Windows XP

Yay! I finnally upgraded, lol. Alright, I've done the service pack, DX9, vcard drivers, sound drivers. Now, they're mus be a ton of other stuff I need to do to get XP into shape? I'd like to get rid of some of teh colors and get it to look more like Win2K did. I saw a guide awhile back I think, anyone?

 

right click on start button...choose properties.. select CLASSIC VIEW..

then right click on mycomputer..choose MANAGE.. click on services and find the THEMES service.. right click, properties.. stop and disable.

 

make sure you go here and tweak your services list
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

 

would like to add to Robo's info on the VM: your VM settings should be set to the peak value of your Commit Charge K as shown on the performance tab of the task manager. You'll get a better accuracy setting if you play with your machine for a few weeks or run it through its' paces reall good and then change the setting.. check it every so often and make adjustments as necessary.

 

Thanks guys, this is great! But dam, the main reason I avoided XP for so long was they don't give you control over everything, or mayby they do it's just hard to find. Like, we have a home network for sharing files and stuff, I went to setup a home network and it assumes you wnat to share printer and faxes and stuff? It also makes a shared folder in My Computer that can't be deleted. I'll make my own shared folder thank you very much Anyone know how to fix this?

 

by default windows is setup with shares. The best way to do this is to NOT share files or folders but to have an account on each machine that the same on all machines.

You connect like this:
start..run..type
\\NAMEOFMACHINE\C$

or
\\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\C$
where x is the IP of the machine you're trying to connect to..

you can also connect to printers this way

 

What do you expect from a wizard? Wizards are there for those who don't know how to get things done manually. Its job is automate that which you don't want, or can't figure out yourself. Thats not knocking less savvy users, but its the truth.

You need to understand the mechanics of what XP is doing. It isn't making a folder for shares across the network for you.

Shared Documents is for local users, different accounts to have a place where they can access documents in the event another user makes their My Documents folder private.

 

Taking Kodo's advice one step further:

If you have XP Pro, turn off simple file sharing. You don't really want people authenticating to your computer over a guest account, which requires no user/pass, right?

And don't bother disabling the Guest account in user accounts or computer management.

It has nothing to do with network guest access.

To turn off simple file sharing:

My computer > tools > folder options > view tab, one of the last options at the bottom.

 

OK guys, thanks for all the advice, but that just confused me, lol. Well, I'd like to "disable" what the wizard did. It's just me using the my computer so I don't need the accounts and stuff. Uh, all I want is file sharing with my brother and stuff. He's on win98 tho, I know it works right now but I'm sure I can disable some stuff if that's all I want.. I don't really get printer sharing, our printer brokan right now but we just set it up to print on the same printer from both computers (windows 98), and I don't really know how we did it but it doesn't sound like "printer sharing".

EDIT:Oh, and I disabled a bunch of services, I'm down to 67MB at startup, with win2k I was around 60, but I don't really wanna ge trid of all the flashy colors and stuff unless they save a ton of resources. I got powertoys too, and cacheman, which im worken on..

EDIT2:Holy **** Kodo!!! 13 THOUSAND f'en posts, haha, thats crazy.

EDIT3: So... How do I get rid of that stupid documents folder in my computer???

 

Our own Snakefoot also has a nifty little tweak guide:

http://snakefoot.fateback.com/tweak/winnt/tweak.html

 

Just ran 3dmark, lost 800 points (16% with my pathedic score). I think I installed my vcard drivers wrong. I have a Radeon 9100 and I tried installing the omegas based on the 3.10s... and, yea. You think it just reinstalled over the shitty default windows video driver and that messed something up?

 

No.

AFAIK there is no Radeon 9100 in box driver.

Omega drivers are not for 3dmark, they are for IQ.

The important thing is, do you play 3dmark? Or do you play games?

Games are more important, IMO.

 

Yea but I don't benchmark games (well I did UT2003 but that doesn't seem to change much for some reason..)

 

Oh, and with windows 98 and 2k, omegas drivers gave me another 100 points over regular ATI catylyst. And what's AFAIK?

 

As Far As I Know.

As it stands, Omega drivers are still optimized for IQ, not speed.

 

Ok I'm gonna try regular ATI cats. Whats the best way to do a complete uninstall of em and all that?

 

I would go through add/remove programs.

Then I would delete the ATI folder on the root of your hard drive (I assume Omega puts it there too)

Reboot.

Works perfect most times.

 

Should I go into safemode?

EDIT: Oh, and when I reboot won't xp automatically install its shitty drivers for the card?

EDIT2: And does no one know how to get rid of the documents folder in My Computer???

 

1. Radeon 9100 is newer than XP, there are no shitty drivers as you say.
2. Windows installer is used to install the drivers I think. Won't work to use add/remove in Safe Mode in that case.
3. Its (Shared Documents) is part of the OS, not sure if you can get rid of it. It is supposed to be there.

 

Well before I installed the omegas I could see full colors so windows must have installed something

 

Back atcha

Its called UGA (Universal graphics array) drivers.

They support high resolution and full color.

They are not hardware accelerated.


Works on virtually all cards, and replaces conventional VGA drivers from previous incarnations of Windows.

They cannot be uninstalled, or disabled. They do not function in Safe Mode.

Any other info you need?

 

Oh... yea, I thought it used BGA drivers like the old windows... Anyway... what if my card was older, wouldn't winxp install shitty drivers for it?

 

Unless the card came out before Windows XP did (and even then a decent amount of time prior) , there is no possible way for it to have drivers included.

 

And even if in the event it did install ATI drivers, who cares?

Its not gonna hurt anything, just get the latest ATI drivers from ATI.

You are reading far too much into this driver installation thing.

I think Nike coined this phrase?

Just Do It.

 

Haha, alright.

 

I remember the good old days when there were about 5 major tweaks. WinXP Pro comes along, and I have been tweaking and sweetstroking her since I got it. LOL But she sure runs like her hair is on fire now. ;0)

 

More tweaks? Name some

 

Dammit, just ran 3DMark with regular ATI cats, scores even worse . Shows what you know j/k

EDIT: Dammit, something must really be f'ed up... I'm pissed. I mean, this si far beyong the 'margin of error' 800 point difference from windows 98 (and a 700 point difference from windows 2k)...

 

***Bump***

 

Play games, not 3dmark.

'nuff said.

 

Ya know, all the winXP tweaks are out there. It just seems like a "right of passage" sort of thing to make sure each new user spends at least a good amount of time finding em, and see how and IF each works for their system. On their own. lol Like I had to. hehhehhhe Tremendous learning experience too.

 

Ok, whenever I hear this, I think these people are just lazy. I can understand that they're mayby a 5% margin of error MAX, but not 16%!!! Come on guys. Mayby I installed something wrong? ANything liek that? All I've really tweaked is my services (set almsot all to safe according to black vipers guide), and I did some stuff in tweakUI that shouldent effect performance.

EDIT: What was that refresh rate bug dealie? Could that be it?

 

i used to play around with benchmarks but its just not worth the hassle

now i just use my failsafe benchmark install game-max it up-play the game
and if it plays well and looks good its passed

its like when you start getting into girls you can practice all you like but nothing compares to the real thing thats when you know its all good

 

oh yeah this might be of interset
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download1847.html

 

OK, I didn't ask if I shoul use benchmarks, I'm asking if anyone has any ideas why my score so ****en low dammit!!! I have nothing against non-benchmark users and I know they don't represent real world performance, but 16% is a big f'en difference!!!

 

Not sure if this has been covered:
1. Check if new BIOS has arrived for your motherboard
2. Check if new Chipset drivers has arrived for your motherboard (Reinstall Graphics drivers after installing chipset drivers, and then reinstall DirectX)
3. Check if new Graphics driver has arrived for your Radeon (*Hint* Catalyst 4.1 drivers have just been released)
4. Check that your AntiVira is behaving properly (Sometimes it is a good idea to disable the monitoring of the Prefetch, DllCache and System Restore folders)
5. Check if new Soundcard drivers has arrived for your soundcard (Use DXDiag.exe to make sure you are able to use hardware accelerated sound)
6. If having a network adapter, then make sure it is NOT configure for Auto-Sense but forced to 10/100 MBit Half/Full-duplex depending on your network configuration.

I usually only feel a speed change is when I'm overclocking or installing new hardware.

*Edit: Added Check of display drivers, since the arrival of the new Catalyst drivers. Though I would probably spend the few bucks on getting a 9600 instead of messsing around with a 9100.

 

1. Lazy is in the eye of the beholder. Coming on a message board asking someone else to fix your problems instead of searching is my definition of lazy (To be specific, asking for tweaks. Talk about hashed out) .

2. Refresh Rate doesn't determine 3dmarks, AFAIK. I might be wrong.

3. Have you even tried your games? if your games aren't slower, I'm not sure what the issue is, unless your computer is just a benchmarking machine.

3dmark has never been a very accurate tool on performance, more of a toy.

---If I seem a little short in this post, its because I don't like being called lazy. I work hard on this forum for free, on my own time, and I would hope people know this.

 

I wasn't calling you lazy, it's just I know certain people that when they lose 1000 points they say it's in the margin of error

 

Well I could go into questioning why you quoted me, if it wasn't your intention to direct the comment at me, but I'm not interested in arguing in a forum...

This is where I step out.

Hope you get this taken care of and to your liking.

 

Heh, well I just quoted you, cause I usually don;t use quotes and I wanna start usen em, I'll try that refresh rate thing, so what exactly is it? Games are stuck at 60hz with xp?

 

Ok, I lied...

I like helping, sue me.

Games in both 2k and Xp will default to 60hz.

Use a utility to fix that.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download660.html