Is Your Windows Experience Index lying to you? Windows Experience Index Editing.
We all love Windows Vista in our own way.
Working for and with many PC manufactures I used to love to run Sysmark and associated types of System Tests to show off why I paid more or why someone should pay more for one PC versus the other.
So when Microsoft announced that in Windows Vista(all versions(a marketing idea I might add)) would have a internal way to test the hardware in a given pc to give you a status(Windows Experience index) of how well Vista will work with given hardware components. I thought great now I can determine which laptop I should buy next.
So I headed out to a well known Vendor of name brand PC’s. I was really debating between a HP, Sony(I know ewww right?) or Dell. All had great components on paper. The components were:
- 3GB Ram
- 250GB HD
- Windows Vista Home Premium
- The big difference was the Processor: AMD or Intel? Dual core 64bit or Quad core 32bit?
So being a hardware geek I wanted to know what the Windows Experience Index was. Not that this was a determining factor since I was in love with the AMD anyway.
So on to my point. I was doing some exploring of windows operating systems like I do. I know your questioning yourself do I really want to continue reading this? Be sure this Edit is very simple and the point I will make is valid.
Like I said I was doing some exploring of the Windows Directory of Windows Vista Home Premium and found a folder called performance. Opened it up and found WinSAT and well was curious so I dug further. Found a bunch of files that didn’t make much sense but started doing editing and looking at the resources. Came up with mostly nothing other than videos of water and a prx file. Then I decided it was time to open the DataStore folder and found some XML files. I love XML so easy to hack edit so I 
poked around in these files unsure if I was going to break anything. The amount of love(data) in these xml files was tremendous(at least for a windows machine) oh the hacking I will go I thought.
Did some editing of the File named: YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS.MSMSMS Assessment(Initial).WinSAT.xml and to no avail nothing changed. Crap.
So I did some editing of the File named: “”(Formal).WinSAT.xml and changed all the values in the Root Node from:
<WinSPR>
<SystemScore>3.6</SystemScore>
<MemoryScore>4.9</MemoryScore>
<CpuScore>4.8</CpuScore>
<CPUSubAggScore>4.7</CPUSubAggScore>
<VideoEncodeScore>4.9</VideoEncodeScore>
<GraphicsScore>3.6</GraphicsScore>
<GamingScore>4.5</GamingScore>
<DiskScore>5.3</DiskScore>
</WinSPR>
to:
<WinSPR>
<SystemScore>9.9</SystemScore>
<MemoryScore>9.9</MemoryScore>
<CpuScore>9.9</CpuScore>
<CPUSubAggScore>9.9</CPUSubAggScore>
<VideoEncodeScore>9.9</VideoEncodeScore>
<GraphicsScore>9.9</GraphicsScore>
<GamingScore>9.9</GamingScore>
<DiskScore>9.9</DiskScore>
</WinSPR>
Saved the XML file and went back to the Windows Experience Index and found hey instead of a System Score of 3.6 I got the best score you can get 9.9 . Trust me the software WinSAT will choke on you.
The most interesting thing is even when you try to refresh the settings hoping that the program will regenerate the Scores it just uses the old Scores as if they were true.
So the question is: How do we know if the Hardware Manufacture knows about this hack/edit and in order to sell more PC’s they change the XML on the OS as it ships?
Great question eh? Ah paranoia. It looks like Microsoft might need to update this issue as I have yet to find a fix or hotfix that will make this little piece of software work correctly.
Looks like this is not the only issue with WinSAT.exe on the Windows Vista platform.
Also if you copy WinSAT folder to Windows XP it will work on that platform as well. Of course that is for another blog post.
Of course the next question is does anyone really care? Does anyone use Windows Experience Index to judge the difference in PC’s? I would like to know.
nce issues, Windows Experience Index editing, Make your Windows Vista the best OS, Make your hardware look like the best, Windows Experience Index Lies and Pictures, Smile Its Windows ME on Steriods
Increase Hard Drive Speeds in Windows
Warning this could cause unwanted issues with your hardware as well as your Operating System. Do this only if you feel comfortable doing so. Do not blame me if your Hard Drives life is decreased in any way.
Make sure you have 512megabytes of ram before doing this.
-Start > Run > then type SYSEDIT.EXE
-Expand the system.ini file window.
-Scroll down almost to the end of the file till you find a line called [386enh]
-Press Enter to make one blank line, and in that line type
Irq14=4096
NOTE: The above info for the new line is CASE SENSITIVE
- Select File > Save
- Close SYSEDIT and reboot your computer
Simple and works with Windows Xp - Vista.
Display Machine Details on Windows Server Login
If your like me you develop in multiple servers. Using Terminal Services is a easy way to move through these servers remotely and with ease. Often I have 6 or more Remote Sessions open at one time. This as you can well imagine can get very confusing. I got to the point I felt I needed better way to brand my Desktop sessions. I tried wallpaper which by the way works well also. However this trick works as a supplement to the wallpaper trick.This registry edit will add text to the login string on the login after you hit "ctrl alt delete" giving you a chance to identify the machine in case you get confused.
"
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"welcome"="Good Times Enter your own welcome message here"
"
Make sure the "welcome" is a String when adding it to the registry.
Office Registry Hack for Save and Open Dialogs
Have you ever wanted to add a custom folder to the Places Bar when saving a document in Office?
Office displays several shortcuts on the Places Bar in the Open and Save As dialog boxes. By default this is limited to My Recent Documents, Desktop, My Documents, My Computer and My Network Places. You can add additional shortcuts to this list by:
- Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\[version]\Common\Open Find\Places\UserDefinedPlaces
Where [version] corresponds to your Office version: 9.0 = Office 2000, 10.0 = Office XP, and 11.0 = Office 2003, 12.0 for Office 2007
- Create a sub-key named "PlaceN" beneath the UserDefinedPlaces key
Where N is an unrepeated number starting with 1--for example; Place1, Place2, Place3, and so forth.
- Open your new PlaceN sub-key
- Create two new String Values named "Name" and "Path".
- Set the Name value to the desired shortcut name to see. (example "Business")
- Set the Path value to the desired path. (example "c:\BusinessStuff")
- Close the Registry Editor and restart the Office application.
When you use the Open or Save As dialog boxes your new Place(s) will appear.
As seen on:GeeksWithBlogs.net
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