Hacking Windows XP (P1)

73 Chapter 4: Customizing the Appearance of the Windows Interface.. 91 Chapter 5: Hacking Windows Explorer.. 117 Chapter 6: Exploring Other Windows Enhancements.. 52 Customizing the Clas

Hacking Windows ® XP

Hacking Windows ® XP

Steve Sinchak

Wiley Publishing, Inc

Copyright © 2004 by Steve Sinchak

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Manufactured in the United States of America

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600 Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN

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eISBN: 0-7645-7722-0

About the Author

Steve Sinchak is an entrepreneur that has started several technology-related businesses and is

currently running a Web development firm known as SSMGi that owns and operates severalWeb sites As president of the small company, he is responsible for financial, as well as techni-cal, aspects of the business, such as application programming and infrastructure design andmaintenance

Steve has been working with computers for more than 10 years Starting with a desktop whichhad a 286-based processor, 1MB of RAM, and was running DOS & Windows 3.1, he taughthimself how to make his computer run faster on the outdated hardware Driven by curiosity tocustomize Windows and make it run faster, he spent countless hours researching and experi-menting with the inner workings and features of Windows His primary claim-to-fame in thissubject matter is as the creator of TweakXP.com, the number-one site for tweaking Windows

XP What started out as an idea for a new Web site that combined his interest in tweakingWindows and Web programming has grown into a massive database of tweaks and tips forWindows XP that attracts more than 3 million visitors a year

Currently, Steve is a senior at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, studying management

IT and computer science He splits his spare time between classes, running his businesses, andspending time with his family and friends

Proofreading and Indexing

TechBooks Production Services

Cover Image

Anthony Bunyan

This book is dedicated to my parents Larry and Mary Jo, my brothers Jason and David,

my sisters Jackie and Kimberly, and my girlfriend Emily.

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Writing this book while juggling classes and my business was often pretty difficult Almost all

of my free time for the last four months has been consumed by writing, leaving very little timefor my girlfriend and friends First, I would like to thank my girlfriend, Emily, for her love,support, understanding, and help when things got really tight Thank you so much You meanthe world to me

I’d also like to thank everyone in my family for the love, support, and motivation that they havealways shown me Dad, thanks for bringing home that old IBM AT from work many yearsago Who would have thought it could start something that would lead me to eventually write

a book? Mom, thank you for your constant motivation and love throughout all of the challenges

in my life

I’d like to thank my close friends, Paul and Tom Although they made writing this book verydifficult at times, with their constant distractions, I wouldn’t want it any other way Going toMiller Time pub with you two to take breaks from writing was priceless

Next, I’d like to thank everyone at Wiley for their work on this book Chris Webb, thanks forgiving me this opportunity and for your suggestions in the early stages Scott Amerman, thankyou very much for your help and suggestions with writing the chapters Thank you for turning

me into an author

Everyone at TweakXP.com also deserves a big thank you—especially Allan Grossman, theforum administrator of the TweakXP.com support forums Thank you very much for helping

me with the site and for turning the forum into one of the best support forums for Windows

XP I would also like to thank all of the forum moderators, news posters, active members, anddaily visitors You have all played an essential role in the success of TweakXP.com Thank youvery much!

Contents at a Glance

Acknowledgments ix

Part I: Customizing Your System 1

Chapter 1: Customizing the Look of the Startup 3

Chapter 2: Customizing User Navigation 39

Chapter 3: Hacking the Desktop 73

Chapter 4: Customizing the Appearance of the Windows Interface 91

Chapter 5: Hacking Windows Explorer 117

Chapter 6: Exploring Other Windows Enhancements 137

Part II: Increasing Your System’s Performance 157

Chapter 7: Analyzing Your System 159

Chapter 8: Speeding Up the System Boot 183

Chapter 9: Making Your Computer Load Faster 209

Chapter 10: Making Your Computer More Responsive 231

Chapter 11: Speeding Up Your Computer 247

Part III: Securing Your System 277

Chapter 12: Protecting Your Computer from Intruders 279

Chapter 13: Fighting Spam, Spyware, and Viruses 303

Chapter 14: Protecting Your Privacy 315

Appendix A: What’s on the CD-ROM 335

Index 343

End-User License Agreement 355

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xix

Part I: Customizing Your System 1 Chapter 1: Customizing the Look of the Startup 3

Customizing the Windows XP Boot Screen 3

Changing the boot screen 3

Customizing the Logon Screen 14

Working with the Welcome screen 15

Working with the classic logon screen 28

Global logon/Welcome settings 34

Summary 38

Chapter 2: Customizing User Navigation 39

Customizing the Start Panel 39

Using Group Policy Editor to customize the Start panel 40

Adding and removing navigation icons 44

Switching to small icons for frequently run apps 45

Increasing number of recently run programs displayed on the Start panel 48

Hiding programs from appearing in the Start panel 50

Pinning your programs 51

Adding Web site links to your Start panel 52

Customizing the Classic Start Menu 54

Turning the classic Start Menu back on 54

Customizing the classic Start Menu 54

Customizing the Start Menu/Panel Program Listings 55

Changing program listing display options for users of the Start panel 58

Changing program listing display options for users of the classic Start Menu 59

Removing pop-up Help for users of both the Start panel and Menu 61

Customizing the Taskbar 62

Using and adjusting program grouping 62

Quick Launching your programs 63

Hacking the Start button to replace the Start text 64

Modifying the taskbar location 68

Using the Taskbar Magnifier PowerToy 69

Removing the notification area 71

Removing the clock from the taskbar 71

Summary 71

Chapter 3: Hacking the Desktop 73

Customizing Desktop Icons 73

Removing all icons from the desktop 74

Customizing the icon drop shadow effect 74

Displaying the traditional Windows icons 75

Enabling large icons on the desktop 77

Removing the text below the icons 78

Renaming the Recycle Bin 79

Removing the shortcut arrow from icons on the desktop 80

Changing the icons on the desktop 81

Customizing the Behavior of the Desktop 83

Using the Virtual Desktop Manager PowerToy 84

Fun with Active Desktop 86

Using the wallpaper PowerToy 89

Summary 90

Chapter 4: Customizing the Appearance of the Windows Interface 91

Working with Themes 91

Changing the current theme 92

Making your own themes 92

Modifying the Visual Styles 100

Installing new visual styles 102

Tweaking the visual styles 108

Making your own visual styles 108

Visual Style Alternatives 112

Using WindowBlinds to change the way Windows XP looks 113

Installing additional Windows XP skins for WindowBlinds 114

Summary 115

Chapter 5: Hacking Windows Explorer 117

Hacking File Associations 117

Changing the default launch app 118

Changing the icon of any file type 119

Hacking the Context Menu 120

Removing items from the context menu 121

Adding your own items to the context menu 122

Modifying the Send To menu 125

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Customizing Your Folders 126

Changing a folder icon and picture 126

Changing the template of a folder 127

Customizing the view folder 129

Applying your folder settings to all folders 132

Working with Hidden Files 132

Unhiding hidden files 132

Revealing the super hidden files 134

Disabling the Common Tasks Pane 134

Summary 135

Chapter 6: Exploring Other Windows Enhancements 137

Modding Internet Explorer 137

Changing the logo animation 137

Changing the toolbar background 140

Making your own quick search address command 140

Other Visual Enhancements 142

Replacing the task switcher 143

Adding Special Effects to your Windows 144

Fine-Tuning ClearType 150

Branding Windows XP 152

Summary 155

Part II: Increasing Your System’s Performance 157 Chapter 7: Analyzing Your System 159

Monitoring Your System Hardware 159

Using performance 159

Using Bootvis to analyze your system start 166

Using Task Manager 170

Benchmarking Your System 173

How to benchmark your system 174

Summary 181

Chapter 8: Speeding Up the System Boot 183

Working with BIOS 183

Changing the boot order of your drives 184

Using the quick boot feature of the BIOS 186

Modifying the Operating System Boot 187

Lowering OS timeout values 187

Disabling the system boot screen 189

Disabling unneeded hardware devices 191

Removing extra fonts for speed 193

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Disabling unneeded services 196

Optimizing the location of the boot files 203

Summary 207

Chapter 9: Making Your Computer Load Faster 209

Speeding Up the Logon 210

Enabling automatic logon 210

Removing user passwords 211

Adjust the startup programs 216

Customizing startup programs for different users 223

Other Time-Saving Tips 225

Assigning alternative IP addresses 225

Turning off the logon music 228

Summary 229

Chapter 10: Making Your Computer More Responsive 231

Speeding up file browsing and access 231

Disabling the file access timestamp 232

Disabling legacy filename creation 234

Speeding Up the User Interface 236

Reducing the menu delay 237

Working with the performance options 238

Disable Indexing Service 244

Summary 246

Chapter 11: Speeding Up Your Computer 247

Working with the Windows Prefetcher 247

Hacking the registry to optimize the Prefetcher 248

Accelerate specific applications with prefetch 249

Using the Intel Application Accelerator 251

How well does the Intel Application Accelerator work? 253

What are the system requirements? 253

How to install Intel Application Accelerator 255

Fine-Tuning the Windows Paging File 255

Disabling the paging file 256

Adjusting the size of the paging file 258

Changing the location of the paging file 260

Defragmenting Your Drive 263

Defragmenting the Windows paging file 263

Defragmenting the NTFS master file table 264

Adjusting Your Application Priorities 264

Using Task Manager to adjust priorities 265

Starting applications with a user set priority 265

Using WinTasks to profile your priorities 267

Speeding Up Your Network 268

Increasing network browsing speed 269

Disabling unneeded protocols 270

Tweaking your Internet connection for speed 271

Summary 275

Part III: Securing Your System 277 Chapter 12: Protecting Your Computer from Intruders 279

How Vulnerable Is Your System? 280

Testing your Internet security 280

Updating your computer 281

Firewalls 282

Using the Windows firewall 283

Using ZoneAlarm personal 285

Using Sygate Personal Firewall 289

Disabling Unneeded Services 290

Disabling Remote Desktop connection 290

Disabling Messenger Service 292

Disabling Universal Plug and Play 292

Disabling Remote Registry Access 295

Disable DCOM support 295

Wireless Networks 296

Using WEP for secure communication 297

Using WPA for a more secure wireless connection 298

Controlling access to your computer 298

Managing user accounts 299

Summary 301

Chapter 13: Fighting Spam, Spyware, and Viruses 303

Eliminating Spam 303

Stopping spam in the first place 304

Using filtering software 305

Blocking external links in HTML mail 305

Defending Spyware and Adware 307

Detecting and removing spyware 307

Locking down Internet Explorer 311

Immunizing your computer 312

Defending against Viruses 312

Use an antivirus program 313

Summary 314

Chapter 14: Protecting Your Privacy 315

Internet Explorer 315

Removing address bar suggestions 315

Clearing visited Web sites history 316

Clearing temporary Internet files and cookies 318

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