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1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Device Manager
3. Find the device that you are trying to install a driver for.
4. Right Click
5. Update Driver Software
6. Browse my computer for driver software
7. Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
8. Have Disk
9. Browse for the .inf driver file. Open and Next.
10. The driver will be installed.

1. Download Hiren’s Boot CD here. (This is a large 400MB file)
2. Unzip the archive.
3. Find the ISO file.
4. If you have ISO mounting software such as Virtual CloneDrive, mount the ISO file on a virtual drive. If not, you can burn the file to a blank CD.
5. Format your USB drive using FAT32. (Go to Explorer => Right click on the USB drive => Format).
6. Download and extract this archive.
7. Find and run WinSetup.
8. Select the USB drive.
9. Click Bootice => Process MBR => select GRUB4DOS. Click Install/Config. Close.
10. Click Process PBR => Select NTLDR boot record. Click Install/Config. Close. Exit.
11. Copy grldr and menu.lst from the HBCD folder of the ISO mounted drive to the USB drive.
12. Now copy everything from the ISO mounted drive to the USB drive.
13. Restart the computer.
14. Make sure your computer is booting from the USB drive. (Use the bios menu or the boot menu).
15. You should see a screen that shows the options to boot from Mini XP.

Registry Hacks

If you have an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator enabled video card, you can add these hacks into the registry to boost performance:

Enable Media Scaling – I don’t know how this helps but I noticed that some modded drivers use this to increase the speed on your computer.

1. Go to the registry editor by typing in regedit in the run box.
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\
3. You will notice two folders that are named 0000 and 0001. Click the 0000 folder.
4. Scroll down to Display1_EnableMediaScaling
5. Double click it and set it to 1.
6. Click on the 0001 folder and repeat steps 4-5 for that folder.

Enable Dynamic Scaling – Dynamic scaling works to keep your temperature low in your computer. It will automatically adjust the frequency of the CPU to reduce heat and conserve power. This technique is beneficial for laptops.

1. Go to the registry editor by typing in regedit in the run box.
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\
3. You will notice two folders that are named 0000 and 0001. Click the 0000 folder.
4. Scroll down to Display1_EnableDynamicScaling
5. Double click it and set it to 1.
6. Click on the 0001 folder and repeat steps 4-5 for that folder.

Enable Pipeline Optimization – Pipeline Optimization can reduce bottlenecks in the CPU and the GPU, thus increasing the performance of both.

1. Go to the registry editor by typing in regedit in the run box.
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\
3. You will notice two folders that are named 0000 and 0001. Click the 0000 folder.
4. Scroll down to Display1_PipeOptimizationEnable
5. Double click it and set it to 1.
6. Click on the 0001 folder and repeat steps 4-5 for that folder.

Software T&L – You can manually set which programs can run with software transform and lighting. This will enable computers with graphics cards that didn’t come with hardware transform and lighting to emulate T&L on the CPU.

1. Go to the registry editor by typing in regedit in the run box.
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\
3. You will notice two folders that are named 0000 and 0001. Click the 0000 folder.
4. Add a new DWORD variable and name it to “~yourprogram.exe” (without the quotes).
5. Set its value to 1.
6. Do this for all programs that use the graphics card. (Games are good with this)
7. Click the 0001 folder. Repeat steps 4-6.

Unload Unused DLLs – If you are running Windows XP, this can help with the stabilization of your computer by getting rid of old DLL files that were left in the memory after closing applications. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for Vista or 7 users.

1. Go to the registry editor by typing in regedit in the run box.
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
3. Set the “AlwaysUnloadDll” DWORD value to 1. If there isn’t one, create one.

Using the Command Prompt

Increase Virtual Address Memory – I’ve read on a forum somewhere that by increasing the user’s address memory can prevent occasional lag spikes in some games.

1. Go to the command prompt by typing cmd in the run box.
2. Type in the following: bcdedit /set increaseuserva 2240

System Configuration

Enable All Cores on Startup – Enabling all cores to run on startup may improve the bootup speed of your computer. (There is speculation that this is a myth and is only used for debugging by developers)

1. Go to system configuration by typing in msconfig in the run box.
2. Click on the boot tab. Advanced options. Check the number of processors box and specify the amount of cores you want to use.

1. First download and extract XP2USB (12.3MB), which contains all the tools you will need.
2. Download an XP iso or create one from an XP setup CD.
3. Extract the iso to a folder.
4. Do steps 5-10 if using XP x64.
5. If you are putting XP Pro x64 on the USB, then you will need to extract nLite.
6. Run nLite.
7. Click next. Locate the extracted iso folder. Click next.
8. Click Drivers. Insert. Choose an INF file from the SATA64 directory.
9. Use CTRL+Shift to select all the files. Hit OK.
10. Click Next. Yes. After the process is finished, click next.
11. Format the USB drive using NTFS or FAT16/32. (In Explorer, right click on USB drive and click format)
12. Run WinSetup.
13. Select correct USB drive. (The drive must be 1GB or bigger)
14. Click Bootice. Process MBR and select GRUB4DOS. Install/Config. Close.
15. Click Process PBR. Select NTLDR boot record. Install/Config. Close. Exit.
16. In WinSetup, check Windows 2000/XP/2003 Setup. Browse for the XP setup folder.
17. Click GO. After finished, exit program.

You now have a bootable XP USB drive.

Optional – If you installed XP as a dual boot operating system, and you installed it after Vista or 7, then you will need to have a boot menu that shows both operating systems:

1. Install EasyBCD from XP2USB archive.
2. Use EasyBCD to add and edit entries in the boot file.
3. Save settings.
4. Restart and you should have the updated boot menu list.

function between($text, $start){
     $string = substr($text, strpos($text, $start));
     return str_replace($start, " ", $string);
}

Let’s say that you have a URL “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola” and you need the relative path of the article (Pensacola).

return between("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola", "wiki/");

 //Returns Pensacola

Download it here

1. Go to Tools -> Connect to Database.
2. Click on Browse.
3. Browse to desired directory and database file.
4. If creating a new database, type in the new database name (including the .mdf extension).
5. Click Open.
6. If you opened an existing database, skip steps 7-9.
7. Browse in Server Explorer to the new database. Expand it and go to the Tables folder.
8. Right click on the Tables folder and Add New Table
9. Fill out the table.
10. Click OK.
11. You will get a window that says “The database file ‘location of file’ does not exist. Would you like to create it?. Click Yes.
12. Go to Project -> Add New Item.
13. Click LINQ to SQL Classes. Give it a name.
14. The Object Relational Designer window shows.
15. Navigate in the Server Explorer to the database Table folder.
16. Drag and Drop a table to the ORD window. A window will pop up and click Yes.
17. Do this to all your tables.
18. You now have access to the database using LINQ to SQL classes.