After installing Firefox 3 along with my StumbleUpon toolbar, I started getting these annoying toolbar tips that kept appearing. I discovered a way to disable them though.

1. In the address bar, type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.

2. Locate and double-click the entry for browser.chrome.toolbar_tips

3. Double-click on it to set it to false.

How to prevent Windows Update from downloading and installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 automatically.

1. Click Start > Run.

2. Type regedit and click OK.

3. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
then Software
then Policies
then Microsoft
then Windows
then click WindowsUpdate

4. Look for an entry on the right side for DoNotAllowSP. If it doesn’t exist, you will need to create it. To do so, right-click on WindowsUpdate and select New > DWORD Value. Give the value a name of DoNotAllowSP. Press the Enter key when you are done.

5. Right-click the DoNotAllowSP entry and click Modify.

6. Set the Value data to 1 and click OK.

In Firefox, there is a setting that can allow or disallow scripts from opening your browser window.

1. Type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.

2. Find the setting dom.allow_scripts_to_close_windows.

3. Double-click on the setting to set it to true to enable scripts to close the browser window via close(). Set it to false to prevent scripts from closing windows via close().

Note: This setting is available in Firefox 3 and Firefox 2.

If the Lock the taskbar option is grayed out under Taskbar and Start Menu Properties, a registry change can solve the issue.

1. Hold down the Windows key and press R (Or click Start > Run).

2. Type regedit and click OK.

3. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
then Software
then Microsoft
then Windows
then CurrentVersion
then Policies
then click Explorer

4. Look for an entry on the right side for LockTaskBar. Right-click the entry and Delete it.

I used the old registry tweaks for speeding up your Internet connection on my Windows 2000 and Windows 98 machines. By default, the registry wasn’t optimized for high speed Internet connections. These old tweaks worked very well in speeding up my connection back then. These days under Windows XP, I was getting decent speed with my cable modem, but nothing mind-blowing. I used to think that Windows XP didn’t need any tweaking at all and was already optimized for high speed connections. It turns out that I was wrong. I came across TCP Optimizer and thought I would give it a try. To my amazement, it tripled my Internet download speed.

Greedy for more speed, I began playing with the advanced settings in the program, trying to squeeze every last byte out of my connection. It eventually got to the point where my download speeds were 5 times faster, but my computer started losing connection randomly, forcing me to restart my computer often. Luckily there was an option in the software that backed up my previous settings, so I was able to revert back to them.

Give the software a try and see what it does for you. Click here for TCP Optimizer.
There is also a guide available on how to use it if you need help.

You can’t enable Use Cached Exchange Mode because it is grayed out.

This is likely because of a Group Policy that is in effect on your computer. If you are on a company network, you might want to contact an administrator to disable it. Otherwise, you can try to enable it yourself.

1. Hold down the Windows key and press R. (Or click Start > Run and type regedit)

2. Type regedit and click OK.

3. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
then Software
then Microsoft
then Office
then 12.0
then Outlook
then click OST

4. Right-click the NoOST entry on the right and click Modify.

5. Give it a value of 0.

6. Restart Outlook 2007 and the Use Exchange Mode option shouldn’t be grayed out anymore.

You know how some web sites open up windows and make it where you can’t resize them? It’s annoying. Here’s how to prevent this.

1. In Firefox type about:config in the address bar and press ENTER.

2. Locate and double-click the entry for layout.frames.force_resizability to set the value to true.

When Firefox performs a search from the Address Bar, it queries the search engine string you have setup within Firefox. If it’s using Yahoo, you can switch to Google. Don’t like Google? Use Ask. Here’s how to switch which search engine Firefox searches when you use the address bar to search.

1. In Firefox type about:config in the address bar and press ENTER.

2. Locate and double-click the entry for keyword.URL

3.  Set the value based on which search provider you would like to use for your address bar searches. Here are a few search strings you can use.

Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=

Ask: http://www.ask.com/web?q=

Google: http://www.google.com/search?&q=

ChaCha: http://search.chacha.com/search/query?searchwithguide=0&query=

The Firefox tabs can get pretty small when you open a lot of them in one window. This setting will limit how small Firefox will make them.

1. Type about:config in the address bar and press ENTER.

2. Locate and double-click the entry for browser.tabs.tabminWidth

3. Set the value as desired. The larger the number, the larger the tab will appear.

Skip over the intro at the beginning of Unreal Tournament 3. You can do this by adding -nomoviestartup to the shortcut.

Right-click the Unreal Tourtnament 3 icon and select Properties,

In the Target box, one space after the last character, add -nomoviestartup. It should look similar to this:
“C:\Program Files\Unreal Tournament 3 Demo\Binaries\UT3Demo.exe” -nomoviestartup

Click OK and you’re done. Now when you use that icon to launch the game, the movie intro will not play.

Source: Unreal Tournament 3 Tweak Guide

Disabling Windows from updating the timestamp on every file when it’s accessed can increase system performance.

3. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
then SYSTEM
then CurrentControlSet
then Control
then click on FileSystem
Read more… »

Keeping support available for old 16-bit applications that use the 8.3 filename format can degrade performance of your Windows Vista system. Here’s how to disable it.

See also:
How to Disable the 8.3 Name Creation on NTFS Partitions

Make the start menu auto-scroll and reveal all options instead of requiring you to expand the menu out further.

Now when you click on Start and Programs, the options will all be seen and available to click on without scrolling.

Make services shut down faster in Windows XP and Windows Vista.

3. Double click the WaitToKillServiceTimeout key. The default value is 20000 which is 20 seconds. You can change this to 8000 or 8 seconds.

How to make Firefox save certain file extensions instead of opening them automatically.