Windows 2000 Tweaks

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

Hard drive setup

Turn Diskperformance Counters Off

OS2 & POSIX Removal

Turn off Indexing Service

Disable IDE Port Scanning on empty ports and save bootup time

Turning off Dr Watson log Generation

Creating separate processes for the DeskTop/TaskBar

Disable UserTracking

Disable Link File Tracking

Disable Paging Of Core Files and Speed Up Performance

Disable System Sounds

Stop Windows Animation

Enable Large System Cache

Disable WBEM logging in Win2k

Create A Power User Profile

Enable DMA Mode

Alternate Method To Enable DMA

Disable Last Access Stamp

Disable 8.3 Name Dot Creation on NTFS Drives

Create A Contiguous File Allocation Size

Reduce Menu Show Delay

Remove the Minimize, Maximize and Close Tooltips

Remove Click Here To Begin Banner

Speedup Windows Updating Of Directories

Remove Directories from Windows 2000 Indexing Catalogue

Remove Start Banner

Disable Print Job Logging

Disable Printing Notification Boxes

Disable File Tunneling

Server Optimization in RFCB Caching

Disable the Gratuitous ARP Function

How to Disable/Enable EFS on a Stand-Alone Windows 2000-Based Computer

Disable the Persistent Connections Registry Parameter

How to Disable Dr. Watson Completely

Enable UltraDMA 66 Support

Setting Page Lock Limits

Launch Internet Explorer as A Separate Thread

Remove Uneeded DCOM Protocols

Adjust WMI Backup Schedule

Disable WMI Logging

Remove Indexing Service Automatic Network Shares

Speed Up 16 Bit Program Processing

Check And Remove Dead Shortcuts

Hard drive setup
Open My Computer, right click on the hard drive(s), select Properties. Select the Hardware tab. Now highlight the desired hard drive & click the Properties button. Finally, select the Disk Properties tab & SCSI Properties, where applicable. The following options can improve Hard drive performance. NOTE - Some of those options may, or may not be available depending on hard drive type, e.g. SCSI or IDE.

Write cache enabled: If you enable this feature, your computer sends an enable-write-cache command to the hard disk activating the hard disk write-back cache, & if you disable this feature, the hard disk write-back cache is deactivated. When enabled disk I/O performance may improve, although if you experience system failure e.g. Power loss, you could experience drive/file corruption. I'd recommend leaving this ticked unless your system is prone to bad shutdowns/power failure.

Disable Tagged Queuing: Tagged queuing is done by the SCSI controller & driver to increase the speed of completing I/O tasks. This is accomplished by sorting the commands so the order of the commands issued to the physical disk drive to read or write results in the most efficient movement of the physical read & write heads. As you can guess, doing it in this sequential order is far more efficient than when disabled, resulting in greater I/O performance. You should only tick this if you are experiencing problems with a hard drive(s) as performance is slower when Tagged queuing is Disabled. Leave it unticked.

Disable Synchronous Transfers: There are 2 methods of transferring data over SCSI cables, Synchronous & Asynchronous mode. Asynchronous mode transfers use an interlocked handshake method where a device (adapter or drive) cannot do the next data transfer operation until it receives positive acknowledgment that the other device received the last data transfer properly. Synchronous transfer mode permits the sending device to send multiple data packets without receiving acknowledgment that the receiver actually received every data packet sent. As a result, more data can be sent/received before acknowledgement is required. You should only tick this if you are experiencing problems with a hard drive(s), e.g. overlapped requests, as performance is slower when Synchronous Transfers is Disabled. Leave it unticked.

Turn Diskperformance Counters Off
By default, Win2k is set to collect physical drive data.

As home users we don't need this. To disable the disk performance counters:

Go to Start Menu

Then Programs

Command Prompt

Type in diskperf –n at command prompt

Also use the Microsoft file exctrlst run it and shut down all performance counters....

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/library/resources/reskit/tools/existing/exctrlst-o.asp

If you ever want to return to default:

diskperf -yd

Then after you turn that off use the file exctrlst.exe Unzip the file and place it in your

WinNT directory, use the run command to activate it and then uncheck all the

performance counters so that they do not run. Just reboot and that’s it...

Enable DMA

To enable DMA, you will need to get access to the Device Manager. Scan down to your IDE controller and select the Primary IDE channel. Go to the advanced settings tab. For each device, set its device type to Auto Detection, and its transfer mode to DMA if available (this works for your CD-ROM as well). Repeat the process for the Secondary IDE channel and then reboot. You should see a very nice performance boost.

OS2 & POSIX Removal
The correct way to remove POSIX and OS2 support is via a registry tweak.

Click on Start, Run, and type in regedit & hit Enter.

Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ OS/2 Subsystem for NT] & Delete all subkeys.

Now go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ Session

Manager\Environment] & Delete the Os2LibPath entry.

Finally, go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ Session

Manager\SubSystems] & Delete the Optional, OS2 & Posix entries.

Turn off Indexing Service
Indexing Service creates indexes of the contents and properties of documents on local and network drives. It's quite similar to "Find Fast" that ships with Microsoft Office. Indexing Service runs continuously. Turning this thing off might increase performance: My Computer -> Right click on Drive icon -> Select Properties -> Remove the checkmark from "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching" -> Click Apply. Make sure to select "Apply changes to <driveletter>:\, subfolders and files." before clicking OK in the new window.

To modify Indexing Service performance

Open Computer Management

In the console tree, click Indexing Service.

Where?

Computer Management

Services and Applications

Indexing Service

On the Action menu, click Stop.

On the Action menu, point to All Tasks, and then click Tune Performance.

In the Indexing Service Usage dialog box, select the option that best fits the way Indexing Service is used on your computer.

If you selected Customize, click the Customize button and proceed to Step 8. If you did not select Customize, skip to Step 11.

In the Desired Performance dialog box, move the Indexing slider to Lazy for less immediate indexing or to Instant for immediate indexing of new and changed documents. Lazy indexing uses fewer resources; Instant indexing uses as much of the computer's resources as it can.

Move the Querying slider to Low load if you expect to process only a few queries at a time or to High load if you expect to process many queries at a time. Low load uses fewer resources; high load uses more.

Close the Desired Performance dialog box.

Close the Indexing Service Usage dialog box and restart Indexing Service.

Note: To open Computer Management, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. Double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.

Disable IDE Port Scanning on empty ports and save bootup time
Go to System Properties by right clicking on My Computer or via the Control Panel.

Select the Hardware tab. Look at the Device Manager section and click on the Device Manager button.

This brings up the Device Manager screen. Open up the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller’s device branch. Then you will see a list of all the IDE controllers and channels in your system. Now, select any one of the IDE channels, right click and choose Properties. Or just double click on the IDE channel. Now, select the Advanced Settings tab to get the screen below. As you can see below, the

second port (Device 1) on the Primary IDE Channel does not any IDE device attached to it.

Thus, the Device Type is labeled as Auto Detection. In contrast, the first port has a device

attached. That's why the Device Type is grayed out. To disable IDE device scanning for the second port, click on Auto Detection and you will see two choices on the list. Select None. Click OK and reboot. Windows 2000 will now refrain from scanning that IDE port at start up and should load a little faster.

Turning off Dr Watson log Generation
Ever notice that when windows 2000 generates and error it seems to take forever until it finishes, well here’s the fix for it. Use the windows run command and type drwtsn32 then turn off all options and clear the log...

Creating separate processes for the DeskTop/TaskBar
By default, the shell creates 1 process with the Taskbar and Desktop as one thread and each instance of explorer as an additional thread. A failure in any thread will affect the entire process.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

and adding value DesktopProcess (REG_DWORD). Set it to 1 and reboot.

Disable UserTracking
User tacking is the process whereby Windows 2000 tracks the programs that users run, the paths they navigate, and the documents they open.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoInstrumentation"=dword:00000001

Disable Link File Tracking
When Windows 2000 can't find the target file of a shortcut, and the target file is on an NTFS partition, it searches all paths that are associated with the shortcut. If the target is not found, it searches the entire partition. You can disable NTFS link tracking by implementing the following Registry Hack.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoResolveTrack"=dword:00000001

Disable Paging Of Core Files and Speed Up Performance
Improve Core System Performance in Windows NT (Windows NT/2000)on systems with large amount of RAM, this tweak can be enabled to force the core Windows NT system to be kept in memory and not paged to disk.(Note: Only do this if you have 256meg or more of memory) Open the registry and find the value in the key below.

Change the value to '1' enable the tweak and stop the core process from being paged,

or set it to '0' for the default.

Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)

Data: ("0" or "1")

Default:"0" or "00000000"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]

DisablePagingExecutive=dword:00000001

Disable System Sounds
While some users might like the audio signals in his or her operating system, I prefer to disable all system sounds to free up a nice chunk of system resources. To disable Windows 2000 system sounds, head into the Control Panel and double click the Sounds & Multimedia applet. To remove all sounds simply head into the "Schemes" setting and choose the option to disable all system sounds.

Stop Windows Animation
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]

"MenuShowDelay"="0"

"MinAnimate"="0"

"SmoothScroll"=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\desktop\WindowMetrics]

"MinAnimate"="0"

Enable Large System Cache
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Memory Management]

"LargeSystemCache"="1"

Disable WBEM logging in Win2k
Windows Management Instrumentation(WMI) is an implementation of Distributed Management Task

Force's (DMTF) Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM). WBEM is a set of open, industry-defined specifications that unify and extend the management of enterprise-computing environment. The central part of WMI is the CIMOM (Common Interface Model Object Manager) which is an interface to the CIM(Common Information Model) which actually is a data container.

WMI makes it possible for drivers, services, and applications to return information in form of

data or events into the CIM. This data can be extracted and analyzed by system managers to provide information about how

to better manage, troubleshoot and tune their systems. As an example of program used to

extract is the WBEMTEST.EXE Extra Info WMI at MS TechNet This is continuously logging to the file CIM.REC causes extra IO and defragmentation. To disable it you need to go to the registry

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE \Microsoft \WBEM \CIMOM]

EnableEvents = "0" (Default - "1")

Logging = "0" (Default - "1")

Logging Directory = "C:\WINNT\System32\WBEM\Logs"

Working Directory = "C:\WINNT\System32\WBEM"

One can also change the logging and working directory to a RAM-drive to increase speed.

Also change the providers logging directory under

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WBEM\PROVIDERS\Logging\DSProvider]

"File"="G:\Logs\DSProvider.log"

Create A Power User Profile
Create a power user profile in windows; in admin mode there is too much logging and monitoring running, in power user this isn’t the case. Shut Down all Unnecessary Services to save memory.

Enable DMA Mode
Enable DMA, to enable DMA, you will need to get access to the Device Manager. Scan down to your IDE controller and select the Primary IDE channel. Go to the advanced settings tab. For each device, set its device type to Auto Detection, and its transfer mode to DMA if available (this works for your CD-ROM as well). Repeat the process for the Secondary IDE channel and then reboot. You should see a very nice performance boost.

Alternate Method To Enable DMA
When you enable DMA by going thru Device Manager and ticking the DMA box, you may think that DMA has been enabled. Not always the case. It seems that when using this method (as opposed to buying a system which had DMA (properly) enabled by the OEM), an entry of the registry is not updated. To check, Open the file Mshdc.inf (found in \Windows\Inf), and look for the header [ESDI_AddReg], it should look like:

[ESDI_AddReg]

HKR,,DriverDesc,,"ESDI Port Driver"

HKR,,DevLoader,,*IOS

HKR,,PortDriver,,ESDI_506.pdr

HKR,,IDEDMADrive0,3,01

HKR,,IDEDMADrive1,3,01

If the last two lines shown above appear (with the other 3 lines), you are set. If not, add the last 2 lines, and manually remove all IDE devices from Device Manager (Control Panel > System, Device Manager tab), the system will tell you to re-boot, and it will re-detect the controller, and set them up in DMA mode.

Then DMA will be enabled and you'll be good to go.

Disable Last Access Stamp
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem]

"NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"=dword:00000001

When Windows NT accesses a directory on an NTFS volume, it updates the LastAccess time stamp on each directory it detects. Therefore, if there are a large number of directories, this can affect performance

Disable 8.3 Name Dot Creation on NTFS Drives
"NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation"=dword:00000001

This key stops the NTFS volume from generating MS-DOS compatible 8.3 file names. Disabling this feature can increase the performance on heavily used NTFS partitions that have large amount of files with long filenames.

Create A Contiguous File Allocation Size
This setting optimizes the contiguous file allocation size for the file system. This is especially useful for disk intensive applications.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Memory Management]

"ContigFileAllocSize"=dword:00001000

Reduce Menu Show Delay
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

Key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]

Value Name: MenuShowDelay

Data Type: REG_SZ (String Value)

Value Data: 0-999 (milliseconds)

Remove the Minimize, Maximize and Close Tooltips
When you move your mouse over the three control boxes on a standard Window frame it will show tooltip text for each item. This tweak controls that function.

Open your registry and find the key below.

Create a new String value, or modify the existing value, called 'MinMaxClose' and edit the value according to the settings below.

Exit your registry, you may need to restart or log out of Windows for the change to take effect.

Settings

Key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]

Value Name: MinMaxClose

Data Type: REG_SZ (String Value)

Value Data: (0 = disabled, 1 = enabled)

Remove Click Here To Begin Banner
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoStartBanner"=hex:00,00,00,00

Speedup Windows Updating Of Directories
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Update]

"UpdateMode"=dword:00000000

Remove Directories from Windows 2000 Indexing Catalogue
Go to Start->Programs->Administrative Tools->Computer Management

In the console tree of Computer Management (Local), double-click Services and Applications, and then click Indexing Service, Then Click Directories. In the details pane, right-click on each directory listed and Delete it from the catalogue, You're not using Indexing anyway so why bother letting windows 2000 catalogue them.

Remove Start Banner
Description: Hides the arrow and "Click here to start" caption that appears on the taskbar when you start Windows NT.

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Policies\Explorer

Registry Value Registry Data Description

NoStartBanner REG_DWORD 0 = enabled; 1= disabled.

Disable Print Job Logging
By default, Windows NT and Windows NT Advanced Server log every print job processed by the server in the System Log.

To stop this perform the following:

Select Printers from the Settings Start menu folder (Start - Settings - Printers)

From the File menu select Server Properties

Select the Advanced Tab

You can then select the events to log:

- Log spooler error events

- Log spooler warning events

- Log spooler information events

You have to restart the computer for the change to take effect.

You Can also set the entry directly from the registry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Providers\EventLog which is a DWORD value. Each option has a value

Setting the value to 0 disables the print logs

Log spooler error events is 1

Log spooler warning events is 2

Log spooler information events is 4

You then add these numbers up for the combination you want, for example:

A value of 7 means log information, error and warning events.

A value of 3 means only log error and warning events.

You have probably noticed the 1, 2 and 4 is because it is just setting the relevant bit in the DWORD, so bit 1 is error, bit 2 warning and bit 3 information. - Courtesy John Savill

Disable Printing Notification Boxes
This tip is mainly for users on a network but anyone sharing a printer can benefit from it as well.

Run Regedit

Go To:

From the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree, go to the following subkey:

SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Providers

From the Edit menu, click Add Value.

In the Value Name field of the Add Value dialog box, type the following:

NetPopup

Select REG_DWORD for the Data Type.

Click OK.

In the Dword Editor dialog box, type 0 (zero) in the Data field.

Click OK.

Exit Registry Editor.

Exit Print Manager if it is running, and then stop and restart the Spooler service from the Services portion of Control Panel so the new setting will take effect.

Disable File Tunneling
Explanation of File Tunneling First:

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 contains file system tunneling capabilities to enable compatibility with programs that rely on file systems being able to hold onto file meta-info for a short period of time. This occurs after deletion or renaming and re-introducing a new directory entry with that meta-info (if a create or rename occurs to cause a file of that name to appear again in a short period of time).

When a name is removed from a directory (rename or delete), its short/long name pair and creation time are saved in a cache, keyed by the name that was removed. When a name is added to a directory (rename or create), the cache is searched to see if there is information to restore. The cache is effective per instance of a directory. If a directory is deleted, the cache for it is removed.

These paired operations can cause tunneling on "name."

delete(name)/create(name)

delete(name)/rename(source, name)

rename(name, newname)/create(name)

rename(name, newname)/rename(source, name)

The idea is to mimic the behavior DOS programs expect when they use the safe save method. They copy the modified data to a temporary file, delete the original and rename the temporary to the original. This should seem to be the original file when complete. Windows NT performs tunneling on both FAT and NTFS file systems to ensure long/short file names are retained when 16-bit applications perform this safe save operation.

How to See the Effects of Tunneling

Create a file called file1.

Wait for one to two minutes.

Create a file called file2.

Perform a DIR /TC. Please note the creation times.

Rename file1 to file.

Rename file2 to file1.

Perform a DIR /TC. Please note the creation times are identical.

Both files now show the same creation times; they are identical to the original FILE1 creation time and is expected behavior with tunneling enabled.

MORE INFORMATION

Tunneling cache time can be adjusted from the default time of 15 seconds, or if tunneling capabilities are undesirable, it can be disabled by adding a value in the Windows NT Registry.

If tunneling is disabled, Apps that use this safe save method can lose the name they are unaware of, usually the LFN, and the rediscovery of shortcut targets could be impaired since the creation timestamps cannot remain constant for files manipulated by such apps. Creation timestamp maintenance is possible in the absence of tunneling if an application is smart enough. The same is not true for the long filenames.

Start Registry Editor and select the following subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

From the Edit menu, click Add Value.

Type the following value to reduce the default cache time:

Value Name: MaximumTunnelEntryAgeInSeconds

Data Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 15 <-- change to fit your needs in seconds.

-or-

Type the following value to disable tunneling:

Value Name: MaximumTunnelEntries

Data Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0

Exit Registry Editor and Restart Windows NT.

Server Optimization in RFCB Caching
Note: This can be set to zero for standalone home systems, using fewer resources, hence the tweak.

SUMMARY

The Server service now caches the file handles (RFCBs) associated with files it has opened on behalf of a client request. Although write requests proceed normally, close requests are acknowledged by the server, but are buffered from the file system. This is intended to optimize response time to repeated open/close operations performed by clients. In regards to Opportunistic Locking (oplock), this optimization is a logical extension of the way a client caches its own file close request and relies on the server to arbitrate future requests for file access by other clients.

In rare situations, Oplock must be disabled for compatibility purposes. RFCB caching also includes a configurable parameter in the registry to modify the server's behavior.

MORE INFORMATION

An obvious sign that a file is being held open is the reported size may be zero. In Control Panel, the Server option displays open files, when in fact, they are only open by the Server service in a cached mode. Other signs may include sharing violations. Local file operations are not serviced by the server and are not subject to RFCB caching. If you experience problems accessing files opened via a UNC name or from a different computer, you can diagnose the issue as follows:

Attempt accesses to the file from the local machine. If you are not able to access the file locally, the remote application might hold a lock on the file or has opened it in exclusive mode.

End the remote application and attempt access once again. If this corrects the problem, the application developer should be consulted on their support for running the application on a network.

Disable the RFCB caching by modifying the Registry. To do this, start the Registry Editor (REGEDT32.EXE) and go to the following subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services \LanmanServer\Parameters

Add or change the following:

Value Name: CachedOpenLimit

Data Type: REG_DWORD

Data: 0 (Default: 5)

Either shut down and restart Windows NT, or from a command prompt type:

NET STOP SERVER

And then type:

NET START SERVER

NOTE: If this appears to correct the symptoms, you can continue to run the server this way but it will not benefit from RFCB caching.

Disable the Gratuitous ARP Function
Note: Stand Alone home systems with static ip’s or on DHCP can safely disable this.

SYMPTOMS

When a Windows NT-based computer starts, a packet is broadcast on the network containing the computer's TCP/IP address to prevent the use of duplicate addresses on the same network. This is called a gratuitous Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) packet. Routers and other network hardware may cache routing information gained from multiple gratuitous ARP packets. For both performance and maintenance reasons, it is possible to disable this feature in Windows NT.

MORE INFORMATION

To disable gratuitous ARPs after applying this hotfix:

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

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

Click the \System\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters folder.

Double-click the ArpRetryCount value, type 0, (for Windows 2000, type 1) and then click OK.

Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.

How to Disable/Enable EFS on a Stand-Alone Windows 2000-Based Computer
SUMMARY

This article describes how to disable and enable the Encrypting File System (EFS) on Windows 2000-based computers that are not members of a Windows 2000-based domain. EFS is designed to work only when a recovery agent is available before a file can be encrypted. By default, the local Administrator account is used as the designated recovery agent for stand-alone Windows 2000-based computers.

MORE INFORMATION

WARNING: Microsoft strongly recommends that you decrypt any encrypted files on your computer before following this procedure. If you do not first decrypt the files, you are unable to recover them after performing this procedure. If you do not first back up the recovery agent's certificate (using the following steps), you must reinstall Windows 2000 if you want to re-enable EFS in the future.

To Back Up the Recovery Agent's Certificate

Log on to your computer using the local Administrator account.

NOTE: You must use the built-in Administrator account, not just an account with administrator privileges.

Click Start, click Run, type secpol.msc, and then click OK.

Click the plus sign (+) next to Public Key Policies to expand it.

Click the Encrypted Data Recovery Agents category.

In the right pane, a certificate that is issued to "Administrator" with an intended purpose of "file recovery" is displayed. Right-click this item, and then click All tasks > export.

Click Next.

Make sure that the No, do not export the private key option is selected, and then click Next.

In the Export File Format box, make sure that the DER Encoded Binary X.509 (.CER) option is selected.

Click Next.

When you are prompted to save the certificate to a file, back up the file to a disk or removable media device, and then store the backup in a location where physical security of the backup is ensured. Type an appropriate file name, and then click Next.

When the Completing the Certificate Export Wizard dialog box is displayed, verify the options that you selected, and then click Finish.

When the The export was successful dialog box is displayed, click OK.

To Disable EFS

Log on to your computer using the local Administrator account.

NOTE: You must use the built-in Administrator account, not just an account with administrator privileges.

Click Start, click Run, type secpol.msc, and then click OK.

Click the plus sign (+) next to Public Key Policies to expand it.

Click the Encrypted Data Recovery Agents category.

In the right pane, a certificate that is issued to "Administrator" with an intended purpose of "file recovery" is displayed. Right-click this item, and then click Delete.

At the Permanently delete the selected certificate? prompt, click Yes.

Close the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) window.

Restart your computer for the change to take effect.

To Enable EFS After Disabling It

Log on to your computer using the local Administrator account.

NOTE: You must use the built-in Administrator account, not just an account with administrator privileges. If you did not previously back up the certificate using the steps in this article, you must reinstall Windows 2000 to re-enable EFS.

Click Start, click Run, type secpol.msc, and then click OK.

Click the plus sign (+) next to Public Key Policies to expand it.

Right-click the Encrypted Data Recovery Agents category, and then click Add.

In the Welcome to the Add Recovery Agent Wizard dialog box, click Next.

Click Browse Folders.

In the Open dialog box, locate and click the certificate you previously exported, and then click Open.

NOTE: At this point the certificate is imported, but is displayed as "USER_UNKNOWN" for the user. The Certificates value displays "OU= EFS File Encryption..."

Click Next, and then click Finish. When you receive the "The certificate cannot be validated" message, click OK to continue. Note that the Administrator account is now the recovery agent. EFS is now re-enabled on your computer.

Disable the Persistent Connections Registry Parameter
SUMMARY

This article describes how to disable the Persistent Connections registry parameter on your computer.

MORE INFORMATION

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys and Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it. If you are running Windows NT or Windows 2000, you should also update your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD).

To disable the Persistent Connections registry parameter:

Start Registry Editor (Regedit.exe).

Locate the following registry key:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Network\Persistent Connections

Right-click the SaveConnections value, and then click Modify.

In the Value data box, type no, and then click OK.

Quit Registry Editor.

NOTE: You must also edit any prior user keys to disable the Persistent Connections parameter. This information is located in the following registry key:

HKEY_USERS\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Network\Persistent Connections

How to Disable Dr. Watson Completely
SUMMARY

This article describes how to disable and re-enable the Dr. Watson program for Windows NT.

MORE INFORMATION

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys And Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it.

To Disable Dr. Watson

Click Start, click Run, type "regedit.exe" (without quotation marks) in the Open box, and then click OK.

Locate the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ AeDebug

NOTE: Steps 3-4 are optional, but necessary if you want to restore the default use of Dr. Watson.

Click the AeDebug key, and then click Export Registry File on the Registry menu.

Enter a name and location for the saved registry file, and then click Save.

Delete the AeDebug key.

Registry entries for debugger programs are located in the AeDebug key in Windows NT. The Dr. Watson program is installed by default in Windows NT, and is configured to run when an application error occurs (with a data value of 1 for the Auto value). The default values are:

Value Name = Auto Type = String (REG_SZ) Data Value = 1 or 0. (Default is 1) Value Name = Debugger Type = String (REG_SZ) Data Value = drwtsn32 -p %ld -e %ld -g

Note: This data value (drwtsn32 -p %ld -e %ld -g) is specific to Dr. Watson. Alternative debuggers will have their own values and parameters.

To Enable Dr. Watson

At a command prompt, type the following line, and then press ENTER:

drwtsn32 -i

Double-click the .reg file you created in steps 3-4 above.

Enable UltraDMA 66 Support
Go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000

"EnableUDMA66"=dword:00000001

Ultra DMA 66 has a maximum bus transfer of 66mb/sec this is twice the bandwidth of Ultra DMA 33. While this will inherently not enhance the speed of devices on the bus it will provide more maximum bandwidth.

Setting Page Lock Limits
Increase the number of pages the system will read or write to the hard disk at one time.

Why If your system does a lot of I/O raising this limit can increase disk speed.

Edit the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\

CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management and change the following key IoPageLockLimit with a REG_DWORD value (check the table below).

Registry Key Default Setting Recommended Settings(decimal)

IoPageLockLimit 0

1024-2048(16MB) For users with low memory

2048-4096(32MB)

4096-8192(64MB)

8192-16384(128MB) Most Users

16384-32768(256MB & Higher) For Users with lots of memory

Windows defaults this setting to 512KB, or 0.5MB.

Launch Internet Explorer as A Separate Thread
Launch Iexplorer as a separate thread and gain stability and speed.

Right Click on your iexplorer shortcut and edit the target to read as follows:

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" –new

For other IE command line switches see the Internet Explorer Tweaks section.

Remove Uneeded DCOM Protocols
Go To:

Administrative Tools->Component Services Then click the + sign infront of component services and go down to My Computer.

Right click on My COmputer and click on properties.

Go to the Default Protocals Tab

Remove all uneeded protocols from the list.

Reboot machine to take effect.

Adjust WMI Backup Schedule
The default WMI backup is set for every 30 minutes, this can easily be changed to whatever time amount you wish.

Go to:

Administrative Tools->Computer Management click on Services and Applications then right click on WMI Control click on properties then click on Backup and Restore. Change the Automatic Backup to whatever interval you like.

Disable WMI Logging
Go to:

Administrative Tools->Computer Management click on Services and Applications then right click on WMI Control click on properties then click on Logging. Change the logging level to Disabled.

Remove Indexing Service Automatic Network Shares
Go to:

Administrative Tools->Computer Management click on Services and Applications then right click on Indexing Services and click on properties.

Under the tracking tab uncheck the box Add Network Share Alias Automatically.

Speed Up 16 Bit Program Processing
The 16-bit sub-systems on your Windows NT Server /Windows 2000 do not start automatically,

causing a delay in the startup of the first 16-bit Windows or Command line application started.

You can start the 16-bit sub-system automatically by editing:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion/Winlogon

Double click on Userinit and add ,win.com wowexec to the end of the string.

You will need to reboot for this change to take effect

Check And Remove Dead Shortcuts
The Windows 2000 resource kit supplies Chklnks.exe which will check all your systems shortcuts and if the target of the

shortcut is not found it will give the option to delete one or all of the dead shortcuts.

To use just start the Chklnks.exe application, click Next and select the dead shortcuts to remove.

The utility also runs on NT 4 boxes with no obvious problems.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/default.asp

______________________________

> Back to Top