-= Improving your Computer – Windows, Net Speed, Security and Performance =-
by Qayammat
Hi, I am a karachi WC user, new to these forums and am posting my guide here which helped a lot of karachiites to improve their comps and net speeds. Hope it helps Lahore users too 
This will be a comprehensive guide to installing Windows XP the Right Way, improving your internet speed, improving system performance and removing any unwanted load on your computer. You MUST follow all steps to get a KICKASS system setup. Doesn’t matter if you have a P3 or a P4! I will explain in great details for newbies so please bear with me. Professionals can skip any steps they are familiar with.
First and foremost backup all your data. If you have multiple partitions like C: D: E: make sure u move all data from C: because this is where we shall be reinstalling windows and C: will be formatted.
Once all your data is backed up follow these steps :
- PRINT OUT THIS GUIDE. YOU WILL NEED A HARD-COPY!
- Download Zone Alarm, Lavasoft Adaware, DivX 5.1.1 Codec, Flashget, DUMeter, TuneUp Utilities, DCOM BOBULATOR and SHOOT THE MESSENGER (the last 2 are available from www.grc.com)
- Unplug your cable modem from the computer.
- Insert your Win XP CD-ROM into the drive and restart your computer.
- On the boot screen press F2 or Del (whichever it is) to get into the bios
- Go to Boot Devices and choose your CD-ROM as 1st boot device
- Save your settings on exit and restart your computer.
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On restart the Windows XP CD will start to install. Follow these steps :- The "Welcome to Setup" screen appears with the option of Continuing Setup, Repair a previous installation, or Quitting. Press ENTER to Continue Setup.
- The "Windows XP Licensing Agreement" screen pops up. Press F8 to agree.
- Hard drive partition information is now displayed. This varies with each systems hardware configuration.
Select the FIRST partition C: and then press D to delete it.
It will ask your to confirm. Press ENTER. It will then ask again. Press L
- Enter the maximum partition size (usually it is displayed on its own) and then press ENTER
- Once partition is created choose C: as the partition to install Windows XP on and press ENTER
- Setup will ask you to format the partition. Choose NTFS (QUICK FORMAT) option and press ENTER. Setup will then format this partition
- Setup will then continue to copy files and computer will restart.
- On restart the Windows XP boot screen is displayed. Just sit back and chill till everything installs. Have a smoke…
- A little while later, you will be prompted with options of configuring your Region and Input Languages. Just press Next.
- Enter your Name and optional Organization information, then press Next
- Enter the Windows XP CD Key
- Enter a Computer name and an Administrator Password. YOU MUST ENTER A PASSWORD FOR ADMINISTRATOR. Do not leave this blank (a common mistake)
- Enter the date and time and crap and move on
- The Network Settings Dialog is next. Two things to do here. Go to CUSTOM SETTINGS :
a)Take the tick
OFF from
QOS Packet Scheduler. It eats up bandwidth
b)File and Printer sharing – leave it on if you have a network and share files otherwise take the tick off.
- Click NEXT and then system will restart after a while. That’s it Windows XP will startup for the first time. Make sure your cable modem is unplugged still ! Do not connect it till the guide tells u to.
The next step will be making sure that your system is protected before you go online so that you don’t get stuff like Blaster virus (RPC attack) and other malicious code.
You also need to install any drivers required.
Follow these steps when installing drivers:- Install your motherboard drivers first.
- Install VGA drivers second
- Install your LAN card drivers but make sure cable modem is not connected right now.
- Install any other drivers needed. (e.g. Sound, dialup-modem)
Now for security :- You MUST install a firewall. I prefer Zone Alarm Pro and set the INTERNET settings to HIGH.
- Run DCOM BOBULATOR and SHOOT THE MESSENGER which u got from www.grc.com
- You can now connect your cable modem to the computer. ZoneAlarm will prompt you that new network is found. Add it to the INERNET ZONE and continue.
- First site you open when u go online is windows update. http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
- Install all the critical updates and restart your computer.
- Now you are fully protected from online attacks.
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Now we move on to some major boost in system performance. We free up RAM and disable unnecessary stuff:
- Right Click on taskbar and click PROPERTIES. Go to Start Menu and choose CLASSIC START MENU.
- Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services
- A whole list of services will pop open.
- Stop and Disable the following services :
a)Indexing Service
b)Error Reporting Service
c)Help and Support
d)Background Intelligent transfer Service
e)Alerter
f)Themes (this is for people who want a plain look. Saves RAM - Others please leave it on if you use themes and animated cursors etc.)
This will free up more than 100 MB of RAM on your comp ! J
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Now install Tuneup Utilities 2004. Make sure you crack it.
The next few steps will tweak your internet and system to give u KICK ASS download speeds and further improve system performance. These are the tweaks which everyone has been asking for.
DO NOT CLICK APPLY ON TUNEUP. Do all the settings and then APPLY in the end.
Start Tuneup utilities and go to
CLEAN & REPAIR
Run the
REGISTRY CLEANER and fix all errors found.
Then go to
SYSTEM CONTROL
Under
ANIMATION AND EFFECTS choose
BEST PERFORMANCE for everything. For font smoothing choose
CLEAR TYPE.
On the left go to
FOLDER OPTIONS. Then click on
THUMBNAILS and set the picture quality to
low.
On the left go to
START MENU and then in
BEHAVIOUS set the
OPEN MENUS DELAY to ZERO ‘0’
On the left go to
TASKBAR and then under flashing buttons take the tick off
FLASHING BUTTONS
The above were tweaks to improve RAM allocation.
NOW HERE IS THE GOOD STUFF :
On the left click on
NETWORK. Then in my network places
UNCHECK EVERYTHING. All the 5 options – uncheck them
Click on
ADVANCED. Under
QOS service
UNCHECK the box which says
RESERVE BANDWIDTH. This eats up 20% of your bandwidth
Leave universal plug and play ON if you use MSN voice chat. Otherwise take it off.
Click on
INTERNET TIME and
UNCHECK the
SYNCHRONIZE TIME option
Click on
INTERNET now and leave the check on
ACTIVATE SERVICE FOR NAT. Then click on
SETTINGS.
A new window will pop-up. Under
Packet Size MTU click on
MANUAL SETTING and put the value :
1500. Leave
MTU DISCOVERY checked.
Under
Receive Window (RWIN) put
17520 as size of receive window. This is probably the most important setting to speed your internet. 17520 gives me the best speeds. You can experiment with different sizes. I suggest also using
8760 and
11680 but don’t go over 17520 if you have a 128 connection.
Leave the checks on receive confirmation options
Under
Time to Live TTL keep
128 hops.
Now close this window. Do not apply yet.
On left click on
EMAIL PROGRAMS. On the right,
UNCHECK Load Messenger Automatically and Show Splash Screen on Startup
Click on
PRIVACY on left side.
Uncheck both options under General. This will prevent autoupdates. Under
Advanced click on
ERROR REPORTING and
UNCHECK all options in both
GENERAL and
MICROSOFT PRODUCTS.
Under Internet explorer
CHECK all the boxes. This prevents IE from sending information about you. Alexa is a well known adware.
Under Media player
CHECK all the boxes.
Now on the left again click on
DRIVES and
CHECK Enable UDMA66 option in General. Leave the others as they are.
Close the window and go to
TUNEUP STARTUP MANAGER.
Uncheck any programs that you don’t want starting up everytime windows starts.
That’s it
NOW YOU CAN APPLY SETTINGS. Then restart your computer.
Install DivX 5.1.1. Codec and then install Flashget. Try downloading something from
www.download.com with Flahsget…
FEEL THE DIFFERENCE !!
Continue to install all your favorite programs… Then install LavaSoft Adaware, update it and and run a full system scan. Remove any adware found.
Last but not the least, do not forget to DEFRAGMENT all your partitions once you have installed everything. You can defragment a drive by going to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
IMPORTANT TIPS :- I do not use an antivirus software running in background all the time coz it hogs my system Ram. Rather I install it and then disable it and then just scan suspicious files with it. I recommend Nod32 Antivirus. Installing or not installing an Antivirus is up to you. If you have an urge to open every single email attachment sent to you then I suggest you install it.
- You can install KLite Codecs for most of the codecs out there. Just make sure u uncheck the AC3 codec when installing Klite codec pack.
[list][*]Use Flash FXP for connect to any FTP.
- Download from a site like Microsoft.com or download.com with Flashget and use the StopWatch feature in DUMeter to check the correct average speed of your downloads. Do not rely on guessing or on Internet explorer dialogues for accurate speeds.
- It took me a long long time to make this guide. So if you wanna ask questions ask but if you wanna flame I don’t give a damn. This is my way of installing stuff. If you have a problem with it then don’t do it ! Simple !
ENJOY !
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{added by Snakey}
To utilize torrents better do the following
One way to increase or rather 'download at the maximum provided bandwidth' is to get rid of half-tcp connection limits on XP SP2 via a patch called EvID4226Patch . Ive been using this for almost 1 and a half year and it certainly did improve my torrent speeds.You can download the patch from here:
How to use the SP2 TCP Patch | CSPY.org
just remember, dont set the limit above 80 (unlike what the above link tells you which is about 100000) . Cause if you set it above 80, you might start losing packets and might create worms (missing link-headers and such).
For VISTA, i tried this :
Download Vista TCP/IP and UAC AutoPatch 6.0 - Removes the limitation of your half-open (incomplete/syn packets) connection attempts per second that the system can make - Softpedia
but somehow it didnt give me drastic results or maybe i couldnt notice but other than that one thing in VISTA is for sure: turning OFF the UAC in Vista will let you utilize the bandwidth much properly
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For additional Info you can contact me on msn at
asimkakar@hotmail.com
Please do post how u liked this guide. I am a karachi worldcall user