IE9 will not feature Windows XP support

The new IE9 browser's features were demoed by Microsoft at Mix 2010, and while most features were impressive there was still a bit of bad news for PC users still running Windows XP: Microsoft officially announced that IE9 will not feature Windows XP support.

During Microsoft's demo of the new IE9 browser at Mix 2010, lots of Microsoft fan-boys were drooling at the mouth while looking all googly-eyed at Internet Explorer 9's new features, until a bomb was dropped on the crowd - all the cool features of the new Internet Explorer 9 browser won't feature support for Microsoft XP users. You might be thinking "yeah, big deal", but honestly, there are still lots of people that haven't migrated from Windows XP no matter how bad it seems.

Windows XP was released in 2000, but up until the release of Windows 7, 9 years later, XP was the only Windows operating system most PC users still had faith in. Many PC users viewed Vista as the worst operating system of all time and weren't willing to risk getting stuck with a bad operating system if Windows 7 was a dud like Vista -so lots are still sticking with Windows XP, which won't support the Internet Explorer 9 browser. Windows 7 isn't Windows Vista 2.0, but lots of XP users still fear the worst; which, unfortunately, leaves them unable to use the new features of the Internet Explorer 9 browser.

Microsoft seems to be on a campaign to rid itself of Windows XP with its lack of Windows 7 upgrade support, and now the lacking support of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 browser (and all its cool features). Microsoft is likely cutting support for the Windows XP operating system because it's sort of holding back the other operating systems. What Microsoft is doing with its lack of Windows XP support for Windows 7 and IE9 is similar to those Stride Gum commercials where Stride employees hunt down customers and force them to stop chewing their old gum (which lasts an incredibly long time allegedly) in order to drive new gum sales.

Lack of support for the new IE9 browser sucks for Windows XP users and if you're planning to hold onto Windows XP for a long time, beware because sooner or later Microsoft will ditch XP altogether.

Windows XP Startup and Performance Tweaks

Windows XP is now the predominant consumer OS of both gamers and power users. Sure, many of us still dual-boot with Win9x, because it is faster for many games, but the joy of a true 32-bit operating system with full consumer support is too much for many of us to remain loyal to NT 4.0 or Windows 2000. Now that Windows XP has matured past its infancy and many (but by far not all) of the bugs have been shaken out of it, PCCare247 brings you the first in a series of tweak guides for this illustrious and yet somewhat finicky OS.

This first guide aims to cover two main areas of contention: the boot process (sans the system services, which are an entire guide of their own) and a mishmash of general computing tweaks. The boot tweaks will be comprised of not only system settings, but also several under-utilized applications that can dramatically reduce load time. The general performance tweaks are simply various tweaks that do not quite fit in with the theme of this article, but still have a significant effect on system startup performance (because most any tweaks that one performs should have some kind of effect on the startup time of the system).

Before we begin, several pieces of laundry need to be aired out. To begin with, if you have already tweaked the services on the computer in question, please return them to the default settings. One of the applications I am recommending requires that several systems be enabled that most power users frequently disable (e.g., Task Scheduler). Once you have completed the tweaks mentioned in this guide, feel free to return said services back to your preferred settings, as they only need to be enabled for a short time.

Services to turn off:
Alerter
Application Management
Automatic Updates
ClipBook
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
Messenger
Portable Media Serial Number Service
Remote Registry
Routing and Remote Access
Task Scheduler
Telnet
TPC/IP NetBIOS Helper
Uninterruptible Power Supply

Change "Recycle Bin" size to 1%

Registry Hacks:

Auto Sort Start Menu
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder

Go to Edit/Permissions, click Advanced, clear the "Inherit From Parent" check box, click Copy from the dialog box, click OK and then clear the "Full Control" for your account and now Windows will autp sort the start menu, but you can still do it too

Disable User Tracking
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Add or Edit DWORD = NoInstrumentation, Value = 1
Disables Windows user tracking; better performance, much better privacy

Cache Thumbnails
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Add or Edit DWORD = DisableThumbnailCache, Value = 1
Disables thumbnails in Windows, saving hard drive space

Kill Chrashed Apps Quicker
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Add or Edit Sring = HungAppTimeout, Value = 1000-5000
Cuts time for Windows to recongize a crashed application and allow you to kill it; default is 5000(for 5 seconds)

Faster Start Menu
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Add or Edit Sring = MenuShowDelay, Value = 0 - 400
Changes the delay that for Windows to show a menu in the start menu; value is in ms

Network Intelligently
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
Add or Edit String = DisableTaskOffload, Value = 1
Frees processor from doing network-card work

Browse the Network Faster
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer\NameSpace
Delete subkeys {2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D} and {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}
Speeds up network browsing of old Windows machines on the LAN by ignoring their scheduled tasks and printers

Remove Compression Option In Disk Cleanup
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches\Compress old files
Delete the Default Value Key and the next time you start Disk Cleanup, it will skip the compression analyisis.

Go to Start --> Run --> Regedt32

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Locate the key called "MenuShowDelay" and it is probably set to 400.

Change that value to 150.

Reboot your computer.

You should notice a slight increase in the speed of your menus

Turning Off Annoying Genuine Windows XP Operating System Warnings

Microsoft Windows XP is a version of the popular PC operating system released by Microsoft in 2001. In Windows XP, the software developer built-in an automated program called Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA). The WGA is an anti-piracy system used to guarantee that individuals using the PC have a licensed, registered version of the Windows XP operating system. The Genuine Warnings are activated when the computer accesses the official Microsoft Windws Update website. These annoying genuine warnings can slow down the PC and make updating computer programs a hastle. Thankfully, it's possible to disable the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification program. In this computer and technology guide, I will show you how to delete Genuine Warnings from Windows XP and easily disable your PC's built-in Windows Genuine Advantage warnings. Please note that it is still required to have a registered, licensed version of the Windows software.

First, make sure you make a secure backup of your PC's hard drive. It is very important to make copies of any personal files you have before making system-intensive modifications to the computer. To backup your Windows XP computer, you can use blank CDs/DVDs. If you're more technically literate, you can backup the drive using an external hard drive (e.g. an Apple iPod in Disk Mode), a flash drive or an Internet-based backup service like Mozy.com.

Now, hold down the CTRL-ALT-DELETE keys on the computer keyboard. This will launch the the Microsoft Windows XP Task Manager. Left-click on the program entitled wgatray.exe. Click the End Task button in the lower right-hand corner of the Task Manager window.

Restart the Windows XP computer in Safe Mode. Double-click C:\\Windows\System32 and drag the wgatray.exe file to the Recycle Bin. Open the dllcache folder and drag that copy of the wgatray.exe file to the Recyle Bin, too. Right-click the Recyle Bin and empty its contents to permanently delete the Windows system files.

In the Run program (found in the Windows Start menu), type "regedit.exe" (without quotation marks). This launches the built-in Windows XP registry edit software. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\WinlogonNotify (the folders are listed in a hierarchal format) and delete WGLALOGON and wgatray.exe. Close the window.

Restart the PC and wait for the reboot process to activate all changes you made. The Genuine Warnings in Windows XP are now deleted and all instances of the Genuine Warnings disabled for your Windows XP

Managing Documents in Windows XP

Windows XP is based like a filing cabinet, with folders and document files. As such, managing documents with Windows XP is a little like as you would with a filing cabinet. There are a few options and features worth noting.

Let us first begin, by noting that like any paper related filing cabinet folders are needed for files. These folders can be added and removed from XP, but generally there should be a few large folders which have other sub-folders. Such categories for these folders can be Program files, Games, Windows and Documents and Settings folder. While other folders can be added, the program files folder can be for software and games for any games. The Documents and Settings folder includes a document called My Documents, which includes saved documents of a variety.

So when adding software, the software can be included in Program Files with a sub-folder for the software. Sub-folders fir application software, graphics software etc can also be added to the main folder. To start any new folder, simply go to file, new and then name the folder appropriately. Alternatively, if you wish to delete a folder then you can right-click the folder and then delete.

With regard to document files, the My Documents folder is best to save any documents to. This folder includes a few sub-folders such as My Pictures, My Music etc. You can also add further sub-folders for word documents, spreadsheets, databases etc where appropriate documents can be added.

Folders and documents can be browsed via My Computer short-cut on the desktop. From here, you can simply select your own document folder or alternatively the C: disk for the main folders.

Any document can be removed from a folder if necessary. To delete a file, you just have to right-click and then select delete to recycle bin. Then it will be removed from the folder.

Documents can also be renamed if necessary. Again, to do so just right-click the document and select rename. Then you can add an appropriate title to the document.

In addition to this, such options are included on the left pane of the folder window. Files can also be moved, copied etc. To move a document to an alternative folder, select move document and then the folder to be moved to.

Another good tip to note is that of short-cuts. Short cuts to documents will open the document with the related software also. For example, a spreadsheet document will open with the default spreadsheet software. To add a document short cut to desktop, you can simply right-click the document and then send to and desktop. Alternatively, you can actually drag documents over.

So overall, managing documents with Windows XP will require appropriate folders and sub-folders for the documents. Then they can be added to the appropriate folder. In addition, with the various options documents can be deleted, copied and moved to alternative folders and have short-cuts added to the start menu and desktop.

Internet Explorer 9 won't support window xp

Windows XP users will not be able to run the final version of Internet Explorer 9, according to Microsoft executives, cutting out a decade-old, yet still popular operating system.

In fact, the Windows IE9 Platform Preview, as well as the final version, won’t run on anything but the latest Microsoft operating systems. Users trying to run the preview code on an XP system will receive the following dialogue box: “Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview does not support any operating system earlier than Windows Vista SP2.”

And of course, don’t even think about versions for non-Windows operating systems. IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch told us that Mac and Linux versions weren’t currently in the company’s plans.

The reason IE9 doesn’t work in XP is that it uses the Direct2D feature of DirectX when accessing the graphics hardware to accelerate image creation and drawing. Direct2D was introduced in Windows 7, but then added to Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2. But not to WIndows XP.

When I asked the IE9 team about their plans for the legacy OS, they confirmed that XP was not in the cards:

“Windows XP users have a fast, safe, reliable and private browser in Internet Explorer 8,” company representatives said in an emailed statement. “As the Web has continued to change in everything from security to the future HTML5 applications developers are starting to build today, browsers should require the modern graphics and security infrastructure that has come along since 2001. Internet Explorer 9 requires the modern graphics and security underpinnings that have come since 2001, and is intended to be run on a modern operating system in order to build on the latest hardware and operating system innovations.”

It only makes sense the the OS vendor wants to give people as many reasons to upgrade their PCs to Windows 7 as possible, and not spend developer man-hours updating software that debuted nine years ago. Still, this probably won’t make XP loyalists smile. They may even jump ship to fast browsers that do run on their platform – like Chrome, Opera, and Safari.

What is the requirement for window XP?

Occasionally, users need help to install Windows XP or troubleshoot an installation. If you are working in a corporate environment, chances are high that a network administrator will have an automated (or semi automated) installation method in place, so you must be familiar with the types of automated installations that you may encounter. If you are supporting a home user or a small network, it is more likely that you will help users install Windows XP from CD-ROM, so you must be familiar with the decisions that must be made during installation.

System Requirements

Before installing Windows, you must determine whether the computer meets the minimum hardware requirements for the installation. The hardware requirements for Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home Edition are as follows:

- CPU - It requires a 233 MHz Intel Pentium II/Celeron or AMD-compatible processor, although a 300 MHz processor (or higher) is strongly recommended. Its Professional supports up to two processors.

- Memory - Microsoft Windows XP requires a minimum of 64 MB of random access memory (RAM), although 128 MB or more is recommended. Generally, the more memory a computer running Windows has, the better the performance. It supports a maximum of 4 GB of RAM.

- Hard disk space - It requires 1.5 GB of free space for installation. However, you may need additional disk space depending on the applications and features you choose to install.

- Display - It requires a Super Video Graphics Array (SVGA)-compatible or better display adapter, with a monitor capable of 800 x 600 resolutions.

- Input devices - The computer must have a keyboard and a Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse, or other pointing device.

- CD-ROM - The computer must have a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive if you will be performing Setup from CD-ROM.

- Floppy disk drive - The computer must have a high-density 3.5" drive if you will be performing Setup across the network using a network client or boot disk or if your computer does not support booting with the Windows XP installation CD.

- Network adapter card - The computer must have a network adapter card appropriate for your network if you will be performing Setup from a network installation point.

PcCare247.com Providing window xp support and all issues related to computer support.

Speed Up Your Windows XP PC in Quick Time

Windows XP registry repair is not as hard as most people think. It is a fairly simple job. The only thing you need to make sure is you have the right tools to get the job done. Though there are a lot of choices available on the market today, you need to go for a good software program that not only suits your budget, but also fix registry errors your needs.

Once you find a good software program, fixing your registry related problems is very simple. All you need to do is activate the software. The software program will take care of everything else. Most software programs these days are capable of finding all sorts of registry related errors and fixing them automatically. There is very little manual work involved in this process. So, even if you do not have any technical knowledge, you can easily do it.

It is important to know the difference between a virus attack and a registry related error. Sometimes, your PC might get slowed down or its performance might get affected in some other manner due to malicious software programs like viruses, bots, and malware. In such cases, a simple Windows XP registry repair program will not be of any use to you. You need to go for advanced versions that come with an inbuilt antivirus feature. Such software programs can not only fix all your registry related problems, but also remove viruses and other such harmful programs from your PC and improve its performance.

Windows XP registry repair programs usually come in different versions. The simple or basic version is usually very cheap and has a set of basic features. The advanced versions cost more and they come with a lot of features that are not available in the basic version. Before you choose a version, you need to take a look at the features it comes with and see if it meets your needs or not. Never settle for the basic version just because it costs less. It might not be able to fix certain complex errors that might affect your registry.

Most software companies these days offer free updates for their Windows XP registry repair programs. You can make use of this offer and keep the registry fixer software updated. This will help you stay away from a wide range of registry errors and certain other cyber threats. This is one of the best ways to safeguard your PC and improve its performance consistently.