Efficiency
Many of you have sent in tips (thanks!). Adding these to informationobtained elsewhere gives us enough material for some good articles. The following are Windows NT 4.0 tips; theyhave not been tested with Windows NT 3.51 or earlier.
If you have a large number of folders on an NTFS partition, you maybe able to speed up Windows NT Explorer by telling Windows NT not to update the time when a file was last accessed.Click the Start button and Run, and enter REGEDT32. In the registry editor, select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SYSTEM \CurrentControlSet\Control \FileSystem. In the Edit menu, click Add Value. For Value Name enter NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate and setthe Data Type to REG_DWORD. Enter 1 for the value.
If you frequently use the Windows NT Explorer Find utility to findthe same file or set of files, you can automate the search. The next time you run Find, after you have entered your settings and clicked Find Now, click Save Search in the File menu. This creates a Desktopicon. When you double-click it, Find will come up with the settings in place. You can also invoke the Find utilityby simply clicking anywhere in the Desktop, then pressing F3.
Foreground applications run at the highest priority by default. Ifyou often do other tasks while waiting for your primary application to complete in the background, you can speedup the primary application by changing priorities. In the Control Panel, choose System, select the Performancetab and move the Application Performance slide switch to None or the middle position.
Background applications normally run at priority 8. You can changethe priority to Low (4), High (13) or Realtime (24) by running the application from the "start" command(in the MS-DOS window), such as "start/high <app_name>". You must be a member of the Administratorgroup to set an application to Realtime.
The more installed fonts you have, the slower your system will run.Fancy fonts may be fun, but they cost, in terms of performance.
Screen savers can use a lot of CPU time. If you have applications,such as Diskeeper, running in the background, a screen saver may slow or stop them. Active screen savers shouldnot be used on servers, as they can interfere heavily with data requests from the network.
If you need more memory but can't get it yet, try increasing the pagingfile size. You can have more than one paging file and set the sizes to anything from two megabytes to almost thewhole partition. Paging files are adjusted in the Control Panel: double click on the System icon, select the Performancetab and click on Change.
Many systems will show better performance with a paging file on eachpartition. This is also useful as "emergency free space"; if you need more free space on a partition,you can reduce or remove its paging file.
It's also a good idea to keep the paging files as contiguous as possible.Select a partition with no paging file, then defragment it in Diskeeper's manual mode. When it's done, create thepaging file, setting Initial and Maximum to the same value. The new paging file will be contiguous (or nearly so,depending on several factors), and will stay in the same condition.
When you are deleting files to free up disk space, you can save havingto empty the Recycle Bin by holding down the SHIFT key while you delete. This prevents the file from going to the Recycle Bin.
To find out how much free space there is on a partition, bring upWindows NT Explorer and right-click the root folder of the partition, then select Properties and click the Generaltab. You will see the exact amount of free and used space.
You can change the Start menu delay in displaying sub-menus. Bringup REGEDT32. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ControlPanel \Desktop, MenuShowDelay:. Set REG_SZ: to anything between 0(fastest) and 4000 (slowest).
You can make your way around Windows NT without a mouse, if necessary.Press CTRL + ESC to get into the Startmenu, then use the arrow keys to move around. Sub-menus will not automatically display; use the right arrow toenter, left arrow to leave. Pressing the ENTER key invokes the highlighted application, the ESC key exits the menu. When you are in an application,the ALT key activates the menu bar, while the ESC key exits the menu bar.
If you have applications or tools that start when you log on, youcan bypass them and prevent them from starting. After you have entered your password and clicked OK or press ENTER , hold down the SHIFT key until the logonhas completed.
On boot-up, you get a menu of operating systems to select. If thetimeout is set to zero, you can still manage to make a selection. In the screen just before the menu appears, hitthe down arrow. When the menu comes up, the timeout will not appear, and the second item on the menu will be highlighted.
Launch Windows NT faster by adjusting the boot delay to 5 secondsor less. To make the change, open Control Panel/System and select the Startup/Shutdown tab. In the Show List Forcontrol, change the setting to the desired boot delay value. To bypass the boot menu altogether, set the delayvalue to zero.
Your Windows NT Key Number is saved in the registry. Run REGEDT32and select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE \Microsoft \WindowsNT \CurrentVersion. In the right-hand pane, you willfind a ProductId number like 12345-nnn-nnnnnnn-12345. The "n"s are the Key Number.
To shut down a program listed on Windows NT's taskbar, right-clickon its button and choose Close. You may be prompted to terminate the program prematurely if it doesn't shut downin an orderly fashion.
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