18 windows xp tips

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas
previous versions of Windows were coy about
how long they went between boots, XP is
positively proud of its stamina. Go to the
Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from
the All Programs start button option, and then
type ’systeminfo’. The computer will produce a
lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you
want to keep these, type ’systeminfo > info.txt’.
This creates a file called info.txt you can look at
later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).
2. You can delete files immediately, without
having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to
the Start menu, select Run … and type
‘gpedit.msc’; then select User Configuration,
Administrative Templates, Windows
Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do
not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting.
Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great
many interface and system options, but take care
— some may stop your computer behaving as
you wish. (Professional Edition only).
3. You can lock your XP workstation with two
clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on
your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter
‘ rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the
location field. Give the shortcut a name you like.
That ’s it — just double click on it and your
computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy
enough, Windows key + L will do the same.
4. XP hides some system software you might
want to remove, such as Windows Messenger,
but you can tickle it and make it disgorge
everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text
file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word
‘ hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add
or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select
Add/Remove Windows Components and there
will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.
5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files,
XP has a number of interesting new commands.
These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for
creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’
for monitoring performance of various
subsystems, and ’schtasks’ for handling
scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command
name followed by /? will give a list of options —
they’re all far too baroque to go into here.
6. XP has IP version 6 support — the next
generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than
your ISP has, so you can only experiment with
this on your LAN. Type ‘ipv6 install’ into Run…
(it’s OK, it won’t ruin your existing network setup)
and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out
more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t
worry and don’t bother.
7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer
from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’
and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the
process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’,
which will also tell you a lot about what’s going
on in your system.
8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if
you ’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines,
you can make XP leave zip files well alone by
typing ‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command
line. If you change your mind later, you can put
things back as they were by typing ‘regsvr32
zipfldr.dll’.
9. XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing
font display technology — but doesn’t have it
enabled by default. It’s well worth trying,
especially if you were there for DOS and all those
years of staring at a screen have given you the
eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType,
right click on the desktop, select Properties,
Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the
second drop-down menu and enable the
selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If
you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login
screen as well, set the registry entry
HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/
FontSmoothingType to 2.
10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a
friend who ’s using network address translation
(NAT) on a home network, but not automatically.
Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance
invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET
attribute will be a NAT IP address, like
192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum ’s real
IP address — they can find this out by going to
http://www.whatismyip.com — and get them to
make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on
their firewall and forwarded to the errant
computer.
11. You can run a program as a different user
without logging out and back in again. Right click
the icon, select Run As … and enter the user name
and password you want to use. This only applies
for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you
need to have administrative permissions to install
a program, which many require. Note that you
can have some fun by running programs
multiple times on the same system as different
users, but this can have unforeseen effects.
12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you
checking for auto updates, registering a Passport,
using Windows Messenger and so on. After a
while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you
might slip the bonds of sanity before that point,
run Regedit go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/
Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/
Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value
called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.
13. You can start up without needing to enter a
user name or password. Select Run … from the
start menu and type ‘control userpasswords2′,
which will open the user accounts application. On
the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter
A User Name And Password To Use This
Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log
On dialog box will appear; enter the user name
and password for the account you want to use.
14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete
temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the
browser, select Tools / Internet Options … and
Advanced, go down to the Security area and
check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files
folder when browser is closed.
15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light,
just in case you can ’t see the LEDs twinkle on
your network card. Right click on My Network
Places on the desktop, then select Properties.
Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-
up connection, select Properties, then check the
Show icon in notification area when connected
box. You ’ll now see a tiny network icon on the
right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during
network traffic.
16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it
decides to appear, but you can speed things
along by changing the registry entry
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/
MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to
something a little snappier. Like 0.
17. You can rename loads of files at once in
Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a
window, then right click on one and rename it. All
the other files will be renamed to that name, with
individual numbers in brackets to distinguish
them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in
alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By…
Show In Groups.
18. Windows Media Player will display the cover
art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found
the picture on the Internet when you copied the
tracks from the CD. If it didn ’t, or if you have lots
of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own
copy of the cover art in the same directory as the
tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media
Player will pick it up and display it.