GrofLuigi

This way you UNDO most of the things you've done with NLITE. Obviously, you removed too much before (something that's needed by your particular comfiguration). Maybe you're better off not touching HARDWARE SUPPORT, DRIVERS, LANGUAGE SUPPORT and KEYBOARDS? GL

Yes, I'm aware of this. Is that a problem? I've updated 1.4.1 to reinitialize the GUI when a new language is selected, so that it displays the correct language immediately after selection, but it's still not written to the INI file until after a file is selected and execution begins. Given that the whole purpose of UniExtract is to extract files, I don't see why you'd have any need to run it for any other reason. If you do have some issue with this, though, please let me know. It could have been an issue if you got stuck with history=0, then you could not change the setting because of the GUICtrlSetData bug. Of course, editing the INI helped. Guess it's solved with the new version. Downloading now. This is also a known issue. There are about 130 separate language items defined in the language INI files. It would be rather time-consuming, as well as increase ongoing maintenance time, to hardcode these items. Given that use of Universal Extract already requires a group of files in a particular order (all support binaries under bin\, for example), I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that users leave the lang\ directory intact. By the way, the ??? is hardocded so that I know if a particular language item is missing. It's a debugging item for me. Users (obviously) should never see it, assuming that all translation files are correct. You're the author, do what you have to do. I just thought I'd report it. This issue showed up because I copied the binaries while trying to leave out as many .txt files as I could (I always do that with new installs. If I want to read the Readme, I'll extract it from the archive.) So you could say I UniExtracted Uniextractor. Happy holiday(s) GL

Exactly the same here, together with usage method and thoughts... As if I wrote the post! Additionally, if you start UniExtract directly, it doesn't let you save options if you haven't selected a file. And an observation: without the Lang/English.ini file, it displays only question marks in the gui. I suggest it has some (English?) built in strings for fallback - who knows what could happen on a user's computer and you would get many unnecessary support questions. GL

Just some theoretical thoughts (contra prefetch): 1. What if some virus finds a way to insert itself in the prefetch cache? There isn't one yet, but who knows... 2. Do you want additional code between you and the hardware? Prefetch is monitoring what you execute and preloading it. Why not just load it when it's needed? It will never guess 100 %. 3. How can you be sure there isn't some bug in that extraneous code that's executing all the time? Do you think Microsoft writes perfect code? (In this case, code that's not absolutely necessary.) 4. Microsoft pushed prefetch with XP because people complained of slow boot times with Windows 2000. It is no magical pill that will speed up your computer 200 % nor does it cooperate with other windows subsystems (except that it's embedded in Task Scheduler service). 5. Every monitoring takes cpu cycles and memory, however insignificant thay may be. IMHO this is ridiculous, slowing down your machine so that you have the impression of it operating faster. As I said, these are just MY thoughts from the real world, not something that's been quoted over and over a 1000 times. I tried to think up some PRO arguments, but honestly, could not think of even one. OK, maybe there's one: 1. Your computer will boot in 25 seconds instead of 40. GL

This is a great idea, and I'd love to implement it, but as far as I can tell this behavior requires a shell extension DLL. All of the programs you mentioned register a DLL with Windows Explorer to enable this options. Unfortunately, as I stated in response to DerekB's response above, this kind of programming is beyond me. I actually did look into modifying the source code for 7-Zip's DLL to do something similar, but I wasn't able to make that work either, as these DLLs apparently require the commercial version of Visual Studio (for MFC support). Given that I write free and open source software, I really don't have any intention of purchasing Visual Studio. I might have completely misunderstood the issue here, but if you put a shortcut of \bin\UniExtract.exe to the "%appdata%\send to" folder, you get a right click functionality. I always use it that way and it works beautifully. Please no shell extensions - the world is already polluted with them. And thank you for the tool, nitro322! GL

hi trodas, I don't know about your services (I think they're OK), but I can tell you about autoruns (I've used in on more than 100 machines - Not mine ) And this worked on every one of them - no problems whatsoever. NvCplDaemon - not needed EVER. Explorer.exe - usually needed for the GUI, but if it works for you, I guess it's ok. You use remote desktop. Active Setup/Installed componens - uncheck them ALL. It's annoying to tweak something only to find out after reboot it has reverted itself. This is the ONLY purpose of this part. Shared Task Scheduler - uncheck all. Never had any problems. Might disable Scheduled Tasks/Prefetch. ShellExecuteHooks - uncheck. Never had any problems. I think it's some security check (but not real like antivirus or so, just something to annoy you). Shell Extensions/approved - doesn't matter on startup. I would leave them all checked. Works only if EnforceShellExtensionSecurity is set to 1 in the registry, and that only if explorer stumbles upon one of them during runtime. ColumnHandlers - kill'em all. UrlSearchHooks - again something to annoy you. Restrict you. Ban you from something. You kill it instead. Oh, here are the services. If only with these your box works as you would like, it's ok. I myself would kill DNSCache (some on the forum would be opposed), but it's better to have DNS lookups always fresh and current. The cost is VERY few bytes upon every request travel accross the network. The gain is not so negligable amount of memory. Also check if SamSs is needed (often it isn't on plain LANs - no domain). Protected Storage is needed only for OUTLOOK and IE passwords (not network passwords). Check if you needed. The second part of services - drivers. I would never uncheck any of the items here. I'm amazed the box still works for you. Oh well... If the box isn't connected to any speakers, I would uninstall that creative sh*t. In any case, try KxDrivers. BootExecute - don't touch! It's OK. KnownDlls - kill'em all. Gains some memory. (It is designed to save it, but since none of these dlls are all loaded together at any time on a computer... If you know which of them are loaded by your apps, leave those checked.) Notify - I would kill em all (and I always do). No problems recorded. Winsock - don't touch. Print monitors - ok to leave unchecked if you don't print from that machine (and you don't since you haven't started print spooler). Another suggestion: try TightVnc (or UltraVnc or...). If it suits your needs than you could kill that terminal server/remote desktop or whatever. Hope this helped a bit. GL

Yep. It was a typo in some earlier version of Windows and it was dragged along. It should have been "NoStartMenuLogoff" . GL

If it is the exact size of the drive, then it's possibly the same drive mapped as network drive. Try from explorer "disconnect network drive", or from command prompt "net use". I don't remember the exact steps needed, just search google for the above terms if you are not sure. GL

Another alternative: [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}\InProcServer32] GL

stephmw, I had similar issue like yours until recently (but not so extreme). I found the issue to be SMB signing (if you search on "disable SMB signing" you'll find a lot of info). I'll post the solution below, but first, let me explain. Some of the entries here were marked as "unsafe" or "dangerous as to totally break connectivity" by Microsoft or others. Let me tell you, until recently, I concurred and found those statements to be quite reasonable. But when I sat down and thought about it - that's when it dawned to me. Sign/encrypt every packet between two computers connected with 3m LAN cable?! Someone would tap into that?! No wonder the laptop's CPU fan went bezerk when it copied files through LAN - it couldn't keep up. So I started disabling them one by one and found NO problems, even with mixed configurations on the two/three computers. The unbelievable thing was - the speed went up from 5000 bytes/bits/whatever per second to 11000 and all the delays were gone. OF COURSE, THIS MAY BE WERY UNSAFE ON WIRELESS LAN and I HAVEN'T TESTED IT IN A DOMAIN ENVIRONMENT (and they say this tweak could definitely break connectivity there, but they also said the same for normal network connections), but let me tell you, I'm not changing it back any time soon. So, here it is (I've combined them in one reg file): REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\parameters] "EnableSecuritySignature"=dword:0 "RequireSecuritySignature"=dword:0 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters] "EnableSecuritySignature"=dword:0 "RequireSecuritySignature"=dword:0 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters] "RequireSignOrSeal"=dword:0 "RequireStrongKey"=dword:0 "SealSecureChannel"=dword:0 "SignSecureChannel"=dword:0 There is another one, but I think that REALLY breaks connectivity if both computers are not set to same value (0 or 1), and I think it doesn't matter for speed: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ldap] LdapClientIntegrity=dword:1 And I repeat, I had no problems whatsoever with any combination of computers/values of these keys I've tried (I'VE NOT TRIED THEM ALL!). If you or somebody else wants to try them, I think the safe procedure would be to change them one at a time to zero (all above default to 1) and reboot. If connectivity breaks, undo the last change. BTW, my current setup is as above (all zeroes, except ldap) GL *edit: 1. Just to clarify, these settings aren't applicable to regular Internet connections (only to file sharing over LAN and/or logon) 2. These can be applied through group policy also (digitally sign communications/always/if client supports) 3. Tested on Windows XP Pro SP2 / Windows 2000 Workstation SP4

Of course, in "Program Files\Internet Explorer" - but that "iexplore.exe" does not do much by itself. It just calls a bunch of dlls located in windows\system32 which do all the stuff. Micro$oft worked hard to tie up Internet Explorer into Windows a long time ago, when Netscape [the original one] was the most successful browser and was sold for $$$, and IE sunk it down because it came with the OS. Micro$oft tied it up because: 1. tried to justify the bundling in face of anti-monopoly lawsuits; 2. gained "speed" advantage over the others since the browser was loaded together with the OS on startup. For your needs, if you want to change the icon of iexplore.exe, I think there should be no problem (if Windows File Protection lets you). GL

If you mean the icon that appears on the desktop, try changing the value in [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}\DefaultIcon] usually it's "shdoclc.dll,-190" - change (with regedit) to whatever you want. It may not work, especially if not on a fresh install (some programs - antivirus, office etc - may interfere). GL

It doesn't surprise me. Doesn't surprise me at all. GL

For me, after XP SP2 and/or subsequent updates there is changed functionality/dependencies. In order to display network icon, now two more services are needed (while before I always left them disabled/taken out): - network location awareness - remote access connection manager. If I would need to be absolutely positive, I would turn on (automatic) the so-called (by me) annoying group: - Com+ event system, - System event notification, and - Windows management instrumentation Of course, you have network functionality without these above, with just - Network connections and - Telephony (sometimes) set to automatic. But! This is not enough. You have to relax RPC permissions, either by going to Component Services -> blah blah -> Configure my Computer (which I resent), or through registry. And I don't even touch the firewall! (Poor thing, it always gets taken out/disabled) Greetings from Macedonia GL

What is my memory? I don't remember. GL

Office, and if it doesn't help, then Windows. GL

Yes. I have done it many times. Reinstall. GL

They sold you a broken OS and you're willing to shell out more $$$ for another one? They shoud've fixed it in the first place! GL

In addition to some excellent answers already provided, I'll give some more (from experience): - RequireSignOrSeal, SealSecureChannel, SignSecureChannel (search for them in registry; set them all to 0; hint: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters] ) These made up to 50 % speed increase on ANY combinations of machines I've tried; pose a great security risk; strange things may happen (including losing network connectivity); google for explanations. - TcpWindowSize, GlobalTcpWindowSize (also in registry) - if mismatched between machines, slowdowns may occur; I often delete them and let Windows deal with them (usually it's doing pretty good job) - Opportunistic locking is misconfigured/acting up (usually on older versions of Windows, but who knows...); google for it - Parameters of the network adapter (in device manager) misconfigured... Many of them are not able to properly detect link speed/duplex; check them out. As others said, there could be million things. Hope this helped a little. GL

If you want to remove some of these, search the registry for "shellnew" and delete the key. I would advise against removing items shown in Camarade_Tux's picture (.lnk, .txt, and directory - don't know what's the registry entry for this.) Additionally, if you want to keep it clean, delete unwanted entries in %userprofile%/ShellNew or %windir%/ShellNew (for Windows 9x). There's no reason for this annoying 'functionality' when every application has a "New" menu item. I haven't heard of a program that doesn't. The application is started anyway through the above entries. If you didn't know, this also adds few miliseconds to your startup time (and during normal operation also!) because every time you start a program, windows check its registry entries. The loss is unmeasurable, but it's about principle... GL Sorry for replying to myself, but I felt I should warn you: the first thing above causes problems with Microsoft office - that's a Windows Installer "managed install" and checks its files and registry entries on startup of its programs - you know, when you start an Office program and it popups a window for "repairing the installation" - but I'll post a fix for that some other time. Second - verified with RegMon. GL

I delete it. That has effect. But not totally, it is embedded in many dlls/exes. GL

Question: what use do they have if they are OPEN, but HIDDEN? Why not just close them? GL

True, but on different installation they are different (for example, some are missing on nlited source). And you can create problem if you 'create' a service. There must be some check if the service exists. You can extract ExCtrlst.exe from the .msi file. It's all that's needed. GL

Don't forget replacement of system dll's - thats the No. 1 source of problems in Windows. Although the situation has improved, I still can't be sure that some inexperienced/overzealous author has got it right. GL

Why bother? Just use ExCtrlst.exe from Microsoft. GL