Speed up your browsing of Windows 2000 & XP machines
Here's a great tip to speed up your browsing of Windows XP machines. Its actually a fix to a bug installed as default in Windows 2000 that scans shared files for Scheduled Tasks. And it turns out that you can experience a delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network because Windows 2000 is using the extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Note that though the fix is originally intended for only those affected, Windows 2000 users will experience that the actual browsing speed of both the Internet & Windows Explorers improve significantly after applying it since it doesn't search for Scheduled Tasks anymore. Here's how :
Open up the Registry and go to :
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace
Under that branch, select the key :
{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}
and delete it.
This is key that instructs Windows to search for Scheduled Tasks. If you like you may want to export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary.
This fix is so effective that it doesn't require a reboot and you can almost immediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Set the Search Screen to the Classic Look
When I first saw the default search pane in Windows XP, my instinct was to return it to its classic look; that puppy had to go. Of course, I later discovered that a doggie door is built into the applet. Click "Change preferences" then "Without an animated screen character." If you'd rather give it a bare-bones "Windows 2000" look and feel, fire up your Registry editor and navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ CabinetState.
You may need to create a new string value labeled "Use Search Asst" and set it to "no".
When I first saw the default search pane in Windows XP, my instinct was to return it to its classic look; that puppy had to go. Of course, I later discovered that a doggie door is built into the applet. Click "Change preferences" then "Without an animated screen character." If you'd rather give it a bare-bones "Windows 2000" look and feel, fire up your Registry editor and navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ CabinetState.
You may need to create a new string value labeled "Use Search Asst" and set it to "no".
Friday, April 10, 2009
Backup your Outlook Express Data: Step by Step...
Outlook express data consists of the several parts.
Email messages
Account settings
Address Book (if used)
Mail rules (if any)
Passwords
1. Email Messages:
From the Outlook Express menu select Tools Options Maintenance and click the StoreFolder button. You see a dialog with the name of the directory that has your mail files. If you look in that directory you find files named after your mail folders and news groups. They all have a .DBX suffix. Outlook Express keeps all messages in these database files. If you make copies of these files regularly, you'll have a safe backup of your OE mail.
Restore (if necessary): To restore the backup data, just copy it back to the directory. You can selectively restore folders by just copying specific files back. Alternatively, you can use OE's File Import Messages feature to import one or more of the backup folders. Email Account Settings.
As far as we know, the procedure works for all kind of email: The regular SMTP / POP3 based email, MAPI, IMAP or even the free Hotmail Account, that is built into Outlook. For Hotmail, however, some messages and settings might be stored only at the Hotmail server ( = somewhere at Microsoft !) and not on your local PC.
2. Account settings:
Data about your mail and news accounts are stored in the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Account Manager. To save this data, start RegEdit and select that key in the left-hand pane. Then from the menu select Registry Export Registry File. Save the file to a name like "outlook.reg".
Restore (if necessary): To restore the account settings, right-click the .REG file and select Merge.
Note: As an alternative, you can save the data one account at a time through Outlook Express: click Tools Accounts Export and specify the name of the file to save the settings. Be sure to save this information for every account.
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3. Address Book
Getting the data out of your address book for safekeeping is relatively easy. From the menu select File Export Address Book and select the comma separated text file as your output format. Then select the fields you want to export. To make sure you know where the backup is going, give a full path name. To restore the address book or to get your addresses onto a new system, the process is not quite symmetrical. Select File Import Other address book and select the text file option again. You'll be given a list of fields to import. Since you're importing a file that was created by Outlook Express, you usually don't need to make any changes here. After that, click your way on through the wizard and you'll get your address book back.
4. Mail Rules
The mail rules are stored at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities. If you run Regedit and export this entire subkey to a file the same way you did with account settings: from the menu select Registry Export Registry File. Save the file to a name like "rules.reg".
Restore (if necessary): Under the Identities key each subkey has a long number that looks similar to {36753740-2WEE-781D3-89B1-00A0C9900DSA}. So if you have five different identities in Outlook you will have five of these long numbers. Below the numbers are all the settings specific the the identity (signatures, mail rules,...). If you are restoring without reinstall and on the same PC these numbers do not change (as far as we know !) and you can just restore the registry entries by clicking on the reg file.
Moving OE settings to a NEW PC:
If you're moving to a new system or doing a clean install, the {...} numbers are be different and you may have to manually move the entries to the differently numbered entries that are actually being used.
How to do this? This is the method that we use in our office:
1. Export the registry branch on the old PC to a *.reg file.
2. Transfer this "reg" file to the new PC
3. On the new computer search for the (still empty) settings of your new Outlook Express installation. Once you find, you have the new {...} number!
4. Now, open the transfered*.reg file with a text editor and make a "Search and Replace":
Replace the old {....} value with the NEW {...} that you just located in the registry.
5. Save this file and then click on it. This will import your old settings in the NEW registry.
5. Passwords
Outlook Express, along with those of most other Microsoft applications such as Internet Explorer, stores its passwords in .PWL files in your Windows directory. There's a separate file for each username on the system. Backup the files frequently.
Outlook express data consists of the several parts.
Email messages
Account settings
Address Book (if used)
Mail rules (if any)
Passwords
1. Email Messages:
From the Outlook Express menu select Tools Options Maintenance and click the StoreFolder button. You see a dialog with the name of the directory that has your mail files. If you look in that directory you find files named after your mail folders and news groups. They all have a .DBX suffix. Outlook Express keeps all messages in these database files. If you make copies of these files regularly, you'll have a safe backup of your OE mail.
Restore (if necessary): To restore the backup data, just copy it back to the directory. You can selectively restore folders by just copying specific files back. Alternatively, you can use OE's File Import Messages feature to import one or more of the backup folders. Email Account Settings.
As far as we know, the procedure works for all kind of email: The regular SMTP / POP3 based email, MAPI, IMAP or even the free Hotmail Account, that is built into Outlook. For Hotmail, however, some messages and settings might be stored only at the Hotmail server ( = somewhere at Microsoft !) and not on your local PC.
2. Account settings:
Data about your mail and news accounts are stored in the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Account Manager. To save this data, start RegEdit and select that key in the left-hand pane. Then from the menu select Registry Export Registry File. Save the file to a name like "outlook.reg".
Restore (if necessary): To restore the account settings, right-click the .REG file and select Merge.
Note: As an alternative, you can save the data one account at a time through Outlook Express: click Tools Accounts Export and specify the name of the file to save the settings. Be sure to save this information for every account.
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3. Address Book
Getting the data out of your address book for safekeeping is relatively easy. From the menu select File Export Address Book and select the comma separated text file as your output format. Then select the fields you want to export. To make sure you know where the backup is going, give a full path name. To restore the address book or to get your addresses onto a new system, the process is not quite symmetrical. Select File Import Other address book and select the text file option again. You'll be given a list of fields to import. Since you're importing a file that was created by Outlook Express, you usually don't need to make any changes here. After that, click your way on through the wizard and you'll get your address book back.
4. Mail Rules
The mail rules are stored at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities. If you run Regedit and export this entire subkey to a file the same way you did with account settings: from the menu select Registry Export Registry File. Save the file to a name like "rules.reg".
Restore (if necessary): Under the Identities key each subkey has a long number that looks similar to {36753740-2WEE-781D3-89B1-00A0C9900DSA}. So if you have five different identities in Outlook you will have five of these long numbers. Below the numbers are all the settings specific the the identity (signatures, mail rules,...). If you are restoring without reinstall and on the same PC these numbers do not change (as far as we know !) and you can just restore the registry entries by clicking on the reg file.
Moving OE settings to a NEW PC:
If you're moving to a new system or doing a clean install, the {...} numbers are be different and you may have to manually move the entries to the differently numbered entries that are actually being used.
How to do this? This is the method that we use in our office:
1. Export the registry branch on the old PC to a *.reg file.
2. Transfer this "reg" file to the new PC
3. On the new computer search for the (still empty) settings of your new Outlook Express installation. Once you find, you have the new {...} number!
4. Now, open the transfered*.reg file with a text editor and make a "Search and Replace":
Replace the old {....} value with the NEW {...} that you just located in the registry.
5. Save this file and then click on it. This will import your old settings in the NEW registry.
5. Passwords
Outlook Express, along with those of most other Microsoft applications such as Internet Explorer, stores its passwords in .PWL files in your Windows directory. There's a separate file for each username on the system. Backup the files frequently.
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