Windows Environment Tidy Up

by iDog

In order to tidy up the environment, we need to change configurations of software installed.

Temp Dirs

Since Windows XP (32 bit machine) cannot use more than 3GB memory, if you have more memory (for example, I have 4GB in my MacBook), it's a better idea to turn them into a RAM disk instead of just leaving them there unused.

Then it's a good idea to move temp dirs to this disk.

Windows temp dirs

They can be moved by changing env settings.

IE

The IE temp dir can be moved from IE menu easily.

Firefox

It's not so apparent to move cache dir of Firefox:

• in address bar, type in 'about:config'
• right click on the white space, choose New | String from the popup menu
• input key 'browser.cache.disk.parent_directory' and value 'r:\' (supposing that R: is the RAM disk).
• restart Firefox, and delete the original cache dir