Removing Unnecessary Programs from Starting Automatically

Many programs add portions of themselves starting automatically on every login.
This can be either in the Startup Folder or the Registry.

One easy way to tell is by looking at how many icons are in your system tray. If you have a large number, perhaps unnecessary resources are being allocated them as well as increasing your boot time.

Typical examples are Microsoft Office, Office FindFast, Real Player, ATI Video setting etc.

You can remove them in one of three main ways:

In the Start / Programs / Startup Folder

In the Registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Run

If you have Win98, WinME or Windows2000 you can use MSCONFIG to easily remove programs. This is my preference since it allows you to toggle them back on again in case you make a mistake

Create your own Self-extracting self-installER

The following will show you how to use the Iexpress2.0 tool.
The tool allows you to make a self extracting file and much more : To play with this hidden feature of XP :
Navigate to : Windows\system32\
look for a file called iexpress.exe.
Double left click on it and follow the wizzard.

Change the Menu Show Delay (All Windows)

Windows normally delays menus before they are displayed. For regular users this delay can become annoying, with this setting you to change the delay time or remove it altogether.

Open your registry and find the key below.

Create a new string value, or modify the existing value, named ‘MenuShowDelay’ and set it to equal the delay you would like before the menus are shown as a time in milliseconds.

Log off or restart Windows for the change to take effect.

Settings:
User Key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
Name: MenuShowDelay
Type: REG_SZ (String Value)
Value: 0-999 (milliseconds)

Adding Drive to the SendTo List

I have recently found that if you want to send something from A: drive or from any where to any drive, you can just make a short cut of that drive in subdirectory SENDTO.
For example I have two hard drives, a Floppy Drive, and a CDROM
After I have make a copy of each of my drive I will be able to send a whole directory of E:\XXX from the CDROM drive to A: drive or any other drive that i have had made the short c t in the SENDTO subdir of WINDOWS.

Removing Thumbs.db Files

When viewing a folder with the Thumbnail view, WindowsXP creates a thumbs.db file.
This is a cache of the current pictures in that directory.
If you want to turn this feature off and save a little disk space
Start the Windows Explorer
Go to Tools / Folder Options / View
In the first section under Files and Folders, check Do not cache thumbnails
Now you can search for the thumbs.db file on your computer and remove them. No more should be created.