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In Windows XP Professional, if you disable Simple File Sharing or join the computer to a domain, you can manually assign individual permissions for every file or folder on an NTFS partition. This allows for great flexibility, but assigning permissions explicitly on every file would take too much time. 

By default, XP lets you assign the permissions on the parent folder. These permissions then propagate down to all child files and folders. Just right-click a file or folder, select Properties, and go to the Security tab. 

On the Security tab, you'll see several inherited permissions. If you select one and click the Remove button, a dialog box will inform you that you can't remove the permission because it's inherited from the parent. 

To disable permission inheritance, click the Advanced button in the Security tab. In the resulting dialog box, deselect this option: Inherit From Parent The Permission Entries That Apply To Child Objects. Include These With Entries Explicitly Defined Here. 

A dialog box will then appear with the following options: 

Copy: Clicking this option disables inheritance and copies the permissions that were inherited.

Remove: Clicking this option disables the inheritance and deletes all previously inherited permissions.

Cancel: Clicking this option allows you to cancel the action without making any changes.

When you disable permission inheritance, all child folders have to be managed separately. However, if you change your mind, there are two ways you can re-enable permission inheritance. 

The first way is to reverse the steps you originally took to disable the inheritance: 

1. Right-click on the child folder that has inheritance disabled and select Properties.

2. Go to the Security tab and click the Advanced button.

3. Place a check next to the option that specifies Inherit From Parent The Permission Entries That Apply To Child Objects. Include These With Entries Explicitly Defined Here.

4. Click OK to close all of the dialog boxes. 

This is a very easy method, but it fails when you have several folders for which you want to turn on the inheritance. In this case, perform the following steps: 

1. Right-click on a parent folder and select Properties.

2. Go to the Security tab and click the Advanced button.

3. Place a check next the to the option that specifies Replace Permission Entries On All Child Objects With Entries Shown Here That Apply To Child Object.

4. Click OK to close all of the dialog boxes.

You know how to get the Win XP Task Manager going, right? 

You can:

Hold down Ctrl+Alt+Del, or 

Hold down Shift+Ctrl+Esc, or 

Right-click an empty spot down on the Windows Taskbar and pick Task Manager 

Once Task Manager is running, click on the Performance tab. You'll see a live meter of your CPU usage, plus a rolling log of usage history. Cool, but you probably already knew about that.

Here's a trick I bet you didn't know.

Double-click on the label "CPU Usage" or "CPU Usage History." (In fact, you can double-click just about anywhere in the upper part of the dialog box.) All of Task Manager's menus and tabs disappear, and you're left with a simple, resizable box that includes the CPU meter and the usage log. 

From that point you can:

1. Click and drag the corners to re-size this unobtrusive dialog box. 
2. Click on the box and drag it to a new location. 
3. Double-click the box to bring back the original Task Manager. 

If you've ever wondered why your system wasn't responding, a quick glance at this unobtrusive version of Taskman may well tell the tale.

Windows XP includes several features to increase performance. However, some features actually cause your computer to run much slower, especially if your computer is older and doesn't have state-of-the-art components. 

There are two places where you can disable various performance-related settings. Right-click the desktop and select Properties. On the Appearance tab, click Effect. If you have an older computer with a slower graphic card, you'll probably want to disable these options: 

Use The Following Transition Effect For Menus And Tooltips

Show Shadows Under Menus

Show Window Contents While Dragging 

Another set of performance-related settings is located in the System Properties dialog box. Right-click the My Computer icon and select Properties. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under the Performance option. 

For Visual Effects, you can select from three predefined options--automatic, best appearance, and best performance--or manually enable/disable each individual setting. It's a good idea to leave the default settings on new computers, but you should alter the settings on older, slower computers.

Although favorites, bookmarks, and customized start pages have helped organize and streamline our web surfing experience, every once in a while it is still necessary to type in a web site's address by hand. For times when you find yourself in this situation, here is a keyboard shortcut that can save you some typing. 

When you type in a web address, you can just type in the part between the www. and the .com, and then press CTRL-Enter and Internet Explorer will fill in the rest. For instance, if I want to check on my favorite hockey team, I can simply click in the address field in Internet Explorer, type "nhl" without the quotes, and then press CTRL-Enter. IE will automatically convert this into http://www.nhl.com for me.

Windows XP supports three disk file systems: NTFS, FAT16, and FAT32. Each of them has advantages, but NTFS is recommended. Here are some reasons why: 

Security: FAT16 and FAT32 have absolutely no security for local folders and files. Anyone who logs on to your computer can gain access to the files. NTFS allows you to define permissions for every user on each individual file/folder.

Separate Recycle Bins: On FAT16 and FAT32 volumes, everything you delete gets put into the same Recycle Bin, regardless of the current logon account. On NTFS volumes, each user has a unique Recycle Bin.

Encryption: To truly secure your sensitive files, encrypt them. NTFS offers transparent, automatic encryption. 

Recoverability: NTFS provides the ability to recover from file system errors. It also performs sector sparing to remap data to good clusters and mark bad clusters as unusable. 
Compression: NTFS offers support for file compression, which allows more space for storage.

Disk quotas: NTFS also supports disk quotas. This feature helps limit disk usage on workstations that are shared by multiple users. 

If you didn't specify NTFS during setup, it's not too late. To convert from FAT to NTFS, type convert x: /fs:ntfs in the command prompt and replace x with the drive letter of the partition you want to convert.

When you click Start | My Documents, Windows Explorer opens in the \My Documents folder. When you click Start | My Computer, Windows Explorer opens in My Computer. 

But what if you commonly want to start Windows Explorer someplace else? What if you frequently want to open Windows Explorer in, say, the Program Files folder?

It's easy, if you know the trick.

1. Right-click any blank part of the Desktop

2. Click New | Shortcut

3. In the box that says Type the Location of the Item, type in a line like this:
explorer /e,/root,"c:\program files"
You have to be very careful and type that line precisely the way I showed it. In particular, there's a space before the first slash, but no spaces afterwards (except inside the quote marks).

4. Click Next

5. In the box that says Type a name for this shortcut, type a reasonable name, such as "Program Files".

6. Then click Finish.

Win XP will put a shortcut on your Desktop that launches Windows Explorer at the location you specified. Double-click on it, and you'll see how it works.

You can even put the shortcut on your Start menu (although you can't get it into the upper-right corner). Go out to the Desktop, click on the icon, and drag it to the Start button. The Start menu unfolds, and you can drag the shortcut to anyplace you like on the left-hand side of the Start menu.

Windows Media Player (WMP) is a built-in application that allows you to play multimedia files. Like many other applications, WMP remembers the most recently played files and displays them in the Recent File List under the File menu. 

This feature is useful if you regularly play certain files, but you may want to clear the list if you share the computer and a user account. There are two ways you can clear the list. The ClearMRU.exe utility is available for free in the Windows Media Player Bonus Pack, but Microsoft doesn't support this tool. You can also manually delete the list through the registry. Here's how: 

1. Start the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe).

2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\
RecentFileList.

3. Delete the RecentFileList subkey.

4. If you've also streamed content from the Internet, you can delete the RecentURLList subkey.

5. Exit the Registry Editor.

6. Restart the computer. 

To keep certain files in the list, don't delete the entire key. Deleting individual entries within the key will get rid of the files that you no longer want in the Recent File List. 

Note: Editing the registry is risky, so be sure you have a verified backup before saving any changes.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/bonuspack71.asp

Windows Messenger allows you to communicate in real time over the Internet. You can use Windows Messenger to make phone and video calls, share applications, transfer files, and more. But before you get too excited, you should know about problems that may occur when you have a firewall and Network Address Translation (NAT). 

Behind the scenes, NAT masks the private IP address of your machine to protect the internal network from the outside world. The packets that contain the IP address don't translate from private to public, so outside users aren't able to find you. 

In addition, NAT must be configured to support Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), or you won't be able to use certain features, such as voice, video communication, and file transfer. 

Firewalls must also support UPnP. Fortunately, you have two options. You can use a UPnP-enabled firewall device or manually open the following UDP ports on your firewall: 

5004 - 65535: audio and video communication 
6891: file transfer 
6891 - 6900: 10 simultaneous file transfers 
1503: application and whiteboard sharing 
3389: remote assistance 

If you're using Microsoft's solutions, such as Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) and Internet Connection Firewall (ICF), you're completely safe. ICS and ICF support UPnP and allow you to use all Windows Messenger features.

Here's how to set the size of your page file:

1. Open the System control panel.
2. Click the Advanced tab and then the Setting button under Performance.
3. Under Performance Options, click the Advanced tab.
4. Under Virtual Memory, click Change.
5. In the Drive box, click C: drive.
6. For Initial Size and Maximum Size, enter 768.
7.Click on Set to set the page file.

By default, Windows Messenger is installed in Windows XP. Here's a quick rundown of the key differences between the two programs: 

1. Windows Messenger is a Windows XP-only product.

2. MSN Messenger is for Macintosh, Windows 95/98/98SE, Windows Me, and Windows 2000--not Windows XP.

3. They both support instant messaging, voice calls, and files transfers, but Windows Messenger additionally supports video calls, application sharing, shared whiteboard, and Remote Assistance.

Windows Messenger makes use of some technologies that are built into Windows XP, such as acoustic echo cancellation, reduced latency, and high bandwidth codecs. 
Both programs are interoperable so that users who have Windows Messenger can communicate with users who have MSN Messenger. 

Windows Messenger is included with Windows XP and is installed when you install the operating system. MSN Messenger 5.0 is included with MSN 8.0 and is also available as a separate download. 
It is installed on your computer when you install MSN 8.0 or when you run MSN Messenger 5.0 Setup. If you are running Windows Messenger 4.x, and you previously installed the MSN Add-in for Windows Messenger, you may receive a message to install MSN Messenger 5.0. 
If you did not install the MSN Add-in for Windows Messenger, you are not prompted to install MSN Messenger 5.0. 
Important notes:

1. You cannot run both Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger 5.0 on non-Windows XP-based computers.

2. You cannot install Windows Messenger on non-Windows XP-based computers.

3. You cannot run both Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger versions earlier than version 5.0 on Windows XP-based computers.

4. You cannot install versions of MSN Messenger earlier than MSN Messenger 5.0 on Windows XP-based computers. 

The note describes how to run one or both programs. (I know, was it really necessary to create two different programs!)

In the days before Windows XP, a corrupted IP installation could often be fixed simply by removing and reinstalling TCP/IP. In most cases, the IP-related files remained intact, but some related Registry keys would be corrupted beyond repair. 

You can't uninstall TCP/IP in Windows XP, because there is no Uninstall button for this protocol. According to Microsoft, that is because TCP/IP is an integral part of the operating system, and removing it would cause major problems. You can, however, use the Windows XP command line utility NetShell to reset all IP-related Registry settings to their default values. The result is a brand-new TCP/IP configuration. 

The Netsh.exe program is located in the C:\Windows\System32 directory. To use the program, enter the command 

netsh int ip reset filename 

You must specify a filename, such as Ipstuff.txt. After Netsh.exe runs, the file will contain a detailed log of the Registry keys that were modified.

You can easily change the default Windows XP mouse pointers to something much more interesting. First, open the Control Panel by clicking Start, Control Panel. Click the "Printers and Other Hardware" icon, then click "Mouse." In the Mouse Properties window that appears, click the Pointers tab. In the area under where it says "Scheme," choose a pointer scheme from the drop-down list. Click OK to make the change effective (or click Apply to test it out first).

Task Manager is not the only utility in Windows XP that displays information about system performance. A great deal of information is also available within the Performance Monitor, located in the Administrative Tools folder. 

When you open the Performance Monitor console, select the System Monitor node. You'll see the following three predefined counters that are monitored by default: 

Pages/sec: This counter displays the number of times per second the OS had to read or write to the paging file. If this number is constantly high--over 150, depending on the system--you most likely don't have enough RAM. 

Avg. Disk Queue Length: This counter monitors the length of queue with disk requests waiting to be serviced. If this number is frequently over two, it indicates a slow hard drive or high paging activity, which is a consequence of lacking RAM.

% Processor Time: This counter displays the percentage of time that the processor spends executing a snippet of code. In other words, it shows you how busy the CPU is at that particular moment. 

These three counters provide you with basic performance information. To monitor the network for more detailed information, click the Add [+] button. This will allow you to select from several hundred different performance counters.

The Performance Monitor in Windows XP allows you to monitor the performance of remote computers. Here's how: 

1. Open the Performance Monitor console, located within the Administrative Tools folder. 
2. Select the System Monitor node and click the Add [+] button. 
3. Select the counters that you want to monitor from the Add Counters dialog box. 
4. To monitor a remote system, click Select Counters From Computer and type the computer name or IP address in the box that's provided. 
5. Click Add to add the counter. 
6. When you're done adding counters, select Close. 

Regardless of whether you monitor a local or remote computer, you can change the way the Performance Monitor console displays the information. By default, the information is presented in a graph, but sometimes a histogram or raw numbers are more useful. 

To change the view, right-click within the Performance Monitor and select Properties. You can choose Graph, Histogram, or Report within the View section of the General tab or use the following keyboard shortcuts: 

[Ctrl]G for graph 
[Ctrl]B for histogram 
[Ctrl]R for report with raw numbers without graphical representation 

If you monitor a lot of counters, you can easily get lost on the graph. In this case, select the individual counter and click the Highlight button or [Ctrl]H, which will highlight the counter on the graph and make it more visible.

Windows XP is simple to use, but some tasks require several clicks of the mouse. Fortunately, there are several keyboard shortcuts that decrease the amount of time it takes to complete certain tasks. These include: 

[WIN]E starts Windows Explorer with My Computer expanded. 
[WIN]L will lock the workstation 
[WIN]R displays the Run dialog box. 
[WIN]D shows the desktop. 
[WIN]M minimizes all windows. 
[Ctrl][Shift][Esc] runs Windows Task Manager. 
[WIN][Break] runs System Properties dialog box. 
[Ctrl][Tab] switches to the next tab on a dialog box. 
[Ctrl][Shift][Tab] switches to the previous tab on a dialog box. 
[Backspace] goes to the previous page/folder or previous Web site in Internet Explorer. 

Note: [WIN] is the Windows logo key. 

To view additional keyboard shortcuts, search Help And Support under the Start menu. 

There are even more shortcuts you can take. For instance, you can run built-in utilities much faster through the Run dialog box than by clicking them. Simply type the following commands in the Run prompt: 

Desk.cpl runs Display Properties. 
Ncpa.cpl runs the Network Connections folder. 
PowerCfg.cpl runs Power Options Properties. 
Sysdm.cpl runs the System Properties dialog box. 
Cmd.exe runs Command Prompt. 
Perfmon.msc runs Performance Monitor. 
Compmgmt.msc runs the Computer Management console. 
hcp://system/netdiag/dglogs.htm runs Network Diagnostics. 
hcp://system/sysinfo/sysInfoLaunch.htm runs Advanced System Information.

In MS-DOS, a special application called Doskey was used to maintain the history of commands executed in the command line environment. A modern version of Doskey is also present in Windows XP. 

By default, the command prompt remembers every command that has been entered, which makes them readily available for you to use again. Here are some keyboard shortcuts that will help you navigate the command prompt history: 

Up and down arrows: These allow you to scroll up or down through the history of commands. 
Right and left arrows: These move the insertion point backward or forward, character by character. 
[F7]: This displays the whole command history on the screen. From the list, you can select and run a command by hitting [Enter]. 
[F9]: If you remember the number of the command on the list, press [F9] and type the number. 
[Esc]: This clears the prompt. 
[Backspace]: This lets you manually delete characters in the prompt. 
[Alt][F7]: This clears the command history. 
[F8]: This allows you to search through the commands in the history buffer.

In earlier Windows versions, you could use various registry hacks or Microsoft's TweakUI utility to hide core icons such as My Computer and My Network Places from the desktop. With Windows XP, Microsoft provides an interface in the product that lets you accomplish the same task. To hide core icons from the desktop, perform the following steps: 

1. Click the Start button, click Control Panel, and then double-click Display.

2. Click the Desktop tab, and then click Customize Desktop.

3. On the General tab, under the "Desktop icons" section, clear the check boxes next to any icons that you don't want to appear on the desktop.

4. Click OK. 

To delete other icons from the desktop that you can't remove using this method, you can use the Desktop component of TweakUI, which ships as part of Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP. However, remember that Microsoft doesn't support any of the PowerToys applications.

Network admins sometimes have to make trade-offs when dealing with security. If a system is completely secure, some functionality may be lost; if all the functionality is retained, it can open up the system to vulnerabilities. 

Firewalls help secure computers that are directly connected to the Internet. To add another layer of security, disable two services: Client For Microsoft Networks and File And Printer Sharing For Microsoft Networks. These services are already disabled on dial-up network connections. 

1. Open the Network Connections folder.

2. Right-click on the connection to the Internet--Local Area Connection--and select Properties.

3. In the General tab, deselect Client For Microsoft Networks and File And Printer Sharing For Microsoft Networks.

4. Click OK. 

Disabling the Client For Microsoft Networks prevents the computer from accessing shared folders and printers through the SMB/CIFS protocol. Disabling File And Printer Sharing For Microsoft Networks prevents others from accessing that computer's shared folders and files. 

Note: These two settings are individually defined for each network interface.

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