We’ve finally come to Part V of our Beginner’s Guide Series and I hope that those who have been reading it have found it useful. If this is your first time reading this series, then I would urge you to read up Parts I, II, III and IV before moving on to V as it flows better that way. Before we begin, I would like to thank those of you who sent me an email as well as posted comments with regards to the series. It’s helped me decide on what to include and those well-wishes are always appreciated here.

Now with Part V, you would have installed several applications, be it commercial or free, but you might realize that your device is still a tad to slow. Well that’s where registry hacks come in. We actually covered such hacks in our Tips & Tricks category but we’ll round up some off the best ones for you here.

Note: You will need a registry editor before you begin and we highly recommend PHM RegEdit if you do not have one. Be sure to create backups of your registry, just in case.

Performance Hacks

The tweaks listed below will help improve your device performance.

Disable Menu Animations

Entry: HKLM\SYSTEM\GWE\Menu\AniType
Default Value: 6
Change To: 0

Disable Window Animations

Entry: HKLM\SYSTEM\GWE\Animate
Default Value: 1
Change To: 0

Increase Font Cache

Entry: HKLM\SYSTEM\GDI\GLYPHCACHE\limit
Default Value: 8192
Change To: You can change it to any of the following: 4096, 8192, 16384 & 32768. The higher the better, but it will be at the expense of RAM so use discretion.

Enable FileSystem Cache

Entry: HKLM\System\StorageManager\FATFS\EnableCache
Default Value: 0
Change To: 1

- Increase FileSystem Cache

To use this hack, you need to enable filesystem cache first!

Entry: HKLM\System\StorageManager\FATFS\CacheSize
Default Value: 0
Change To: You can change it any value you like but I recommend using 4096.

- Increase FileSystem Filter Cache

To use this hack, you need to enable filesystem cache first!

Entry: HKLM\System\StorageManager\Filters\fsreplxfilt\ReplStoreCacheSize
Default Value: 0
Change To: You can change it any value you like but I recommend using 4096.

User-Interface Hacks

The tweaks below will only change the various user-interface listed. While they do not improve performance like the ones above, they might just make your usage experience that much better.

Change Horizontal Scrollbar Thickness

Entry: HKLM\System\GWE\cyHScr
Default Value: 13
Change To: Change to any value you like; the larger the value, the thicker the scrollbar. I would recommend 15.

Change Vertical Scrollbar Thickness

Entry: HKLM\System\GWE\cxVScr
Default Value: 13
Change To: Change to any value you like; the larger the value, the thicker the scrollbar. I would recommend 15.
Enable ClearType In Landscape Mode

Entry: HKLM\System\GDI\ClearTypeSettings\OffOnRotation
Default Value: 1
Change To: 0

Change Display Of Clock In Top Bar

Entry: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shell\TBOpt
Default Value: Varies
Change To: There are several options here. 0 shows nothing. 1 shows just the clock. 2 shows just the date. 3 shows both the clock and date. There might be obstruction though so do check after applying hack.

File Location HacksChange Location Of My Documents

Entry: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows CE Services\FileSyncPath
Default Value: \My Documents
Change To: \Storage Card\My Documents (or any other location that you want)

Sometimes, the entry is not available and you will have to create it. In this case, it’s a REG_SZ string.

Change Location Of Ringtone File Storage

Entry: HKCU\ControlPanel\SoundCategories\Ring\Directory
Default Value: \Windows\
Change To: \Storage Card\ (or any location you want it to be)

In Closing

These are just some of the many hacks that you can apply to your Windows Mobile device to improve it. Most of the settings here are applicable to all devices running Windows Mobile 5/6. There are tons more of hacks available. For starters, you can check out our Tips & Tricks category for more such articles. Or you can visit PocketPC Tweaks where new hacks are added by the users on a regular basis.

We hope that you have found the Beginner’s Guide To Pocket PC series a useful one. As always, let us know how we are doing so that future articles can be better catered to you.

Tags: guide, Series