Disable Recycle Bin
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).
Lock Workstation
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.
Show Hidden Installed products in Add/Remove Programs
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.
System Events from DOS
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.
IP v6
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.
Kill Tasks from Command Line
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.
Zips or Folders
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’.
ClearType Technology
XP has ClearType—Micr@$@ft’s anti-aliasing font display technology—but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.
Remote Assistance
You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum’s real IP address—they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com—and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.
Auto Update Balloon Tips
Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Micr@$@ft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.
Auto Login
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.
Fast Start Menu
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 milliseconds to something a little snappier. Like 0.
Visual Songs
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.
Shortcuts
Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.
Oh!! no Crashes…
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 c
alled info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).
Remote Assistance: No invitation required
Windows XP includes a Remote Assistance feature that allows you to help others, by seeing their desktop or even gaining control over the remote computer. Remote Assistance uses the same technology as Remote Desktop but with one major difference - Remote Assistance is invite only. This means that the remote user has to send you an invitation.
But sometimes you might not want to deal with invitations on your local network. You can also configure Windows XP to accept Remote Assistance sessions without special invitations by changing a setting in the Group Policy.
1. Open Group Policy and browse to Local Computer | Administrative Templates | System | Remote Assistance.
2. Change the state of Offer Remote Assistance to Enabled.
3. Choose the appropriate setting in the enabled dialog box.
4. Click the Show button and the users or group of users allowed to use Remote Assistance without invitation.
5. Click OK.
Once you configure this option, specified users will be able to offer you Remote Assistance without invitation. However, this doesn't mean they will be able to control your system without your permission. When they connect to your machine, you will receive a prompt asking for permission. If you deny permission, they will not be able to view or control your computer.
Transfer files via the Remote Desktop
Remote Desktop is a feature of Windows XP Professional that allows you to work on and see a remote machine as if you were physically in front of its screen.
One of the benefits of Remote Desktop is that you can transfer files between a local and remote computer. To do this, use the Remote Desktop Connection application that ships with XP. If you are connecting from Windows 9x or a Windows NT/2000 machine, install the client utility from the XP CD-ROM.
Follow these steps to complete the file transfer:
1. Run the Remote Desktop Connection.
2. Enter the IP address of the computer you want to connect to.
3. Click Options and go to the Local Resources tab.
4. Select the box for Disk Drives and connect/logon to the remote Windows XP Professional computer.
5. Open Windows Explorer. You'll notice additional hard drives (x on tsclient) that represent the hard drives on the local computer.
6. Copy the files between the local and remote computer by dragging and dropping the files in Windows Explorer.
Remote Desktop vs. Remote Assistance
In the past two tips, we've explored two of Windows XP's new features: Remote Desktop, which allows users to control their machines from a remote computer, and Remote Assistance, which lets users ask for help and allows them to give access to their computer to others. While both features involve remote access, they have different uses.
Both of these features use the same underlying technology, but they're quite different from the user’s perspective. Remote Desktop is for users who want to work on the remote computer. On the other hand, Remote Assistance allows people to offer and ask for help remotely.
Let's look at some of the other differences.
• Remote Assistance requires an invitation. If you want to connect to a remote computer, the user must invite you. After you connect, the remote user needs to manually grant you access. There's no invitation and granting process with Remote Desktop; you just connect to the remote computer and type your username and password.
• Remote Desktop requires a username and password on the remote machine. With Remote Assistance, you don’t need the user account; the remote user manually grants you control when you connect. You can only use Remote Assistance when the user who needs help logs onto the remote computer.
• With Remote Assistance, both users see the same desktop. With Remote Desktop, you're the only one who sees your desktop. Other users see the welcome screen.
• You use the Help and Support Center with Remote Assistance; you use the Remote Desktop Connection with Remote Desktop.
• Only users who have Windows XP can offer or accept help via Remote Assistance. With Remote Desktop, you can connect to Windows XP machines from computers running Windows 9x, Windows NT, and Windows 2000.
• Only Windows XP Professional supports Remote Desktop. Remote Assistance is available on both Professional and Home Edition.
Enabling Remote Desktop
One of the best new features in Windows XP is Remote Desktop, which allows users to control their machines from a remote computer, viewing screen contents as if sitting in front of their own PC.
Even though Remote Desktop is based on Terminal Services technology (protocol is RDP 5.1), only one user session is allowed at a time, including the locally logged-on user. Additionally, Remote Desktop is available only in Windows XP Professional and not in Home Edition.
Before users can use Remote Desktop to connect to your Windows XP machine, you have to enable it. Right-click My Computer, select Properties, and then select the Remote tab. Select the All Users To Connect Remotely To This Computer check box. By default, only administrators can remotely connect to this machine. If you want other users to do the same, click the Select Remote Users button on the same dialog box and add the users.
Users will now be able to connect to your machine with the Remote Desktop Connection (Start | Programs | Accessories | Communications | Remote Desktop Connection). If users are not running Windows XP, you can install the client on their machines from your Windows XP CD-ROM. Just insert the CD, select Perform Additional Tasks on the Welcome To Microsoft Windows XP dialog box, and click Setup Remote Desktop Connection.
Control remote desktops through a Web browser
Remote Desktop is a new feature in Windows XP that allows you to control a remote computer and see the screen as if you were sitting behind that computer. Usually, you would use a special client application to connect to the remote computer. By default, Windows XP setup installs such an application: Remote Desktop Connection.
You can also access the remote computer without another application, using instead your Web browser. However, before you can do this, you must first install certain components on the remote computer. To do this:
1. Open Control Panel.
2. Open the Add/Remove Programs dialog box.
3. Click Add/Remove Windows Components.
4. Select Internet Information Services in the Windows Components Wizard and then click Details.
5. Select World Wide Web Service and click Details.
6. Make sure that Remote Desktop Web Connection and World Wide Web Service are checked.
7. Click OK.
8. Click OK.
9. Click Next and follow the wizard to complete the installation.
After the setup installs all of the necessary files, you can access the remote computer by typing http://remote_computer/tsweb in your Web browser. When you connect to the remote computer for the first time, the computer will download ActiveX components, which requires you to have administrative privileges on the local computer.
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).
Lock Workstation
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.
Show Hidden Installed products in Add/Remove Programs
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.
System Events from DOS
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.
IP v6
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.
Kill Tasks from Command Line
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.
Zips or Folders
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’.
ClearType Technology
XP has ClearType—Micr@$@ft’s anti-aliasing font display technology—but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.
Remote Assistance
You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum’s real IP address—they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com—and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.
Auto Update Balloon Tips
Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Micr@$@ft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.
Auto Login
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.
Fast Start Menu
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 milliseconds to something a little snappier. Like 0.
Visual Songs
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.
Shortcuts
Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.
Oh!! no Crashes…
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 c
alled info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).
Remote Assistance: No invitation required
Windows XP includes a Remote Assistance feature that allows you to help others, by seeing their desktop or even gaining control over the remote computer. Remote Assistance uses the same technology as Remote Desktop but with one major difference - Remote Assistance is invite only. This means that the remote user has to send you an invitation.
But sometimes you might not want to deal with invitations on your local network. You can also configure Windows XP to accept Remote Assistance sessions without special invitations by changing a setting in the Group Policy.
1. Open Group Policy and browse to Local Computer | Administrative Templates | System | Remote Assistance.
2. Change the state of Offer Remote Assistance to Enabled.
3. Choose the appropriate setting in the enabled dialog box.
4. Click the Show button and the users or group of users allowed to use Remote Assistance without invitation.
5. Click OK.
Once you configure this option, specified users will be able to offer you Remote Assistance without invitation. However, this doesn't mean they will be able to control your system without your permission. When they connect to your machine, you will receive a prompt asking for permission. If you deny permission, they will not be able to view or control your computer.
Transfer files via the Remote Desktop
Remote Desktop is a feature of Windows XP Professional that allows you to work on and see a remote machine as if you were physically in front of its screen.
One of the benefits of Remote Desktop is that you can transfer files between a local and remote computer. To do this, use the Remote Desktop Connection application that ships with XP. If you are connecting from Windows 9x or a Windows NT/2000 machine, install the client utility from the XP CD-ROM.
Follow these steps to complete the file transfer:
1. Run the Remote Desktop Connection.
2. Enter the IP address of the computer you want to connect to.
3. Click Options and go to the Local Resources tab.
4. Select the box for Disk Drives and connect/logon to the remote Windows XP Professional computer.
5. Open Windows Explorer. You'll notice additional hard drives (x on tsclient) that represent the hard drives on the local computer.
6. Copy the files between the local and remote computer by dragging and dropping the files in Windows Explorer.
Remote Desktop vs. Remote Assistance
In the past two tips, we've explored two of Windows XP's new features: Remote Desktop, which allows users to control their machines from a remote computer, and Remote Assistance, which lets users ask for help and allows them to give access to their computer to others. While both features involve remote access, they have different uses.
Both of these features use the same underlying technology, but they're quite different from the user’s perspective. Remote Desktop is for users who want to work on the remote computer. On the other hand, Remote Assistance allows people to offer and ask for help remotely.
Let's look at some of the other differences.
• Remote Assistance requires an invitation. If you want to connect to a remote computer, the user must invite you. After you connect, the remote user needs to manually grant you access. There's no invitation and granting process with Remote Desktop; you just connect to the remote computer and type your username and password.
• Remote Desktop requires a username and password on the remote machine. With Remote Assistance, you don’t need the user account; the remote user manually grants you control when you connect. You can only use Remote Assistance when the user who needs help logs onto the remote computer.
• With Remote Assistance, both users see the same desktop. With Remote Desktop, you're the only one who sees your desktop. Other users see the welcome screen.
• You use the Help and Support Center with Remote Assistance; you use the Remote Desktop Connection with Remote Desktop.
• Only users who have Windows XP can offer or accept help via Remote Assistance. With Remote Desktop, you can connect to Windows XP machines from computers running Windows 9x, Windows NT, and Windows 2000.
• Only Windows XP Professional supports Remote Desktop. Remote Assistance is available on both Professional and Home Edition.
Enabling Remote Desktop
One of the best new features in Windows XP is Remote Desktop, which allows users to control their machines from a remote computer, viewing screen contents as if sitting in front of their own PC.
Even though Remote Desktop is based on Terminal Services technology (protocol is RDP 5.1), only one user session is allowed at a time, including the locally logged-on user. Additionally, Remote Desktop is available only in Windows XP Professional and not in Home Edition.
Before users can use Remote Desktop to connect to your Windows XP machine, you have to enable it. Right-click My Computer, select Properties, and then select the Remote tab. Select the All Users To Connect Remotely To This Computer check box. By default, only administrators can remotely connect to this machine. If you want other users to do the same, click the Select Remote Users button on the same dialog box and add the users.
Users will now be able to connect to your machine with the Remote Desktop Connection (Start | Programs | Accessories | Communications | Remote Desktop Connection). If users are not running Windows XP, you can install the client on their machines from your Windows XP CD-ROM. Just insert the CD, select Perform Additional Tasks on the Welcome To Microsoft Windows XP dialog box, and click Setup Remote Desktop Connection.
Control remote desktops through a Web browser
Remote Desktop is a new feature in Windows XP that allows you to control a remote computer and see the screen as if you were sitting behind that computer. Usually, you would use a special client application to connect to the remote computer. By default, Windows XP setup installs such an application: Remote Desktop Connection.
You can also access the remote computer without another application, using instead your Web browser. However, before you can do this, you must first install certain components on the remote computer. To do this:
1. Open Control Panel.
2. Open the Add/Remove Programs dialog box.
3. Click Add/Remove Windows Components.
4. Select Internet Information Services in the Windows Components Wizard and then click Details.
5. Select World Wide Web Service and click Details.
6. Make sure that Remote Desktop Web Connection and World Wide Web Service are checked.
7. Click OK.
8. Click OK.
9. Click Next and follow the wizard to complete the installation.
After the setup installs all of the necessary files, you can access the remote computer by typing http://remote_computer/tsweb in your Web browser. When you connect to the remote computer for the first time, the computer will download ActiveX components, which requires you to have administrative privileges on the local computer.
