Monday, April 21, 2008

Scheduling Connecting And Disconnecting From Your ISP

0 comments
With many ISPs using PPPoE-based connections, and many ISPs havingawkward schemes such as night-unlimited it’s a good idea to schedule your dialling process rather than staying up late at night.Once connected, your downloads canstart. You can also schedule to connect to VPNs.


First we create a batch file. Start Notepad (or any other text editor). Enter the following:
RASDIAL

should be your exact connection name. Save the file using a suitable name such as“DIALNET.BAT”.
Now create a schedule by clicking on Scheduled Tasks in the Control Panel. Double-click on Add Scheduled Task. Click Next. Browse and choose the path of the BAT file. Choose the type of
frequency you want the task to run at.Next set the time and date. Finally enter the password for the account running the dialler. You can further make changes to the schedule by right clicking on the newly-created scheduled task and clicking on Properties.

So why would you want to make changes? Well, many more settings can be applied, and multiple schedules can be allotted. Say you connect between 12 and 8 AM,and then you want it to connect at 1 PM again. Such options are available only once you’re done adding the schedule through the Wizard.Similar to scheduling a connection, disconnection can be done in the same manner. Some alterations in the batchfile creation are needed. First, create anew text file and enter
RASDIAL
/disconnect
Save the file as a BAT file, for
example,“DISC-NET.BAT”.Be sure to enter your exact connection name in place of. Once again, like the connection schedule, create a schedule in the same manner only this time choose the Disconnecting BAT file.

Creating A Windows XP Boot CD With SP2

1 comments
1. First, create a folder on your hard drive e.g. D:\XPCD. Now, copy the entire contents of existing Windows XP CD to this folder. The Windows XP SP2 executable file is an archive of the Service Pack 2 files, so you can use WinZip and extract SP2 files to another folder say D:\SP2. Now, locate update.exe under D:\SP2. This can be found inside the sub-folder named ‘update’. Go to the DOS command prompt and change your directory to this ‘update’ folder. Run the commandcommand “update where/integrate:"(dir)" “(dir)” is the directory you saved the Windows XP CD files to, ( “D:\XPCD” in ourcase). This will start integrating SP2 into the Windows XP Installation files saved at D:\XPCD. You should get message box confirmation that integration was successful.Now the D:\XPCD folder contains Windows XP installation files with SP2 integrated.

2. Extracting the boot image from the existing Windows XP bootable CD is easy. You need to use software that can do this. Bart’s Boot Image Extractor (BBIE) is a simple but useful utility and isavailable for download from http://www.ziddu.com/download/7447721/bbie10.zip.html. Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD drive, and go to the command prompt and change directory to the folder where BBIE is located. Run “bbie -v (CD drive letter)” e.g. “bbie -v F:”. You should now find a file named
‘image1.bin’ being created in the same folder from where bbie.exe was run. This file is the
Windows XP Boot image.

3. Insert a blank CD-R media into your CD Writer. Use burning software such as Nero to create your boot CD. Go to File >> New, select ‘Boot CD’ and select the boot image file that you created in Step 2. Make sure that emulation is set to ‘No emulation’. The boot segment is automatically filled in by Nero—all you need to do is set the number of loaded sectors to 4. Select Mode1 and ISO Level 2, from under the ISO tab. Enable all options under ‘Relax ISO Restrictions’, and use the ISO 9660 Character set. Under the Label tab, enter the same label name as that of theoriginal CD. To find this, just insert the Windows XP Installation CD into your CD- ROM drive and open Windows Explorer to see the name displayed against your CD drive. Click ‘New’ to open the File Explorer browser. In the file browser, select all the XP Installation files with SP2 integrated (from D:\XPCD in our example) for writing to a new CD. Finally open the CD Write dialog box, and under the ‘Burn’ tab, enable the Finalize CD option. Now, write the compilation to the blank CD-R. You have successfully created a bootable Windows XP installation CD with SP2.

Create A Special Folder In Windows Explorer

1 comments
We can create a folder like My Documents one that will appear as a system folder in XP by doing the following steps...

1.In the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID. Create a new1 key with a Globally Unique Identifier(GUID). The GUID is a 128-bit identifier that is usually generated by Windows. This can be a random number that is used touniquely identify COM objects. Create a key using this random GUID:{FD4DF9E0-E3DE-11CE-BFCF-ABCD1DE12345}

2.
Set the value of the “(Default)” setting for this key to the name of the folder, say “My Personal Data”. Create a new sub-key under the main key and call it “DefaultIcon”. That is, create a key called:HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{FD4DF9E0-E3DE-11CE-BFCFABCD1DE12345}\
DefaultIcon

Set the value of “(DefaultIcon)”to the filename and path of the icon file you want to use for the folder, for example,“C:\Topsec.ico”, without the quotes. If you don’t specify a path to an iconfile, Windows will use its default folder icon instead.

3 .Create another sub-key under the main key called “InprocServer32”, that is, create the
key called HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{FD4DF9E0-E3DE-11CE-BFCF-ABCD1DE12345}\
InprocServer32
Set the“(default)” setting here to“shell32.dll”.Create another string value called ThreadingModel and set its value to “Apartment”. There’s one more: create another sub-key called
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{FD4DF9E0-E3DE-11CE-BFCF-ABCD1DE12345}\Shell\
Open MyFolder\Command
Set the “(Default)” value here to the command that should be executed when the folder is clicked. In this case, it would be “explorer /root,c:\My Personal Data”.

4.There’s more keys to be created:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{FD4DF9E0-E3DE-11CE-BFCF-ABCD1DE12345}\ShellEx\
PropertySheetHandlers\{FD4DF9EO-E3DE-11CE-BFCF-ABCD1DE12345} and

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{FD4DF9E0-E3DE-11CE-BFCF-ABCD1DE12345}\
ShellFolder. Under this key, create a new binary value called“Attributes” with the value
00 00 00 00”.

5.To place the folder in My Computer, add the original key to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
MyComputer\Namespace\
So the key value will be
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
MyComputer\Namespace\{FD4DF9E0-E3DE-11CE-BFCF-ABCD1DE12345}
Now go to My Computer, and you’ll see a new custom folder!



Saturday, April 19, 2008

Bypass Windows File Protection in Windows XP

0 comments
There are two different solutions, depending on whether you have SP2 installed or not.

If you don’t have SP2 installed
Locate the file sfc_os.dll, which should be in your System32 folder. Copy it and name it sfc_os.bak. Open this file using a hex editor such as XVI32,which is an excellent freeware. This is an extremely simple edit and does not require an editor with advanced features. All you need to do is change two values. The location of these values will vary depending on whether you’re using Windows XP without a Service Pack or Windows XP with SP1, but the actual hex values to change will be the same.For Windows XP with no Service Pack installed, go to offset 0000E2B8 (E2B8 hex). For Windows XP with SP1, go to offset 0000E3BB (E3BB hex). At those offsets, change the hex values 8BC6 to 9090.Note: Depending on your hex editor, you may see the value separated by a space, as in “8B C6”. If you can’t find the values, do not proceed. It could be that your version of XP is different. The edit as described here only applies to English retail versions of Windows XP.

If you have SP2 installed
Disabling System File Protection in XP prior to SP2 involved editing the sfc_os.dll file, but the version of sfc_os.dll that comes with SP2 is different, and you cannot disable file protection with it. With SP2, you need to use the previous version of the sfc_os.dll file, which is 5.1.2600.1106 (the one with SP2 is5.1.2600.2180). Open sfc_os.dll with a hex editor and go to offset 0xECE9. The values to change are 33 C0 40. Change these to 90 90 90. Save your changes. Rename the file with a .bak extension (sfc_os.bak). The original exists in two locations: the\Windows\System32 folder, and the\Windows\System32\dllcache folder. Place a copy of sfc_oc.bak in both these folders. Then in the dllcache folder, look for cmd.exe, double-click it, and enter this command: copy SFC_OS.BAK SFC_OS.DLL /Y Next, go to your System32 folder and do the same thing. Look for cmd.exe, double- click it, and enter exactly the samecommand.
Points to remember
* If you have a problem overwriting the files, you can do the copying within the Recovery Console, or you can try Safe Mode.
*The dllcache folder is a hidden folder.
*It is important to copy the file to yourdllcache folder first.
*If you’re prompted to pop in your Windows CD, click Cancel.

Once the files have been copied, shut down your computer and restart it. The final step is to disable System File Protection in the Registry. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. In the right-hand pane, if it doesn’t exist, create a new DWORD value named SFCDisable. Double-click it and ente “FFFFFF9D”. Exit the Registry Editor and reboot. You’re done.




Automate the installation of Windows XP

0 comments
You can create a CD that can install Windows automatically, putting in all the details and answering all the dialog boxes. The secret behind the unattended nature of the whole thing is the answer file, which tells Windows what to do while it’s installing. The answer file can be created using Windows Setup Manager. Using this tool, you can make the answer file so powerful that you can even tell
Windows to include or exclude individual components, set the display resolution, and
more. Here’s how you do it.

1: To begin with, insert your Windows XP installation CD into the drive and copy the entire contents of the CD to a folder on your hard drive.

2: Navigate to the Support > Tools folder on the CD and double-click the Deploy.cab file. Copy all the files to a folder on your hard disk.

3: The crucial part begins now—creating the answer file. To execute the Windows Setup Manager, double-click the Setupmgr.exe file from the contents of Deploy.cab, which you just copied onto the hard drive. The next step explains the option you need to select from the first few dialog boxes that appear.

4: The first few steps of the wizard are self-explanatory. Select the following options from the successive dialog boxes: Create a new answer file; Windows unattended installation (Select the appropriate Windows version); “Fully automated”; “No, this answer file will be used to install from CD”; and finally, accept the license agreement.

5: Under General Settings, you can customise the installation of Windows by providing the default name and organisation, display settings, time zone and the product key. Fill in the fields using the drop-down lists or by keying in the details. If you don’t select an option from the drop-
down lists, the default values will be used.

6: Under Network Settings, configure the computer name, administrator password, networking components and workgroup. If you are specifying the Administrator password, make sure you check the option to encrypt the password in the answer file. If you have a static IP address, you can specify the settings under the Networking Components section.


7 : Use the Advanced Settings section only to configure telephony, browser and shell settings and installation folders. Under Browser and Shell Settings, click the browser settings button to set the home page and add Favorites. If you are on a network, you can also specify the proxy settings.

8 : After you’re done,click Finish and save the answer file as “winnt.sif” when you are prompted. Advanced users can further tweak the answer file by referring to the Help file called Ref.chm in the same folder as the Setup Manager. Finally, copy the answer file to the i386 folder in the Windows XP installation folder you created in the beginning.


9: To burn a bootable installation disc, you need the boot sector of the Windows XP CD. Download it from www.tacktech.com/pub/microsoft/bootfiles/bootfiles.zip, and extract the boot sector file to a folder. This file will be used with Nero Burning ROM to create the bootable disc.

10 : Launch Nero and select CD-ROM(Boot) from the New Compilation dialog bo Under the Boot tab, specify the boot sector file you extracted. Set the emulation as “No emulation”, and keep the boot message blank. Most importantly, remember to set the “Number of loaded sectors” as 4.

11: Under the Burn tab, set the write method to disc at-once. Click the New button to begin adding files and folders to the compilation. Drag all the contents of the Windows XP installation disc that you copied to your hard drive (with the answer file in the i386 folder) into the left pane.

12: Insert a blank CD into the optical drive and hit the Burn button. Wait a few minutes and there you go! Your unattended Windows XP installation disc is ready!!!

Registry hacks to Improve performance of Windows XP

1 comments
1.Load Applications Faster
The Windows prefetcher aims to load applications faster by “pre-fetching” the application and storing it in the pre-fetch cache. You can speed up application loading by changing the default value of one the settings under the relevant key.
Navigate to:
HLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

The default value for the EnablePrefetchersetting is 3.Change this value to 5to make applications load faster. You can experiment with higher values—up to 9—and see if you get a further
improvement.Since this relates to the system, a reboot is required for the change to take effect.
2.Optimisation Of The Boot Files
Normal file fragmentation scatters the pieces of a file all over your hard disk. This invariably also affects the files that load at boot time. You can defragment the files that load at system startup to enable faster loading.
Navigate to:
HLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction

A setting called Enable under this key needs to be set to Y (forYes). This setting defragments the boot files, and it might relocate startup files into contiguous clusters on the volume, reducing the
movement of the disk head when reading the volume.
With the setting at Y, boot file optimisation occurs automatically if the system is idle for 10 minutes. A reboot is required for the change to take effect.

3.Unload Unused DLLs
After an application is closed, XP has the annoying habit of leaving the associated DLL files in memory. This can hog precious resources and memory, and also cause stability problems. Make
the DLLs unload themselves from memory after the program is done running.

Navigate to:
HLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AlwaysUnloadDLL

If the DWORD Always UnloadDLL is not present, you will need to create it. Set the Value of the “(Default)” setting to 1. Application-associated DLLs will get unloaded when the application is closed.

4.Disable User Tracking
Useless to most users—except perhaps for system administrators—XP’s inbuilt user tracking system uses up precious resources.The system keeps track of the programs run by a user, the
paths followed, and the documents used. (Did you know your XP was spying on you all this while?) Disable this to free up system resources.

Navigate to:
HCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Set the DWORD NoInstrumentationto 1. This will disable most of the user tracking features of XP.

5.Run 16-bit Apps In Their Own Processes
Use this hack if you have more than one 16-bit application left over from the days of your nostalgia. XP runs all 16-bit applications in a single process. Having a separate process for each application can increase their stability and process.

Navigate to:
HLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WOW

Browse to the String DefaultSeparateVDM. If it’s not there, you’ll need to create it. Set its value to Yes.

6.Load Kernel Into RAM
In Windows 98, programs could be loaded and kept in RAM for as long as you wanted. You could even load a video clip into RAMdirectly and have it play from there! XP is much more restrictive,
mostly due to security reasons. But when it comes to the Windows XP kernel, there’s something you can do. By default, XP only loads the required parts of the kernel into RAM at boot time, and calls the other parts as and when needed. Having the entire kernel available in memory speeds up processing.

Navigate to:
HLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management

Set the value of the DisablePagingExecutive key to 1. This will make the entire kernel be loaded in memory. A reboot is required for the changes to take effect.
Only use this hack if you have sufficient memory. Recommended: 512 MB or more. Also, this hack may affect some programs that use the Windows swap file directly, such as Adobe Photoshop.

7.Edit The Startup Programs List
Many of the programs that start up at boot time do not figure in the Startup folder. If you want to stop more than one application from loading at bootup, you will normally need to go and turn off the preference in each application one by one. Tedious and time consuming. This hack can help you do this in one go.

Navigate to:
HLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
And to:
HCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

All the programs that load at boot time will be specified under these two keys. Review the applications listed in this list and delete all the entries you don’t want started up at boot time. Next bootup, they’ll be gone.

Be careful not to delete needed programs such as anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. You should be able to identify them by their path if not by the file name.

8.Optimise The System Cache
Desktop systems are normally optimised for applications, and servers for file caching. Depending on how you use your system, you may want to optimise your system for either.


Navigate to:
HLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management

Find the setting LargeSystemCache. Set this DWORD value to 1 for server behaviour or to 0 for desktop behaviour.


Some programs such as SQL Server and Exchange Server set this value during installation and override the change.


9.Turn Off Windows Animation

Windows animations—like those that happen when you minimise or maximise windows—look good, but only if you have the processing power and/or RAM. To get the most performance
out of your system turn off this setting. You could do it via a host of settings in the GUI, but this Registry hack does it all in one fell swoop.


Navigate to:
HCU\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics


Change the value called MinAnimate to 0 to disable Windows
Animation. A restart is required.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Make a USB drive a key to boot into XP

0 comments
For our task, a USB drive of a capacity ofat least 256 MB is required. If we need to include extra utilities, hotfixes, and sevicepacks, then we need at least a 512 MB drive.

Format the drive using "FAT" filesystem.

After having selected “Show hidden files and folders” and deactivating “Hide protected operating system files”, navigate to the root directory on which Windows is located, usually C:\. Copy the boot.ini, ntdlr,and NTDETECT.COM files from that directory to the USB Flash drive. Rename the “boot.ini” in C:\ to “boot.bak”.Windows will not now be able to boot from the hard drive,and the USB drive will be the key to unlocking the computer.Now to check whether your USB drive works or not! Restart your PC and select the USB drive as the First Boot Device in the BIOS.For this test, deactivate the “Quick Boot” and “Show Full Screen Logo” options in order to be able to monitor any BIOS-reported activities. Also, the “USB Legacy Support” and“USB 2.0 Controller” options need to be activated if available. Save your changes and exit the BIOS, and restart.If you encounter a problem booting, look for an option in the BIOS that extends the
response time of the USB drive, for example, the “USB Mass Storage Reset Delay” option found in the AMI-BIOS. Choose the highestvalue and gradually decrease the value until the problem pops up again. This should work, but if the problem persists, check your motherboard manual or visit the Web site of your motherboard’s manufacturer for a BIOS update.

some other tricks

0 comments
1.Replace Microsoft Windows XP “Copying…”animation

The Windows file copying animation is located in shell32.dll. This animation can be replaced or deleted with the help of a tool called Resource Hacker Download it From

http://files1.softwarepod.com/33821/reshack.zip

Shell32.dll can be found in \WINDOWS\system32 directory. Back up this DLL, and open a copy in Resource Hacker.
Expand the AVI folder.Then expand the folder named 160, right-click on the resource 1033, click on ‘Replace a resource’ and browse to the location where the new animation is stored.
Then type :
Resource Type: AVI
Resource Name: 160
Resource Language: 1033

You can now see that the animation has changed. Then expand the folder named 161 right click on the resource 1033, click on ‘Replace a resource’ and browse to the location where the animation is stored .
Then type :
Resource Type: AVI
Resource Name: 160
Resource Language: 1033

To save the changes click on ‘Save’ under the File menu. Remember the location where you have
saved the file as you will need it later. Restart your computer in DOS mode and replace the
shell32.dll in C:\WINDOWS\system32 with the edited shell32.dll.
Restart your computer and see the change by copying a file.

2.
Startbutton in Windows XP displays the System Time


Download starclock.
This tiny piece of code comes with startclock.ini file for making configuration changes such as 12-hour clock with seconds, 24-hour clock, load program at startup, refresh rate (be careful while changing this setting; smaller the number, more the CPU usage) and hide tray icon. To exit
this program, press “Ctrl+Alt+x”. That’sit, now you can save precious space on the taskbar by replacing the clock from the system tray.

3.Limit Logon Hours For Users

Parents might want to limit their children’s computer usage, so they can set a time limit only between which they will be automatically allowed to log into their Windows account. Limited usage for particular users for certain time periods can be set through commands.The command for doingthis is:
net user /time:.

For example, “net user Anu /time:M- F,08:00-17:00” will only let the user Anu log in between 8 and 5 from Monday to Friday.


4.Shutdown, Restart, And Logoff Icons On The Desktop

You might want to have shortcuts on the Desktop for shutdown, hibernation, etc. Right-click on the Desktop and make a new shortcut by selecting New > Shortcut. Then in the Type the location of the item: box, enter “shutdown.exe -s -t 00”, where “00” is the delay in seconds.
(You can increase it.) You will then be asked to select a name (call it “Shutdown”, for example). After creating the shortcut, you can change the icon assigned to it by right clicking on the shortcut and selecting Properties. The window that comes up next has a “Change Icon” option, which is easy to use. For a Restart shortcut, use “shutdown.exe -r -t 00”. Replacing -r by -l
gives the code for logging off:“shutdown.exe -l -t 00”. Fast user switching is also possible; the code for that is “Rundll32.exe User32.dll, LockWorkStation”. Similarly one can also make a shortcut for Standby/Hibernation.If Hibernation is enabled, the computer will hibernate, else it will go into Standby.
For this, use “%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll,SetSuspendState”.

Friday, April 11, 2008

some useful sites

0 comments
1.Brand Name Sunglasses and Prescriptions such as Prada, Gucci, Chanel, DG and much more.
Mens, womens and unisex; 2005, 2006, 2007 and old fashion models. 100% authentic. Wholesale Prices. Most famous brands. Define your style with a large selection from many different lines. All glasses come in the original case.

2.Brand Name Sunglasses and Prescriptions such as Prada, Gucci, Chanel, DG and much more.
Mens, womens and unisex; 2005, 2006, 2007 and old fashion models. 100% authentic. Wholesale Prices. Most famous brands. Define your style with a large selection from many different lines. All glasses come in the original case.

3. credit-center
Some simple ways on how we can start building credit and where we can find these cards in order to start gaining adult financial responsibilities.

4.Submit your Site to Direct Link Directory

5.Solve your computer problems easily

6.Free Website Directory

7.Blogs Directory

8.Free Directory - domaining.in

9.Business Directory - a great family friendly directory offering full web services.

10.Free web directory

11.Light it up-Blog from a lighting pen.

12.COUNTERDEAL.COM

13.ARCADEROCKS.COM

14.Total Blog Directory Computer Software Blog Directory

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Link exchange

0 comments
1.ARCADEROCKS.COM
2.COUNTERDEAL.COM
 

Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved Revolution Two Church theme by Brian Gardner Converted into Blogger Template by Bloganol dot com