Hacking Windows XP (ExtremeTech) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Don't let the title of this book fool you - there is nothing evil going on here. The word "hacking" in the title refers to all the tweaks, modifications, optimizations, and customizations covered in the book.

If you are a Windows XP user who already knows the basics, this book is the perfect source for making your Windows XP install your own. Steve Sinchak does a great job of guiding even first time "hackers" into the world of system customization.

Contents at a Glance:

Part I: Customizing Your System

Chapter 1: Customizing the Look of the Startup

Chapter 2: Customizing User Navigation

Chapter 3: Hacking the Desktop

Chapter 4: Customizing the Appearance of the Windows Interface

Chapter 5: Hacking Windows Explorer

Chapter 6: Exploring Other Windows Enhancements

Part II: Increasing Your System's Performance

Chapter 7: Analyzing Your System

Chapter 8: Speeding Up the System Boot

Chapter 9: Making Your Computer Load Faster

Chapter 10: Making Your Computer More Responsive

Chapter 11: Speeding Up Your Computer

Part III: Securing Your System

Chapter 12: Protecting Your Computer from Intruders

Chapter 13: Fighting Spam, Spyware, and Viruses

Chapter 14: Protecting Your Privacy

The first 6 chapters are about fiddling with the user interface and some pretty cool eye candy. You'll find out how to change the system bootscreen, building a custom Welcome/login interface, an easy way to recompile explorer.exe to change START button text (with the book it's not as hard as is sounds,) build virtual desktops, create custom themes, and hack Windows Explorer.

Part II was the most interesting to me, and in my opinion is the best part of the book. If you are looking to squeeze every possible ounce of speed from your XP machine, here you will find answers. First you will get a snapshot of your system's current speed situation using some great benchmarking and analysis tools.

Next,this book guides you through shaving time off the boot process by hacking the boot.ini file, tweaking BIOS settings, turning off services you dont need (complete with great explainations of what each one does, and a couple of suggested configurations for maximum boot speed,)and maximizing boot file location on the hard disk.

Once the boot is complete, the book shows you how to make XP load faster by adjusting startup programs, making registry hacks to filesystem settings, and even network IP settings for faster load times.

And when XP is up and running you'll get a look at how the prefetcher works, registry hacks to tweak its performance, boost Intel CPU performance, tune the paging file, optimize Internet connections for maximum speed, and boost the speed of your home network browsing.

The book wraps up with some great tricks for securing your XP install, dealing with Viruses and Spyware, and protectig your privacy.

This title does include a CD, and I generally write those off as a little gimmicky. But in this case, it adds tremendous value to the book. Not only does it come with 45 hacking tools and toys, most importantly it includes .reg files for registry hacks, and many of them have "undo" files if you want to revert to the old settings. Simply double clicking on these .reg files makes the registry hacks automatic, and keeps you from having to trudge through the Win XP registry.

If you are a Windows XP beginner, this book is not for you. This is a great guide for Windows XP power users - those who know the basics, and are not afraid to dive in and do some under the hood work on their system. Recommended.

I think the main problem with this book is the title. It's not about hacking or hackproofing XP; it's about *customizing* it, and mostly in cosmetic ways. Any discussion about enhancing performance or security generally falls in the category of things you likely already know if you've spent a few years working with Windows. Trimming startup apps, turning off services, tightening network security. Good stuff for the beginner, to be sure. Aside from that, there is a lot of emphasis on changing the look and feel of the interface and using shareware apps.

One element that may quickly begin to wear on non-teenagers is the level of writing. Practically every section begins something like this: "Such and such is a cool new feature in Windows XP and looks really great, but sometimes it gets kind of boring to look at, so I'll show you how to change it." There is also a surprising number of grammatical and spelling mistakes in the book. My advice to the editor: it's hard to take a book seriously with such flabby writing and slangy style. This is a book, not a webpage. When it comes to grossly overused words like cool, neat, and great; I would advise the following formula for how many should be allowed in published material: Take the average age of your target audience, divide by the number of chapters in the book, divide that by the number of topics in each chapter, then multiply by zero.

If you are a teenager who's really into themes, skins, fonts, and other eye candy, this is the book for you. You'll also learn some good basic tips about modifying more important parts of your system. But if you're a person who has supported Windows for years and is looking for serious hacks that can be described in ways other than "cool," make sure you flip through the book before buying.

It is the explanations that make this such a treat. I have read dozens of tweaks in various places but rarely do they explain what is going on. This also makes it easy to undo them (there was one that turned off the old DOS naming of files that the new Roller Coaster Tycoon game did not like). I read through the book and bookmarked the 20 or so that I liked the most. Then I found a dozen more. Now every three pages are tweaks that I am doing to all the computers in the house and my relatives. It also opened my eyes to Windows XP styles. I have timidly tried WindowBlinds and I loved it! Enough gushing, but for me a great book.