Open the firewall for a specific PC

Windows XP provides protection for computers that are connected to the Internet. Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) allows you to share one Internet connection among all computers on the network, and firewalls allow you to protect machines from intruders over the Internet.

While ICS and firewalls can be used separately, the best security requires using them both. First, enable ICS on the machine with an Internet connection, and then place a firewall on this connection. The firewall protects the computer from unwanted guests, and the ICS protects all other computers. However, you can open the firewall for a specific computer inside the network.

Here's how:

1. Open the Network Connections folder in Control Panel.

2. Right-click on the Internet connection that's protected with a firewall.

3. Select Properties.

4. Go to the Advanced tab.

5. Click Settings.

6. If you want to open the firewall for incoming traffic, check the box in front of the protocol. For example, if you want to allow other network users to use your Web server, open port 80 by checking the box in front of the Web Server (HTTP) option.

7. In the next dialog box, type the name or IP address of the computer that you want to expose to the outside world. This can be any computer on the network.

8. Click OK to close all dialogs.

Note: Opening firewall ports is risky, so be sure to perform this task only when absolutely necessary.

Open the firewall for incoming traffic

Windows XP ships with a simple firewall application that can help protect your computer and data from intruders. By default, the built-in firewall blocks all incoming traffic that isn't initiated from the inside.

If you're running any server software on your computer, such as a Web server, it will be inaccessible to other network users, because the firewall will reject their packets. However, you can open the firewall to allow certain traffic through. Here's how:

1. Open the Network Connections folder in Control Panel.

2. Right-click on the Internet connection that's protected with a firewall.

3. Select Properties.

4. Go to the Advanced tab.

5. Click Settings.

6. If you want to open the firewall for incoming traffic, check the box in front of the protocol. For instance, if you want to allow other network users to use your Web server, open port 80 by checking the box in front of the Web Server (HTTP) option.

7. After you select the HTTP option, a dialog appears that prompts you to specify the name or IP address of the computer that's running the HTTP service.

8. Click OK to close all dialogs.

Note: Opening firewall ports is risky, so be sure to perform this task only when absolutely necessary.

Optimize Remote Desktop

Remote Desktop is a very good remote-control application in Window XP Professional that lets you take over a Win XP Pro system from any other PC using Windows 95 or later. To enable Remote Desktop, go to Control Panel | System, click on the Remote tab, and select Allow users to connect remotely to this computer.

Remote Desktop is very quick, but to get the best performance, go to the machine that will be controlling the Remote Desktop host and launch the Remote Desktop Connection client. Select Options and click the Experience tab. Then select the connection type that best matches the way you're attaching to the host PC.

Optimize the paging file

Windows XP includes an option that allows you to run the OS without the paging file. However, selecting this option may cause memory errors, so it isn't recommended. In fact, the system will perform much better if you configure the paging file for optimal performance.

Here are some paging file optimization tips:

• If you have more than one hard drive--not partition--you can split the paging file between these two drives. Alternatively, you can put the paging file on the hard drive that doesn't hold the OS, especially if that disk is faster.
• Don't put paging files on different partitions that belong to the same physical hard drive. This will severely hinder your performance.
• If you know the optimal paging file size for the system, set the initial and maximum size to the same value. This will prevent the paging file from growing and fragmenting.
• Use Task Manager and Performance Monitor to monitor the paging file and RAM usage. Since memory prices have dropped, you should always have plenty of RAM. In fact, this is the best thing you can do to optimize your paging file.
• Before you create a new paging file, defragment your hard drive.

1. Right-click My Computer and select Properties.

2. Go to the Advanced tab.

3. Select Performance and click Settings.

4. In the Performance Options dialog box, go to the Advanced tab.

5. Click Change within the Virtual Memory section.

6. The Virtual Memory dialog box displays all paging file settings. Make your changes, click Set, and reboot.

Organize Your Start Menu

You can find things a lot faster if you're not overwhelmed by too many icons. So take the time to do some housecleaning. In particular, delete the icons you don't need. While it's common to clean up and arrange your desktop, many people never think to organize and remove unnecessary icons from their Start menus.

Take all the read-me files, for instance. Open your Start menu, go to All Programs, and look in the AOL Instant Messenger folder. Do you really need a shortcut to the license agreement? If not, right-click on it and select Delete. You can do the same with all the folders and files you don't need to access through this menu.

While you're at it, you might want to rearrange the items on the Start menu: You can drag and drop icons and folders to where you want them and even move them into submenus. Or you can right-click on a menu and select Sort by Name to alphabetize its contents. Windows XP lets you pin icons to the first level of the Start menu (located in the top-left portion), either by right-clicking or simply by dragging them there.

Out, Damned Passport! Out, I Say!

When you first install Windows XP, Microsoft strongly encourages you to enter Passport account information. This lets you access Passport sites and use MSN Messenger without entering information.

To delete a Passport account from your system, follow these steps. If you're not on a domain, go to Control Panel | User Accounts and select your user name. On the Related Tasks pane at the left, select Manage my network passwords. Now delete the entries that end with (Passport). If you are on a domain, go to the User Accounts list, select the Advanced tab and click on Manage Passwords.

Note that these steps don't remove the Passport account from Microsoft's database.

Out With the Old

In any version of Windows, you should delete files from your temp and cache directories on a regular basis, because the clutter in these folders takes up useful space on your hard drive, can cause disk fragmentation, and may even slow down your Web-browsing experience.

To clean out these folders, click Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disk Cleanup. After you select a drive and click OK, a menu pops up that lets you choose the types of files to be removed.

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Perform a quick reinstallation of Outlook Express

Most of the applications that ship with Windows XP cannot be removed or reinstalled separately. However, there are some tricks around this that are helpful in certain situations, such as the reinstallation trick for Outlook Express (OE).

Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q318378 recommends using Sfc.exe to repair OE, but these instructions may not always solve the problem.

Instead, follow these steps to reinstall OE:

1. Open the Start menu and select Run.

2. Type %SystemRoot%\Inf in the prompt and press Enter.

3. Locate and right-click the Msoe50.inf file.

4. Select Install.

5. Close the folder window after the copy process is complete.

6. Run OE.

Note: These steps to reinstall Outlook Express are not supported by Microsoft, so be aware of possible unforeseen issues in the future concerning this procedure.

Play Back Your CDs With Digital Audio

Formerly, to pipe the CD signal through the sound card, you needed an audio cable connecting the drive to the sound card. Today, many systems have multiple optical drives, and one cable isn't enough. Don't sweat it: Just enable digital audio. Right-click on My Computer, then choose Manage. Select Device Manager from the left-hand pane. Navigate to the properties box for each of your CD, DVD, CD-RW, or DVD-RAM drives, and check the box Enable digital audio.

Play sound files by disabling content protection

Windows Media Player 8 (WMP8) in Windows XP is more than just a player. You can also use WMP8 to copy music from a CD-ROM and store it on your hard drive. Here's how:

1. Run Windows Media Player, located in Start | Accessories | Entertainment.

2. Select the Copy From CD option on the left pane, or go to the View menu and select Taskbar | Copy From CD.

3. Check the tracks from the CD that you want to copy on the hard drive.

4. Click the Copy Music button.

1. On the Tools menu, select Options.

2. Go to the Copy Music tab and clear the Protect Content box, located under Copy Settings.

Prevent Password Expiration

Windows XP may notify you at log-on that your password will expire in a number of days and ask whether you want to change it now. This behavior can start months after your initial installation of Windows XP. Its purpose is to help enforce password policies in a business environment, but if you don't need that enforcement, it can be very annoying.

To turn off the warning, go to the Control Panel and launch the Administrative Tools. If you happen to be using the Category view, look under Performance and Maintenance. Next, launch the Local Security Policy applet. In the left tree, double-click on Account Policies and then select Password Policy. Find the item titled Maximum Password Age in the right-hand pane and double-click on it. If you set this value to 0, your passwords will never expire.

Protect Sensitive Files

If you share a computer with others, you may want a bit more protection for your personal files than Windows XP offers by default. There are two easy ways to achieve this: Create a password-protected compressed folder or encrypt an existing folder.

Password-protected compressed folders can be created on NTFS or FAT32 partitions. Opening a password-protected folder requires the right password. To protect files using a compressed folder, right-click in the desired location and choose New | Compressed (zipped) folder. Name the folder and move the files into it. Open the compressed folder and select File | Add password .

Encrypted folders are supported only on NTFS partitions. Rather than requiring you to enter a password, these folders are available only to you. If you want to encrypt a folder and its contents, right-click on the folder, choose Sharing and Security from the Context menu, click on the General tab, and click on the Advanced button. In the Advanced Attributes dialog, check the box Encrypt contents to secure data. Click on OK and then OK again. Win XP will encrypt the folder and its contents.

You won't notice any change except that the folder name displays in a different color. Other users, however, will no longer have access to the folder.

Protect Your Accounts

For additional security, you can force users to press Ctrl-Alt-Del at log-on (to prevent Trojan horses from taking over your system) and eliminate the automatic display of the last user's name in the log-on box. Launch Regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\ Policies\System. Find or create a DWORD value named Don'tDisplayLastUserName and set its data to 1. In the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ Winlogon key, find or create a DWORD value named DisableCAD and set its data to 0 (zero).

Note that you must be using the Windows 2000–style log-on.

Protect Your Data

All computer users should be careful to protect themselves against the loss of data, and notebook users should be extra cautious; laptops are easier to steal and are more prone to being damaged. Windows XP Professional makes it drop-dead simple to back up your data.

To begin, click Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Backup. You can then walk through the Backup wizard to select which files you want to copy, and where you want to write the backup copy of the data.

When you get to the end of the wizard, there is an Advanced button that provides more backup options. Here you can choose normal or copy (these both back up all marked files every time), incremental or differential (both of these options back up all files that have been changed since the last backup), or daily (which backs up all of the files that were created that day). Copy and differential don't mark the files as having been backed up.

As you continue through the wizard, you can specify other options, such as setting up a daily backup schedule that runs automatically.

Protect Your Password

Windows XP lets you supply a hint along with your password. If you forget the password, the Welcome screen offers the hint. This hint is visible to anyone trying to log on to your system, so if you use a hint, choose one that's meaningful only to you. Better yet (though only if the computer is not part of a domain), use a password reset disk instead.

To create one, open the User Accounts applet located in the Control Panel, click on your account, click Prevent a forgotten password in the task pane, and follow the prompts. Now if you enter the wrong password, Windows XP will prompt for the floppy disk. Just make sure you keep this disk in a safe place.

Protect Your Privacy When Using Media Player

Windows Media Player for XP, as well as Version 7.1, sends a globally unique identifier, or GUID, to sites when you request streamed Windows Media. In theory, the information can't be traced back to your machine, but many people dispute this. If you don't want Media Player to send a GUID, you can protect your privacy by opening Media Player, going to the Tools | Options menu, and unchecking Allow Internet sites to uniquely identify your Player.

You can further enhance your privacy by blocking cookie information to and from WindowsMedia.com. To do this, open IE 6, go to Tools | Internet Options | Privacy, click on the Edit button under Web Sites, and add WindowsMedia .com as a blocked site for cookie traffic.

Put Administrative Tools on the Start menu

If you regularly perform tasks with the utilities found in the Administrative Tools folder, navigating through Control Panel's folder structure to access these tools can become a hassle.

However, Windows XP offers a way for you to place the Administrative Tools folder on the Start menu. When you do so, the Administrative Tools folder becomes its own menu.

Follow these steps:

1. Right-click the Start button, and select Properties.

2. In the Taskbar And Start Menu Properties dialog box, click the Customize button on the Start Menu tab.

3. In the Customize Start Menu dialog box, select the Advanced tab.

4. Locate System Administrative Tools in the Start Menu Items list box.

5. Select the Display On The All Programs Menu And The Start Menu radio button.

6. Click OK twice to close both dialog boxes.

Put shortcut icons in an alternative place

Have you ever wanted the ability to place shortcut icons somewhere other than the Start menu or the desktop? For example, suppose you're troubleshooting a problem with a user's computer, and you've installed some diagnostics tools that you don't want the user messing around with.

Windows XP comes with an updated version of the Windows 3.x Program Manager, which you can use to store and access shortcuts to any application that you don't want to appear as a shortcut on the Start menu or desktop.

To access Program Manager, follow these steps:

1. Open the Run dialog box by pressing [Windows]R.

2. Type Progman.exe in the Open text box, and click OK.

1. Go to File | New.

2. In the New Program Object dialog box, select the Program Item option, and click OK.

3. Type a name for the program item in the Description text box, click the Browse button, and locate your application's executable file.

4. Click OK to close all dialog boxes.

Put your laptop to sleep

If you have Windows XP installed on a laptop, you can configure the settings to place the system in a power-saving mode when you close the lid.

Here's how:

1. In Control Panel, click Power Options.

2. Select the Advanced tab.

3. Locate the Power Buttons panel.

4. From the When I Close The Lid On My Portable Computer section, choose a power-saving mode.

The power-saving mode you choose will depend on your main power source. Laptops that are usually plugged into an electrical socket should use Stand By. However, if you normally run your laptop on battery power, choose Hibernate.