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Windows Xp Tip Page 21.
You have entered the Windows XP Fix Zone!

 

 

* Stop Password Expiration!
* Disable Low Disk Space Warning Bubble Tip:
* Add Safe Mode to the Boot Menu Tip:
* Lock Windows XP!
* Clean Up Old Printer Files Tip:
* Free Disk Space - Delete Old Profiles Tip:
* Adjust CD-ROM AutoPlay!
* Safely Remove Hardware Icon?
* Sort Favorites Alphabetically Tip:
* Off the Balloons Tip:

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Stop Password Expiration Tip!
By Raymond

 

After you have run Windows XP for a while, you may receive this message when you log on: "Your password will expire in 14 days.."

By default, Windows XP is set up with passwords which will expire after 42 days. 14 days in advance, Windows will start warning you of this fact. If you do not want your passwords to expire:

Go to Start > Run and in the Open: box type control userpasswords2
Select the Advanced tab in the User Accounts window

Press the Advanced button below the Advanced user management header
Select Users in the Local Users and Groups.
In the right pane, right-click the user name for which you want to change the setting, and select Properties.

On the General tab, check Password never expires
Click Apply and OK, exit! WinXpFix.com

 

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Disable Low Disk Space Warning Bubble Tip:
By Raymond

 

A new feature in Windows XP is a little warning bubble that pops up when one of your drives is running low on space. Clicking on this warning will open the Disk Cleanup Wizard. Here are the warnings that will appear, and when (according to KB Article Q285107):

When free disk space reaches 200 megabytes (MB), you receive the following
message for 10 seconds, once per session:

You are running out of disk space on [drive]. To free space on this drive by
deleting old or unnecessary files, click here.

When free disk space reaches 80 MB, you receive the following message for 30
seconds, every four hours, twice per session:

You are running very low on disk space on [drive]. To free space on this
drive by deleting old or unnecessary files, click here.

When free disk reaches 50 MB, you receive the following message for 30 seconds,
every five minutes, until free space is above 50 MB:

You are running very low on disk space on [drive]. To free space on this
drive by deleting old or unnecessary files, click here.

There are times when you do not need to be warned about low disk space, though, and the constant warnings can be annoying. You can disable this feature with a Registry change:

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Key: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Name: NoLowDiskSpaceChecks
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

Use caution and frequent backups when editing the Registry.

 

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Add Safe Mode to the Boot Menu Tip:
By Raymond

If you find that you frequently need to boot to Safe Mode, you can actually add it right to the Boot Menu, so you don't need to hit F8 to get to the hidden menu. Here is how to add it:

Right-click My Computer, and choose Properties (or press Windows Key & Break together). On the Advanced tab, click the Settings button, which brings up the Startup and Recovery window. Click the Edit button, which will open the boot.ini file in Notepad. Look under the [Operating Systems] for your default OS. Copy the entire line, and paste it on the line below. Change the description in the quotations to say "Safe Mode" or whatever description you want. Then add the following to the end of the line you just copied:

/safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog

If you want networking support, then change "minimal" to "network" without the quotes. You may want to make a copy of the c:\boot.ini file (which is hidden and read only) before you begin this process.

Related: WinXpFix All Windows XP Tips List! - WinXP Basics 4 beginners - WinXP Updates & add-ons - Spy Software Reviews - More Windows XP Tip Pages!

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Lock Windows XP Tip!
By Raymond

 

In the past, locking your computer required you to press Ctrl+Alt+Del (Windows NT/2000). In Windows XP this will bring up the Windows Task Manager.... but doesn't give you an option to lock your computer.

In Windows XP it's as easy as pressing Winkey + L..... But there is a catch... When you have Fast User Switching enabled, this will just bring up the Logon screen. To Disable Fast User Switching, open User Accounts from the Control Panel. Click Change the way users log on or off and un-check Use Fast User Switching.

If you don't have a keyboard with a Windows key, you can create a shortcut on your desktop using the string below in the target field: %windir%\System32\rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation

For faster access you can place this shortcut on the Quick Launch bar. If you want to change the icon, right-click the shortcut, choose Properties and press the Change Icon... button. You'll find some icons in the shell32.dll file in the \Windows\system32 folder. WinXpFix.com

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Clean Up Old Printer Files Tip:
By Raymond

 

By default, any print jobs sent to a printer will be temporarily spooled to a folder on your hard drive. Usually these files are then deleted when the job has printed. Sometimes when things go wrong, however, these temporary files can be left behind, eating up disk space. If you are not expecting anything to be printed currently, you may safely delete any files found in that folder. The folder location is:

%systemroot%\system32\spool\printers

where %systemroot% is usually c:\winnt or c:\windows

It doesn't hurt to take a look in there occasionally when you need to free up disk space.

 

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Free Disk Space - Delete Old Profiles Tip:
By Raymond

 

For every user that logs on to your Windows XP computer, a new "profile" is created. The profile contains information about the things that are specific to that user, such as screen savers, sounds, printers (network), colors, email, and so forth. These profiles can grow quite large and can consume disk space. If there are users who no longer log into your computer, you can free up disk space by deleting them.

To delete a profile, simply right-click the My Computer icon and choose Properties (or press Windows-Break). Click the Advanced tab (in windows 2000, there is a User Profiles tab instead). In the middle section called User Profiles, click the Settings button. You can see from the listing what the size of the user profile is, and also the last date it was used. Select (click) the name of the user profile to delete, and click the Delete button. Note that you can also copy the user profile to another location, which might be a good idea before you delete it.

Tip-within-a-tip: Sometimes a profile can become corrupt, which produces very strange symptoms such as problems with using network printers, or email, etc. Deleting the profile means that the next time the user logs in they will have all the default settings, but it will often clear up strange problems.

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Adjust CD-ROM AutoPlay Tip!
By Raymond

 

Windows XP finally has some vary good options to set the Autoplay preferences on CD-ROM drives.

You need to right-click the CD-ROM drive in Windows Explorer (or My Computer), and select Properties. Select the AutoPlay tab.

Now you can select your AutoPlay preferences according to the type of content.

 

 

 

 

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Safely Remove Hardware Icon Tip:
By Raymond

 

If you have an USB device attached to your system, you will notice an icon in the Notification area, which - when clicked - will give you the option to Stop your hardware, before you unplug it.

It is possible that you never unplug this hardware. So how do you get rid of the icon? As far as I know the only way is to right-click the notification area, and selecting Properties. Under the Notification area heading, click Customize. Find the Safely Remove Hardware icon and select Always hide in the Behavior column next to it (press OK and Apply to back out). WinXpFix.com

 

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Sort Favorites Alphabetically Tip:
By Raymond

When adding a web site to your favorites list, it's not always clear how Explorer decides where to put it in the list. Of course, you can drag and drop items in the Favorites list to sort them manually, sometimes it would be nice to be able to sort them alphabetically. Although it's not 100% fool-proof, there is a way that you can do this. In Explorer or Internet Explorer, click the Favorites menu. Then right-click any of the Favorites items, and click "Sort by Name."

 

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Off the Balloons Tip:
By Raymond

 

One of the features that's new to XP is the pop-up balloons to let you know that a tour, or hotfix, or network connection (etc.) is available. If you find these simply annoying, you can add the following Registry entry to kill them off for good.

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Key: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Name: EnableBalloonTips
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 0

If you later decide that you want the balloons back, you can delete the entry, or set its value to 1. As always, please use caution and frequent backups when editing the Registry.

Related: WinXpFix All Windows XP Tips List! - WinXP Basics 4 beginners - WinXP Updates & add-ons - Spy Software Reviews - More Windows XP Tip Pages!

 

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