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change your default ‘View
Source’ application with a
registry hack
Viewing web-page source fi les in Notepad is hardly a user-friendly
experience. You can hack the registry to change which app opens
source fi les, but using TweakUI is a better choice.
D O IT Load TweakUI (http://tinyurl.com/553fw6) , browse to Internet Explorer
> View Source. Click Change Program... and browse for whatever app you prefer.
This only changes the setting for Internet Explorer; to change the View Source app
for Firefox, type about:config in the address bar, scroll to view_source.editor.
path, and change the setting by pasting in the full path to the application you want
to use. (The Firefox tip works with XP and Vista, but you’ll have to tweak the regis-
try if you want to do the same for IE under Vista.)X P/V I S T A
disabling QoS and IPv
options will improve band-
width and web performance
The theory goes that you should disable any service you aren’t using,
and that turning off IPv6 and QoS Packet Scheduling options in your
NIC properties will boost browsing speed. One absurd legend holds
that QoS alone actually “reserves” 20 percent of your bandwidth. Microsoft has
formally debunked this tip, and our tests back that up: We found zero difference at
all in fi le-transfer speeds whether QoS and IPv6 options were on or off, on both XP
and Vista systems.
D O N’T D O ITX PX PX P//V I S T A
putting your paging file on
a second hard drive will
putting your paging file on
a second hard drive will
putting your paging file on
improve performance
Splitting up the pagefi le and your everyday apps is common
sense. Doing this allows Windows to dump temp junk onto
one drive while not having to interrupt reads or writes on the
other. If you have two hard drives, this is a tip that defi nitely works and works
well: Expect at least a 5 to 10 percent speed boost, depending on the existing
speed of your rig and, especially, the performance of your drives. But any
second drive will help at least a little: While not recommended, you can even
put the pagefi le on an external USB drive and see some performance gains.
D O ITFollow the same instructions as the “Virtual Memory” tip on page- When in the VM settings, click your secondary drive, add a “Custom size”
or “System managed size” paging fi le, and click Set. On your primary drive,
select “No paging fi le” and click Set. OK out and reboot.
windows tips
X P/V I S T A
minimize menu loading
delay time through a
registry hack
By default, both XP and Vista wait 400 mil-
liseconds before presenting expansion menus
(those menu items with right-facing triangles on
them). You can eliminate the wait completely for instantaneous
menu expansion (though be warned, you may not actually like
it). Note that this will not make, say, your primary File or Edit
menu show up faster—those menus automatically load as fast
as possible.
D O IT Run regedit at the Run prompt. Browse to HKEY_
CURRENT_USER\Desktop. Double-click the MenuShowDelay
key in the right-hand pane and set the value to 0.> View Source. Click Change Program... and browse for whatever app you prefer.
This only changes the setting for Internet Explorer; to change the View Source app
for Firefox, type about:config
path, and change the setting by pasting in the full path to the application you want
to use. (The Firefox tip works with XP and Vista, but you’ll have to tweak the regis-
try if you want to do the same for IE under Vista.)X PX PX P//V I S T A
minimize menu loading
delay time through a
minimize menu loading
delay time through a
minimize menu loading
registry hack
delay time through a
registry hack
delay time through a
By default, both XP and Vista wait 400 mil-
liseconds before presenting expansion menus
(those menu items with right-facing triangles on
them). You can eliminate the wait completely for instantaneous
menu expansion (though be warned, you may not actually like
it). Note that this will notnotnot make, say, your primary File or Edit make, say, your primary File or Edit
menu show up faster—those menus automatically load as fast
as possible.
D O IT Run regedit at the Run prompt. Browse to HKEY_
CURRENT_USER\Desktop. Double-click the MenuShowDelay
key in the right-hand pane and set the value to 0.