35. DMA Mode for CD-ROMs

Like Windows 2000, Windows XP still fails to set the DMA mode correctly for the
IDE device designated as the slaves on the primary IDE and secondary IDE channels.
Most CD- ROMS are capable of supporting DMA mode, but the default in XP is still
PIO. Setting it to DMA won't make your CD-ROM faster, but it will consume less
CPU cycles.
Here's how: Open the Device Manager. One way to do that is to right
click on "My Computer", select the Hardware tab, and Select Device Manager.

Expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and double-click on "Primary IDE Channel".Under the "Advanced Settings" tab, check the "Device 1" setting. More than likely,
your current transfer mode is set to PIO.
Set it to "DMA if available". Repeat the step for the "Secondary IDE Channel" if you have devices attached to it. Reboot.

34. Delete INDEX.DAT (Faster Browsing)

First of all open up the command prompt. For that go Start -> Run -> cmd. Now press CTRL + ALT + DELETE to bring up the task manager. In the task manager, go toprocesses and click on explorer.exe. End the “explorer.exe” task. All the windowswill be closed down. Don’t panic. You can still see the command prompt. In thecommand prompt type the following command exactly as it is:
Del "C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\TemporaryInternet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat"
Note is the name that you use to log in to your windows. Somelog in as “administrator” while some with another name eg: Sandeep. Whatever it is,type that name. This will also help in fixing all the issues related to browserperformance, especially the ones that cause browser to hang frequently.

33. Speed up IE Start Up

This tweak tells Internet Explorer to simply 'run', without loading any webpages. Ifyou use a 'blank' page, that is still a page, and slows access. Notice the 'about:blank' inthe address bar. The blank html page must still be loaded. To load IE with 'nothing' [nothing is different than blank]
1. Right-click on any shortcut you have to IE[You should create a shortcut out of your desktop IE icon, and delete the original icon]
2. Click Properties
3. Add -nohome [with a space before the dash] after the endquotes in the Target field.
4. Click OK

32. Cleaning Recent Docs Menu and the RUN

The Recent Docs menu can be easily disabled by editing the Registry. To do this go tothe following Key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
Now in the right pane, create a new DWORD valueby the name: NoRecentDocsMenu and set it's value to 1. Restart Explorer to save thechanges. You can also clear the RUN MRU history. All the listings are stored in thekey:HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ RunMRU. You can delete individual listings or the entire listing. To delete Historyof Find listings go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft \ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRUand delete.