Found your XP tweaks very helpful. I note however some of them (RE: IDE/ATPI Controllers) require the "advanced" tab. Is this a feature available only on XP Pro? (I have XP home) and on my IDE channel properties I have no advance tab - just General, Driver and Resources or is this a hidden feature I have to access? Hope you can help.
Thanks

hmmm, I wasn't aware that Home lacked that advanced tab. Indeed I'm using Pro. Is your version of XP an OEM version (bought from a manufacturer) or did you buy/acquire it from Microsoft directly?

Unfortuanetly I don't have an XP Home machine here to play with, so I can't see if this is a 'feature' of your version or the same for all Home installs. More than likely there's a way around it with direct registry editing, though. What specifically were you trying to accomplish? I may be able to find a direct registry hack to do it.

Who the fuck is this guy?

A newbie. You know, those people who come here for the first time seeking our grand knowledge. Maybe if you peope were nice to newbies this forum might get more members and it would grow less boring.

I always greet my newbies like this. lol.

And i dont think this forum gets boring.

My system is an OEM version of XP Home (Sony Vaio) and the tweaks I was trying to do were the two covering Hard Drive Autodetection and Boot Times and DMA Mode on Devices.

Sorry - my reply ended up on your post.
My system is an OEM version of XP Home (Sony Vaio) and the tweaks I was trying to do were the two covering Hard Drive Autodetection and Boot Times and DMA Mode on Devices.

ok. Try this:

.5 Go to Start | control panel
1. Double-click Administrative Tools, and then click Computer Management.
2. Click System Tools, and then click Device Manager.
3. Click to expand IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.
4. Click the specific controller for which you want to configure DMA/PIO settings.
5. Click the Advanced Settings tab.
6. In the Transfer Mode box, click either PIO Only or DMA if available.

I pulled this off microsoft's website:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... duct=winxp

lemme know if that works. If not I can still root around for a reg hack.

*edit* and Derf, don't make me slap you down. Be nice to new people.*/edit*

lol, ok.

Thanks for all your trouble - tried it the way you suggested and still no advanced settings tab?????
I'm assuming that the advanced settings tab is only available in XP Pro - I guess I should be satisfied as my system is running really well, but I like to apply any tweaks that will help this rather resource hungry OS run better.
Thanks again and don't take up any more of your time on this - I'll just leave it "as is".

lol, ok, no problem. Just FYI, from what I read Home should have that option too... it may be just your particular version. Maybe Sony does it to keep people from messing up their settings (and thus cutting down on support calls). I've seen Packard Bell and a couple others do similar things. I actually saw a Packard Bell that lacked the device manager tab altogether (this was win98 though).

Anyway, if you're happy then I'll leave it alone. If you need anything else feel free to ask.

What a bunch of bastards!
When you buy a computer including Windows, you want windows and not windows-with-less-options.
I would ask my money back and make them get me a real Windows.

yeah, i was fixing my mates computer the other day, and it was a packard bell windows install. HOW CRAP? I mean, if you want to do a clean install, you can't, because they don't give you an XP disc, they take the crap you need and they fill the space with crap you don't need, and they advertise them selves everywhere.

Needless to say, i fixed the comp, though it took a couple of hours, but if it weren't for crappy packard bell, i'd have done it in minutes.

They give all these instructuions on Master CD's and stuff, yet they never gave them a master CD. But munches.

thats like me and my Tiny pc.

EXACTLY my problem! damn packard bell, you buy a pc with xp you expect the disk, after all you HAVE paid for it.