Tag: registry

Process Monitor 2.0 for Vista and XP

October 02, 2008 by Jason

At the start of September 2008, Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich revealed that he was cooking a major update for Process Monitor, one of the components of the Sysinternals suite. As of September 30, version 2.0 of Process Monitor became available for download. The
description of the tool authored by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell reveals that Process Monitor 2.0 is designed to integrate seamlessly with both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 2000 SP4 with Update Rollup 1, Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows Vista.

“Process Monitor v2.0: this major update to Process Monitor adds real-time TCP and UDP monitoring to its existing process, thread, DLL, file system and registry monitoring. You can now see the TCP and UDP activity processes performed, including the operation (e.g. connect, send, receive), local and remote IP addresses and DNS names, and operation transfer lengths. On Windows Vista, Process Monitor also collects thread stacks for network operations,” revealed Curtis Metz, Program Manager, Microsoft Sysinternals. Read More»

Registry Tweaks to Enhance Your Windows XPerience

September 17, 2008 by Jason

You may ask yourselves, why should this article be any different from all those tweaking tutorials around the Internet or, better yet, why should you read this when you can install a program that does it all for you? Here’s why: this article will help you make important changes to your system with just two windows opened: this one and a notepad. That’s all! No need to click your way through dozens of windows, no need to go through the risk of pushing the wrong button and crashing your operating system.

Furthermore, you don’t have to pay a single cent! Why pay for a program to do what you yourselves can do in just a few seconds? And last but not least, you will be able to choose from a list only the tweaks that you’re interested in and then apply them on any computer, at any time with just a double-click. Tweaking can hardly get any easier than that! Think how cool that would be, especially after reinstalling Windows.

Let’s start by creating the file that will do all the magic. Right-click on your desktop, create a new text document and name it tweaks.reg. Windows will ask if you’re sure that you want to change the file extension – click Yes. Right-click the file and choose Edit: a blank notepad window will appear. There are two things you must keep in mind: first of all, for the magic to work your text document must start with ‘Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00′. Secondly, later on, be very patient when copying something to paste it in your document. If you copy an incomplete text, the tweak will not work and you might alter other system settings. Read More»

Making 64-bit Vista SP1 Say It’s Vista SP1

August 26, 2008 by Jason

Making a 64-bit copy of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 confirm that it is actually Vista SP1 might require a minimum amount of effort on behalf of the end user, such as right-clicking My Computer and selecting Properties, but things are a tad different when an application is programmed to identify the operating system versions or the service pack releases. According to Scott McArthur, Support Escalation engineer with the Setup & Cluster team, Microsoft Corporation Enterprise Support, application compatibility problems can emerge when a program will look for the service pack version in the wrong location in the registry. The example given involved an application designed especially for Vista SP1 failing to install on an x64 copy of Vista SP1.

“The application was checking for the OS version in a registry value, specifically: HKLM – SOFTWARE – Wow6432Node – Microsoft – Windows NT – CurrentVersion – CSDVersion. On the x64 version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, however this value does not exist. The correct value does show up under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE – SOFTWARE – Microsoft – Windows NT – CurrentVersion – CSDVersion however. This highlights an inherent problem with relying on the registry method to capture this information. Read More»

Sysinternals Desktops 1.0 for Vista SP1

August 23, 2008 by Jason

Desktops 1.0 from Sysinternals is designed to kick the flexibility of the Windows desktop up a notch. The solution to an overcrowded working space has always been simple, and Microsoft is by no means reinventing the wheel. What the Sysinternals utility will do, is allow the end users to stretch across no less than four desktops, delivering much precious real estate area. Users will subsequently be able to jump between desktops using either keyboard shortcuts or the tray icon.

“Desktops allows you to organize your applications on up to four virtual desktops. Read email on one, browse the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the windows you’re not using. After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the hotkeys,” reads the tool’s description.

Of course that Desktops 1.0 can be downloaded to the desktop and integrated with the operating system. Or it can be run remotely via Live.Sysinternals.com. The tool will integrate seamlessly with both Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3. In addition to Desktops 1.0, which went live on August 21, Microsoft has also updated AutoRuns for Windows which has now reached version 9.33. Read More»

Do You Want to Increase Your Internet Speed?

August 10, 2008 by Jason

A fast PC has little to do with the Internet speed up situation. Oftentimes, making simple adjustments to a computer will enable it to load web pages faster.

Clearing the clutter that gets downloaded into the PC or switching to a better Internet service provider that does not clog up PCs will often do the trick. But achieving an Internet speed up necessitates a number of things.

Internet Speed Up Pointers

The download speed often boils down to how well and how efficiently a site was created by its website designer. Many websites aren’t organized enough to allow for quick downloads. Some of them feature content that take ages to load, hence the sluggish Internet speed. Here are Internet speed up tips you should know that can help speed up download activities. Read More»

How To Deal with Uninstall Problems in Windows

July 23, 2008 by Jason

Although most Windows software comes with an installation program, there can still be problems if you install or uninstall software. A failed installation can cause the installation not to be redone without clearing the failed installation. Unfortunately a failed installation can often not be undone, which means you are stuck with a chicken and egg situation.

Another common situation is when you installed a trial of a software product and after expiration you need to uninstall it before you can install a registered version. In case the uninstall process is not complete, chances are the software will keep on indicating the expired status.

If the standard uninstaller for the program does not work, you can try to manually remove the software. This means that the related files need to be removed from disk and all related configuration data needs to be removed. Some (older) software uses local configuration files that reside with the program in the installation directory, but most software will use the Windows registry to store configuration information. Read More»

Optimize Windows XP Memory Use

July 12, 2008 by Jason

You think you have a lot of memory (RAM) in your computer and still you are getting out of memory errors? This can indeed happen if you are running many applications or memory intensive applications under Windows XP.

There are different reasons for this, one being the memory fragmentation in Windows XP. Like a hard disk, memory can become fragmented. Further some memory is not always immediately released, like DLL (dynamic Link Library) memory. If a DLL is not used anymore, it is not always unloaded from memory right away.

PC memory moduleAnother reason is that Windows XP can not always make all available internal memory available to an application. This can be the result of a limit in the number of system page table entries. This of course may lead to the out of memory errors. A solution for many of these problems is to tell Windows XP to allocate more memory for system page table entries. The steps below show you how: Read More»

A Better Uninstaller?

July 07, 2008 by Jason

At a rough guess I would say that around 50 percent of PC problems are concerned one way or another with installing and uninstalling software, the latter being far and away the most troublesome operation for many users. A lot of programs are just not very good at removing themselves from systems, bits and pieces are often left behind, cluttering the Registry or interfering with other programs.

Contrary to popular belief Add/Remove Programs in Windows doesn’t actually do any uninstalling, it’s simply groups together the uninstall utilities for the programs on your PC so maybe it’s time for something with a bit more teeth. How about Revo Uninstaller, it’s a powerful uninstaller utility that takes over where Add/Remove Programs leaves off. Firstly it analyses the program, checking files folders and Registry keys, then it sets a new Restore Point and then, only when it is satisfied that it knows everything there is to know about a program, does it remove all traces of it. Read More»

Auto kill tasks on shutdown

July 07, 2008 by Jason

By default, Windows XP will prompt the user for input if there are one or more applications which have crashed or are not responding and it receives a shut down command. This halts the shutdown process entirely until the user approves the stopping of the non-responsive app.

By altering the registry slightly, Windows XP can be set to close crashed applications automatically. While this does not technically speed up the shut down process, it does streamline it, and ensure that the user will not give the shutdown command then get up and leave, only to find the PC still powered on because Windows never received input on what to do with a hung application. Read More»

Top 10 Causes your computer slows

July 06, 2008 by Jason

1. System Start-up packed with too many applications (Start-up overload)

Over time, as you add more and more programs to your computer, many of these applications automatically add themselves to your Windows Start-up folder. Additionally, these applications can add themselves quietly to a hidden area of your Windows Start-up system (accessed via the MSCONFIG run command). In extreme cases your PC will appear completely frozen.

Limiting the number of applications loading themselves at start-up can speed boot times considerably and increase overall system performance. Read More»