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51. Do you have a problem
with Outlook Express ? Does it ask for password everytime you connect
? IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that you take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if you are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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52. Tuning up MTU
(Maximum Transmission Unit) to speed up Internet access. Again this is a registry tweak unless and until
you have a tweaking utility that can do it for you.Open Registry by
going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\
ID for Adapter. For this right click on right pane and add a key by
the name MTU. For this key you can add a DWORD value from 68 to 1500
(or higher value is certain cases). If you put less than 68, it will
default to 68. If you put a value higher than 1500 or your Network
permitted max, it will default to permitted max.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that you take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if you are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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53. Enable automatic
path MTU size detection and improve Internet throughput and help remove
congestion. Again this is a registry.Open Registry by going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\ ID for Adapter. For this right click on right pane and add a key by the name EnablePMTUDiscovery. For this key you can add a DWORD boolean value of 0 or 1 with 1 being TRUE (value that enables auto detection). Since we are trying this tweak, set to 1 and enable the TCP to attempt to discover the MTU size over the specific path to host. Microsoft has an interesting article on many similar tips http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q120642 and is titled TCP/IP and NBT Configuration Parameters for Windows (Q120642). IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that you take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if you are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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54.
How to avoid autoplay of CD ? Way I like best. Hey this time no registry trick even though there are ways in registry to do it. Earlier only those CD that had autorun.inf file in their root directory were able to execute on its own but with advent of WINDOWS XP it has become just about with anything. Well sometimes it good and other times you want to avoid this part of automation. What would I do. Simply press SHIFT key when you enter a CD in your CD drive. It won't Auto play. |
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55. Running into Internet
connection problem ? clean TCP/IP stack may be your solution One of things that has improved a lot is the Windows ability to detect and connect to Internet But I still get into situations where (specially with my NAT and consistent testing of new ideas and tricks) that I end up correcting the TCP/IP stack. I got another IBM computer day before yesterday and I got into trouble again. Well one quick command that you can try out to rebuild the TCPIP stack is by means of using netsh network command shell. This is mentioned on my list of tools page and I would be describing its capability in great detail whenever I get some free time. But for now try this command netsh int ip reset mynetsh.log . This would rebuild your TCP/IP stack and a log of activities would be created in mynetsh.log (by the way you can give any name to log file as long as you do give some name). |
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56. Are you using an computer that is accessed by more than one ? Secure your privacy by cleaning pagefile. I read about this tweak a long time ago and even found out couple of ways of achieving the same results but wasn't sure of the importance. But you know what, there is reason for everything. Assume your are working on computer where you don't really own the computer or is shared with someone else. Do you want maintain privacy and avoid other know what you were doing etc. Then this tweak may be of interest to you. Go to Control panel Administrative tools, local security policy. Then goto local policies ---> security options.Then change the option for "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile" |
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57. Gain temp access to Administrative privileges even if you are not logged in as administrator. I must be telling you one thing. In most of the cases where Windows XP is installed on a personal computer, users generally have access to administrative account. But you know, it is not in your best interest to log on as administrator for all your computing needs. I must advise you to create a normal user account as well. But what if you are logged in as normal user and happen to download/install some software application that would need administrative privileges Here is the solution. Simply right click on the executable and select run as. You would see a window poping up. Here you can provide one of the userid/password that would have admin privileges That's all you need to run that program with administrative privileges |
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58. Another tweak to boost up network application performance. Change thread priority I just read about this over the internet.You
can change the priority of applications as soon as associated IO tasks
are completed. Microsoft TCP/IP Stack component AFD.SYS allows you to
do this. You can read all about it at http://rdweb.cns.vt.edu/public/notes/tcpip2000.pdf
Again this is a registry tweak and works well with XP.Open Registry
by going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AFD\Parameters]
and set the following key values to the values shown. IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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59. Make a habit of cleaning prefetch data once a month. Prefetch is a new and very useful technique
in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the prefetch directory
can get full of junk and obsolete links in the Prefetch catalog, which
can slow down your computer noticeably. I would suggest that You do
this once a month: Go to C(system drive):/windows/prefetch, and delete
everything and reboot. This may help speed up your computer. IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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60. How to determine a 16 bit application from a 32 bit application ? Old 16 bit app are still useful and are in use by many. I think this is the result computer evolution. If You want to know whether a particular executable is a 16 bit or 32 bit application, here is a secret. Right-click the programs executable file and Then choose Properties. If You see a Version tab, its a 32-bit program else its a 16-bit program. Alternately You can go into task manager and look for applications that have ntvdm.exe (virtual dos machine) in the name column of process tab. If there is one, it means its a 16 bit app. |
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61. Do You know how to add/delete entries in Control Panel ? Heard about CPL extension ? If You open windows explorer and search for
all *.cpl files, You would see at least as many entries in search as
You have in your control panel.Yes ! .cpl stands for control panel.
If You do not want to navigate to any of your favorite entries, You
can create a shortcut to that entry's corresponding cpl file. Following
lists control panel and cpl file names: From TweakUi, You have to simply click on control panel , and select/deselect entries in right panel as per your choice. From gpedit.msc (to run gpedit, goto START-RUN and type gpedit.msc) Navigate to User Configuration- Administrative Templates-Control Panel folder select and right click on Show only specified Control Panel Applets , click on enabled and Then click on the show. In this list You won't see anything if its your first time. Click on add and type the complete file name from above list. (This is a bit more complicated process specially if You are a new user of the tool) And if You are a registry fan, You can do this
my navigating to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\] and adding a key
field by the name "don't load" and one string value to each
of the cpl file names. For example if You don't want to see accessibility
options, add a string "access.cpl" on the right pane to the
newly added key field "don't load". You can add as many strings
You want. IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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62. Have a IDE drive ? Improve disk performance by changing to DMA access mode If You are an average user, there is a good
chance that your are using a IDE hard disk that supports DMA access.
Even Windows XP fails to set the DMA mode correctly for the IDE device
designated as the slaves on the primary IDE and secondary IDE channels.
Most CD-ROMS are capable of supporting DMA mode, but the default in
XP is still PIO. Setting it to DMA won't make your CD-ROM faster, but
it will consume less CPU cycles. Follow instructions below: IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: XPTOOLS is not responsible for any damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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63. Working in command environment ? Avoid keystrokes - use TAB key and let window do the typing work One of the features in Linux and certain UNIX shells is the ability to predict user keystroke. If You are typing a directory name or a filename and if it exists, using this feature would help You avoiding those extra keystrokes. Do You know WindowsXP command environment has this feature ? (Well it is available in Windows 2000 as well). To use this feature You have to use TAB key. (I would also show You how to change it to some other key even though there is no need of it). Assume You are in C:\ drive and want to type autoexec.bat and there is a file that exists by that name. Result are amazing if there is no ambiguity in filenames (meaning multiple files/directories with similar names/prefix). In such cases You can simply type first few characters and press the TAB key. You would really be amazed at this finding (Hey if not, You are really too smart and don't need this tip! ) Now if You want to change this power key to some other key here is howto: Open Registry by going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Command Processor] and set CompletionChar" to ASCII number associated with the key char. for example, "CompletionChar"=dword:00000009 IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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64. Customizing Windows Explorer Context menu (right click menu in windows explorer) Ever wondered how does the right click menu
(which is actually a context menu) work ? For example, when I right
click in windows explorer, I see an option which says "open command
window here". Do You know why I see this ? Well I see this because
I have following entries in my registry. [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\cmd] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\cmd\command] If You have never used a tweaking utility and
have newly installed Windows XP, You would not see this option. You
would have to navigate to [[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive] go and create two
subkeys ("cmd" and within that "command" and would
have to put the text "Open Command Window Here" without
quotes in default string value of "cmd" key and the text "C:\WINDOWS\System32\cmd.exe
/k CD"%1"" without quotes in default string value
of command key). After this You need to REBOOT for these changes to
take effect. IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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65. Low on disk space and do not use Windows XP Hibernate feature ? With hardware prices going down every passing day You may not need this tip but if You are in a situation where You are really low on disk space even after using disk cleaner, one of the things You can do is to identify features of XP You don't use. It may very well be the hibernate feature. If You don't use it, simply disable it and get as much of hard disk space free as is your physical RAM size. To do that go to power options in control panel (fast route: goto START-RUN or win+R and type powercfg.cpl ) and click on hibernate tab and deselect "enable hibernation". IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. |
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66. How to make autodisconnect work in Internet explorer ? If You are having problem setting autodisconnect in Internet explorer 6 , here is a tip for You Open Registry by going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters] and look for autodisconnect parameter. Change its value to whatever You want (in minutes). Alternately You can try this from command prompt:
net config server /autodisconnect:30
-to set the autodisconnect to 30 minutes.
Microsoft have a detailed article dealing on this titled How
Autodisconnect Works in Windows NT and Windows 2000 (Q138365) IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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67. Do You want Windows to unload dll immediately? Folks, I read about this a long time ago and my preliminary findings are that it works on XP as well even though I can not say how beneficial this trick is (or how damaging !). Also there might be some potential problems with a a few apps. But I would still provide it to You There is a way in registry for You to tell Windows OS to unload DLL,immediately as soon as its use is over. Here is how to do that: . Open Registry by going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer] and look for AlwaysUnloadDLL parameter. It may not be present by default. If not, add a key by the name AlwaysUnloadDLL and set it to value of 1. This would inform OS to unload the DLL files from memory immediately. This has its advantages and disadvantages. It may also crash some Microsoft applications (like Access). IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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68. Lock known dll's list and make your computer a bit more safer Folks, You may be wondering that I am talking about making your computer a bit more safer even though my very site was hacked on 1/14/2002. As it stands I have kept this site simple and I do not control the webhosting part. Anyway it is a good idea to keep your computer safe.Open Registry by going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager] and look for ProtectionMode parameter. If its value is not 1 , set it to value of 1. On my computer default value is 1. Doing this will protect your list of known system dlls from being compromised. To see what is present in your known DLL list, navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\KnownDLLs] and look in the right pane. I have not yet tried this but You may even try adding some other DLLs that You feel important and should be protected. This could be risky as I have not yet tried this myself. Microsoft has an old but informative article on it http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q218/4/73.asp IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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69. Improve computer performance by reducing EFS cache validation Navigate to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTFS\EFS\Parameters
and set the parameter of EFSKCACHEPERIOD to a value between 2 and 30.
default is 5. Value suggest the time in seconds the kernel will cache
the session key for a user for a given file. The Kernel will not validate
the user credentials during this cache period. This has the net effect
of faster access to encrypted files that may be opened several times
during a given time period.This is helpful in kernel and user mode of
the EFS (encrypting file system) as it provides quicker access to frequently
use components. Microsoft has an interesting article on this at Registry Keys Used to Tune EFS Caching (Q278256). Read it for complete details. IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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70. Customize your Start Menu setting and preferences You can open group policy editor (gpedit.msc) and go to User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Start Menu and Taskbar and set a variety of preferences for your startmenu. Or if You want You can open registry editor and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer and enable/disable various parameters by changing 1 to 0 and viceversa. I am doing a cut/paste of list available at Microsoft site. Visit the site to get details on these registry values Registry Value:"NoSimpleStartMenu" I read about this on Microsoft Web Site. Here is the link Policy Settings for the Start Menu in Windows XP (Q292504) IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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71. How to Add a Control Panel Tool to a Category : Tips on customizing categories Have You noticed the new view of control panel
in XP. Well as its says,its a view and You can switch to a classic view
anytime. But if You like the view but want to customize the categories,
there is again a good article on How to do this : How
to Add a Control Panel Tool to a Category (Q292463). You can get
complete details by visiting the site but in brief a control Panel tool
can be included in a particular category by adding a registry DWORD
entry for the tool in the following registry key: IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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72. Protect yourself from denial of service attacks: UPnP weakness in Windows XP You might have heard of Denial of Service attacks . Recently this news covered media headlines. Microsoft has provided a fix for it. You can read complete details at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-059.asp But in brief few registry tweaks can save the day for You in unlikely case of You being the target . 1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\UPnP
Control Point and add "DownloadScope" key and put a value
of 0 to 3. Here is the description of these values: 2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SSDPSRV\Parameters
and add key "TTL" and sets its value to max number of rounter
hops allowed in the PnP device search on Internet . IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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73. How startup programs get loaded in Windows at boot time ? Run keys of Windows Registry Run keys cause programs to automatically run every time computer/XP boots up . The Windows XP registry includes the following four Run keys: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Again, this article is available at Microsoft
site at A
Definition of the Run Keys in the Windows XP Registry (Q314866) IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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74. Have You seen those annoying searches for broken shortcuts/links ? Need a remedy ? This could be annoying ! Has been to me. Well there is are couple of ways to solve this problem. If You are comfortable with Registry manipulation, Open registry editor by going to START-RUN and entering regedit.exe. After this , Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer add a new key by the name "NoResolveTrack" (without quotes) and sets its value to 1. This can be achieved by group policy editor as
well. Open group policy editor by opening START-RUN and entering gpedit.msc.
Navigate to User Configuration\AdministrativeTemplates\Start Menu and
Taskbar group policy and selecting "Do not use the tracking-based
method when resolving shell shortcuts" IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |
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75. Want to move a Windows XP Installation to Different Hardware. How to do that ? In most of the scenarios (legal !), You would be doing one of the following acts: A. Migrate a working Windows XP operating system
and your installed programs to a different or more powerful computer
in minimal downtime. Windows Backup (Ntbackup.exe) can handle differences in hardware configuration information between computers and maintain critical registry entries that are unique to the computer to which You are migrating information. This capability means that You can migrate to new hardware by performing a full backup of the source computer and Then restoring the backup over a fresh installation of Windows XP on the destination computer. Ntbackup.exe handles restore operations in the registry by first querying the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\KeysNotToRestore
An entry that ends with a backslash (\) indicates that a key is protected and that any keys or values under that key should not be restored. If the entry ends with a backslash and an asterisk (\*), all subkeys are "merged." In this situation, "merged" means comparing the start values of the keys in the backup set with the start values that exist in the current registry, to determine the correct key to restore. If the value of the key on the backup set has
a lower start value, the backup key takes precedence. If the value of
the key in the current registry has a lower start value, the current
key takes precedence. This process ensures that all services and devices
start correctly after a "system state" restoration, even on
dissimilar hardware. Complete details on this are available at Microsoft
site at How
to Move a Windows XP Installation to Different Hardware (Q314070) IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Before doing anything with registry, It is very important that You take a backup of registry by exporting it. Remember even a minor mistake in registry could render your system unusable or will cause it to stop or crash. XPTOOLS is not responsible for any such damage that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of your applying these changes. Don't try it if You are not sure. Use at your own risk. |