Never see the Windows 98 password screen again!
Does your home computer ask for your user
identification every time you start up? If you are the
single user of a home computer, you probably don't
need to see the logon screen every time you boot up.
To do so, follow these directions.
1. Click the Start menu, mouse over Settings, then
click the control panel.
2. Double-click the Network icon.
3. Under "Primary Network Logon," make sure the
"Windows Logon" is selected rather than the "Microsoft
Network Logon."
4. Click OK and then click OK again to restart your
computer.
5. When the logon window comes up, enter a name (it
doesn't matter what name you pick), leave the password
blank, and hit Enter.
6. When your computer asks you to confirm that blank
password, hit Enter again.
After that, you should never see the logon screen
again.
Automatically log in to Windows XP Home!
Windows XP is the first home version of Windows that
has any real security built into it. Previous versions
of Windows could bypass the login screen by pressing
the Esc key, but Windows XP requires an actual login
for security purposes.
When you first got your computer, it was likely set up
with only one 'profile' or username. If you have added
any new profiles or activated the Guest profile, then
by default, Windows XP will ask you to choose a
profile from the Welcome screen at startup.
If you don't need the multiple profiles, you can
return to the 'auto login' configuration by removing
all but the original username.
To access your user accounts, click on Start then on
Control Panel and look for the User Accounts icon.
Once you open the User Accounts interface, all of the
current profiles including the Guest profile should be
listed. Click on any of the profiles that you want to
remove, and then click the 'Delete the Account' option
at the bottom.
The original Computer Administrator account will not
have a delete option, so it should be the only one
remaining (besides the disabled Guest account).
If you want to keep multiple profiles but still want
your machine to log in automatically to a specific
account, you can download a utility called TweakUI
from the Microsoft Web site that will let you do just
that.
TweakUI is an unsupported utility that is listed as
one of the 'PowerToys' for Windows XP. This means that
if you have any questions or problems, Microsoft will
not offer any support for it.
Once you have installed TweakUI, double-click the
Logon option then click onto the Autologon option.
From this screen, you can click the 'Log on
automatically at system startup' checkbox and provide
the username and password required to logon.
Automatically log in to Windows XP
In addition to managing login settings, TweakUI gives
additional access to setting for your mouse, Desktop,
Taskbar, Start menu, and much more.
One of my favorite tweaks is the X-mouse activation
setting that changes how the mouse selects a window as
the active window. Normally, when you have multiple
windows open, you must click on the one that you want
to work with to activate or focus on it. With the
X-Mouse setting activated, you simply float your mouse
over the window that you want to work with and it
automatically makes it the active window.
If you decide to activate this setting, be sure to
also activate the Autoraise option (this will
automatically make any window that you move the mouse
over come to the front) and set an activation delay of
at least 200 ms so that activation is not
instantaneous.
TweakUI as well as many other PowerToys such as a
Power Calculator or CD Slide Show Generator can be
downloaded here.
http://www.microsoft.com/powertoys
Keep your surfing private by automatically clearing
your cache in Windows ME!
If you're using Internet Explorer 5 or higher, you
should know about a hidden feature that allows the
browser to automatically clear its cache each time you
close the program. Before you set your browser to
clear your cache automatically, remember that the
purpose of the cache is to help Web pages load faster
by accessing previously downloaded copies. When you
empty the cache, you risk increasing the rate of
access to frequently used sites.
To activate this feature, open IE and choose Tools |
Internet Options. In the Internet Options dialog box,
select the Advanced tab and locate the Security
section in the Settings list box. Then, select the
Empty Temporary Internet Files Folder When Browser Is
Closed check box and click OK. From now on, IE empties
its cache whenever you close it.
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