Clear the page file contents for added security

Page file is a file that is used by windows operating system as extra ram for its operations. What happens when you open a document is MS Word is that the documents gets loaded to your RAM. Now a user works on many files in windows. Hence to save RAM what the operating system does is that it saves the contents of the RAM into page file. Now the page file can be opened and the documents on which we were working can be extracted from it. In case we are working on any confidential documents then this page file poses a threat to the document’s confidentiality.

In such conditions it is better to delete the contents of the page file when we shut down the computer after our work is over. This feature is been made available by Microsoft but they haven’t enabled it as default. Hence we need to enable this feature manually.

Follow the given steps to clear your page file :

Open Start >> Run function.

Type in regedit and press enter.

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ Current Control Set \ Control \ Session Manager \ Memory Management \

Double click on “Clear page file at shutdown” and change the value to one(1).

Now the function is enabled. But you need to restart your computer in order for it to start working.

Note that enabling the clear page file function slows down (takes time) your PC while shutting down. But then it is nothing compared to the security that we achieve.

Balloon Tips are getting you annoyed? : Here’s a solution

The various balloon tips that keep cropping up in windows that tell us to update, check virus definitions etc. is often annoying to all of us. Wish that they can be stopped once and for all? I will tell you how to do that. Read on………

Follow the given guidelines :

Open Start >> Run from your desktop.

Type in “gpedit.msc” without the quotes.

A windows pops open. Now navigate to User Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Start Menu and Taskbar

Double click on Remove Balloon Tips on Start Menu items.

Check the enable option and click OK. You’re done.

Henceforth those balloon tips will never ever disturb you. Enjoy

Increase your browsing speed

Internet browsers are designed in such a way that they support fast and quick browsing. But then with a few tricks we can still enhance the browsing speed of browsers such as Firefox provided by Mozilla and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

The speed change may not be as noticeable to Broadband users because broadband connections are high speed connections. But the speed increment will be highly noticeable by dial-up connection users. This trick does not require you to be an advanced technician with loads of technical knowledge. A average user also can do these simple registry tweaks. Here we go :

For Firefox

In the address bar of Firefox type in the following about:config

A configuration page opens up with various parameters.

Right Click on network.http.pipelining parameter and select Toggle option. The value changes to True.

Similarly change the value of network.http.pipelining.maxrequests parameter to 30.

Right click and select New >> String

Enter preference name as nglayout.initialpaint.delay and set its value to zero(0).

Now see your browser speed increase.

For Internet Explorer

Open Run function from START menu.

Type regedit and press enter.

Select HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Software >> Microsoft >> Windows >> Current Version >> Internet Settings

Change the decimal value from 0 to something higher (for eg. 10).

Close the window and you are done.

Disable the error reporting function in Windows

Many a time when the program crashes, an error reporting windows comes up. Its asks us if we would like to report the error to Microsoft. Often this message is very annoying and one would like to disable this function. Also this function is also not a very useful feature which can be of any help.

Read below to find out how we can disable this feature and put a everlasting end to our getting annoyed every time.

1) Open CONTROL PANEL

2) Click on Performance and Maintenance

3) Click on System

4) Then click on Advanced tab

5) Then you can see a Error Reporting button at the bottom, click it.

6) Then select Disable error reporting.

7) Click on OK and you are done.

Boot Defragment your hard drive for faster loading of Operating System

The boot defragment option is a very unique function available in Windows XP. This function places all the files required for booting up of the operating system next to each other such that they are easily accessible.

Since the files are placed in close proximity to each other they are found by the computer rather easily and in very less time. Thus the operating system loads itself faster than normal. By default this option is enabled when we install windows, but then when we install certain software’s they disable this option.

In order to enable following steps are to be followed :

1) Open run function from START menu.

2) Type regedit and press enter.

3) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction

4) Double click on Enable from the list available on the right hand side.

5) Change the value of this string to Y (i.e. Yes) to enable this function and N (i.e. No) to disable it.

6) Reboot your computer and you are done.

The booting process becomes faster than the previous time.

Gain Access to Stored User names along with their Passwords

In Windows we have the facility of creating various user accounts. But many a times we find it difficult or by chance we forget the passwords. In order to avoid this problem we can store these passwords for the various user accounts we have on a computer by using the rundll32.exe file.

The normal process through which this account works is difficult to remember and execute. Hence I am giving this shortcut method to carry out the procedure using the rundll32.exe file.

What you have to do is start the run function from the start menu. Then type the following :

rundll32.exe keymgr.dll,KRShowKeyMgr

Press enter and the applet runs itself.

Add the user names and other logon information into it and use it whenever you require for retrieval.

Increase your PC speed

Disable Indexing Service

Windows XP keeps a track of all the files and folders present on your hard drive in order to retrieve the details of these in quick time when you are searching for particular files or texts in files using the Search function.

This service seems very useful on first instance, but if you are a person who does not use the search tool quite often then this process of indexing your files isn’t as useful as it can be to someone who uses the search tool regularly. This is because this feature is running continuously in the background and thus reducing the amount of RAM available for other processes.

This feature can be disabled from the Properties option that appears when we right click on the drive in My Computer. To disable this function follow the below guidelines :

1) Open My Computer from Start Menu.

2) Right click on any drive letter.

3) A dialog box appears. Select Properties which is last item in dialog box.

4) Uncheck the option that says, “Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching”.

5) Repeat the above process for all the remaining drives.

Although the above given process increases your PC speed a quite an amount, it does not do it upto 50% or more.