computer, select Properties, Hardware, and Device Manager. In Device Manager, select View and Show Hidden Devices.

Depending on how XP was set up, you may find a number of networking devices--"Miniports"--that the Networking applet didn't display. In my case, I found unnecessary PPOE, PPTP, L2TP, and Dial Out elements. I disabled all these unneeded elements, leaving only the IP miniport enabled, and thus restored some sense of control over my networking setup. Depending on how your system is set up, you may find other hidden devices, or no others. It varies hugely. But at least now you'll know if XP is hiding things from you.

9) Take The Brakes Off Your Network Settings
XP's default network settings for Maximum Transmission Unit, Receive Window, and such, may or may not be ideal for your circumstances. The only way to know is to take a close look: For example, DSL Reports and SpeedGuide have excellent free information, online tests, and even one-click tweaks that can automatically optimize all or some of XP's internal plumbing for high-speed connectivity. DSL Reports also offers a free, simple network tweaking tool called DrTCP that lets you instantly and easily adjust a variety of parameters; this tool makes iterative testing a snap, as you experiment to find the best settings for your particular setup.

(Incidentally, when WinXP-specific solutions aren't offered, use those for Windows 2000; that's the closest match for XP.)

10) Lock The Door
XP has a built-in desktop firewall, but it's turned off by default. To turn it on: Right click on My Network Places, Properties, right click on your connection (e.g. Local Area Connection), select Properties again, then Advanced, and then click the box for Protect My Computer.

But note that the built-in firewall is very basic, as the free LeakTest tool will demonstrate for you. A third-party firewall (such as ZoneAlarm will do a much better job than XP's built-in firewall.

Try fixing your computer yourself as a last resort

THE USER WHO FIXED HIS OWN COMPUTER (AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE)

You've tried escalating your tech-support concerns to the top of the food chain. You've threatened to call the Better Business Bureau. You've even sent boxes of candy to all the techies you've talked to in an attempt to sweeten them up. But still, you can't get your tech-support problem solved. When all else fails, you may need to overcome your personal fear factor and take matters into your own hands.

Casting out the ghosts in your machine doesn't have to be terrifying, provided you follow a few simple steps.



1. Before you dig in, see if other vendors can help. Got display problems? Call your video card maker. You say your Wi-Fi connection won't fly? Try the company that makes your wireless card. Best Buy maintains a directory of support numbers for hundreds of manufacturers. At the very least, support FAQs on vendor Web sites might provide some clues.

Has your system gone psycho? It may be due to an outdated hardware driver. Use XP's Device Manager to check on drivers for key components and update them.

2. Make sure your hardware is using the latest drivers. Video card drivers in particular can be a source of many conflicts. In Windows XP, open the Control Panel, launch System, click the Hardware tab, and click the Device Manager button. Double-click a device category to expand the list, then double-click the name of a device. Select the Driver tab and click Update Driver. (If that makes matters worse, you can click the Roll Back Driver button to go back to the previous one.)

3. Update whenever possible. New bugs are constantly being discovered (and swatted), so make sure your software is up to date. Certain credit cards run Windows Update and install any updates marked "critical." Check whether other software you use offers update options; it can often be found under the Help or Tools menus.

4. Google your gripes. If you're getting an error message, type the exact message inside quote marks in your favorite search engine. Odds are you'll find a user forum or a vendor support page that addresses your issue.

5. Consider the big guns. When your problem is serious and the manufacturer's support is useless or your machine is out of warranty, you may need to call in the pros. Best Buy's Geek Squad (800/433-5778) will try to fix your computer no matter where you bought it or whose name is on the outside of the box. But its prices can be a little scary: Phone support ranges from $30 per incident for simple stuff, such as installing software, to $80 for complicated problems, such as virus infestations. Onsite support starts at $129 and goes up, depending on exactly how big a mess you've gotten yourself into.

You can also subscribe to Ask Dr. Tech (800/275-3783), which charges $24 per month for phone support, while onsite repair plans start at $39 per month. If your machine is still covered under the manufacturer's warranty, having someone else work on it could void the agreement, so use this option as a last resort.

Avoid crashes with Media Center in standby mode

The icy hand of standby mode

Most desktop users learned long ago to steer clear of standby mode, while notebook users tend to avoid it unless absolutely necessary. But Media Center PCs live and die by standby; it's the TV equivalent of off. Unfortunately, every time you put your system to sleep, there's a risk it'll wake up...dead. OK, maybe not dead, but crashed--and therefore unable to record scheduled shows. Sometimes the problems are less severe, such as a lost Wi-Fi connection. Even so, it's enough to make you long for your old VCR. At least it never crashed.

While there are steps you can take to minimize problems, we've yet to encounter a crashproof system.

Steps to overcome or prevent problems.

1. Ditch Wi-Fi.

System crashes can keep Media Center from recording TV shows. Regular rebooting can keep problems to a minimum.

Media Centers with built-in (or PCI card-based) Wi-Fi tend to have fewer problems than those that rely on external USB Wi-Fi adapters. For whatever reason, USB devices and standby mode don't always cooperate. But even onboard Wi-Fi can get stuck in the mud, leaving you without access to Internet radio, EPG updates, and so on. The solution? Ditch Wi-Fi and run an Ethernet cable from your Media Center to your router or modem. Either that or...

2. Reboot regularly. We've noticed that standby-related crashes and Wi-Fi outages tend to occur after our system has been running for several days. By rebooting regularly, we've been able to reduce the frequency of these problems. You can automate this process with a utility such as AutoShutdown (www.barefootinc.com), which will resume and restart your system at a scheduled time. (Just make sure that time doesn't conflict with a scheduled recording.)

How not to get hacked

It's important to know how not to get hacked. The following details the layers of security you can place on your wireless network, as well as the effectiveness of each layer.

In some ways, securing a network is like the security on your home:

• Leave the front door wide open. Seen by curious honest people and criminals alike as an open invitation to enter. See, it even says ‘Welcome’ on the doormat!

• Shut the front door. This will keep out an honest person, but a crook wouldn’t be deterred, as they’ll walk right up and try the handle.

• Lock the front door. This will again keep out the opportunist thief who will only try the door handle or climb in open a window to see if he can get it. Luckily most criminals fall into this category, so lock your door!

• Bolt the door with deadbolts, bars on the windows, and alarms. It takes a lot more to keep out the determined criminal who, with a little equipment and know-how, might pick the lock, disable your alarm, or break your whole door down!

Wireless security falls into the same categories:

Leaving the door open: an open invitation

• Broadcasting a default SSID

• No MAC filtering

• No encryption

• DHCP switched on/No access controls

Shutting the door:

• Changing the SSID (the name) of your network and disabling SSID broadcast. The determined hacker can discover this, so it merely protects you from the opportunist who’s in a hurry.

• Disabling DHCP/Access Control. This will not stop a hacker with even minimal knowledge, as there are many tools which will sniff out available IP addresses on your network

• MAC address filtering. A hacker with only a little know-how will be able to clone your MAC address--and see everything you see on your network.

Locking the door

• WEP: Wireless Encryption Protocol can be hacked in seconds using free tools that are widely available.

Bolting the door

• WPA: A randomized pre-shared key of at least 10 characters would take half-a-million years to crack. More info about this here. (Note: A random key means that it shouldn’t be a word that exists in any dictionary (hackers have extensive dictionaries that include all common passwords, English words, nicknames, and misspellings of words. This is called a “dictionary attack.”) A random key is a meaningless mix of lower- and uppercase letters and numbers, and sometimes special characters like punctuation, depending on whether your router supports it). If you’re not sure how to get a random key, you can generate a simple WPA key online on Kathies Website or a more complex one here. You can also get software that will generate a key for you (type “software generate wpa key” into your favorite search engine).

It’s best to build up each type of security in layers, checking that all devices can connect and communicate at each step before adding another layer. Make sure you read your router’s manual to ensure you’re storing the settings correctly (some routers require you to save the settings each time you make a change or the changes will be lost).

Tricks for installing a wireless router

The trick to successfully installing your router is to read the manual. Every router is different; even two models from the same manufacturer can have significant differences. Familiarizing yourself with the manual will help your success in the long term.

There are two steps to installing a wireless router:

1. The first is hooking it up and switching on the wireless aspect. You need that wired connection first so that you can set up the wireless aspect.
2. The second part is setting up your broadband connection. That is usually just a case of pointing the DNS to the modem. Most setup installations will guide you to do this. Of course, this is assuming you have a broadband modem and not an integrated wireless router and modem in one. If that’s the case, you’re going to have to hit the books…and read the manual!

One of the things that freaks people out most is the fear of putting a wrong setting into the router. Don’t worry. There is always a reset option that will allow you to easily take it back to the factory settings.

Also, always be sure to make notes about what you’re doing every step of the way. That way you can easily go back on what you just did.

Protect your wireless network from hackers

TALES FROM THE CRYPTOGRAPHER

It would send chills down your spine to learn how easy it is for others to connect to your Wi-Fi network and put your computers under their spell. If your computer has been acting funny lately, working fine at times while slowing to a crawl at others, it may have crossed over to the dark side and could be spamming your friends and scamming your parents.

A home network brings many benefits, but it can also expose new evils. Both your Internet connection and your wireless router are potential points of entry for the bad guys. Hackers can probe for your computers over the Internet and turn them into zombies if they are unprotected. Worms and viruses can slither their way through your network, burrowing more holes into your PC than a maggot-infested corpse, and the thief parked on the street where you live can set up shop with the help of your Wi-Fi connection.

Here are a few tips that will keep hackers and freeloaders at bay.

1. Use encryption to protect your wireless network. It sounds trivial, but consider this: wireless data is transmitted over the air. This makes it far more exposed than data transmitted over a cable. To hack into an Ethernet network, you either need to force entry through an Ethernet connection or you need access to the Ethernet cable, which you can lock behind a door; but to pry into a wireless network, you need only be within range. A would-be intruder can park in the street where you live and do her dirty work from the privacy of her car, without risking the unpleasantries of breaking and entering.

Use a passphrase to configure WEP.

You can protect your wireless network by encrypting it. Virtually all Wi-Fi gear supports an encryption scheme called WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). WEP scrambles data transmitted over your network, making it difficult to decipher. Even better, setting up WEP is easy. In most cases, you merely enter a passphrase into the configuration settings of each device on your network. The devices use the passphrase to generate a WEP key, which is used to encrypt and decrypt data transmitted over the network.

Configure the computers on your network with static IP addresses.

2. Lock down your LAN. An always-on broadband connection is convenient, but it's also a magnet for hackers and script kiddies, giving them a target that is open 24/7. You can use a firewall to thwart attacks on your network that use your Internet connection as their point of entry. Most wireless routers come with an integrated NAT firewall. NAT stands for network address translation and is used to hide the IP addresses of the PCs on your network behind your router's IP address. From the Internet, your network appears to consist of only one device, your router. This makes it more difficult for intruders to identify the computers on your network. NAT, however, is relatively dumb. It maps the addresses of the computers on your network to the IP address of the router, but it doesn't inspect the data inside the packets passing through your router. For that, you need a second firewall that performs stateful packet inspection, or SPI. An SPI firewall can determine if an incoming data packet is a legitimate response to a request from one of your computers. Not all routers include an SPI firewall, so keep a lookout for it when you buy your gear.

3. Don't make it easy for criminals. Most consumer networking gear is designed to be easy to use out of the box. Easy setup might leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling after the initial setup, but a foolproof setup routine can also leave your network vulnerable to unwanted visitors. For example, routers use DHCP, dynamic host configuration protocol, to automatically handle the IP address information for the computers on your network. But handing out IP address information automatically makes it easy for unwanted guests to join your network. Consider manually assigning static IP addresses to your computers and turning off your router's DHCP server. To manually configure an IP address, right-click the Network Neighborhood icon and select Properties. A window appears listing your network adapters. Right-click the adapter you use to connect to your LAN and select Properties. In the "Local area connection properties" window that appears, select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click the button marked Properties. This window allows you to use a prespecified IP address, subnet mask, default gateway (in this case, your router), and DNS server. Check Wednesday's nightmare for more information about assigning IP address information.

If you have a wireless router, it probably advertises its network name, or SSID, at regular intervals to any device within range, making it easy for others to join your wireless network. Some routers let you turn off the beacon that puts your SSID on the air for everyone to see. Since your computers presumably already know your wireless network's SSID and have profiles instructing them to use it for their connection, consider turning off your router's beacon. Though not all routers let you turn the beacon off, many do. Check the router's browser-based configuration tool for a beacon switch.

Optimize your router for a stable wireless connection

HOUSE OF SCREAMING RADIOS

Say you're approaching the end of a large download, and in the middle of a Skype call to clients in China, without warning, your Wi-Fi connection drops, leaving your download and VoIP call in limbo. You retry the wireless connection, but your router, though blinking contentedly in your den, seems to be off the air. Two hours later, for no apparent reason, your Wi-Fi connection miraculously resurfaces.

Wireless networking can be a blessing and a curse: great when it works and a mind-numbing frustration when it doesn't. A common complaint among many who have moved to Wi-Fi is that their wireless connection mysteriously fades in and out.

These steps will help you create a stable, always-on wireless connection.

1. Change channels. Interference is a likely cause of intermittent connections, such as the one described above. All 802.11b and 802.11g networks operate at 2.4GHz, in a small swath of spectrum once used primarily by ham-radio hobbyists. Today, these radios, plus other Wi-Fi gear, Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors, and wireless surveillance equipment, all crowd the spectrum. When these devices compete for the same airspace, they interfere with each other, potentially blocking each other's signals. Luckily, there are ways to sidestep and minimize interference in many situations. In the United States, 802.11b and 802.11g devices can be configured to operate at any one of 11 channels. Unfortunately, these channels overlap with adjacent channels, so you have only 3 nonoverlapping channels at your disposal: channels 1, 6, and 11. If you and your neighbor both have a wireless network, both of which are set to channel 6, you may experience interference. You can remedy the problem by resetting your wireless router to a different, preferably nonoverlapping, channel, in this case, either 1 or 11.

A power-line access point can help you expand your wireless network.

2. Replace your cordless phone. Cordless phones are among the worst sources of interference for wireless networks. They tend to transmit at a higher power output than Wi-Fi gear, making them louder and therefore harder to talk over, and they tend to transmit frequently, especially when the handset and base station are separated. Some 2.4GHz cordless phones let you select a channel, in which case you can try separating the phone's frequency from the frequency of your wireless network. For example, set your phone to channel 1 and your wireless router to channel 11. If your phone doesn't let you select a channel, try putting some distance between your phone and your router. Generally, it's not a good idea to place a cordless phone next to a Wi-Fi router. If this doesn't help, consider replacing your 2.4GHz phone with a 5GHz phone. This way, your phone and network won't be sharing the same airspace and won't interfere with each other.

3. Expand your wireless network. The farther you are from your wireless router, the greater the potential for interference to block or to slow your connection. For example, you may be able to connect just fine in your house, but on your patio, you may have an intermittent connection that disappears whenever your neighbor is using her cordless phone. The signal on your patio may be too weak to cope with the interference coming from the house next door. You can strengthen the connection with antennas or repeaters, as discussed in Monday's nightmare, or you can use a power-line bridge to import the connection from your router to your patio and feed it into a power-line access point. Instead of the weak signal from your distant router, you now have a strong signal from an access point placed right where you want to buttress your coverage area.