Visual Tweaks - Page 1

bulletTurn off visualizations

 Press Windows+Pause and click the Advanced tab, then click Performance and uncheck anything you don't absolutely want.
bulletAllow Clear type on the Welcome screen
 Start regedit
Navigate to HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktop.
Locate the key FontSmoothingType.
Change the value to 2.
Restart
bulletSelect Theme & Colors for the Welcome Screen
 Start regedit
Navigate to HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionThemeManager
Locate the key NormalColor
Right Click on it and select modify.
Change where it says "NormalColor" to "Metallic"
Click Ok, and exit regedit
Restart
bulletRemove "Comments?" link from the title bars
 Start Regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop
Once there, locate LameButtonEnabled on the list on the right.
Right click on it and select Modify
Change the value equal to 0
Reboot your computer and the comments link will be gone!
bulletMake Menus Appear Faster
 Start Regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop
Select MenuShowDelay from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to 100.
Reboot your computer
bulletDisable Home Page
 Launch Internet Explorer.
Select the Tools from the menu bar.
Then select Internet Options... from the drop down menu.
Once the internet options has loaded click on the general tab.
Under the home page section click the use blank button.
Click OK
bulletChange Default Pages for Events
 Internet explorer default pages for events such as navigation cancelled, navigation failed, offline information, and blank page are stored in the registry. You can replace these pages with your own if you would like to customize Internet Explorer.

Start regedit,
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftInternet ExplorerAboutURLs
Modify the key values to the full path on the hard drive. "C:\page.htm"
bulletDisplay Message on Start Up
 If you would like to display a legal message or any other message in a pop-up window when windows starts read below:

Start regedit,
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon
Modify the key legalnoticecaption with what you want to name the window.
Modify the key legalnoticetext with what you want the window to say.
Restart.
bulletStop Windows Explorer From Expanding Folders
 This can be extremely annoying to some people, so I would recommend doing it.

Control Panel -> Folder Options
Click on the Views tab, and uncheck "Display Simple Folder View in Explorer's Folder's list" - That'll keep the folders from opening automatically.
bulletDisable XP style ALT+TAB
 When you press Alt+Tab in Windows XP to switch between applications, you may see a floating window with the open application icons and a screen of the selected application. If you think that this is annoying and wants to disable it, do this:

1. Open Registry Editor. (Regedit.exe).
2. Browse through to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
3. Look for CoolSwitch, select it and delete it.

This way, you will see the classic Alt+Tab floating window again, just like the older windows does!
bullet View XP System Uptime
 To view the amount of time that XP has been running with out rebooting or restarting the computer:

1) Open the Command Prompt (located under Accessories)
2) Type 'systeminfo' (without the dashes)
3) Once the system has finished gathering the information, scroll up and the time is displayed in the System Up Time field.

As you can see, running systeminfo also gives a lot of useful information.