Put command prompt on the right context menu

To be able to right click on any folder and open a command prompt in that folder perform the following -

1. Run regedit
2. Navigate to: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ Directory \ shell
3. Right click and select New, then Key
4. Name the new key CommandPrompt
5. Double click on (Default) in the right pane and change the data value to Command Prompt Here
6. Right click the new Command key and select New, then Key
7. Name the new key Command, too
8. Double click (Default) again
9. Change the data value of this one to: cmd.exe /k cd %1
10. Close the registry editor

Now when you right click a folder, you should see the selection "Command Prompt Here" in the menu.

Changing XP Prefetch settings

To change settings for your Prefetch folder run Regedit.

You can change the way that Prefetch behaves by making a change in the registry. This is helpful when you want to alter Prefetch or disable Prefetch completely. Low resource (memory, hard disk space, etc) systems may need this functionality disabled to get the system to run more efficiently.

Navigate to this value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

In the right side pane, look for the key named EnablePrefetcher. The value of this key represents how Prefetch will operate.

Values you can choose from include:

0: Disable
1: Application Launch Prefetch
2: Boot Prefetch
3: Prefetch everything

Simply type the number in that you want (keep all other settings the same) and click OK. Rebooting the system will give you the new Prefetch setting.

Address Bar removed in Windows XP SP3

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) removes the "Address bar" option as an available Taskbar tool. It's believed that Microsoft removed this option so not to be in violation of certain antitrust rulings, especially in the European Union.

Getting it back -

The file modified by the installation of SP3 is browseui.dll. The trick is to replace this file with the SP2 version of the file. The older version of the file can be found in C:\Windows\System32 on any non-SP3 machine.

Copy this file to the root directory of the SP3 machine or to some other location that the SP3 PC can access.

Here is where it gets a little tricky. The browseui.dll file is a system file and is therefore protected whenever Windows is running. That means you cannot just copy the SP2 version file over the SP3 version file. You will need to start the PC in "Safe Mode with a command prompt" or boot to a bootable CD, i.e. WinPE.

Once there issue the following command:
copy browseui.dll C:\Windows\System32\

Reboot the PC. If all went well, you should now have the option to add the Address Bar toolbar.

IE7 - Enable Third-party Browser Extensions

Manual steps to disable third-party tool bands and Browser Helper Objects

To manually disable the tool bands and Browser Helper Objects, follow these steps:

1. Close all instances of Internet Explorer, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. Double-click Internet Options.
3. Click the Advanced tab.
4. Under Browsing, click to clear the Enable third-party browser extensions (requires restart) check box.
5. Restart Internet Explorer.

These steps change the value data for the "Enable Browser Extensions" string value to "No" in the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

Configure Device Manager to show details

How to Configure Device Manager in XP to Display Detailed Informtaion

To configure Device Manager to show details:

1. Click Start, click Run, type: cmd.exe, and then press ENTER.
2. Type: set DEVMGR_SHOW_DETAILS=1, and then press ENTER.
3. Type: start devmgmt.msc, and then press ENTER.

In Device Manager the properties for a device should now provide a Details tab that contains additional information about the device.

You can view the Details tab to see the following device information:
Device Instance ID, Hardware IDs, Compatible IDs, Matching Device ID, Service, Enumerator, Capabilities, Devnode Flags, Config Flags, CSConfig Flags, Ejection Relations, Removal Relations, Bus Relations, Device Upper Filters, Device Lower, Filters, Class Upper Filters, Class Lower Filters, Class Installer, Class Coinstallers, Device Coinstallers, Firmware Revision, Current Power State, Power Capabilities, Power State Mappings.

NOTE: Not all of these properties will be populated for a given device. In other words, although all of these properties are listed, some may not contain information when viewing a particular device.

Disable Search from Address Bar

The default action in Internet Explorer if you type in an address of a web site that can't be found is for the value that you typed in to be passed to the default search engine (usually MSN). This means that if you use the address bar for its intended use of entering web addresses and you miskey an address that you then waste a whole lot of time waiting for the search to run when you didn't want to request a search in the first place. Fortunately a minor settings change can fix this.

To keep the address bar for addressses and use search option when you want to run a search go into:

• Internet Explorer
• Select Tools\Internet Options
• Select the Advanced tab
• Scroll down to the "Search from Address bar" section
• Set it to "Do not search from the Address bar"
• Save setting

Quickly gather MAC addresses with ARP

When securing a wireless Windows XP network, in addition to using Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption, you can use Media Access Control (MAC) address filtering.

When you enable MAC address filtering, the wireless access point or wireless router verifies that the network card in the computer requesting access has a MAC address in its filter list before allowing the computer to access the network. This means that you must first obtain the MAC addresses of each client computer. To do so, you might think that you have to manually visit each computer and use the Getmac command.

An easier way to gather MAC addresses is to take advantage of the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) command. Here’s how:

1 - From one computer, use the Ping command to Ping each of the other client computers that will connect to the wireless access point or wireless router.

2 - Type the ARP command along with the -a parameter: Arp -a

When used with the -a parameter, the ARP command displays the ARP cache, which stores the IP and MAC addresses of the computers that most recently accessed the system — or in this case, those computers that responded to the Ping command.

Note: This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Professional.