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Network tweaks

Here is a list of various network related tweaks for Windows XP tweaks.

Brief network fix

Window's XP sometimes disallows network access to people, including the Guest account, meaning that most people cannot connect to your computer and access your shares. To fix up this problem, open the Control Panel 'Start Menu -> Control Panel', go to 'Administrative Tools', and open up 'Local Security Settings'.
Navigate to 'Local Polices -> User Rights Assignments' and find the value called 'Deny access to this computer from the network'.
Right click on it and go 'Properties'. Now, if the Guest account is in here, remove it by clicking it once then going to remove, then close down the properties dialog. While you're in the User Right Assignments dialog, check the 'Access this computer from the network' setting, and make sure 'Everyone' is in there.

QoS

With Windows XP comes a long acronym - the QoSRRP. This stands for Quality of Service Resource Reservation Protocol. Basically, programs either use QoS APIs and are passed through QoS when trying to access information through whatever bandwidth is available, or they are passed to another API called TCI. One of the differences between QoS and TCI is that it is possible to reserve bandwidth for QoS applications. This is great if you are using QoS applications, but if you don't use any, it means that a percentage (20% by default) of your bandwidth is sitting unused.
To change this, load the Group Policy Editor by going to the 'Start Menu -> Run...', then type 'gpedit.msc' and press enter.
Now, open the branch 'Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> QoS Packet Scheduler'.
Double-click the option in the right-hand window 'Limit reservable bandwidth', and then set it to 'Enabled', and the 'Bandwidth Limit' to 0%.

Speeding up network shares

When you connect to another computer over a network, Windows checks for any Scheduled tasks on that computer. This can take up to 30 seconds.
To remove it load up the Registry Editor by going to 'Start Menu -> Run...', then type 'regedit' and press enter.
Navigate to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\RemoteComputer\NameSpace\', delete the '{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}' sub-key and reboot.

Networking without a password

The preferred way of setting up a local networking in Windows XP is to create another user account on each machine with a password, so you have to login when you connect to another machine.
To do this without passwords, make a list of the usernames of all the users on the network and add the different users as users on the other machines.
On each machine, load the Local Security Settings by 'Start Menu -> Control Panel', go to 'Administrative Tools', and open up 'Local Security Settings'.
Navigate to 'Local Policies -> Security Options' and 'Disable' the 'Accounts: Limit local accounts use of blank passwords to console logon only' option.

Another way to do this is to load the Group Policy Editor by going to the 'Start Menu -> Run...', then type 'gpedit.msc' and press enter.
Open the branch 'Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Security Options'.
Set the option 'Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console login only' to 'Disabled'.

Speed up Internet Explorer

You can use this with most recent versions of Internet Explorer to make it boot up extremely fast.
Right-click on a shortcut to Internet Explorer (such as the one in the Quicklaunch bar) and add the parameter '-nohome' to the end of the command line.

Remove branding from Internet Explorer

Not everyone likes Internet Explorer in custom colours and logos. The easist way to remove this branding is by going to 'Start Menu -> Run...', then type 'rundll32.exe iedkcs32.dll,Clear' and press enter.
If you want to this manually, load up the Registry Editor by going to 'Start Menu -> Run...', then type 'regedit' and press enter.
Navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\' and delete the keys 'BrandBitmap', 'SmBrandBitmap' and 'BackBitmap'. Then navigate to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\' and delete the keys 'BigBitmap' and 'SmallBitmap'.

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