Few Important tricks :-

Rip high-quality MP3s in Media Player for Windows XP (MPXP)
Contributed by Mark Elder, updated by Paul Thurrott
The relationship between Media Player for Windows XP (MPXP) and the MP3 audio format is widely misunderstood. Basically, MPXP is able to playback MP3 files out of the box, but encoding (or "ripping") CD audio into MP3 format will require an MP3 plug-in. During the Windows XP beta, Microsoft supplied a sample MP3 plug-in for testing purposes, but it was limited to 56 Kbps rips, which is pretty useless, leading some to report that Microsoft was purposefully hobbling MP3 to make its Windows Media Audio (WMA) format look better. This is not the case.

To enable MP3 encoding in Windows XP, you'll need to to purchase one of three MP3 Creation Add-on packs for Windows XP. For more information, please visit the Microsoft Web site.

Speed up the Start Menu
Contributed by Paris Paraskevas and Jarrett Miller
The default speed of the Start Menu is pretty slow, but you can fix that by editing a Registry Key. Fire up the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ MenuShowDelay

By default, the value is 400. Change this to a smaller value, such as 0, to speed it up.

If this doesn't work for some reason, then you might try the following: Navigate to Display Properties then Appearance then Effects and turn off the option titled Show menu shadow. You will get much better overall performance.

Enable ClearType on the Welcome Screen!
Contributed by Erdim Tanyeri
As laptop users and other LCD owners are quickly realizing, Microsoft's ClearType technology in Windows XP really makes a big difference for readability. But the this feature is enabled on a per-user basis in Windows XP, so you can't see the effect on the Welcome screen; it only appears after you logon.

But you can fix that. Fire up the Registry Editor and look for the following keys:

(default user) HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ FontSmoothing (String Value)
HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ FontSmoothingType (Hexadecimal DWORD Value)

Make sure both of these values are set to 2 and you'll have ClearType enabled on the Welcome screen and on each new user by default.

Stop Windows Messenger from Auto-Starting
Contributed by Kevin Mazzone
If you're not a big fan of Windows Messenger, you can use the tip "Add/Remove optional features of Windows XP" above to remove it, or simply delete the following Registry Key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\MSMSGS

Display Hibernate Option on the Shut Down dialog
Contributed by Graham Vosloo
For some reason, Hibernate isn't available from the default Shut Down dialog. But you can enable it simply enough, by holding down the SHIFT key while the dialog is visible. Now you see it, now you don't!