Remove Windows Messenger from XP

Tip: Easiest method to disable Messenger: C:\Program Files\Messenger and either rename the Messenger folder to something like "MessengerOLD" or just move it.

• Remove Messenger from XP

Start/Run/RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

• Disable Messenger

Start/Run/gpedit.msc/Admistrative Templates/Windows Components/Windows
Messenger. Alter your settings in the right pane. (For Pro)

• Stop Windows Messenger from Auto-Starting

Simply delete the following Registry Key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\MSMSGS

• Uninstall Messenger

You have to edit sysoc.inf (located in /WINDOWS/inf). Under [Components] you should see the following line:

msmsgs=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7. Take the word ‘hide’ out of the line, and it should look like this: msmsgs=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,,7. Exit and save. Go to Add or Remove Programs, and click on Add/Remove Windows Components. There you should now be able to uncheck the MSN Messenger Service, and by clicking Next it will uninstall.

Registry Locations/Settings

Favorite folders, etc… - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Micorsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell
Folders

Startup entries
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Make XP Smaller

Here’s something I learned….you can make XP smaller by removing programs you don’t use…in order to do this you have to modify some system files, otherwise the uninstall option does not show up in thecontrol panel for a lot of programs (windows XP programs). Here’s how to do it: Go to the Windows folder/inf/sysoc.inf…..remove the word "hide" from all the entries in that folder. (In order to see that folder you have to enable "view all files" in tools/view/folder options.) After you do this, you will then be able to remove a whole lot of stuff using control panel….including the annoying messenger icon that always pops up. I’m not sure how small you can shrink this OS….maybe 900mb. Problem here is you have to do a large default install before you can shrink it….there may be a work-around here, but I
haven’t found it yet.

WORKAROUND - Create a custom install disk using nLite - you can remove a ton of addins from the basic install.

Control New Popup Windows - Websites

All of this is
easy to do. The trick is to manipulate the window’s components
through JavaScript. Here’s how to gain control over window components.
First, inside your script, include the window.open method, and
add, as arguments, the URL and a name for the new window. For
example, the code window.open ("http://www.pcmag.com/",
"PC Magazine") opens the PC Magazine Web site in a
new window and places the text PC Magazine in the title bar
of that window. You don’t actually need the title bar text,
but it’s useful to help orient the user, and also because by
using different names you can include several different windows
in the same HTML document.

Now that you have
the window in operation, you can tailor its components. To do
so, add a third argument to the window.open statement, this
one enclosing one or more options in one set of quotation marks.
(It’s important to note that if you put anything in the third
argument, you must spell out all of the features you want. The
features have default values, but if you enable only some, the
ones not defined will be disabled. (See The MSDN Library.)

These options
must be separated by commas, but without a space following the
commas. Here are the available options:

· channelmode—The
new window is displayed in theater mode and shows the channel
band.

· directories—The
new window displays the Links bar in IE or the Personal bar
in Navigator.

· fullscreen—The
new window displays the browser in full-screen mode, hiding
the title bar and menus. If you use this, be sure to give users
a button or other obvious way to close the window.

· height—The
new window’s height is set to the specified number of pixels.

· left—The
new window’s position is set in pixels, relative to the top-left
corner of the screen.

· location—The
new window displays the address bar.

· menubar—The
new window displays the browser’s menu bar.

· scrollbars—The
new window displays vertical and horizontal scrollbars when
necessary (excluding them can make content inaccessible).

· status—The
new window includes a status bar at the bottom.

· toolbar—The
new window displays the browser’s toolbar (making toolbar buttons
such as Back and Forward available).

· top—The
new window’s position is set in pixels, relative to the top-left
corner of the screen.

· width—The
new window’s width is set to the specified number of pixels.

· resizable—The
new window can be resized by the user.

Here’s an example.
The following code would open the PC Magazine site in a new
resizable window showing only the toolbar:

window.open("http://www.pcmag.com/",

"PC Magazine", "toolbar=yes,resizable=yes")

Note that the
value "yes" can be replaced by "1", and
that if you omit the value entirely the browser will assume
"yes" or "1".

The following
sets the height and width of the new window, makes it nonresizable
(by leaving out the resizable option), and displays the menu
bar, the location bar, and the scrollbars:

window.open("http://www.pcmag.com/","PC
Magazine",

"menubar=yes,location=yes,scrollbars=yes,

width=628,height=333")

Internet Explorer
and Netscape Navigator, versions 4 and later, handle the height
and width options differently. In IE 4 and later, you can specify
height, width, or both; in Navigator 4 and later you must specify
both in order to specify either.

Set Time Automatically

net time /setsntp:"time.nist.gov time-a.nist.gov time-b.nist.gov"

Backup your network settings

Backup
your network settings:

At a command prompt type: netsh -c interface dump > networksetting.txt

To restore use:
netsh -f networksetting.txt

Configuring DHCP or Static IP From the Command Line

Configuring DHCP or Static IP From the Command Line:
netsh

netsh is a pretty
useful command-line tool that lets you control tons of things
about your network interfaces and services. One really neat
thing that netsh will do for you is to let you set IP addresses,
DNS and WINS servers. It works on Windows 2000, XP and .NET
Server.

Suppose I have
a laptop that travels between an office in Washington, DC, and
an office in Los Angeles. The DC office uses DHCP. The LA office
uses static IP addresses and when it’s there, the laptop is
supposed to use IP address 192.168.2.10, subnet mask 255.255.255.0,
WINS server 192.168.1.100, DNS server 192.168.1.100.

Whenever I take
the laptop to LA, I’ve got to punch in all kinds of numbers
before the thing will work. When I return to DC, I’ve still
got work to do, as I’ve got to open up TCP/IP properties and
tell the system to stop using static addresses and instead use
DHCP. netsh can help here, as I can use netsh commands in a
batch file; make one batch file for DC and another for LA.

First, I’ll build
the DC batch file. I’ll need three commands. One tells my system
to get its IP address from DHCP, the next says to get its DNS
server from DHCP, and finally the third says to get its WINS
server from DHCP. They look like this:

netsh int ip set
address local source=dhcp

netsh int ip set
dns local source=dhcp

netsh int ip set
wins local source=dhcp

These are the
simpler commands. I just open up Notepad, type them in, and
save the file somewhere on my system’s path as dodc.cmd.

"netsh int
ip set" is the starting point for every one of these commands.
"netsh" is the overall command, and it does lots and
lots of things. But to modify the behavior of a particular network
interface, I use the subcommand "int," which is short
for "interface." Within that, I could do several things,
but in the particular case I want to change the IP settings,
hence the IP, and I want to change ("set") those settings
rather than display them, so I use "set" instead of
"show." By the way, netsh will always give you help
if you ask it. Just type "netsh" all by itself and
your prompt will change from "C:\>" or whatever
to "netsh>;" you can then type "?" to
find out what commands netsh will accept, one of which would
be "int." If you then typed "int" then the
prompt would change to "netsh interface>," and
a "?" would tell you that "IP" was one option,
and so on.

The three commands
pretty much won’t vary from one system to another unless you’ve
got more than one NIC. If you’ve got more than one NIC, then
you’ll want to tell netsh which NIC you’re trying to configure.
In that case, replace the word "local" with the NIC’s
name in quotes, as in

netsh int ip set
address "Local Area Connection 2" source=dhcp

Next, I’ll tackle
the LA batch file. I want to set the IP address to 192.168.2.10
with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and a default gateway of
192.168.2.1. That command looks like this:

netsh int ip set
address local static 192.168.2.10 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.1
2

It starts with
"netsh int ip set address local" as before, but now
instead of "source=dhcp" I specify "static,"
meaning that it’s a static IP address. The three four-quad values
following are, of course, the IP address, subnet mask, and default
gateway. The "2" at the end is the metric for the
default gateway. As it’s at least one hop away from anywhere
in the Internet, I specified "2," but you could set
it to anything that makes sense.

Next, I’ll set
the DNS server to 192.168.1.100. That command looks like this:

netsh int ip set
dns local static 192.168.1.100 primary

Again, the "static"
parameter says that we’re specifying a value rather than using
DHCP. The IP address is of course the IP address of the DNS
server, and "primary" says to do a dynamic DNS registration
on the primary DNS suffix. The alternative to "primary"
is "none," which says not to do any dynamic DNS registrations,
or "both," which means to register on all DNS suffixes.

The command to
set a WINS server is similar:

netsh int ip set
wins local static 192.168.1.100

Just like the
DNS command, except without the primary/none/both option. Collecting
the commands together, we get doLA.cmd:

netsh int ip set
address local static 192.168.2.10 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.1
2

netsh int ip set
dns local static 192.168.1.100 primary

netsh int ip set
wins local static 192.168.1.100

Now when I go
to LA, I just open a command prompt and type DOLA. When I go
to DC, DODC. Very convenient. netsh is a pretty powerful command,
and I hope I’ve inspired you to look at it further!

Speed up Windows

2000 & XP: Here’s a tip for speeding up Internet and LAN
browsing on Windows 2000 and XP machines. Open regedit.exe from
Start->Run Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current
Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace [note: line break
inserted so line will fit] Under that branch, select the key
{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF} Delete it This key instructs
Windows to search for Scheduled Tasks on remote computers. Unless
you use this feature, which most people don’t (for remote machines),
it is safe to delete the key.

How to Backup Outlook

How to Backup
Outlook

Address Book:
Generally, if you save your messages as described below you’ll
have a copy of your address book. That’s because the Contacts
folder is stored with all your other folders. However, you can
get to just the address book if that’s what you want. Outlook
2000 has an extensive import and export feature that’s available
through the File | Import and Export menu. Select "Export
to a file" and choose "Comma separated values"
as the data format. Then select your Contacts folder and provide
a name for the exported file. This format is readable by almost
any mail program, and you can even use Notepad to read it in
a pinch. One unfortunate thing you may encounter is that the
import/export wizard may not be installed and you’ll have to
dig out your original Outlook 2000 CD to install it. However,
you can also export your address book through Outlook Express
as described in last week’s column, since they share the same
address book.

Account Settings:
Outlook 2000 mail accounts are stored in the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook.
To save this data, start RegEdit and select that key in the
left-hand pane. Then from the menu select Registry | Export
Registry File. Save the file to a name like OL2KACCT.REG and
put it in a safe place. Like the address list, this will fit
on a floppy for most people. To restore the account settings,
right-click the .REG file and select Merge.

Mail Messages
and Rules: Outlook 2000 stores all your messages and folders
in a single file ending with a .PST extension, usually OUTLOOK.PST.
You may also see an ARCHIVE.PST, which are the old messages
and tasks that Outlook cleans out of your main .PST file if
you have archiving turned on. Where are these files hidden?
To find out, go to Outlook 2000 and right-click the root folder
(usually named Mail) and click Properties. Then click the Advanced
button on the dialog. You’ll see a value named Path that tells
you where the file is located. Typically, it’s C:\WINDOWS\Local
Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook, but you may also
see files stored in C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
as well. You can make backup copies of these files, but make
sure to exit Outlook so that the files will not be in use while
you’re trying to make copies!

Mail Rules and
More: Mail filtering rules are kept in a file with a .RWZ extension,
usually in this same directory with your mail messages. There
may also be a few other settings and log files in this directory.
Since all these files are small, I suggest you back up all of
them. Outlook is pretty configurable, so even if you save all
these files you’ll have a lot of configuring to do on a clean
install. You can save yourself a lot of clicking if you go into
RegEdit and export the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook
to a file. If you want, you can save all your Office 2000 settings
including Outlook accounts by exporting the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office
subkey to a name like 0F2KSAVE.REG. To get all your settings
back, just right-click the file you saved and select Merge.

Convenient Utilities
- A few months back, Microsoft released a great little utility
called Personal Folders Backup that helps you remember to save
your mail folders. It can be set to remind you to do backups
when you exit mail, and all you need to do is click the button
and it will make the backup. You can even set the backup file
location, so it’s easy to back up to another disk or a network
share. A second utility that I think is less useful is Save
my Settings which lets you save some of your Office 2000 preferences
(but not your important data like mail messages or address book)
to a Microsoft web site. You can later retrieve those settings,
either to restore them for the same computer or to migrate them
to a new computer. My preference is to save the registry tree
manually, rather than sending this data to some unknown Microsoft
website.

Mobile Friendly Websites

IMDB - http://206.130.125.89/mobile.php?UMPG=index

for The Onion http://mobile.theonion.com

for c|net.com http://m.cnet.com

for SciFi.com http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/handheld.html

for Technorati http://mobile.technorati.com/

for Y! Messenger http://mm.yahoo.com/

for MobileBurn http://www.mobileburn.com/index-brief.jsp

for Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/pocketpc/

for FedEx http://mobile.fedex.com/wince/home.xml

for Business Week http://pda.businessweek.com/

for USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/wireless/PALM_OS/index.asp

for Consumer Rpts http://www.consumerreports.org/Special/Avantgo/Electronics/menu.htm

for Fodors http://www.fodors.com/wireless/xhtml/

for Mapquest http://wap.mapquest.com

for Froogle http://wml.froogle.com/

for Moviefone http://palm.moviefone.com/

for Wikipedia http://pda.en.wapedia.org/

for Reuters http://bmobile.reuters.com/

for CNN http://mobile.cnn.com/xhtml/en/us/i.html

for Fandango http://mobile.fandango.com/index.jsp

for your Local News http://www.topix.net/ZIP

for the National Weather Service http://mobile.srh.weather.gov/

for Amtrak http://www.amtrak.com

for SeatGuru http://mobile.seatguru.com/

for Forbes - http://mobile.forbes.com/sitehtm/mobile.php?UMPG=index

Delta - http://mobile.delta.com/

Southwest - http://mobile.southwest.com

Mobile Speed Test - http://www.dslreports.com/mspeed?jisok=1