window customize

1 Customize XP start menu

Start menu > Properties > Start menu > Customize > Advances

2 Configure Taskbar

Start menu > Properties > Taskbar

1) Lock taskbar

2) Auto-hide the taskbar

3) Keep the taskbar on the top of other window

4) Group similar task buttons

3 Manager Recycle Bin

Click Recycle BIN > Properties

4 Manager Display

Right click desktop > Display Properties >

1) Themes

2) Desktop

3) Screen saver

4) Appearance

Don’t hide underlinked letter in Menu

Appearance > effect

5) Settings

My Pictures Screen Saver in Appearence

The My Pictures Screen Saver Options dialog box uses the photos found in the My

Pictures folder to create a slideshow screen saver. This is a fun way to personalize

Windows XP. You have some helpful customization options with the slideshow itself. If

you select My Pictures from the screen saver drop-down menu, you can click the

Settings button and configure how often the pictures should change, how big the

pictures should be, as well as some additional options that allow you to stretch

photos, use transitions, and so forth. Also, you can use the Browse button to select a

desired folder to use, rather than My Pictures. This way, if you have photos stored in

individual folders, you can simply use those folders for the screen saver slideshow,

rather than having to move everything to My Pictures.

5 Working with the user accounts

To setup user account, there are in two parts Control panel & Computer management

But Computer management is easiest and fastest way to handle with

6 Managing Group

1) Administrators

2) Power Users

3) Users

4) Backup Operators

5) Guests

6) Network Configuration Operators

7) Remote Desktop Users
If Remote Desktop is configured, this group is provided for remote desktop users to access the remote access connection.

8) Help Services Group

9) IIS groups

7 Group Policy

Group policy is used to invoke certain settings on computers and user accounts and control what the users are able to do.

Group Policy is available in MMC (Microsoft Manager Console)

Start > Run > MMC > File > Add/Remove Snap-in

Two parts in MMC

1) Computer Configure

The Computer Configuration node contains settings that you

want to impose on the computer system when users log on. For example, you can

use the Computer Configuration node to automatically enable disk quotas for users

on your computer.

2) User Configure

the User Configuration node provides you with settings you can apply to the user.

regardless of what computer he or she is logged onto. Because you are only configuring the local user on the local computer

7.1 Configuring Group Policy

1) Not configured no setting, no register

2) Enabled setting is enabled, register

3) Disabled setting is disabled, register

As you can see, you can configure many, many different policies on your

local machine. The important point to remember is that you should only

enable policies that you really want to enforce. Be wary of enabling too

many settings that cause too many user restrictions and too many registry

entries. They have a tendency to bog down your computer and be ineffective.

Just because you can enable a policy doesn’t mean you should, so your

best approach to using Group Policy is to keep things simple and effective.

8 Using Applications not written for Window XP

Windows XP includes a new feature, called Compatibility Mode, that allows
Windows XP to act like a previous version of Windows.

if the application is used to manage the operating system or a portion of the operating system, it should not be used with Compatibility Mode

Click Start > All programs > Accessories > Program Compatibility Wizard

9 Managing Application Performance

Start menu > My Computer > Properties > Advance > Performance

10 Managing automatic updates

Start Menu > My Computer > Properties > System properties > Automatic Updates tab

11 Local Group Policy

Disable Add/Remove Programs

Start > Run > MMC

Ø Add Snap-in > Choose Group Policy

Ø User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Enable it

Ø Close MMC

Ø

12 Start Up

Device driver can slow down a system boot, If you are using drivers with hardware devices that were not written for window XP. it could cause problem

Using msconfig.exe to reduce some service

13 Power Management

Windows XP supports the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI), which is an industry standard designed to save power on computer operating systems.

ACPI works in Windows XP through operating system management and through the BIOS. For ACPI to work, the computer’s BIOS must support ACPI.

During Windows XP installation, the operating system detects ACPI compliance

and invokes the ACPI standard. In other words, you can’t manually control whether

or not ACPI is used,

13.1 Power scheme

Display properties > Screen Save > Power

1) Home/Office Desktop

2) Portable/Laptop

3) Presentation

4) Always on

5) Minimal Power Management

6) Max Battery

14 Managing Hardware on Window XP

To check compatibility, using www.microsoft.com/hcl

Control Panel > Add Hardware

Start Menu > My Computer > Properties > Hardware > Device Manager

14.1 Configure hardware profiles

The purpose of hardware profiles is to enable a laptop computer to have different

hardware configurations, without having to install and/or uninstall hardware

every time the computer is in use.

Control Panel > System properties > Hardware tab

14.2 Working with Multiple Processors

As with Windows 2000, Windows XP supports multiprocessor computers. The use of

multiple processors on one computer increases the computer’s ability to handle tasks

and is particularly useful for Windows XP computers that function as network file and

print servers, increasing the processor speed; and with two processors available to

Windows XP, it can work faster and meet the needs of local and network processes.

Essentially, Windows XP must be able to divide the workload between the processors

into even pieces to utilize the processors. This process, called multitasking, enables the

operating system to juggle processor requests between the two processors. Windows

XP Professional is a true multitasking operating system that uses a type of multitasking

called preemptive multitasking. Preemptive multitasking systems have the ability

to manage and control applications and processor cycles. Because the Windows XP

kernel remains in control of all resources, the operating system can halt applications

or make them wait, or preempt them. With this kind of power and control, Windows

XP can divide tasks between processors and determine what processor performs which

task.

Windows XP Professional can support two Intel-based processors. Windows XP does

not support other processor types, such as Alpha or MIPS, so for multiprocessor

functionality to work, two Intel-based processors must be used. If you install Windows

XP Professional on a computer with two Intel-based processors, the processors should

be detected and installed during Windows XP setup.

15 File system

1. the FAT16 file system can grow up to 4 GB in size, and supports file sizes up to 2 GB. In other words, 4 GB is the maximum amount of cluster storage space and management functionality that FAT16 provides.

1. FAT32 supports 32-GB drives.

1. NTFS is virtually unlimited because it supports up to 2 terabytes of data,
   NTFS supports both folder-level and file-level security.

◆ You can convert a FAT or FAT32 drive to NTFS while preserving your

data. Conversion is a one-way process, however. Once you convert to

NTFS, you cannot revert back to FAT without reformatting the disk.

◆ You cannot convert an NTFS drive to FAT or FAT32 without reformatting

the drive. This means that all of your data on the hard disk will be

destroyed during the formatting process. You will have to restore all of

the data from backup.

Convert FAT to NTFS

Start > Run

convert C: /FS:NTFS

there are some reasons for implementing FAT. The first and foremost reason concerns

dual-boot systems. Windows 9x and Me do not support the NTFS file system.

NTFS consumes too much disk space in overhead on drives this

small and simply does not work that well.

16 Working hard driver

16.1 Convert basic disk to dynamic disk

Start > control >administrator tools > Computer manager

Windows XP Professional supports two kinds of disks: basic and dynamic

A basic disk can have a primary partition and extended partitions that make up logical disk drives. On a basic disk, you can have up to four primary partitions, or alternative configurations, such as three primary partitions and one extended partition, and so on. One of the primary partitions is considered active and is used to start the computer. This active partition contains your boot files and the master boot record. Basic disks behave just as disks have in the past and do not provide the advanced management features supported under Windows XP Professional. Disks are always basic when first installed,

A dynamic disk is a drive configured by the Disk Management console so that it can support volume management. With volume management, you are not limited to a primary partition and a few extended partitions. Volumes give you the flexibility to divide up a disk in any way that is helpful to you. Volumes are much more flexible and much easier to work with.

To[BX1] convert to dynamic disk

Right click Disk number in Disk management

Click Action Menuitem > All tasks > Convert To Dynamic Disk

Dynamic Disk is the Window XP feature, only you convert to dynamic disk, other OS can not recorgnize them any more.

As a general rule, you should always convert a Windows XP computer’s hard disks to dynamic disks so you can take advantage of the management features

If you are dual booting with a downlevel operating system, you should keep the disk a basic disk.

16.2 Configuring Driver Letters and Paths

Right Click Disk Number > Change Drive Letter and Paths.

Actions

1) Add – mount letters to the empty NTFS folder

2) Change – change the driver letter

3) Remove – remove driver letter, must be careful

Aside from assigning a different drive letter, you can also mount a volume to a local, empty NTFS folder. The purpose is to give you freedom and flexibility beyond the 26-letter alphabet limitation.

16.3 Working with the disk volumns

Using[BX2] dynamic disks, you open a world of management possibilities, and you lose the restrictions you often faced with basic disks. When a disk is first converted to a dynamic disk, it will appear in the disk console as unallocated space. This means that the disk has no volumes and has not been formatted. The disk is not usable by the operating system in its current state. Figure 7-8 shows you an unallocated disk in the Disk Management console. This disk has been converted to dynamic, but has no volumes and no file system. To use a dynamic disk, you’ll need to create and format disk volumes. The following sections show you the different kinds of volumes that are available to you and how to create them.

16.4 Create Sample Volumn

Book-P167

A simple volume is a standard disk volume. It is a unit of disk space that has been configured and formatted so that it can be used to store data

16.5Create Spanned Volumn

Aside from the simple volume, Windows XP Professional also supports spanned volumes. A spanned volume combines areas of unallocated space on multiple disks into one logical volume.

however, that spanned volumes are storage solutions only—they do not provide any fault tolerance. If one disk in the spanned volume fails, all data on the spanned volume is lost.

16.6 Create Striped Volumn

1) Striped volumes are similar to spanned volumes

2) The big difference is that striped volumes write data across the disks instead of filling one portion of free space first,

3) Another important point concerning striped volumes is that the areas of unallocated free space must be the same size. For example, say that you want to use 500-MB, 800-MB, and 900-MB areas of unallocated disk space to create a striped set. Since the areas have to be the same size, Disk Management will configure 500 MB from each disk,

17 Where is fault tolerance

1) for critical servers that must be up and running quickly, disk mirroring is a great choice

2) The second type of fault tolerance supported under Windows 2000/.NET Server is RAID 5 volumes. RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, and it is a standard that uses three or more dynamic disks to store data. Using a parity bit, which is a mathematical formula, data is written across the disks in stripe fashion. Should a single disk fail, the data can be regenerated from the remaining disks. You can use up to 32 physical drives for a RAID 5 volume, but RAID 5 volumes cannot hold the system or boot partition.

18 Explore customize

Explore > View > Choose Details

Explore > View > Customize this folder

18.1 Using File & Folder Encryption

To use encryption, simply right-click the file or folder that you want to encrypt,

1) Before using the Encrypting File System (EFS), you should consider a few issues. First, EFS is a feature of NTFS and only works on NTFS drives. However, encryption and compression are not compatible—you can either encrypt a file or folder or compress it, but you cannot do both

2) encrypted files is slower than using regular files

3) How to get certificate Key

1. Click Start→Run. Type MMC and click OK.

2. In the MMC, click File→Add/Remove Snap-in.

3. In the Add/Remove Snap-in window, click Add. In the snap-in list that appears, click Certificates and click Add.

4. In the Certificates snap-in window, select My User Account and click

Finish. Then click Close in the Snap-in window and OK in the

Add/Remove Snap-in window.

5. In the MMC, expand Certificates—Current User.

6. Expand the Personal folder, and then select the Certificates folder. In the

right pane, select the desired certificate.

7. Click Action→All Tasks→Export, which starts the Export Certificate

Wizard.

18.2 Changing the Color of Compressed Items

If you want to be able to easily keep track of what items are compressed and what items are not compressed, Windows XP gives you an option to make compressed items appear in a different color. This setting also applies to encrypted files and folders. To configure color for compressed folders, just follow these steps:

1) Open the Control Panel and double-click Folder Options.

2) Click the View tab.

3) Scroll and locate the Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color check box. Select the check box, and then click OK.

18.3 Compressed (Zipped) Folder

Folder compression, which is built on WinZip technology, gives you a quick and easy way to copy files to a compressed folder,

To compress a folder, simply right-click the folder and click Send To→ Compressed Folder

If you want to create an empty compressed folder to which you can copy items, simply click File→New→Compressed Folder from within the desired folder or Windows Explorer.

If you want to create the new compressed folder on your desktop, right-click an empty area of the desktop and click New > Compressed folder.

If you want to decompress a folder, right-click the compressed folder and click Extract All

19 Offline Files and Folders

Book[BX3] – P190

1) the offline file is downloaded and stored locally on the user’s computer. The user can then make changes to the file

2) Offline Files allows several people to make changes to a file without maintaining multiple copies of the same file

20 Understand Register

.HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT	Contains the associations between applications and file types, OLE Registry information, and file-class associations
HKEY_CURRENT_USER	Contains the user profile for the individual who is currently logged on. It also contains environment variables, desktop settings, application preferences, network connections, and printer information.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE	Contains information about the local computer system. Settings for hardware and operating system features such as bus type, system, memory, device drivers, and startup control data are located here.
HKEY_USERS	Contains all the actively loaded user profiles. This includes the HKEY_CURRENT_USER and the default Admins profile.
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG	Contains the configuration information for the current hardware profile.

20.1 Hives

A hive is a “discrete body of keys, subkeys, and values rooted at the top of the Registry hierarchy.” Actually, not all of the Registry is stored in hives. Hives are those Registry keys that are permanent components of the Registry, not the dynamic parts, such as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Hardware, which is built only when Windows XP boots. Most of the hives are stored in the C:/windows/system32/config folder.

Registry Segment Related Files

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG	system, system.alt, system.log, system.sav
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SAM	sam, sam.log, sam.sav
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Security	security, security.log, security.sav
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software	software, software.log, software.sav
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System	system, system.alt, system.log, system.sav
HKEY_USERS/.Default	default, default.log, default.sav
HKEY_CURRENT_USER	ntuser.dat, ntuser.log

21 Working MMC (Microsoft management console)

1) The MMC does not do anything on its own. The MMC provides you with the controls to manage the snap-in. I like to think of the MMC and snap-ins as a car and a motor

2) Why did Microsoft integrate the MMC so heavily with Windows XP? The answer is in an attempt to reduce administrative overhead, learning, and general aggravation.With the MMC, all administrative tools look exactly the same and have the same menus and basic functionality.

Run > ’MMC’ > snap-in

22 Networking

1) ping

2) ipconfig

3) netstat

Netstat is a connectivity tool that displays all connections and protocol statistics for TCP/IP. You can use a number of switches with Netstat,

4) nbtstat

Nbtstat is helpful in cases where you need to troubleshoot NetBIOS naming and connectivity problems. This tool checks the status of NetBIOS over TCP/IP connection

5) nslookup

6) route

22.1 Locate resources on a domain

Search Active Directory

Create Network place

Start > My Network Place

22.2 Connect to VPN Server

Control Panel > Network connections > New[BX4]

VPN port: 1723

23 Using remote desktop

1) Remote Desktop allows multiple users to connect to the same computer so that different users can access different resources and run different applications, as needed.

2) When a remote user connects to the Remote Desktop host, the local desktop is locked. This prevents anyone from using the computer while you are logged on remotely.

3) Each client accessing the Remote Desktop host must have a direct connection to the host. This can be accomplished using a LAN/WAN connection, a dial-up connection, or a VPN connection, or it can be done over the Internet if the Remote Desktop host has a public IP address.

23.1 Turn on the remote desktop

Start > Control Panel > System > Remote tab > Click select remote users

Keep in mind that Remote Desktop does not allow blank passwords. If you

want to give specific accounts access to the Remote Desktop, and those

accounts use a blank password to log on to Windows, you must configure a

password for those accounts. Users will then have to enter that password

when logging on to Windows and when logging on to the Remote Desktop.

if the host computer resides on a LAN that is protected by a firewall, or if another individual firewall product is used, you need to ask an administrator to configure the firewall to allow incoming access on TCP port 3389. Remote Desktop uses TCP port 3389,

23.2 Using Remote desktop with internet explorer

You must configure Internet Information Services (IIS) on Windows XP Professional to allow the connection.

Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Internet Information Services (IIS) and click the Details button.

After the Remote Desktop Web Connection component is installed, you need to set the permissions. Follow these steps:

To Test:

http://192.168.100.140/tsweb

Please check Book-P292

23.3 Using remote Assistance

The Remote Assistance invitation is made up of XML fields, containing data and the novice user’s IP address. The expert’s computer connects to this IP address and uses TCP port 3389 for the terminal session.

The router or residential gateway needs to support Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). UPnP is a standard that allows devices to communicate with each other over a network.

Enable remote assistance

Control Panel > System > remote tab

Send Invitataion

1) A Remote Assistance invitation can be sent using Windows Messenger.

2) Help > Support Central (F1)

24 Configure Firewall

The Internet Connection Firewall (ICF). Check Book – P320

Anything that you do not explicitly request from the Internet is blocked by the firewall.

Network Connection > Local Area Connection Properties > Advances > Internet Connection Firewall

Firewall Log[BX5]

C:/Window/pfirewall.log

25 Managing Caching Settings on Shared Folders

The benefit is network performance. Because cached files are stored locally, not as much information must traverse the network. Caching is not a great tool for user information that changes frequently, but for network data and files, caching can keep network traffic problems at bay, especially on networks where a lot of network files are accessed regularly.

26 Configure Auditing

q Start > Run > secpol.msc

q Using Event Viewer to View the Security Log

26.1 Using Disk Quotas

Computer Manager > Disk Manager > Quotas tab

27 Performance

Start→Control Panel→Administrative Tools→Performance,

You primarily use Performance by accessing objects and choosing counters

q Create Alert

q Logging data

Disk defragmenter (My Computer > Disk Manager)

Disk cleanup (My Computer > Disk Manager)

28 Create Restore Point[BX6]

q A restore point is a snapshot of your computer’s configuration that is stored on your hard disk

q It is very important to note here that System Restore restores your operating system and applications only. It does not save and restore any files.

q Start→All Programs→Accessories→System Tools→System Restore.

28.1 Using System Restore

Start→All Programs→Accessories→System Tools→System Restore.

28.2 Undo a restoration

q Start→All Programs→Accessories→System Tools→System Restore.

q In the System Restore window, click the Undo my last restoration radio button, and then click Next.

28.3 Restore Console

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29 Mapping to USB flash driver

There are 2 ways to get to the next section depending on how your Control Panel is setup:
a) If you are using Category View: Select Performance and Maintenance, then choose Administrative Tools
b) If you are using Classic View: Select Administrative Tools
4) Select Computer Management from the new choices shown
5) Under the Storage heading select Disk Management
6) The right side of your screen should now show whatever drives are connected to your system. At the bottom (generally a grey background section) you should see a list of drives (Disk 0, CD-ROM 0, etc). One of those drives you should be able to see as your USB drive.
7) Right click on the USB drive (either the title box or the details box where it tells you the file system type (FAT, FAT32, NTFS)
8) Select "Change Drive Letters and Paths..." from the context menu that shows up.

30 Turn ScreenSaver off

HKCU/Software/Policies/Microsoft/Windows/Control Panel/Desktop/ScreenSaveActive = 0