Are you having boot up problems and would like to know what it going on behind that Windows Loading Logo? To find out, you can disable the splash screen by making a small change to the Boot.ini file.

Follow these steps (carefully!):

1. Open the "System Properties" dialog box ( Settings - Control Panel - System)

2. On the Advanced tab, click the Settings button in the "Startup And Recovery" section.

3. In the "Startup And Recovery" dialog box, select the Edit button in the "System Startup" section.

4. The Boot.ini file will open in Notepad; locate the line that ends with the /fastdetect switch.

5. Position your cursor to the right after the parameter, press the spacebar, and add the /SOS switch.

6. Save the Boot.ini file, and close Notepad.

7. Click Cancel to close both the "Startup And Recovery" dialog box and the "System Properties" dialog box.

8. Restart the computer to see the effect.

Once the computer restarts you will notice that the Windows Splash Screen is no longer present. Instead you can observe some of the boot up operations that Windows XP performs during the startup stage.

To renable the splash screen, follow the same procedure but remove the "/SOS".

To disable the stupid feature in WinXP which tries to send a report to microsoft every time a program crashes you will have to do this:

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Open Control Panel

Click on Preformance and Maintenance.

Click on System.

Then click on the Advanced tab

Click on the error reporting button on the bottom of the windows.

Select Disable error reporting.

Click OK

Click OK

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By default Windows 2000, Windows XP and WinNT automatically setup hidden admin shares (admin$, c$ and d$), this registry key will disable these hidden shares.

System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ LanmanServer\ Parameters]

Value Name: AutoShareWks

Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)

Value Data: (0 = disable shares, 1 = enable)

This registry key actually stops the recreation of the shares, therefore it may be necessary to delete the shares through the drive properties also or you can also remove the shares through the Computer Management Console.

1. In Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.

2. Click to expand Shared Folders, and then click Shares.

3. In the Shared Folder column, right-click the share you want to delete, click Stop sharing, and then click OK.

Note : To remove the admin share for only the current session use the second method (Computer Management console), if you want a permanent removal, add the AutoShareWks registry.