50 Things You Didn't Know About Windows XP

[dancray]

well I'm sure most of you know that Xp is a harddrive space hog; but I had no I idea how hoggish until I installed it....

778 MB for a system file called pagefile.sys

612 MB for a system file called hiberfil.sys


that's almost 1.4 GIG!!


Anyone know what these files do?...can they reduced in size or deleted (lol)...I've got 512 meg ram...should be plenty if they are swap files....do they really have to be so big?

tia

ps...how do I stop Xp from "dissolving animation" on the start menu when I click on it...a little too disney for me...? and what about the animated dog during the search feature on files...this is supposed to be professional? where can I kill fido? lol

[dZeus]

pagefile.sys :
your virtual memory file.
You can change it's size by going to system properties -> advanced -> performance options

hiberfil.sys :
enabled hibernation support. Hibernation means you can power down your system at any point, making a memorydump (hence the same size as your RAM). Next time you start up, you'll log into windows at the place you took off (even if it's during playback of a mp3, etc).

Disable by going to power management and see the hibernation tab

[Kosh Naranek]

TECHNOID

I still like the PIV .... a lot !
But it's a matter of how much performance you get pr. dollar spent !
So don't be surprised ...even Intel fans know when enough is enough !

And frankly ... my last system was a P3 700@1050 on a CUSL2-C and it served me quite well ! Solid as a ROCK !

Now i'm running with an AMD system and it too is solid as a ROCK ! The major difference is the Mhz + Bandwidth difference which in most areas gives a NICE boost ! But in other areas like winamp or checking for mail ( he he ) there is not much of a difference ! Oh Yeah !

[dancray]

cool...thanks Zeus....

now about that animated dissolve of the Xp start up menu as opposed to the solid animated appearance...

tia

[Falken]

You can kill the dog by opening the search window and clicking on change preferences in the right column. The top choice should be "without animated screen character"

As for the start menu fade, I turned it off but for the life of me I can't find where. I'll keep looking.

jason

[dancray]

thanks.. bow wow wow ...screech...car meets dog

ps...found the fade turn off button here:


Change/Remove Menu Animation
Do you like the way Windows XP menus and tooltips fade into view? Admittedly,
it's a neat effect. However, if you prefer the scroll-down look from previous
versions of Windows, or you don't want any animation at all (it can be very
distracting), you can change this setting in the Display Properties dialog
box.

Right click the desktop and select Properties. Click the Appearance tab, then
click the Effects button. For the scroll-down look, click the down arrow next
to Fade Effect and select Scroll Effect. To disable animation altogether,
deselect the check box next to "Use the Following Transition Effects for
Menus and Tooltips." Either way, click OK.

[Technoid]

Kosh Naranek,

Good to hear that you'v finaly seen the light....

BTW:

How hot does your XP (cpu) get?

[Kosh Naranek]

When crunching away in Genome@Home it's reaches a temp of 42 deg. C .... that's with an open case, Volcano6 CU+ cooler and running at 1633 Mhz with 1.825 Vcore ( not 1.85 )

It will probably be running cooler and faster once my SwifTech 462-A and 400W PSU arrives !

[Gurm]

Actually to COMPLETELY disable the new search stuff (which is VERY unstable in my experience, generating illegal exceptions in explorer.exe), as well as a bunch of other tips, check out:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/TechNet/prodtechnol/winxppro/tips/tips.asp

However, since they messed up the balloon tip disable key there, you'll be needing to install TweakUI to deal with that. Go check out the MS Powertoys - an official download.

Also you get a bunch of other cool stuff, like improved task switching, fast user switching (just hit windows-q), an ISO burner (right-click->burn image from explorer, VERY nice) and more!

- Gurm

P.S. Don't screw with paging unless you know what you're doing. XP uses the pagefile a bit differently from Win2k (not much, but some). As for the hiberfile, if you don't want it, turn off hibernation. This file is the same size (roughly) as your RAM, so yeah it's huge.

P.P.S. Wanna see hoggish? Install XP, Office XP (with Publisher), Plus! XP, Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, and the drivers for your hardware. I haven't downloaded a thing, and my hard drive is already at 6GB used! Urk!

[Snake-Eyes]

Hey Gurm, got a link for the ISO support? I've been hunting for that, and either I'm going blink (a distinct possibility, now that I'm 'over the hill') or it's been removed. This is something I WOULD like to see in the interface.

Thanks.

[agallag]

Wow... that PowerToy Calculator is the shiznit! Thanks for the tip on them powertoys Gurm...

[Gurm]

Hmm, actually the ISO burner was removed from the powertoys at the last minute. To get it, check out IBELITE or IEXBETA, or perhaps NEOWIN.NET

- Gurm