After quite sometime your Windows Xp normally tend to become slow. Mostly due to miscellaneous services that get installed with time, making your PC slow. But there is a cool registry trick that makes shutting down a breeze.

Did you know that Windows XP keeps a couple of values in its registry which determines how long to wait before shutting down open applications and services once the shutdown command has been given . All you need to change those values, here how its done.

Step 1

1. Open regedit and goto ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\’
2. Select the ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’ value.

As you would probably know Expose is an application for Mac OSX which lets you quickly tile windows and with a flick of a key you could go to your desired window. But hey could we do that with Windows Vista too….. Yes! you can. With a cool application named Switcher your life could be little easier.

Switcher lets you select between three views firstly, default tiled view that Mac purists are accustomed to.

Next up is the Dock view that is more like a switching between tiles in a parallel manner on the top of the desktop. All you need is to hit the tab key to switch between windows.

Finally, Microsoft gives Vista SP1 RC green flag for public consumption. Yesterday they officially posted the Release Candidate of Vista SP1.

According to Microsoft the installation may take around an hour to completely, so make sure you have plenty non computer related work before jumping for the installation. But many websites and blogs have reported the installation doesn’t takes more then 10 to 20 mins. I’m not able to comment as i haven’t personally tested it, but friends I’ll give my opinion as soon as i download and install it in coming days.

Microsoft latest operating system Windows Vista comes with many bells and whistles. But mostly aren’t that necessary or total useless features. But you can always turn off some of them just to speed it up. Here is a brief walkthrough that guide you through the process.

1. Lets first get started by opening your Control Panel. Now select Uninstall a program from the Programs section.
2. In the left down column, select Turn Windows features on or off.

 Microsoft has officially confirmed that a Release Candidate of Vista SP1 (build 6001.17052.071129-2315) will be available for download next week, but they haven’t mentioned the exact date maybe for some curiosity.

Sources say it should be on Tuesday , December 11th which is likely to happen as it coincides with Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday. Today MSDN and TechNet subscribers will be able to download Vista SP1 RC , yesterday Microsoft Connect had the chance to grab it.

Wonder why Microsoft is so evil… DreamScene is a pretty useless feature apart form the eye candy that comes with a motion desktop or video animated desktop wallpaper nothing extravagant. Now why should i dish out $40o odd for Windows Vista Ultimate just some eye candy.

No need to buy Windows Vista Ultimate here is a cool alternative to adding video to your desktop background without hogging system resources and memory. It will work in any Windows Vista version and Windows Xp. Here’s how it goes.

Not everyone likes to upgrade to a new OS every couple of years. Same thing is happening with people using Windows XP resisting the temptation of upgrading to Windows Vista. But still many of us who don’t want to upgrade to Vista would love to have few of the cool looking Aero features. One of the coolest and my favorite Vista features is the thumbnails previews of the windows that comes when you hover your mouse over the taskbar. Now with a tiny application you can get them in XP as well.