SP2 TIPS

[Steve]

Curiosity got the better of me and I installed SP2. I did notice my PC perform a little better straight away and I have to say I'm glad I installed it, however there were a few problems that I found quite annoying. Here's a list of those problems and their respective solutions:

 

 

1. Disabling the Security Center

 

The Security Center is a new addition to XP. It constantly monitors your machine to make sure you have an up to date firewall and antivirus product installed. However, it's extremely annoying to people who know what they are doing. You can disable it simply:

 

Hit Start - Run - Type "services.msc" and hit Enter. Scroll down to the Security Center service, left click it to select it, then right click it and choose Properties. Set the Startup type box to disabled and hit Apply then OK. This takes effect from the next reboot.

 

 

2. Turning off Automatic Updates, System Restore & the Windows Firewall

 

Personally, I would rather check for Windows patches from time to time and not have my PC constantly checking for them. To disable the auto-update feature do the following:

 

Right click My Computer and select Properties. Click the Automatic Updates tab, disable auto-updates and hit Apply then OK.

 

System Restore is also turned back on in some cases. While this is useful, it uses disc space and if you are a confident user of Windows, you might want to disable it:

 

Right click My Computer and select Properties. Click the System Restore tab, check the box that says "Turn off System Restore on all drives", hit Apply then OK.

 

The Windows Firewall is poor. It only checks incoming connections to your PC. Install a better stand-alone product and disable the Windows version:

 

Open Network Connections in the Control Panel. Right click your connection and choose Properties, click the Advanced tab followed by the Settings button in the Windows Firewall section at the top. Disable the firewall then click Apply and OK.

 

 

3. Windows Media Player 10 installs a new service that runs constantly

 

WMP 10 adds a new service which runs in the background constantly using memory. It's pointless. You can disable it like this:

 

Hit Start - Run - Type "services.msc" and hit Enter. Scroll down to the Windows User Mode Driver Framework service, left click it to select it, then right click it and choose Properties. Set the Startup type box to disabled and hit Apply then OK. This takes effect from the next reboot.

 

 

4. I use Outlook Express and can't open any attachments

 

This is a measure Microsoft use to stop people opening viral email attachments. The thing is it stops you opening ALL attachments. To turn it off do this:

 

In OE click Tools - Options - Security then uncheck the box next to "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus". Then hit Apply and OK.

 

 

5. When I open a folder with certain video files in it, Explorer.exe hangs

 

This is a problem with SP2 and the DivX codec. The fix for this can be viewed by clicking HERE.

 

 

6. I cannot download files from certain sites

 

After installing SP2 you have to actively initiate a download by clicking a link. This means if you try and download from any site that says "Your download will start automatically in 10 seconds etc." for example, the download will never start. One big site that is like this is www.download.com. To fix this do this:

 

Go into Internet Options - Security - Select Internet Zone - Custom Level. Browse down to the Downloads section and set "Automatic prompting for file downloads" to Enable then Apply and OK it.

 

 

7. I get annoying messages about security when I download a file

 

After installing SP2, Windows will check for a digital signature when you download a file. If one doesn't exist, you will get a warning when you try and run the file. This can be very annoying, especially if you are quite sure you want to run the particular file. To turn this off do this:

 

Go into Internet Options then Advanced. Uncheck "Check for signatures on downloaded programs", hit Apply then OK.

 

 

8. What's this about TCP connections being limited to 10?

 

After installing SP2, Windows is limited to initialising only 10 TCP connection attempts at a time. This does not mean you can only have 10 connections, it means you can only have 10 connection attempts occuring at once, for example, if your PC tries to initialise 20 TCP connections, the first 10 will succeed and the second 10 will be queued. "So what?" you might say. Well, if you use BitTorrent (Azureus etc.) to download files then this may slow up your speeds considerably. The first thing you should do is use BitTorrent as you would normally for a few days. Then do this:

 

Go into the Administration Tools section of Control Panel and check out the Event Viewer. Look in the System section and see if you have any entries like this:

 

Source: Tcpip Event ID: 4226

 

TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

 

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

 

One or two of those is acceptable, but if you have a huge list of them, you have a problem with Windows stifling your connection. The best way to fix this is to use Azureus as your BitTorrent client and make a simple configuration change in the program:

 

View - Configuration - Transfer - Check the box next to "Slowly connect new peer connections etc. etc." - Hit the Save button. Restart Azureus.

 

This should cure your problem. If it doesn't, you may need to look at applying a patch that increases the number of TCP connection attempts allowed. This isn't really recommended though but more info can be found on this with a simple Google search.

[Guest Deeswift]

Good thread, Sigma.

 

I have that TCP patch, I will upload it in a sec for anyone who wants it. Mine is set to 50 connections. You reckon that's OK?

 

 

[Steve]

I don't really know to be honest mate. I thought originally that it was a good idea to increase the size, but then I did some reading about it (on various sites) and opinions seem to be mixed. I have to say that I'm still getting speeds in the high 70's with Azureus which is no different to before installing SP2. I have 5 of the error messages in Event Viewer, although really all this means is that TCP connections were queued and not refused. I'm going to leave the settings alone for a while, but if I notice any major slowing down when using P2P, I'll give the patch a go.

[Guest Deeswift]

Sure. BTW, you can return it to default again easy enough, there's about 5 patches in the zip file. Minimum is 10, maximum is some really crazy amount like 16,000! LOL.

[Steve]

Oh OK. In that case it's probably worth doing then. 16,000 seems to be overkill though!? Hehe.

[Guest Deeswift]

Just checked out the "Maximum Hardcore" setting -- 16777214 is the actual number! LOL!

[Huw]

dope, i'll be doing some of these when i can be arsed to DL sp2...

[Banano]

is there even any point in d/ling sp2 ???

[Guest Deeswift]

No.

 

HAhahahahahahaha.