Windows Help Center

Are you having boot up problems and would like to know what it going on behind that Windows Loading Logo? To find out, you can disable the splash screen by making a small change to the Boot.ini file.

Follow these steps (carefully!):

1. Open the "System Properties" dialog box ( Settings - Control Panel - System)

2. On the Advanced tab, click the Settings button in the "Startup And Recovery" section.

3. In the "Startup And Recovery" dialog box, select the Edit button in the "System Startup" section.

4. The Boot.ini file will open in Notepad; locate the line that ends with the /fastdetect switch.

5. Position your cursor to the right after the parameter, press the spacebar, and add the /SOS switch.

6. Save the Boot.ini file, and close Notepad.

7. Click Cancel to close both the "Startup And Recovery" dialog box and the "System Properties" dialog box.

8. Restart the computer to see the effect.

Once the computer restarts you will notice that the Windows Splash Screen is no longer present. Instead you can observe some of the boot up operations that Windows XP performs during the startup stage.

To renable the splash screen, follow the same procedure but remove the "/SOS".

By default Windows 2000, Windows XP and WinNT automatically setup hidden admin shares (admin$, c$ and d$), this registry key will disable these hidden shares.

System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ LanmanServer\ Parameters]

Value Name: AutoShareWks

Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)

Value Data: (0 = disable shares, 1 = enable)

This registry key actually stops the recreation of the shares, therefore it may be necessary to delete the shares through the drive properties also or you can also remove the shares through the Computer Management Console.

1. In Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.

2. Click to expand Shared Folders, and then click Shares.

3. In the Shared Folder column, right-click the share you want to delete, click Stop sharing, and then click OK.

Note : To remove the admin share for only the current session use the second method (Computer Management console), if you want a permanent removal, add the AutoShareWks registry.

How to Remove DRM Protection for Video Files 

This is how to unprotect the Video files from Mcft latest technology DRM.

So here is the procedure:

1. Install fresh Windows XP SP1 (English)

2. Download and install WMP9 from Mcft

3. Make sure you are now able to play the .wmv files from the DVD. That requires running dvdrun.exe, individualizing WMP and finding the right proxy if you are not in US to get the license.

4. Get the DRM2WMV files from the below links

5. Download Japanese version of WMP9 from Mcft

6. Doubleclick the downloaded file, it will unpack all installation files to temp directory in your Documents and Settings directory. Get the drmv2clt.dll file and copy it to c:\Program Files\Windows Media Player directory. Cancel the Japanese WMP9 installation.

7. Edit lines 9-12 of the drmdbg.ini downloaded from step 4 as written bellow

drmv2clt=1;

drmclien=0;

blackbox=0;

indivbox=0;

8. Doubleclick drmdbg.exe. It should open WMP. Navigate to your wmv file. After acquiring the license the drmdbg DOS window should display something like this:

drmdbg Ver 0.31 by taku

CreateProcess: c:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe

010010C5 âvââOâëâÇ âGâôâgâÕü[ â|âCâôâg

IsDebuggerPresent: memwriteret=1 callret=0

crc: 2850B98C c:\Program Files\windows media player\drmv2clt.dll

setbp 09252BCC 50

eax 00D6E1C8

[]

Copy the last 6 lines and paste them to T2_Part1.key text file to the drm2wmv1241\drm2 directory.

9. Copy the wmv files from the DVD to the drm2wmv1241 directory.

10. Change your date to 12/Feb/2005

11. Open DOS window, go to drm2wmv1241 directory. Type

md c:\windows\#dummy

X.wmv (where X indicates your file name)

The file should be decrypted. Here is what I see:

J:\drm2wmv1241>md c:\windows\#dummy

J:\drm2wmv1241>drm2wmv X.wmv (where X indicates your file name)

DRM(Ver1&2) Conversion tool Ver 1.241 by taku

J:\drm2wmv1241>drm2wmv X.wmv (where X indicates your file name)

DRM(Ver1&2) Conversion tool Ver 1.241 by taku

DRMv1 KID (17fG9KorUkm83BmyUnPv3w==)

DRMv2 KID (17fG9KorUkm83BmyUnPv3w==)

ÅSâpâPâbâgÉö: 110189ü@1âpâPâbâgâTâCâY: 9418

|################# | 34%

You can download the file from here

Code:

http://www.savefile.com/files/7205691

How to recover MOST of scratched CD data discs

I learn an old thecnique to how to recover damaged or scratched disks

with some lost of data. In this case i have one borrowed game - MAX PAYNE 2

with a chunck of 4 mb lost with a scratch in CD1 Install. Here we cover some

special thecniques of how to create a full working CD from the scratched one.

First some tools will be needed:

1. Alcohol 120%

2. UltraISO

3. Windows XP/2000 (not tested on 95/98/me)

3. Small piece of cotton

4. Dry cleaner paper

5. Finally, oil for cooking.

First step - preparing the CD

Get the cotton and drop some water, start cleaning vertically the surface of CD.

Do it 3 times and dry the water with a piece of dry cleaner paper. With a new piece

of cotton, drop some oil for cooking and start to wet the surface like you are

washing the CD with the oil. Dry carefully now. Some particles of oil will stay on the

microsurface of the scrath. It's okay. Seems the oil helps the laser of the CD/DVD driver

to read the surface again. Sure this will work with small unreadable scratchs - some hard

scratchs loose parts of the surface of the CD where we have data and it's lost forever.

But if it is loosed try anyway. Whith this tip 80% of the small scratched CD's coud be

recovered.

Second Step - testing the CD

With Alcohol 120% make an ISO - image making wizard - and lets see if the app can

read the loosed surface. In my case Alcohol 120% had recovered 60% of the data.

This is not enough. Have tryed other appz, they do not recover all the data. But the

CD/DVD driver laser CAN recover all data in this case. the data is still there, what we do?

third step - making the new CD

With the main copy system of windows explorer you can do it. Just create one folder

with the same name of the CD label for future burn reference, and copy the CD content

to the folder. When the CD copy process find the scratch, in majority of the cases, it's

slow down the reading and will recover ALL loosed data.If not, it just tell you there's

an unreadable sector. In this case your CD is lost. But it's not my case, finally

windows explorer got all the data from the scratch and made a copy in the folder.

with the ultraISO, wrote the original CD label, drop the content of the folder and

save as Iso. You can Test the new CD just mounting the iso in the Alcohol 120%. In my

case i did ISO of the two discs from MAX PAYNE 2 and tested installing from the mounted

ISO. Works like a charm. I got the 4 mb lost again. So, I have burned the CD and now i

have a working copy from the scratched one.

Sounds too bizzarre, but works. Course you can jump the cleaning process and try to copy

the content with Windows explorer. But in my case did not work without oil...

 How to modify *.exe files

learn how to change *.exe files, in 5 easy steps:

1) Don't try to modify a prog by editing his source in a dissasembler.Why?

Cause that's for programmers and assembly experts only.

try to view it in hex you'll only get tons of crap you don't understand.

First off, you need Resource Hacker(last version). It's a resource editor-

very easy to use, You can download it at h**p://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/

2) Unzip the archive, and run ResHacker.exe. You can check out the help file too

3) You will see that the interface is simple and clean. Go to the menu FileOpen or press Ctrl+O to open a file. Browse your way to the file you would like to edit. You can edit *.exe, *.dll, *.ocx, *.scr and *.cpl files, but this tutorial is to teach you how to edit *.exe files, so open one.

4) In the left side of the screen a list of sections will appear.

The most common sections are

-String table;

-RCData;

-Dialog;

-Cursor group;

-Bitmap;

-WAV.

*Icon: You can wiew and change the icon(s) of the program by double-clicking the icon section,chossing the icon, right-clicking on it an pressing "replace resource". After that you can choose the icon you want to replace the original with.

*String table: a bunch of crap, useful sometimes, basic programming knowladge needed.

*RCData: Here the real hacking begins. Modify window titles, buttons, text, and lots more!

*Dialog:Here you can modify the messages or dialogs that appear in a program. Don't forget to press "Compile" when you're done!

*Cursor group: Change the mouse cursors used in the program just like you would change the icon.

*Bitmap: View or change images in the programs easy!

*WAV:Change the sounds in the prog. with your own.

5) In the RCData,Dialog,Menu and String table sections you can do a lot of changes. You can modify or translate the text change links, change buttons, etc.

TIP: To change a window title, search for something like: CAPTION "edit this".

TIP: After all operations press the "Compile Script" button, and when you're done editing save, your work @ FileSave(Save as).

TIP: When you save a file,the original file will be backed up by default and renamed to Name_original and the saved file will have the normal name of the changed prog.

TIP: Sometimes you may get a message like: "This program has a non-standard resource layout... it has probably been compressed with an .EXE compressor." That means that Resource Hacker can't modify it because of it's structure.

 Services You Can Disable

There are quite a few services you can disable from starting automatically.

This would be to speed up your boot time and free resources.

They are only suggestions so I suggestion you read the description of each one when you run Services

and that you turn them off one at a time.

Some possibilities are:

Alerter

Application Management

Clipbook

Fast UserSwitching

Human Interface Devices

Indexing Service

Messenger

Net Logon

NetMeeting

QOS RSVP

Remote Desktop Help Session Manager

Remote Registry

Routing & Remote Access

SSDP Discovery Service

Universal Plug and Play Device Host

Web Client

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Cleaning the Prefetch Directory

WindowsXP has a new feature called Prefetch. This keeps a shortcut to recently used programs.

However it can fill up with old and obsolete programs.

To clean this periodically go to:

Star / Run / Prefetch

Press Ctrl-A to highlight all the shorcuts

Delete them

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Not Displaying Logon, Logoff, Startup and Shutdown Status Messages

To turn these off:

Start Regedit

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionpoliciessystem

If it is not already there, create a DWORD value named DisableStatusMessages

Give it a value of 1

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Clearing the Page File on Shutdown

Click on the Start button

Go to the Control Panel

Administrative Tools

Local Security Policy

Local Policies

Click on Security Options

Right hand menu - right click on "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile"

Select "Enable"

Reboot

For regedit users.....

If you want to clear the page file on each shutdown:

Start Regedit

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementClearPageFileAtShutdown

Set the value to 1

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No GUI Boot

If you don't need to see the XP boot logo,

Run MSCONFIG

Click on the BOOT.INI tab

Check the box for /NOGUIBOOT

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Speeding the Startup of Some CD Burner Programs

If you use program other than the native WindowsXP CD Burner software,

you might be able to increase the speed that it loads.

Go to Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services

Double-click on IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service

For the Startup Type, select Disabled

Click on the OK button and then close the Services window

If you dont You should notice

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Getting Rid of Unread Email Messages

To remove the Unread Email message by user's login names:

Start Regedit

For a single user: Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUnreadMail

For all users: Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUnreadMail

Create a DWORD key called MessageExpiryDays

Give it a value of 0

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Decreasing Boot Time

Microsoft has made available a program to analyze and decrease the time it takes to boot to WindowsXP

The program is called BootVis

Uncompress the file.

Run BOOTVIS.EXE

For a starting point, run Trace / Next Boot + Driver Delays

This will reboot your computer and provide a benchmark

After the reboot, BootVis will take a minute or two to show graphs of your system startup.

Note how much time it takes for your system to load (click on the red vertical line)

Then run Trace / Optimize System

Re-Run the Next Boot + Drive Delays

Note how much the time has decreased

Mine went from approximately 33 to 25 seconds.

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Increasing Graphics Performance

By default, WindowsXP turns on a lot of shadows, fades, slides etc to menu items.

Most simply slow down their display.

To turn these off selectively:

Right click on the My Computer icon

Select Properties

Click on the Advanced tab

Under Performance, click on the Settings button

To turn them all of, select Adjust for best performance

My preference is to leave them all off except for Show shadows under mouse pointer and Show window contents while dragging

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Increasing System Performance

If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can increase system performance

by having the core system kept in memory.

Start Regedit

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementDisablePagingExecutive

Set the value to be 1

Reboot the computer

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Increasing File System Caching

To increase the amount of memory Windows will locked for I/O operations:

Start Regedit

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management

Edit the key IoPageLockLimit

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Resolving Inability to Add or Remove Programs

If a particular user cannot add or remove programs, there might be a simple registry edit neeed.

Go to HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesUninstall

Change the DWORD NoAddRemovePrograms to 0 disable it

4096 - 32megs of memory or less

8192 - 32+ megs of memory

16384 - 64+ megs of memory

32768 - 128+ megs of memory

65536 - 256+ megs of memory