Windows 2000 Tips & Tweaks - Misc Tips
BIOS Settings | E-Mail Tweak | Enhancing Performance with two disks | Explorer Tweaks | Full Guide to OS Dual Booting | Game Tuning Guide for Win NT / 2000 | Hardware Spec tweaks | Internet Explorer Tweaks | System Speedup Tweaks | Removing Unused Windows Components | Security | TCP Broadening Tweaks | Links
< Back to Main Site >

< Windows 2000 Tips & Tweaking Guide created by Michael and reprinted with permission >
______________________________

Disable Automatic Merge of .Reg Files

Control the eject function and more from your taskbar

Turn On Verbose Boot to Track Problems

Setting Windows Time from a Domain Server

Disabling the Windows Key

Remove Build Number

Allow duplicates in History Buffer

Make your Temp File Easier to Clean Up

Install Recovery Console as Boot-Up Option

Quick Edit Mode

COMMAND SHELL: OPTIONS

Cursor Size

Command Shell Full Screen vs Window Mode

Console font

Default Console Font Family

Command History Buffer

Number Of History Buffers

Make Notepad work for you

TAB Autocompletion

File & Directory Name completion

Disable Hidden Shares

Disabling ICQ Ads

Disable Shared Printer BroadCast

Disable Win2000 Media Sensing

Disable Regedit Last Point Entry

Disable ShowinfoTip

Disable ToolTips

SpeedUp Windows 2000 Domain Logon

Change My Documents To A UserName’s Documents

Seeing all your Start Menu Programs

What hardware have you got?

Win2K Boot Disks

Cascading Control Panel

Speedup Dos Sessions.

Win2k Keyboard + Mouse Buffer

Make Better Looking Windows Icons

Setting Registration Done in Windows 2000

Disable Secure Desktop.

Assign multiple IP addresses to a single NIC

Disable Start Menu Program Scroll

Disable the Microsoft Office Copy Clipboard Dialog Box

Stop Windows 2000 From Beeping

Change/Add Info to the System Properties General Tab in Win2K

Change The Screen Tip For a Shortcut

Change The Info Tip For Icons

Remove Entries On The Software List That Don't Work

EXPLANATION OF EDITREG.REG

Normally, when you click on a Registry file in Windows, this causes the contents of that file to be merged into (made part of) your Windows Registry. This is how it makes changes to your system. Many of us consider this to be a little risky, for many reasons. For example, someone could give you a file maliciously designed to alter your Registry in a way you don't want; or there could be honest and unintentional problems, errors in the file, a mismatch to your version of Windows, etc. You might want to examine the file before merging it. You might want to download it and run a virus check on it. Things like that.

I have changed my own Windows system so that when I click on a REG file it does *not* merge automatically into the Registry. Instead, it opens the file in Notepad so I can read it (it's really just a text file in a particular format). To merge it into the Registry, I have to right-click on the file's icon and select Merge from the context menu that pops up. I recommend this change for everyone.

But whether to make the change is, of course, your own choice. You may not want the change. Or you may. I recommend it.

This is what EditReg.reg does. An elegant little reg file by DTS MVP Frank Saunders, it changes your Registry so that, in the future, clicking on a Registry file will cause it to open in your default text editor. To merge the Registry file into your Registry, you will need to right-click on it and select Merge.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT]

@="edit"

If you have a computer tower case that rests on the floor, it may be bothersome to reach

down and push the Eject button on your CD-ROM drive. Windows 2000 Professional allows you to

play, pause, stop, and eject CDs from the taskbar. By right clicking the CD Player icon, you

can also select any track, jump to the previous or next track, and create and edit play

lists. To add this capability to your taskbar On the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to Entertainment, and then click CD Player. On the Options menu in CD Player, click Preferences.

In the Preferences dialog box, on the Player Options tab, click the Show control on task bar

check box. Click OK.

Having Shutdown, Startup or Logon problems? Then turn on verbose boot to help you track down

the error. You can use the following registry hack to turn on verbose boot, shutdown, logon,

and logoff error messages in Windows 2000:

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Key: SOFTWARE

Name: VerboseStatus

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 1 default=0

If your background is Windows NT administration, you are familiar with Windows NT Date and

Time Synchronization. It is a fairly manual process. You designate a timeserver for the NT

domain, see Setup Domain Time Source Server . Then you embed the

NET TIME /DOMAIN: /SET

command in user's login scripts to synchronize workstation date and time with the NT server

designated as a time source. Windows 2000 automates the process. It is no longer manual. This is one of many issues where

Windows 2000 has improved over Windows NT. Because of Kerberos, all W2K workstations and

services must have synchronized times. The synchronization is built into the authentication

process. See Basic Operation of the Windows Time Service. The Windows Time Synchronization

service, W32Time, is a fully compliant implementation of the Simple Network Time Protocol

(SNTP) as detailed in IETF RFC1769. In general, the PDC emulator for the W2K domain is the

authoritative time source. Workstations and servers will date and time synch to it. You can

check it periodically and adjust, but most PCs have clocks that lose time. If you can, you

need to use the sntp functionality of W2K. On the PDC, run the following command:

net time /setsntp: ntp2.usno.navy.mil

-or-

net time /setsntp: 192.5.41.209

This will synchronize the PDC's date and time with the US Navy's internet-available sntp

time source. And no, the /setsntp parm is not available to Windows NT since its date and

time service is not sntp compliant.

How To Disable the Keyboard Windows Key

The "Windows" key is that little key usually found between the CTRL and ALT keys on newer

keyboards. Pressing it brings up the START menu. In some cases, you may want to disable

this key (on locked-down systems, or if you find you hit it accidentally and mess up games

such as Quake). Here's how you can disable it.

SUMMARY

It is possible to disable the Windows key that is now available on many new computer keyboards. This key usually provides shortcut access to the Start button or other Windows NT functions.

MORE INFORMATION

To disable the Windows key, do the following steps:

Click Start, click Run, type regedt32, and then click OK.

On the Windows menu, click HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE on Local Machine.

Click the Systemfolder, and then double-click the Keyboard Layout folder.

On the Edit menu, click Add Value, type in Scancode Map, click REG_BINARY as the Data Type, and then click OK.

Type 00000000000000000300000000005BE000005CE000000000 in the Data field, and then click OK.

Close the Registry Editor and restart the computer.

After rebooting, you should find that the Windows key is now disabled.

Getting tired of seeing Windows NT build number? Remove it with the following Windows 2000

registry hack:

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key: Control Panel\parName: PaintDesktopVersion

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key: Console

Name: HistoryNoDup

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0x0 keep duplicates, default

Value: 0x1 discard duplicates

Go to Control Panel then system menu then advanced menu and finally environment variables.

Note: If you followed and earlier tip and removed Posix and os2 in your registry you can

delete the os2lib variable. Under system variables change all Temp and Tmp variables to point to C:.....now all

your temp files are collected them making it a bit easier to find and delete them all....

1. Insert the Windows 2000 CD

2. Open command prompt

3. Switch to your Windows 2000 CD (Example: If your CD-ROM is at D enter "d:/" and hit <Return>)

4. Go to the i386 directory (Example: cd i386 <Return>)

5. Enter "winnt32.exe /cmdcons" without quotes and hit <Return>

6. Follow the instruction on the screen

7. Done! - Courtesy Nt-Compatabile

Quick edit mode allows one to use the mouse to select text, cut, copy and paste in command

shell. This mode is not enabled by default. To control the mode, apply the following Windows

NT / Windows 2000 registry hack.

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key: Console

Name: QuickEdit

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 1 enable quick edit

Value: 0 default - disable quick edit mode

To change the percentage of character cell filled by the cursor (%), apply the following

Windows NT / Windows 2000 registry hack.

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key: Console

Name: CursorSize

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0x19 default - must use hex digits

To set the command shell console default to full screen mode or window mode, apply the

following Windows NT / Windows 2000 registry hack.

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key: Console

Name: FullScreen

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0 window mode

Value: 1 fullscreen mode

To set console font ( must be a valid font name existing on the system or covered by font

substitution ), apply the following Windows NT / Windows 2000 registry hack.

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key: Console

Name: FaceName

Type: REG_SZ

Value: name_of_screen_font

Font oriented subkeys are best set with Contol Panel or other utilities.

To change the default console font family, apply the following Windows NT / Windows 2000

registry hack.

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key: Console

Name: FontFamily

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0 Don't care, any True Type

Value: 10 Roman

Value: 20 Swiss

Value: 30 Modern

Value: 40 Script

Value: 50 Decorative

To change the command history buffer parameters, apply the following Windows NT / Windows

2000 registry hack.

Commands can be recalled using up-down arrow key.

Number of commands that can be recalled

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key: Console

Name: HistoryBufferSize

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0x32 default, approximately 50 commands

How Many DOS Windows Do You Want History Buffers On

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key: Console

Name: NumberOfHistoryBuffers

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0x4 default

Notepad has a bad habit in Windows 2000 of saving the text files you create into the root

folder of your C: drive. You can change this behavior so that Notepad defaults to My

Documents or any other folder you normally store your documents under.

To do this, right-click the Start button, then click Explore. Navigate to the Programs,

Accessories folder, then right-click the Notepad shortcut and click Properties. Change the

folder Notepad starts in to "C:and Settings(UserName)Documents" and click

OK. (Use the username that appears in Windows Explorer.) The quote marks around the setting

are needed because it contains spaces.

In Windows 2000, by the way, Notepad has finally matured so it can open files larger than

50KB. This improvement took 14 years, but oh well -- better late than never.

Anyone familiar with a more modern package of Linux will probably know about TAB

autocompletion. When you are working at the command prompt and are feeling too lazy to type

in the whole file or directory you want, just start with a few identifying letters, press

TAB and the OS automatically completes the entry for you. This is of course very useful in

Linux where at some time or other you must use the command prompt.

This tip may be of lesser importance for Win2K but I'm sure there are those of you out there

that still make use of the command prompt. To enable TAB autocompletion run Regedit and

navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERProcessor then alter the

CompletionChar REG_DWORD from 0 to 9. Voila, open a command prompt and see just how easy it

is to change to "Program Files" now.

File and Directory name completion is NOT enabled by default. You can

enable or disable file name completion for a particular invocation of

CMD.EXE with the /F:ON or /F:OFF switch. You can enable or disable

completion for all invocations of CMD.EXE on a machine and/or user logon

session by setting either or both of the following REG_DWORD values in

the registry using REGEDT32.EXE:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEProcessor

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEProcessor

and/or

HKEY_CURRENT_USERProcessor

HKEY_CURRENT_USERProcessor

with the hex value of a control character to use for a particular

function (e.g. 0x4 is Ctrl-D and 0x6 is Ctrl-F). The user specific

settings take precedence over the machine settings. The command line

switches take precedence over the registry settings.

If completion is enabled with the /F:ON switch, the two control

characters used are Ctrl-D for directory name completion and Ctrl-F for

file name completion. To disable a particular completion character in

the registry, use the value for space (0x20) as it is not a valid

control character.

The system automatically creates hidden "administrative shares" for its logical drives C:,

D:, and so forth which it names C$, D$ and so forth. It also creates the admin$ hidden share

for to the folder. These shares are designed for remote access support by domain

administrators. By default, if you delete these admin shares, they will be recreated when

you reboot. To disable permanently so they will not be recreated on the next reboot, use the

following Windows NT registry hack:

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Key: SYSTEM

Name: AutoShareServer for servers

Name: AutoShareWks for workstations

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0

If you haven't noticed ICQ now has little banner ads on the top bar. Very annoying in my

opinion, and it so happens that I came along a site that tells you how to disable it. Check

it out...

"The part that says New! ICQ SMS! is an advertisement. It is something small now lets just

hope it doesn't get worse. ICQ is able to update it self, but this can be disabled in the

registry. If you open regedit, then expand HKEY_CURRENT_USER, then find and expand Software, then fine

and expand Mirabilis, then find and expand ICQ, then find and click on DefaultPrefs, then

double click on the Value Name AutoUpdate, and change the Value Data to "No"." –Buliwyf

When you share a printer on a Windows 2000/NT machine, it will begin notifying other print

servers on the network (via broadcast) that it has a printer available. It does this every

10 minutes. This can cause an excessive amount of network traffic. To disable this

activity, add the following to the Registry on the local machine:

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Key: SYSTEM

Name: DisableServerThread

Data Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 1

A value of 1 disables the thread, and causes the announcements to the network not to occur.

This also means that the printer that is shared will not be visible by browsing the

network. It can still be accessed by entering the name in manually when connecting to the

printer from another machine. To turn the announcements back on, change the value to 0 (zero).

Windows 2000 uses media sensing to detect the link state of the network adapter. This is

used, for instance, when working with Offline Folders, to determine when the folders are

online and can be synchronized with. To disable media sensing, make the following Registry

change:

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Key:

Name: DisableDHCPMediaSense

Data Type: dword

Value: 00000001

You may have noticed that when you open Regedit.exe, it opens to the last point at which you

were last viewing the Registry. Although this can be helpful in some situations, most of

the time it is just plain annoying. You can disable this behavior with a simple change to

the Registry:

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key: Software

Name: LastKey

Data Type: REG_SZ

Value: location/path within Registry

If you clear this value, then change the permissions so that you can't update it, then

whenever you open the Registry in the future, it will default at the top. To change your

permissions you have to use Regedt32.exe. Simply highlight (click on) the key (Regedit),

and choose Permissions from the Security menu. Just as you would for file or folder

permissions, add your user to the list, and choose Deny Full Control. Since you won't be

able to update the values in this key, Regedit won't be able to remember where it was last

time you closed it.

Windows 2000 has infotips for some programs and folders. You can disable this feature in two ways.

The first method is via the GUI. To disable the feature, perform the following steps:

Start Windows Explorer.

From the Tools menu, select Folder Options.

Select the View tab.

Clear the checkbox for Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items.

Click Apply, then OK.

You can also edit the registry to disable the infotips feature. To do so, complete the following steps:

Start the registry editor.

Move to HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

Double-click ShowInfoTip, and set the value to 0. Click OK. (You need to create the entry with value type REG_DWORD if it doesn’t exist.)

Close the registry editor.

Hack #2: start Regedit and go to:

HKEY_USERS.DefaultPanel

Backup this key FIRST to be able to restore the ToolTips later on: click the Registry item

from the Menu -> select "Export Registry File..." -> browse to the folder of your choice ->

type TTIPON.REG (or whatever name you want, but keep the REG extension) -> click the Save

button. Now scroll to the "UserPreferencemask" Binary value in the right hand pane. Double-click on

it -> delete the first 2 digits by placing the cursor after the second character (there are

a total of 8 editable digits there) -> hit Backspace twice -> type 3e (case insensitive) ->

click OK or press Enter.

You can also use this REG file (copy the lines bellow in Notepad and save it as

TTIPOFF.REG), if you dislike "messing" with the Registry:

-----Begin cut & paste here-----

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_USERS.DefaultPanel]

"UserPreferencemask"=hex:3e,00,00,00

------End cut & paste here------

To restore the ToolTips to the previous state, just run TTIPON.REG.

How can I speed up my Windows 2000 domain logon?

My Windows 2000 professional workstation, in my Windows 2000 domain, used to take a long

time to start up and present the logon screen. Using verbose status messages, I determined

that the bulk of the start time was spent 'applying security policy to the computer'.

In my environment, Group Policy has become static, and when it changes, I change it.

To significantly decreased the time it takes to receive the logon screen:

1. On your Windows 2000 computer, use Regedt32 to navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

2. On the Edit menu, Add Value name SynchronousMachineGroupPolicy and toggle the Data type

to REG_DWORD. In the DWORD Editor, set the data value to 0.

3. On the Edit menu, Add Value name SynchronousUserGroupPolicy and toggle the Data type to

REG_DWORD. In the DWORD Editor, set the data value to 0.

4. Shutdown and restart your computer.

NOTE: I only made these changes on my docked laptop. My desktop computer is significantly

faster and doesn't need this hack.

NOTE: By default, Windows 2000 doesn't make the logon screen available until updates to

Group Policy have completed.

NOTE: These changes can be affected using Group Policy. SynchronousMachineGroupPolicy is

equivalent to the Apply Group Policy for computers asynchronously during startup Group

Policy. SynchronousUserGroupPolicy is equivalent to the Apply Group Policy for users

asynchronously during logon Group Policy. Both policy are located at Computer

ConfigurationTemplatesPolicy.

Add a Move To/Copy To option in the Context Menu for files in Win2k

This is done in the registry, by adding the subkeys Copy To and Move To, and set

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT To]

(Default)={C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT To]

(Default)={C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Sample: CustFind.exe Contains Context Menu Extension to Add a Menu Item to the Start/Find

Menu

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Win32 Application Programming Interface (API)

SUMMARY

CustFind.exe is a simple example of a shell context menu extension that adds a new menu item

to the Windows Start/Find menu. This procedure is described in the following article in the

Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q135986 HOWTO: Add a Custom Find Utility to the Start Menu

CustFind.exe is a self-extracting archive that contains a Visual C++ 6.0 workspace

(CustFind.dsw). This project contains the code for the context menu extension.

If you use the Visual C++ 6.0 project file included with the sample to build this project,

it will automatically register the context menu extension in the post-build step.

If you want to register the context menu extension manually, simply execute the following

from the command line, substituting the path to where the DLL is located for <path>:

regsvr32.exe <path>.dll

To unregister the context menu extension and remove the menu from the Start/Find menu,

execute the following from the command line, substituting the path where the DLL is located

for <path>:

regsvr32.exe /u <path>.dll

How can I change the desktop 'My Documents' text to 'UserName's Documents'?

If you wish to change the static My Documents icon text, to a string that includes the UserName:

1. Use Regedt32 to navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}.

2. Delete the LocalizedString value name.

3. Add Value name LocalizedString, as a REG_EXPAND_SZ data type.

4. Set the data value to @C:.dll,-9227@1033,%Username% or

@C:.dll,-9227@1033,%Username%'s Documents

What to get rid of that expandable Start Menu, so you can see all your programs?

Right-click on the taskbar in an empty space and select Properties.

Deselect Use Personalized Menus

Voila, now you can see all your programs.

If you check the Win2K help, it states that selecting the Use Personalized Menus lets you hide programs

you haven't used in a while, making them accessible through a down arrow at the bottom of the Programs group.

Deselecting it shows all your programs.

To find out hardware stats, go to Run and type winmsd.

If you are installing Windows 2000 and can't boot from the CD-ROM, then you'll need the boot diskettes. A set ships in the retail boxed copy of Windows 2000, but you can also create them from the Windows 2000 CD-ROM.

To do so, insert the CD-ROM into any computer running Windows 95, 98, NT, or Windows 2000. Click Start >> Run (or open a Command Prompt) and type:

You'll be prompted for a blank diskette and the process will begin. You'll need a total of four blank diskettes to make all of the boot diskettes for Windows 2000.

There's an easy way to expand the Control Panel with Win2K.

Right-click on an empty area of the task bar and click on Properties, then go to Advanced.

Place a checkmark in Expand Control Panel. No need to mess with that Registry!

You can also expand My Documents, Network and Dialup, and Printers and make it scroll the Programs menu instead

of opening up in panels, as well as displaying favorites and administrative tools, too.

If you are using any DOS programs in a Windows NT4/2000 DOS session/box,

there are a few things you can do to increase their performance and/or

stability.

These tips are applied by using the respective DOS program's PIF (Program

Information File) Editor: right-click on the "[Shortcut to] MS-DOS Program"

of your choice -> select the Properties tab -> and then:

- Click the Screen tab -> check the "Full-screen" box if your DOS

application's video speed/screen redraw is slow when running in windowed

mode.

- Click the Program tab -> uncheck the "Windows NT" box, unless it is

required by your DOS program to run properly.

- Click the Program tab -> uncheck the "Compatible Timer Hardware" box,

unless required by specific DOS programs that access the computer CMOS timer

to function.

- If DOS programs running in windowed mode seem to freeze (pause)

periodically -> click the Misc tab -> disable the "Idle Detection" box.

- If your DOS program allows printing -> select LPTx as Printer port (replace

x with your printer port number, usually LPT1), because most DOS apps access

the printer hardware (through int17) directly this way.

Finally, click OK/Apply to save the new PIF settings.

Bonus [:-)]:

If connected to a network, and would like your DOS application(s) to be able

to print to a network printer: add this command line to a batch file that

starts your DOS program, or type it into a DOS box:

NET USE LPTx: \ComputerName/PERSISTENT:YES

Replace "x" with the printer port number, "ComputerName" with your computer

name [duuh! :)], and "ShareName" with your shared name for the specific

network you are logging into (no quotes).

While using Windows 2000 or NT 4.0, you may have encountered random "Keyboard

[mouse] ring buffer overflow" error messages in the System Log event viewer,

spurious key clicks, or even sudden machine lockups, due to the (too) small

keyboard and/or mouse queue buffer, because each hold only a maximum of 100

characters or clicks respectively (default).

But all this can be fixed by tweaking the Registry.

1. To increase the keyboard buffer size in Win2K/NT4, run Regedit or Regedt32

and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

If using Regedt32 uncheck "Read Only Mode" in the Options menu.

Look for the "KeyboardDataQueueSize" DWORD [REG_DWORD] Value in the right

hand pane -> double-click on it -> check the Decimal box -> double the value

shown there (default is 100) -> type in the new integer number -> click OK.

Then, under the same Registry key, find the "PollStatusIterations" DWORD

Value, and increase it from 1 (default) to 2 or 4, by performing same steps

above, until your keyboard no longer exhibits interruptions.

2. To make your rodent "behave" by increasing its buffer size (with the

Registry editor open), go to one of the following keys, depending on your

installed mouse type:

- ALL Mice:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

- Serial Mice:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

- PS/2 Mice:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEprt

______________________________

> Back to Top