Windows uses 20% of your bandwidth Here's how to Get it back

A nice little tweak for XP. Microsoft reserve 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes (suspect for updates and interrogating your machine etc..)

Here's how to get it back:

Click Start-->Run-->type "gpedit.msc" without the "

This opens the  group policy  editor. Then go to:


Local Computer Policy-->Computer Configuration-->Administrative Templates-->Network-->QOS Packet Scheduler-->Limit Reservable Bandwidth


Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab :

"By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default."

So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO.

This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.

I have tested on XP Pro, and 2000

Speed Up Your Browsing Of Windows 2000 & Xp Machines!

Here's a great tip to speed up your browsing of Windows XP machines.. Its actually a fix to a bug installed as default in Windows 2000 that scans shared files for Scheduled Tasks. And it turns out that you can experience a delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network because Windows 2000 is using the extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Note that though the fix is originally intended for only those affected, Windows 2000 users will experience that the actual browsing speed of both the Internet & Windows Explorers improve significantly after applying it since it doesn't search for Scheduled Tasks anymore. Here's how :

Open up the Registry and go to :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Under that branch, select the key :

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

and delete it.

This is key that instructs Windows to search for Scheduled Tasks. If you like you may want to export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary.

This fix is so effective that it doesn't require a reboot and you can almost immediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes.

Changing Default Location For Installing Apps

As the size of hard drives increase, more people are using partitions to separate and store groups of files.

XP uses the C:\Program Files directory as the default base directory into which new programs are installed. However, you can change the default installation drive and/ or directory by using a Registry hack.

Go to :-

- Start > Run

- Type “regedit” (without “” NOOBS!)

- Go to this directory…
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

- Look for the value named ProgramFilesDir. by default,this value will be C:\Program Files. Edit the value to any valid drive or folder and XP will use that new location as the default installation directory for new programs.

Speed Up Your Browsing Of Windows 2000 & Xp Machines!

Here's a great tip to speed up your browsing of Windows XP machines. Its actually a fix to a bug installed as default in Windows 2000 that scans shared files for Scheduled Tasks. And it turns out that you can experience a delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network because Windows 2000 is using the extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Note that though the fix is originally intended for only those affected, Windows 2000 users will experience that the actual browsing speed of both the Internet & Windows Explorers improve significantly after applying it since it doesn't search for Scheduled Tasks anymore. Here's how :

Open up the Registry and go to :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Under that branch, select the key :

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

and delete it.

This is key that instructs Windows tosearch for Scheduled Tasks. If you like you may want to export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary.

This fix is so effective that it doesn't require a reboot and you can almost immediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes.