Enable/Disable Thumbnail Caching

One of Explorer's great features is to display a thumbnail of images and

the first frame of the video when seen in Thumbnail view. This is either done when you access the folder or it fetches from the thumbnail cache. Fetching thumbnails from the cache is  lot faster, but will consume a lot of hard disk space, especially if your system is full of images and video.Thankfully you can disable this. or in case you have sufficient space but want to speedup your system then you can enable it in case disabled.

Navigate to:

HCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion  \Explorer\Advanced

Set the DWORD Value DisableThumbnailCache to 1 if you are low on hard disk space. Otherwise chang/leave it at 0 to enable thumbnail caching

Speedup Softwares By Changing Priority

Instances of the same software will share a single process thread(same resources).

If you have stability problems or slow application loads then this registry hack will solve your problem.

This registry hack will make each application start in its own process will improve stability and speed up load times. Go to REGEDIT(Start>>>RUN>>Type REGEDIT)

Navigate to:

HLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl

Change the value of the DWORD Win32PrioritySeperation to 27, 28, 37, 38 (in decimal). The default is 2. This is not over yet one more thing has to be done.



Go to My Computer. Select Folder Options under the Tools menu and choose the View tab.

Now select(check) the box ?Launch folder windows in a separate process.?



This will make each application window run in a separate process. Remember now each instance will consume the same amount of memory so use this only if you have 512 MB or more of RAM. You may need to restart your comp.



You may also speedup the softwares by decreasing up their load time.(click here to know how to do it)

Speed Up Your Comp

This Registry Hack will make all applications load faster . This will speed up your system considerably Just open Regedit(START>>RUN>>Type REGEDIT)

Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager \ Memory Management\ PrefetchParameters

The default value for the EnablePrefetcher setting is 3. Change this value to 5 to make applications load faster. You can experiment with higher values?up to 9?and see if you get a further improvement.



Normally, multiple instances of the same application (such as multiple windows in IE) will share a single process thread. If you have stability problems or slow application loads, launching each application in its own process will improve stability and speed up load times.

Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\ Control\PriorityControl

Optimise XP?s process priority control by setting the DWORD Value for in32PrioritySeperation to? well, the default is 2, and 27, 28, 37, 38, and more have all been quoted as good values (in decimal).



But after doing this,

• Go to My Computer


• select Tools menu.


• Choose the View tab in Folder Options .


• Check "Launch folder windows in a separate process."

This will run each application window in a separate process. Note that that each process will consume the same amount of memory so perform this only if you have 1GB or more of RAM.

This is for win xp. You may need to restart the computer for the change/effect to take place.

Optimise System Cache

Desktop systems are normally optimised for applications, and servers for file caching. Depending on how you use your system, you may want to optimise your system for either. This Registry Hack will show you how to do it. Just open Regedit(START>>RUN>>Type REGEDIT)

Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet \ControlSession Manager\Memory Management

Find the setting LargeSystemCache. Set this DWORD value to 1 for server behaviour or to 0 for desktop behaviour.





This is for win xp. You need to restart the computer for the change/effect to take place.If particular key to which we asked you to navigate doesn?t exist, you?ll need to create it.Be doubly sure that the path is correct and the key doesn't exist before you create it. Back up your registry before you do it(click here)

Automatic Window Refresh

Normally, there is a some delay before the changes reflects in the GUI. To see it

right away, you would need to press [F5]. The following Registry Hack will enable the system to do faster updates.

Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control \Update

For faster updates, change the DWORD value called UpdateMode to 0. The default is 1.



A reboot will be required for the changes to take effect. Back up your registry before you do it(click here)



Note:- There is a likelihood of conflict if this setting is applied with system policies running. Change it back to the default if you are running system policies or are connected to a domain controller.

Close softwares faster

If an sofware/app does not respond during shutdown, XP will normally wait for a while for the applications to shut down safely.This is great but would make shutdown slower.



This Registry Hack will show you how to shut down straightaway and not wait for any response from the application. Just open Regedit(START>>RUN>>Type REGEDIT)

Navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

And to:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

The first one is user-specific, and the second one is system-wide. In both these locations, change the String value called AutoEndTasks to 1 to kill the application immediately, or 0 to prompt for user action.



WaitToKillAppTimeout controls the default time, in milliseconds, before killing the application. You can reduce this time to further speed up the process.



Back up your registry before you do it(click here)

Load Kernel Into RAM

In Windows 98, programs could be loaded and kept in RAM for as long as you wanted. You could even load a anything into the RAM even video clip and have it play from there!. this feature doesnto exists in XP  or by defaut it's disabled. this is done mostly due to security reasons.



But when it comes to the Windows XP kernel there is nothing to worry about. By default, XP only loads the required parts of the kernel into RAM at boot time. as and when needed the other parts are called. Having the entire kernel available in memory speeds up processing.

Navigate to:

HLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control \SessionManager \Memory Management

Set the value of the DisablePagingExecutive key to 1. This will make the entire kernel be loaded in memory. To diable it you can set it back to ) . You need to reboot for the changes to take effect.

CPU Job control

There are 2 kinds of process running Foreground(fg) and background(bg). You surely want the process/softwares that you run to work faster.Then let me tell you it's possible. This is called job control. You can prioritize your process.



Unix/LINUX provides excellent support for this but not windows. In windows you can prioritize all the foreground process. Here's how. Use this registry hack to perform job control in windows.Just open Regedit(START>>RUN>>Type REGEDIT)

Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet

\Control\PriorityControl

Set the DWORD Win32PrioritySeparation to any of the following values.

• 3 (the default): Foreground and background tasks have equal priority.


• 2: Foreground tasks have higher priority than background tasks


• 1: Foreground tasks have maximum priority


• 0 (not recommended): Foreground tasks run in real-time.
  
  

This is for win xp. You need to restart the computer for the change/effect to take place. Back up your registry before you do it(click here)

Optimisats Boot Files

Normal file fragmentation scatters the pieces of a file all over your hard disk. This invariably also affects the files that load at boot time. You can defragment the files that load at system startup to enable faster loading. Just open Regedit(START>>RUN>>Type REGEDIT)

Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg

\BootOptimizeFunction

A setting called Enable under this key needs to be set to Y . This setting Defragments the boot files, and it might relocate start-up files into contiguous clusters on the volume, reducing the movement of the disk head when reading the volume.



You need to restart the computer for the change/effect to take place. Back up your registry before you do it(click here). For more hacks see registry hacks section