When you perform a search for a file in Windows XP. The default settin’ is for XP to ONLY return files in de “Search Results” pane when dey are registered file types to a program on your PC.

In oder words if you are lookin’ for a file that is NOT registered with an application on your PC, it will not be found usin’ de default search settin’s.

However, you can turn off de default by a quick tweak of de registry!

Open de Registry editor (type regedit from de Run command) and navigate to:

HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex

Double-Click de value named:

FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions

Change de value from 0 to 1

Exit de registry editor and reboot!

Lets say you have downloaded some game or application that was 50 parts big, and you had to rename them all from .bmp to .rar to extract them.

You can easily create a batch file that does that for you.

Open Notepad

Fill in de notepad:

CODE
ren *.bmp *.rar

Of course, you have to edit dese two extensions to fit de files you want to convert. Save this file as renamer.bat and run it in de directory where you want to rename your downloads.

Makin’ Windows XP Go Faster

Services You Can Disable

There are quite a few services you can disable from startin’ automatically. This would be to speed up your boot time and free resources. They are only suggestions so I suggestion you read de 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 UserSwitchin’
Human Interface Devices
Indexin’ Service
Messenger
Net Logon
NetMeetin’
QOS RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Routin’ & Remote Access
SSDP Discovery Service
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Web Client

Cleanin’ de Prefetch Directory

Windows XP 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:

1) Star / Run / Prefetch
2) Press Ctrl-A to highlight all de shorcuts
3) Delete them

Not Displayin’ Logon, Logoff, Startup and Shutdown Status Messages

To turn dese off:

1) Start Regedit
2) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MicrosoftWindows/CurrentVersion/
policies/system
3) If it is not already dere, create a DWORD value named DisableStatusMessages
4) Give it a value of 1

Clearin’ de Page File on Shutdown

1) Click on de Start button
2) Go to de Control Panel
3) Administrative Tools
4) Local Security Policy
5) Local Policies
6) Click on Security Options
7) Right hand menu - right click on “Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile”
8) Select “Enable”
9) Reboot

For regedit users, if you want to clear de page file on each shutdown:

1) Start Regedit
2) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControl/SetControl/SessionManager/
MemoryManagement/ClearPageFileAtShutdown
3) Set de value to 1

No GUI Boot

If you don’t need to see de XP boot logo :

1) Run MSCONFIG
2) Click on de BOOT.INI tab
3) Check de box for /NOGUIBOOT

Speedin’ de Startup of Some CD Burner Programs

If you use program oder than de native WindowsXP CD Burner software, you might be able to increase de speed that it loads.

1) Go to Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services
2) Double-click on IMAPI CD-Burnin’ COM Service
3) For de Startup Type, select Disabled
4) Click on de OK button and den close de Services window

Gettin’ Rid of Unread Email Messages

To remove de Unread Email message by user’s login names:

1) Start Regedit
2) For a sin’le user: Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/MicrosoftWindows/CurrentVersion/UnreadMail
3) For all users: Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MicrosoftWindows/CurrentVersion/UnreadMail
4) Create a DWORD key called MessageExpiryDays
5) Give it a value of 0

Decreasin’ Boot Time

Microsoft has made available a program to analyze and decrease de time it takes to boot to Windows XP. The program is called BootVis

1) Uncompress de file.
2) Run BOOTVIS.EXE
3) For a startin’ point, run Trace / Next Boot + Driver Delays
4) This will reboot your computer and provide a benchmark
5) After de reboot, BootVis will take a minute or two to show graphs of your system startup.
6) Note how much time it takes for your system to load (click on de red vertical line)
7) Then run Trace / Optimize System
8) Re-Run de Next Boot + Drive Delays
9) Note how much de time has decreased
10) Mine went from approximately 33 to 25 seconds.

Increasin’ Graphics Performance

By default, WindowsXP turns on a lot of shadows, fades, slides etc to menu items. Most simply slow down deir display.

To turn dese off selectively:

1) Right click on de My Computer icon
2) Select Properties
3) Click on de Advanced tab
4) Under Performance, click on de Settin’s button
5) To turn them all of, select Adjust for best performance
6) My preference is to leave them all off except for Show shadows under mouse pointer and Show window contents while draggin’

Increasin’ System Performance

If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can increase system performance by havin’ de core system kept in memory.

1) Start Regedit
2) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControl/SetControl/SessionManager/
MemoryManagement/DisablePagin’Executive
3) Set de value to be 1
4) Reboot de computer

Increasin’ File System Cachin’

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

1) Start Regedit
2) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControl/SetControl/SessionManager/
MemoryManagement
3) Edit de key IoPageLockLimit

Resolvin’ Inability to Add or Remove Programs

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

1) Go to HKCU/Software/MicrosoftWindows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Uninstall
2) Change de 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

Have you experienced this kind of problem whenever you attempt to install an application in Windows (2k, xp)?

“The Windows Installer service could not be accessed. This can occur if you are runnin’ Windows in safe mode, or if de Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance.”

This gives 2 methods as a way of fixin’ this problem, but you might be very lucky if any of de 2 fixes de problem, alot of guys end up formattin’ deir systems and doin’ fresh windows installations or try wired ways of fixin’ it.

Well, de solution is very easy:

1. right click your root windows installation drive i.e drive where you installed windows
2. click properties at de bottom
3. select security tab
4. click Add and scroll down to SYSTEM account click add and click OK.
5. allow Full control permission and click Apply and den Ok.

This should solve your problem with windows installer.

Tools Needed:

SmartFTP [ smartftp.com ]
NAPALM FTP Search Site [ search.ftphost.net ]
vcdquality.com Release Nfo Site
DAMN NFO Viewer or just notepad [www.damn.to ]

This tutorial is so i can stop answerin’ tha same questions everyday in this tutorial I’ll explain how to use search sites like NAPALM effectively. basically better search results and a quality release. We are goin’ to use a movie as de example so here we go.

First thin’ I do is try and figure who released it and if any were nuked and why most of de time you can find de NFO at de sites below

www.deisonews.com - www.nforce.nl - www.vcdquality.com
we are goin’ use vcdquality to find out NFO on Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life
h**p://www.vcdquality.com/index.php?imdbid=0325703

Say you chose de copy Centropy released

Here is de link to de nfo file

h**p://www.vcdquality.com/nfo.php/ctp-tr2.nfo?id=16662&show=text&save=1

If you read it you see a section that says Archives [56/56*15]

Ok so now you know your lookin’ for 2 CD’s and that are Split RAR files at 15mb each. You will also see this (( password is “drudgereportdotcom” )). Im sure that will help later so now to go find de file names by doin’ a search.

Here are some sites you can use

NAPALM - RELIZ - AMUN - FTPSpider

Im goin’ to use NAPALM for de example do an un-filtered search for “tomb raider centropy” without de quotes. But I wouldn’t recommend always searchin’ as above because de name of tha Movie/App/Game/ReleaseGroup isnt always goin’ to be in file name or url. So results could be limited but it helps on gettin’ correct file names. You should notice that de file name seems to be in this format ctp-tr1.r54 and ctp-tr2.r54. “ctp-tr1.r54″ is in a file from CD1 and “ctp-tr2.r54″ is in a file from CD2

Ok so now we know de file names, so search for ctp-tr2.r54 and you will have more streamlined results before we had over 100 results from each ftp that had this movie. With one result per file at over 50 files per cd, that would take way to lon’ to go through page by page till you get to each FTP site.

Now that we have tha search narrowed down by a sin’le file name each result is a different ftp site. Notice also that I have searched for a high number file from cd 2. The reason for this is because it is more likely that it has been fully uploaded and not missin’ any files because most people start uploadin’ from cd1 and in order of first split file .rar .r00 .r01 and NOT from cd2 and backwards .r50 .r49 .r48.

Ok that was easy enough but now we get to de hopefully not slow part of DOWNLOADING de files. Normally you can get better speeds from an anonymous server because you can use multiple connections at once. Say de server only gives ya 4k download, you may be able to connect 50 times at once and get more like 200k download, but a FTP that needs a Password and user name normally isnt that easy. The reason is normally bacause only 1 connection per IP is allowed and amount of users at one time is limited to about 15 or less, so dere are always a lon’ line of peope waitin’ to get in. Basically even if we could have more than one connection per IP, if it took 9 hours to get access you would need to wait that lon’ for each connection or thread. By de time anoder thread connected you would have probably already finished downloadin’ de file anyway.

NAPALM search site has nice search and filter option that will only show anonymous servers in de results page. Now open up SmartFTP and dere are a few options we want to be sure and change.

Tools > Settin’s > General:
Set Default Download Path to whatever you want

Tools > Settin’s > Connection:
Set Max Retries to -1 (( -1 = unlimited ))
Set Retry Delay to @ least 40 sec.*

*(( because some ftp will ban if you hammer/try and login to often ))
*(( read welcome messages on tha ftp log/status window for possible hammer rules ))

Tools > Settin’s > Connection > Keep Alive:
Make sure Keepalive is checked
Set interval to about 40
(( if set to low will be anoyin’ & to high may not be effective on some sitez ))
Highlight NOOP in de list and push Remove
Now type LIST into de box and push tha Add
(( This is de command that keepalive uses to pretend your not idle ))
(( some ftps will kick you out if you are idle to lon’ ))
(( and some still do with tha NOOP command we so have changed it to LIST
(( if you want you can change it to somethin’ better all i know is this works for me ))
(( nobody wants to sit for 9 hours waitin’ to get in den get kicked out ))

SmartFTP also has Clipboard monitorin’, so all you need to do is have smart ftp runnin’. Go Back to NAPALM. Right click a link and select “Copy Shortcut” from tha menu and smartFtp will popup and say FTP URL in clipboard detected. If you want to open that site, just cick yes.

But it can be even more simple than that if you want.

Tools > Settin’s > Display > Prompts:
Uncheck: On URL Catch
(( Now it will just open tha FTP without any prompt ))

When you are conectin’ to ftp you need to watch tha log/status window

For possibe crap links (( dead links and/or ratio sites )), dese are tha most common errorz to look for:

530 Account Disabled.
No connection could be made because de target machine actively refused it. A connection attempt failed because de connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

550 Permission denied
While tryin’ to download a file
(( this is probably a ratio site if it has everythin’ you ever wanted and more & looks to good to be true ))
(( it probably is and id just move on to tha next site ))

Anoder problem you may find on anonymous ftp is that tha files or folders are not dere. 2 reasons for that is dey were eider deleted or just moved. If dey were moved this could be a problem most people uploadin’ to anonymous ftp, made a huge maze of locked folders to hide deir files and that makes for an endless task tryin’ to find de files unless you have an application that can spider de ftp and has de capability to get through locked folders. To have a list of every file on de ftp I dont know of any public application i can recommend with that capability. But dey do exist. This app can get through locked folders and may help. It seems like a crap program, but de best i could find on google in about 5 min worth of searchin’ is:

PubView.zip - www.jtpfxp.net has nfo about dir lockin’ & breakin’ dirs

Ill go over some basic instructions on downloadin’ from Anonymous and NonAnonymous Sites, or maybe i should say sites that allow more than one connection per IP and ones that dont.

We will start with anonymous or multiple thread capable FTP

Once you have de ftp open and you see de files you want. Just drag and drop them into de Global Queue tab on de transfers window and den just push de start button. We should have de In Speed at bottom right status bar. If its not goin’ fast enough, you can adjust de amount of connections/threads you have runnin’. Keep addin’ threads until your bandwidth is maxed or until your total In Speed doesnt get any faster. Anoder thin’ you may wanna keep in mind is that you can connect to more than one ftp downloadin’ CD1 from one site and CD2 from de oder etc. for a combined speed.

Now we go onto NonAnonymous Sitez

You cant use Global Queue because you cant have multiple threads, so just right click de file or folder you want and select Download > Direct > Select Folder. Most of dese sites will be slow and could take hours maybe days to get into, so what i do is just open every sin’le result in NAPALM at de same time. I figure that i have a better chance waitin’ on 10 sites rader than 1. So when you have them all open just close out de ones that have de errors mentioned above, den you can walk away and check every so often to see if you have gotten in one yet. This is where de keepalive option helps out and of course if you happen to get into more than one at a time
just go for tha combined speed method if it is goin’ slow.

Just a little basic html tip for those who are tryin’ to download an application from sites which has an paypal order page & link to start you off.

Use a proxy when you try this to hide your ip as some sites will record your ip when you connect for security.

1) Right click your mouse (ctrl+click) viewsource and open de source of de site in an a text editor
2) Search for de word “return”
3) Next to it you can find de url for de thank you page
4) Copy de url and paste it in your browser and you will see de download link

This works only if you can download instantly after payment, it will not work if de link needs to be emailed to you.

You can try it here to start with:
Code:
www.ramphelp.com/halfpipe.html

About half way down de page you will find:

Copy de link into your browser and download.