Monday, August 27, 2001		Article

Use tweaks to remove call history
Vipul Verma

GENERALLY persons use the Internet for chatting and use software like Netmeeting for communicating over the Internet. Lot many readers of Login… Tribune have asked the question as to how to remove the call history in the Net meeting. You can do this by using a simple tip with the help of some tweaks. This allows you to clear the stored call history in the Netmeeting drop-down list. Before you attempt to perform this tweak, we strongly advice you to take a back up of your registry, so that if something goes wrong, you can restore your operating system to normal working condition. Now after you take the backup, open the registry and delete the key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Conferencing\ UI\ CallMRU]. Restart Netmeeting for the change to take effect. It will be better that you also restart your computer, though it is not essential.

All Internet users have a strong urge for the speed and in the Tips and Tricks section we have talked a lot about the Internet connection or the TCP/IP connection speed. Now it’s time to talk about the browser and browsing speed also. There are tips and tricks related to increasing the browsing speed, which along with tips for increasing the connection speed can really add a lot of magic in your computer. This tip is valid for all Windows ’98 users and would require some registry editing.

However, before we proceed, the same warning again — . backup the registry of your computer. All you need to do is add the following entries in the "MSTCP" Registry key, as shown in this REG file:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ VxD\ MSTCP]

"Tcp1323Opts"="1"

"SackOpts"="1"

"BSDUrgent"="1"

Copy this text in Notepad, save it with the .REG extension, then right-click on it in Explorer and select Merge. Here are the recommended values:

Tcp1323Opts String Value Value: 1

SackOpts String Value Value: 1

BSDUrgent String Value Value: 1

This will enhance your overall Internet experience by boosting the speed. However, if some error is reported by changing the registry, it is strongly suggested to restore your registry for normal operation.

Editing registry is not the only solution for boosting the performance of your PC. Normally, proper fine tuning of your system and removing the unnecessary items from the booting list can in itself do wonders to your overall computing experience.

In a computer these factors are responsible for the slow down of system bootup.

First of all, if you don't have enough free RAM, then no matter how fast processor you may have, the overall performance of your computer will remain slow that would include the booting time also.

Ideally, in the present day world of computers you should have a minimum 128 megabytes of RAM for your Pentium –III and Pentium-IV machines running at speed higher than 933 MHz and higher. Though even 64 MB RAM will also serve your purpose, yet given the higher memory resident program in use, higher RAM is always the most essential item. Going by operating system, you must have a minimum of 32 MB RAM for Windows 95 and 64 MB Windows 98 & Windows Me and128 MB for Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

The second important thing to boost the performance of your PC is to optimise your hard disk. You can keep it optimised by running scandisk followed by defrag regularly. Ideally, now you must insist on a 7200-RPM hard disk, with manufacturer’s warranty. For optimising the hard disk, it is also very important to note that you do not fill your hard disk unnecessarily with high memory resident programs as they consume precious resources, which would otherwise be required by your system for running other essential programs. Also, you must keep a good portion of hard disk free. Regarding the hard disk, it is also essential that you devote three times your RAM for paging files size, though providing 4 times of your RAM for paging file size would be a great idea. So, you would also need good amount of hard disk for dedicating it for swap file.

In a nutshell the management of your hard disk is an very essential part for making the best of your PC. Next, factor contributing for the better performance of your PC is to uninstall all fonts and drivers, which are not of much use. So, if you have 200 fonts installed, take a back up of them either on a CD-R or on your hard disk in a separate folder and uninstall all unnecessarily fonts that are not required. Similarly, you must also remove all additional games/sound/video/printer drivers from your system so as to derive the maximum from your PC and make it neighbours envy. Also, disable all unnecessary program that clutters your start up folder so that the booting process is shortened by eliminating these unnecessary programs.

However, there is one more tip also, which can shorten the starting time of your PC. All you need to do is add BootDelay=0 to the [Options] section of C:\ MSDOS.SYS to speed up system restart

In the tips and tricks, running scandisk has been given a lot of importance and is considered as one of the most important tool for the computer users. However, the scandisk is far more powerful than what we use normally. To make the most of the scandisk, you can use the scandisk switches to obtain precise results.

You can use these command line parameters when you scan/repair your fixed drives/partitions for errors, by opening the Run box from the Start menu:

First of all for checking and repairing all fixed hard disks/partitions, you can give the command: SCANDSKW /A. Similarly if you want to start scandisk without prompting for parameters, then you can give the command SCANDSKW /N.

Likewise the SCANDSKW /O, Converts ALL LFNs (Long File Names) on target disks/partitions to SFNs (Short File Names).

However, unless you have some serious problems with the long file names, you should not use this command as it will permanently change all long file names to the short file names, without the option of restore. But the command SCANDSKW /P runs scandisk in preview mode and thus makes no changes to target disks/partitions. The scandisk command SCANDSKW /SILENT does not allow any command line parameters.