Browsing Windows XP
Disable the Windows XP built-in Certificate Propagation Mechanism
The Windows XP built-in certificate propagation mechanism is designed to propagate all the certificates on a smart card to the local My Certificate store.
A faster NTFS file system
You probably use the NTFS file system (see the properties of your C: partition).
Disable the useless Security Center warnings
If your Windows is not provided with one of the well known virus scan and/or firewall software, the Security Center will come with useless repeating reminders.
Disable the balloon tips
Already irritated by the information balloons, covering the important buttons in the Start Menu?
Start the registry editor and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Change or add the DWORD-values EnableBalloonTips and ShowInfoTip, both with value 0.
Set CPU Priority
This setting gives a boost to priority of foreground applications.
How to backup and restore the Windows Registry
The absolute best way to backup and restore the registry is to use Acronis True Image.