Close hung applications

Open REGEDIT and navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop'

Highlight the value 'AutoEndTasks.'

Change the value to '1'

XP will now be able to close hung applications without user input during the shutdown process.

Some Run commands - XP

Add Hardware Wizard - hdwwiz.cpl

Add/Remove Programs - appwiz.cpl

Administrative Tools - control admintools

Automatic Updates - wuaucpl.cpl

Bluetooth Transfer Wizard - fsquirt

Calculator - calc

Certificate Manager - certmgr.msc

Character Map - charmap

Check Disk Utility - chkdsk

Clipboard Viewer - clipbrd

Command Prompt - cmd

Component Services - dcomcnfg

Computer Management - compmgmt.msc

Date and Time Properties - timedate.cpl

DDE Shares - ddeshare

Device Manager - devmgmt.msc

Direct X Control Panel (If Installed)* - directx.cpl

Direct X Troubleshooter - dxdiag

Disk Cleanup Utility - cleanmgr

Disk Defragment - dfrg.msc

Disk Management - diskmgmt.msc

Disk Partition Manager - diskpart

Display Properties - control desktop

Display Properties - desk.cpl

Display Properties (w/Appearance Tab Preselected) - control color

Dr. Watson System Troubleshooting Utility - drwtsn32

Driver Verifier Utility - verifier

Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc

File Signature Verification Tool - sigverif

Findfast - findfast.cpl

Folders Properties - control folders

Fonts - control fonts

Fonts Folder - fonts

Free Cell Card Game - freecell

Game Controllers - joy.cpl

Group Policy Editor (XP Prof) - gpedit.msc

Hearts Card Game - mshearts

Iexpress Wizard - iexpress

Indexing Service - ciadv.msc

Internet Properties - inetcpl.cpl

Make startmenu appear faster

The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

Disable Recent Documents

The bad thing about Recent Documents History is that Windows XP has to calculate
what should be put there each time you boot Windows, which can slow things down.
1. Open the Registry Editor (select Start/Run, type regedit, and click OK).
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mcft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
3. Create a NoRecentDocsHistory D_WORD key. Double-click the value to open it
once it is created.
4. Set the Data Value to 1 to enable the restriction.
5. Click OK and close the Registry Editor. You'll need to restart the computer for the
change to take effect.

SHUTDOWN COMMANDS

Ok the easiest way to shut down your computer is to type (shutdown –s) in to cmd “command” and that will give a message that the computer will shutdown and you have 30 seconds. There are other commands. ill just start off doing the easiest 1

Shutdown –s
it will shutdown your computer in 30 seconds and display a message

shutdown –s –t 40
it will shutdown in 40 seconds but you can only go up to 86400 (24 hours) but if you make it 0 it will show no message and just shutdown

shutdown –s –c ”haha the computer is going to shutdown”
it will shutdown with a message in a box under the time

shutdown –l
it will just log you of the computer

shutdown -i
it will display the GUI shutdown window

shutdown –r
will restart the computer

shutdown –a
it will abort the shutdown

shutdown –f
will force all running applications to close