Using XQDC X-Setup Pro in Windows XP

According to Tex and Eric , the bankruptcy of WUG has ended that organization's sponsorship of X-Setup Pro, a Windows tweaking utility.  Their message ends as follows:

You can still download the last version from MajorGeeks or BetaNews . The portable edition and the U3 version are available from MajorGeeks as well.

In case you lost your serial number use this one instead: XSA092-11TA9R-8K12YT

I had used this program years earlier.  I now installed and tried to run it in a Windows XP virtual machine (VM) in VMware Workstation 7.1 on an Ubuntu 10.04 host.  When I clicked on the "Classic" button, it immediately presented me with this error message:

C:\Program Files\X-Setup Pro\bin\xqdcXSPUI.exe (/START): Access is denied. (Win32 Error Code 5)

A search for precisely that error turned up nothing.  In a modified search , I saw an indication that "Access is denied" and "Win32 Error Code 5" mean the same thing.  Before researching that further with a refined search , it occurred to me to see whether it would happen again.  This time, clicking on Classic raised a Comodo Defense+ (firewall) dialog asking me if it was OK to proceed.  Allowing that, and another two or three after it, solved the problem:  the X-Setup windows opened.

I wondered whether X-Setup superseded Tweak UI.  Laptop (magazine?) rated X-Setup more highly than Tweak UI ; but they observed that novices can get lost in X-Setup and may find Tweak UI more suitable for their needs.  My recollection, circa 2001, was that I had hosed my system with X-Setup once or twice.  I decided to use both for a while.  Following the tip from Tex and Eric, and consistent with a current effort to make Windows XP perform better in VMware Workstation, I decided to try using the portable versions of X-Setup and Tweak UI .

The most interesting feature of X-Setup, for me, was its Record function.  This feature made it possible to create distinct .reg files for each registry tweak.  So I could pick and choose the registry edits I wanted to use this time, and could run their "undo" counterparts if I didn't like the effects.

The explanations of various options in X-Setup were surprisingly articulate and lucid.  Those explanations did not conceal some degree of confusion in the structure of X-Setup tweaks, however.  There was redundancy; there were instances when I thought I had changed something and then came across something that looked very similar but yet had not been changed.

While there was no denying that X-Setup had a large number of tweaks, I found that they did not cover some registry edits I would have liked to see.  The authors readily acknowledged, as well, that some of the tweaks performed by some X-Setup plug-ins would not be captured in .reg files.  I found, in addition, that many of the tweaks I generated from within X-Setup were already set out on the Kellys-Korner and Elder Geek websites, among others .

After running X-Setup and making system adjustments, I found that the new Windows XP installation I had used it on was performing very slowly -- even though I had made sure not to make any changes that X-Setup had flagged as potentially dangerous.  Ultimately, this slowness and other problems led me to wipe my new Windows installation and start over.  I was not sure whether X-Setup was directly to blame for such problems, but I did make sure, the second time around, to proceed with caution .

Despite those caveats, X-Setup Pro did generate a number of useful scripts for me, and when used with suitable caution, it provided very helpful ways of improving my Windows XP installation.