Decrease system loading time by changing network settings

Decrease system loading time by changing network settings

When you start up your computer and you are connected to a LAN and your computer is set to DHCP and your computer has to search for the DHCP server and then request and IP address and all other configuration. This process takes up some time and slows down the time it takes to boot the computer up. Following the directions below will help your set a static IP address. Even if your ISP says to use DHCP this tweak may still work for you, but you are warnned!

1. Click Start and click on Run.
2. Type command in the text box and click OK.
3. In DOS, type ipconfig and hit enter.
4. This will show you your current IPs that your NIC and PPPoE adapters have. Only pay attention to your Ethernet Card Adapter, not to the PPP adapter.
5. Next, right click My Network Places and select Properties from the drop down menu. This will open up the Network Connections window. In here, locate your Local Area Network connection and right click it, select Properties from the drop down menu.
6. When the next Window that opens up, select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click Properties at the bottom.
7. In the next window, click 'Use the following IP Address'. This is where that DOS window comes in handy. Copy the same exact IP Address from your Ethernet card (in the dos window) and place it where it says IP Address. Same goes for the Subnet Mask and Default Gateway. If your Default Gateway is blank, then just leave it blank. Click Ok, then Ok again.
8. In the DOS window type exit dos then enter. Reboot your machine.

Now there is absolutely NO loading. You can connect as soon as you see your desktop.

Quick Note: If you use DHCP (Dynamic IP Address) to connect to the net, you may find that your net connection does not work after this. So if some day your network connection stops working, just go back into the NIC card properties and select automatically get IP address and reboot.

Improve disk I/O performances with VMware Workstation

How to improve disk I/O performances with VMware Workstation

Even on a 2 GB RAM workstation (as mine) VMware virtual machines can run slowly. Too slowly sometimes.

This can depend on a large amount of factors but we can reduce the number to 4 critical issues:

1. Antivirus real-time protection You probably run VMware Workstation on your everyday working computer, and you probably want to stay secure running an antivirus software. The most useful feature of any AV is the real-time protection, catching and monitoring I/O accesses of every process for suspicious activities. This feature can greatly impact on your VMs performances and should be fine-tuned for virtualization. So be sure to create an exclusion filter on your real-time protection settings for .vmdk (VMware virtual disk) and .vmem (VMware virtual memory) files. In this way countinous I/O operations on your virtual machines will not be hit by antivirus checking. Note: if you plan to run liveCD operating systems (like Knoppix) inside your VMs or simply often use CD images for installing new software, I highly recommend to exclude .iso files too from AV checking.
2. HostOS disk fragmentation A really performance hitter for virtual machines is a fragmented host OS disk. VMs virtual disks are very large (4 GBs at minimum on the average) and are created by default as non preallocated. In other words your virtual disk grow as you install more software on the guest OS till reaching your defined disk limit. If you use only one physical disk for everyday work and VMs storing, you probably will use space around a growing virtual disk, obliging your host OS to fragment virtual machines more and more. So be sure to:
   • Create a dedicated partition for virtual machines only
   • Create guest OSes virtual disks with Allocate all disk space now option
   • Schedule a daily defragmentation for your virtual machines directories (maybe at launch time or during the night)
3. Memory trimming Workstation checks which part of the guest OS virtual memory is not used and allocates it back to the host OS. This permits to have more concurrent virtual machines running but everytime the guest OS asks back for its memory it suffers a performance degradation. So, if you have enough free RAM for all planned concurrent VMs, be sure to disable memory trimming for guest OSes adding the following line to the virtual machine configuration (.vmx) file: MemTrimRate=0 Note: Memory trimming can be disabled through GUI since Workstation 6.0.
4. Page sharing (quoted from VMware documentation) VMware uses a page sharing technique to allow guest memory pages with identical contents to be stored as a single copy-on-write page. Page sharing decreases host memory usage, but consumes system resources, potentially including I/O bandwidth. You may want to avoid this overhead for guests for which host memory is plentiful and I/O latency is important. To disable page sharing, add the following line to the virtual machine configuration (.vmx) file: sched.mem.pshare.enable=FALSE option

These suggestions will work well for every VMware Workstation 5.x and Player 1.x since both share same engine.

Control Panel Run Shortcut

Control Panel Run Shortcut

The Run dialog gives you easy access to many different programs and options. To get to the Run dialog, click the Start button, then click Run. Type in the command and press Enter, to launch it. For example, type "control folders" (without the quotes) in the Run dialog and press ENTER. Here is a list of commands to use, and what they do:

control - Control Panel
control folders - Folder Options
control userpasswords - User Accounts
control userpasswords2 - Advanced User Accounts
control desktop - Display Properties
control printers - Printers and Faxes
control mouse - Mouse Properties
control keyboard - Keyboard Properties
control netconnections - Network Connections
control color - Display Properties \ Screensaver
control date/time - Date and Time Properties
control schedtasks - Scheduled Tasks
control admintools - Administrative Tools
control telephony - Phone and Modem Options
control fonts - Fonts Folder
control international - Regional and Language

How to Remove Startup Items located in the registry

Removing startup items from registry

The System Configuration Utility displays items that start with your PC. These items are generally located in one of two areas. The registry or in Common Startup.

Should you decide to prevent specific items from starting up you can uncheck them in the System Configuration Utility. Though this method is fine it is ultimately best to remove them from the source. To access the common registry locations of these items take a look in the following areas:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

If you have disabled items in the System Configuration Utility and would like to remove them from the registry also they can be found in one of the following locations:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SharedTools\MSConfig\startupfolder
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\MSConfig\startupreg

Note: Always make a backup of the Registry prior to making changes. TweakXP.com takes no responsibility for problems that may result from using the Registry Editor incorrectly.