Windows Longhorn Tweaking: From Slow to Stellar

[Mr.Tweak]

This guide from forum regular John Smitthers [[email protected]], unedited.


Note: Before I begin note that most of these tweaks were gathered from around the WWW and I am *NOT* in any way shape or form taking credit for them. I am here simply to combine them together and explain how to get a speedy and stable Microsoft Windows Longhorn Alpha setup. Thx. Go out to AlphaAlien from HardwareGeeks, and Koroush Ghazi of Tweaktown for their wonderful guides (Excellent job you two!)

As many of you know a Windows Longhorn Alpha was leaked in September of 2002. Most people think because this was an Alpha release, that it is not a stable functioning microsoft standard. Out of the box Longhorn is not only unstable, but slow. In this guide I will attempt to teach you how you can make Longhorn your primary OS. IMHO Longhorn is even better than XP Pro, when tweaked enough!

Firstly it is important to obtain a bootable Longhorn Alpha. The original Longhorn Alpha is not able to be burnt and ran from CD, unless you follow the following tutorial, or similar Bootable Longhorn




Now it's extremely important to obtain the following files so that the Longhorn Alpha will be cracked permanantly and the timebomb will be removed. The second file is to fix IE 6, so that you can download files without Internet Explorer 6 crashing! So now it's your job to do your homework and get Longhorn_Activation_Crk.zip, and ie_fix.zip. Once you have these two files I would recommend that you A. Save them to floppy B. Email them as attachments to yourself. (Don't waste a CDR on small files, it's just stupid!)

Ok now you are ready to install Longhorn. Put the CD in your tray, reboot and do a fresh installation. Make sure to format your HDD with the NTFS Filesystem, as it has numerous advantages over FAT32, including bigger file size, more secure, better stabability etc.

Wait for Longhorn to do it's thing, and setup. Depending on your copy you may get multiple errors and/or a DOS window in the lower left hand corner of your screen (I did). Simply ignore these errors and continue with the installation of Longhorn.

Once you have a Longhorn system up and running install and *FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS* of the Longhorn_Activation_Crk.zip, and also TweakNT (Inside the zip folder...) After you reboot install ie_fix.zip NOTE: You may have to select the utility twice and/or restart IE 6 before the changes take effect.

Now it's time to actually start the tweaking process :O) NOTE: You do not have to do every tweak, but many of them will speed Longhorn up significantly.




Tweak #1 (Disabling unnesasary loaded system files)

- Firstly type the following into the IE adress bar without the quotes: "%windir%\inf\sysoc.inf"

- Now for every line that has the word HIDE in all captials, delete that word so that there will be the two comma's. It looks like this: Before-TabletPC=tabletoc.dll,TabletSetupProc,Tablet.inf,H IDE,7 After-TabletPC=tabletoc.dll,TabletSetupProc,Tablet.inf,, 7


Tweak #2 (Windows Components)

- Go to: Control Panel\Add or Remove Programs\Add\Remove Windows Components and uncheck the following:
Windows Future Storage Services, Windows Automatic Updates, TabletPC Components, and MyGames

- Uncheck whatever else you want, *BUT* Leave the blank entry as that contails *CORE* windows components that will screw up Longhorn if unchecked!


Tweak #3 (How your Desktop looks)

Go to Control Panel\System\Advanced and click on Performance Settings. Uncheck the following:

Animate Windows when minimizing and maximizing

Fade or slide menus into view

Fade or slide ToolTips into view

Fade out menu items after clicking

Show shadows under menus (imporant!)

Show window contents while dragging (also important)

Slide open combo boxes

Slide taskbar buttons

Smooth edges of screen fonts (last important one)

Smooth-scroll list boxes

NOTE: I also recommend going into Control Panel\Folder Options and in general click off what you don't want, and under the view tab uncheck what you don't want


Tweak #4 (Startup tweaking)

Click on your start menu, and then go to run. Type the following without the quotes "msconfig". Then click on the startup tab. Numerous startup items can be disabled here. Here are some that you can safely uncheck: IDW Logging Tool msmsgs nwiz NvCpl wizard winampa You may not have all these on your system, and actually you probably don't. More information can be found at Tech Spot

NOTE#1: I highly recommend you take a look at this guide if you are unfamiliar with startup items.

NOTE#2: By clicking on Start, Programs, and highlighting Startup, you can right click on any of the files contained in the Startup folder to stop them from starting up. This will *NOT* delete the program, so don't worry :O)


Tweak #5 (Speed Tweakage)

Ok firstly right click on My Computer, and select Properties. Click on the Remote tab and uncheck 'turn on remote assistance'. Now click on the Automatic Updates tab and uncheck 'keep my computer up to date...'. Now click on the System Restore tab, and check the box to disable System restore.


Tweak #6 (Disk Performance/Sharing)

Double click on My Computer and then right click on your C drive. Now Select properties. Uncheck the two check boxes on the bottom. They are both uneeded and can cause slowdowns, especially with lower speed HDD's. Now select the Sharing tab, and select do not share any drives.


Tweak #7 (Disabling Unnessasary Services)

NOTE: The following obtained from Koroush Ghazi's awesome tweaktown guide available here.

Firstly click on Start, Run, and then type "services.msc" without the quotes. To edit a service right click on it, and then select properties. From the dropdown box you can select what you need. Here are what you should select for the following:

Automatic:

Cryptographic Services

DHCP Client

DNS Client

Event Log

Plug and Play

Protected Storage

Remote Procedure Call (RPC)

System Event Notification

Task Scheduler

Themes

Windows Audio

Windows Management Instrumentation

Windows Time


Disable:

Alerter

Automatic Updates (manually update using Internet Explorer>Tools>Windows Update)

Clipbook

Error Reporting Service

Fast User Switching Compatibility

Help and Support

Human Device Interface Access

IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service

Indexing Service

IPSEC Services

NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing

Network DDE

Network DDE DSM

Performance Logs and Alerts

Portable Media Serial Number

Print Spooler (Set to Automatic if you have a printer installed)

Remote Desktop Help Session Manager

Remote Registry

Routing and Remote Access

Secondary Logon

Security Accounts Manager

Smart Card

Smart Card Helper

System Restore Service

TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper

Telnet

Uninterruptible Power Supply

Upload Manager

Volume Shadow Copy

WebClient

Wireless Zero Configuration

WMDM PMSP Service

WMI Performance Adapter




After all these tweaks you will see a remarkable difference in how longhorn performs. And if you don't A. Get better hardware B. Get 'better' software such as XP Pro SP1 (If you think it's better...)

I do not want credit for this guide, nor shall I take credit as it is others work that I have combined together. If you want to send email saying thanks, send one to Koroush Ghazi or AlphaAlien :O)

[PersianImmortal]

Thanks and nice work to John Smitthers for putting together this guide. I haven't even seen/used Longhorn, but it's good to know someone is already on the case tweaking-wise :)

[XBoy]

Wow! I never thought my guide would make it! That's cool on the front page of tweaktown :D. John Smitthers is just my Hotmail account name, so that well... The real credit here as I said goes to the people who make the 'original' tweaks. People like Koroush Ghazi, and AlphaAlien :O). Send your thanks to them, but if you must send an email feel free :O). I might write a tweak guide for Windows 2003 Server 'RTM' if you guys want me to, but I bet most people here run XP, or the like and not a server OS. If Windows 2003 Server is accessible to anyone I highly suggest they try it! It makes a good Desktop OS believe it or not! It's faster and more stable than XP (Well for me it is, and I haven't even tweaked it yet :O)

[rugbydude]

Props to ya for compiling that guide. I aint gonna try it as i'm happy with xp at the moment. Can't find much mention of office 2003 is that office xp with a new name?:cheers:

[shapester]

Longhorn? What the hell is that?

OK, now where do I get it?????

[PersianImmortal]

Remember, we can't provide a link (or allow others) to Longhorn as it is not officially released and hence illegal. However use Google, and do a search for "Longhorn alpha" - Build 3683 is the latest I believe - and you should be on the right track.

No links to the alpha, or sites which host it in this thread please. Thanks :)

[shapester]

:lips:
Sorry the egg is on my face.
What I REALLY meant... was where can I find more information on it....yeah that's it...

[pro547]

Hey guys I was just wondering where do you get the new os at. Do you have to go on MIRC and find it or what.

thx
Silas

[PersianImmortal]

I'll repeat what I just said above...search Google for "Longhorn Alpha" (in quotes). Please don't ask again "where do I find it?" because your post will be deleted and/or the contents edited.

[XBoy]

The truth is, if you don't know where to find it, you probably should not be running it. This guide I made is not endorsing piracy, however if you ALREADY have longhorn then take a look at it. Chances are if you don't have it already there is slim chance that you will be able to obtain it, as it was leaked back in September of 2002. As with anything that is illegal, and distributed online, it must be obtained from the 'underground'. I cannot lead you there, but you must find your own path. If it was a hard thing to do, barely anyone would have Longhorn, or heard of it. But it is still readily obtainable from the web, just as practically anything (legal) is obtainable from IRC, FTP, Newsgroups, etc. In short seek and ye shalt find!!!

[elrado1]

I was able to find the files using Kazaa. I'm sure you could find them using any of the other "file sharing programs." :thumb:

[pro547]

Ok thx for responding. I think that I will quit looking for it. Anyway I'm trying to get Server 2003 from Microsoft but they won't email me back and it is making be mad. We have a test server and I would love to try out SQL, Apache, and PHP on it.

[taffy]

hell people, I can tell ya where to get longhorn, people want to keep to many secrets, power status I guess of knowing something that no one else does.

[Remaining text removed]

It's not that it's a secret, it's the fact that IT IS AGAINST FORUM RULES to tell people where to get illegal software..GOT IT? No more links, tips or directions on where to get Longhorn. If you have it, tweak it. If you don't, find it yourself. This forum is not for that purpose - PersianImmortal

[taffy]

[Text removed by mod]

2nd warning - PersianImmortal

[taffy]

if you get it off of kazaa it is not illigal, if it was kazaa would not even exist. microsoft would have filed charges already along with anyother company. you can share your files on kazaa leagally. if you buy them there yours to give away if you want.