Boost Your Windows XP Bandwidth using the tweak mentioned below. Though its a very well-known and easy tweak for windows but still I am posting it for those who are still unaware about it.

Windows XP Professional has a feature built into it called QoS (Quality of Service). This feature allows the operating system to optimize bandwidth allocation for different services. While books are filled with incomprehensible information on this subject, what you need to know is that this feature actually throttles back your available bandwidth. QoS reserves 20% of the available bandwidth on any connection for itself. This means you can’t use it for downloads and LAN connections. You can cut the QoS brick tied to the back of your network connection by performing the following steps:

1. Click Start and then click the Run command.

2. In the Run dialog box, type gpedit.msc in the Open text box. Click OK.

3. In the Group Policy window, expand Computer Configuration, and then expand Administrative Templates. Expand Network and click on QoS Packet Scheduler.

4. Double click on the Limit reservable bandwidth entry in the right pane.

5. Select the Enabled option and then type 0 in the Bandwidth limit (%) text box. Click Apply and then click OK.

6. Close the Group Policy window and restart the computer (not sure if you need to restart the computer, but do it anyhow).QoS is enabled by default on all adapters. If you disabled it for some reason, make sure it is enabled, or else it’s possible that the 20% limitation will be enforced anyhow.

Do try this tweak and let me know if it really worked for you

Useful Windows XP Tips, Tweaks, Walkthroughs and Shortcuts

1. Total Uptime:
It boasts how long it can stay up. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type ’systeminfo’. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type ’systeminfo > info.txt’. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad.

2. Delete Files Immediately:
You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run… and type ‘gpedit.msc’; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care — some may stop your computer behaving as you wish.

3. Lock XP:
You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

4. Remove System Software:
XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can make it show everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be the software and you can now uninstall it.

5. Interesting New Commands:
For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ’schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options.

6. IP Version 6 Support:
XP has IP version 6 support — the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type ‘ipv6 install’ into Run… (it’s OK, it won’t ruin your existing network setup) and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t worry.

7. Task Termination:
You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.

8. ZIP Files as Folders:
XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files alone by typing ‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can change things back by typing ‘regsvr32 zipfldr.dll’.

9. XP Has ClearType:
XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology — but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

10. Remote Assistance:
You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your friend’s real IP address — they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com — and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.

(more…)

Hello Everyone

This is my first post on my newly started wordpress blog and I am quite happy about it . Well, as far as I m concerned I am a Telecommunication Engineering student all the way from Pakistan, Islamabad and I have come all this way here to share my knowledge of computing and Internet with everyone. I am a web-designer as well as a programmer. I have been in web development for over 2 years but this is my first ever blogging experience and i intend to learn a lot from it . In this blog i will try my best to distribute every bit of knowledge that i have regarding Windows, Computers, Internet, Blogging, Google, How To’s, Tips, Tweaks, Web 2.0 and other similar topics of my interest.