Computer FAQs & Tips

By default Windows XP does not enable Clear Type Font. You have to set it manually. You can do this one of the two methods

1. Change Desktop Properties Settings
   Recommended for normal users
2. Edit Windows Registry
   Recommended for Advanced users

Let’s get start

Change Desktop Properties Settings

• Right Click on your desktop
• Display Properties Windows appears
  
• Click on Effects button
• Effects Windows appears
  
• Select Clear Type
• Click OK button
• Click OK button again on Display Properties Windows

Read more…

Autorun is a mechanism to run the program automatically without any user interactions. It usually used in media such as CD, DVD, USB Disk etc. Whenever a media is successfully attached or inserted to the PC, a tartget program will be executed automatically. Most of you might be familiar with installation media, it usually bring up the welcome screen or the installation wizard as soon as you insert CD or DVD into the drive.

Basically Autorun is there to enable the conenience for user and give more controle to software vendor to bring up what want you to see when you instert/plug the media into your PC.
To find out more about what is Autorun, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorun

Now let’s look at it a bit closer. This feature could expose to a security threat where hacker or virus writer could take advantage of this to execute their file without user even know about it.

Autorun is enabled by default in Microsoft Windows and there’s no straight forward way to disable it (such as icon in control panel). However this is not the end of the story, it can be disable by editing the windows registry yourself or use a tool like TweakUI PowerToy from Microsoft

Disable autorun by editing registry:

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type regedit then press enter
4. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesCdrom
5. Double click on AutoRun
6. You will see a dialog popup with Value Data 1, change to 0

Disable autorun by using TweakUI PowerToy:

1. Open Tweak UI from where you installed it
2. Go to: My Computer > AutoPlay > Drives
3. Untick any drive you want to disable Autorun

Now you can have a peace of mind when insert/plug any media to your PC.

Sometime you might find it very annoying with windows XP balloon notification, it keep popup every now and then, specially it keep on telling those information that you’ve already knew.
You don’t leave it with it. Now you want disable it?
Instruction below will tell you how to do it.

WARNING: If you don’t know or don’t have knowledge on windows registry, you’d better not to mess it. It might give you a serious problem if things goes wrong. If you know what you are doing, please proceed. No responsibility will be taken by this blog and its owner.

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type regedit
4. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoft
   WindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced
5. Right click on Advanced
6. Click New > DWORD Value
7. Change New Value #1 to EnableBalloonTips
8. Check if the Value data is set to 0, if not double click on EnableBalloonTips and enter 0 in Value data

Next time you restart computer, you won’t get those annoying bubble anymore.