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Index

• A. Disable balloon tips in the notification area (XP and Vista);
• B. Enable autorun for CD-ROM and Other Removable Media (USB disks etc.);
• C. Enable/Disable System Restore
• D. Enable/Disable Auto Updates
• E. Change Drive (disks, cd-rom ,etc.) letters and create/edit partitions
• F. Change the destination folder of "My Documents";
• H. Enable/Disable Windows Optional Features (ex. Telnet Client, Games, etc.)

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A. Disable balloon tips in the notification area (XP and Vista):

Enable/disable balloon tips that appear adjacent to the Notification area (the "Notification Area" is on the right side of the Taskbar, adjacent to the Clock display).

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.
2. Locate the following subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
3. Right-click the right side pane, create a new DWORD value, and then name it EnableBalloonTips.
4. Double-click EnableBalloonTips, and then give it a value of 0 or 1.
5. Close Registry Editor.
6. Log off Windows, and then log back on.

Reference: How do I disable balloon tips in the notification area in Windows XP or Vista?

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B. Enable autorun for CD-ROM and Other Removable Media (USB disks etc.)

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.
2. Locate the following subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
3. Double-click NoDriveTypeAutoRun;
4. Change the value of the first byte according to your preferences and the specification below;
5. Restart the system;

Allowed values:
The default value for the setting is 95 0 0 0.
The first byte defines which drive types to EXCLUDE from Autorun behavior. The hex value of the byte is the sum of all of the drive type values to exclude + 128.
Specification:

Description	Individual value
DRIVE_UNKNOWN	1
DRIVE_NO_ROOT_DIR	2
DRIVE_REMOVABLE (floppy disks and removable cartridges)	4
DRIVE_FIXED (hard disks)	8
DRIVE_REMOTE (network drives)	16
DRIVE_CDROM (CD-ROMs)	32
DRIVE_RAMDISK	64

Examples:

• The default configuration excludes UNKNOWN (1), REMOVABLE (4) and REMOTE (16) which would be: 16 + 4 + 1 + 128 = 149, which is hex 95.
• If you take out REMOVABLE you get: 16 + 1 + 128 = 145, which is hex 91.

Refence:
Enable or Disable Autorun

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C. Enable/Disable System Restore

1. Right-Click "My Computer" and click "Properties";
2. Select "System Restore" tab and set your preferences;

Note:

• When you turn off System Restore, Windows XP removes the restore points that track changes in Windows. After you turn off System Restore, you can no longer restore Windows XP to an earlier time.
• When you turn on System Restore, Windows XP creates restore points to track changes in Windows. After you turn on System Restore, you can restore Windows to the time of the earliest available restore point.

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D. Enable/Disable Auto Updates

1. Right-Click "My Computer" and click "Properties";
2. Select "System Restore" tab and set your preferences;

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E. Change Drive (disks, cd-rom, etc.) letters and create/edit partitions

Windows XP supplies a utility for this called "Disk Management", a snap-in that's part of the "Microsoft Management Console".
To access it:

1. Right Click "My Computer" > "Manage" (to access the Management Console);
2. Select "Storage" > "Disk Management" (to access Disk Management);

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F. Change the destination folder of "My Documents"

1. Right-click My Documents, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Target tab.
3. In the Target box, do one of the following:
4. Type the path to the folder location that you want, and then click OK. For example, D:\My Stuff. 
5. If the folder does not exist, the Create Message dialog box is displayed. Click Yes to create the folder, and then click OK.
   -or-
   Click Move, click the folder in which to store your documents, and then click OK twice.
   If you need to create a new folder, click Make New Folder. Type a name for the folder, and then click OK twice.
6. In the Move Documents box, click Yes to move your documents to the new location, or click No to leave your documents in the original location.

Note: this only applies for the current user logged in;

References:

• How to Change the Default Location of the My Documents Folder

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H. Enable/Disable Windows Optional Features

Run this "optionalfeatures" to get direct access to the options window

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