Miscellaneous

Next up here's one that disables those annoying beeps getting played when some error occurs (Errors bring up the error dialog box all the same though). Get it.

Next up, ever try to create a shortcut to something. Only to find it always has "shortcut to" at the start of it. This file disables the "shortcut to" being put into the name. Sweet ehhhh.

This will optimise the contiguous file allocation size for the file system in Windows. This will help out during disk intensive applications. Get it here.

BIOS information

Here’s how to find out detailed information on your BIOS, go into [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\Root\*PNP0C01\0000]. You'll then be able to see the BIOS date, version number & name.

Hiding drives

These next settings are useful if you want to restrict a person’s access while on your computer or removing unneeded menus/commands for yourself.

Open this key, [HKEY_USERS\DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]. In this key you can add/edit entries too allow you to hide/show certain drives on your system. Select from the following list as you see fit, if any. Add a new DWORD value. Use a value of 1 to apply the restriction & a value of 0 to remove the restrictions.

NoNetHood, removes the Network Neighbourhood icon from the desktop & connected computers will no longer appear in My Computer or Windows Explorer.

NoDrives, & give it a value of 1 if you want to hide the A: drive from My computer & Windows Explorer.

Next open this key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\]. Add a new DWORD value. Use a value of 1 to enable the restriction & a value of 0 to remove the restriction.

NoEntireNetwork, removes the Entire Network icon from Network Neighborhood. This limits the display to that of local workgroups.

NoWorkgroupContents, removes the icons for the local workgroups.

Icon cache

Windows stores Icons it displays in a cache file called ShellIconCache. This allows icons to appear quickly, as Windows doesn’t have to load the icons from programs that contain them. However, by default the cache holds 512 icons. Once the cache is full Windows it gets destroyed & begins again. When this happens desktop activity slows to a crawl & the desktop will most likely redraw. Increasing the Icon Cache size will decrease the amount of times this may happen in a session.

Open this key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]. Add a New string value entitled Max Cached Icons. The default value is 512. You should increase this value. I’d recommend doubling it to 1024. The maximum value for this is 2000 & minimum is 100 according to Microsoft.

 

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