Entries tagged with windows xp - Channel 10

What’s New In XP SP3

sarahintampa — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:05:00 GMT

It’s here – Windows XP SP3 - and it brings with it several networking and security improvements as well as a small number of new updates. So what’s new in SP3? Here are some of the things I think are interesting, but this is by no means the full list, you’ll need to go here to see that:

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0 – offers reliability enhancements and a new Add/Remove snap-in dialog box
Network Access Protection (NAP) – helps XP take advantage of new features in Server 2008 that monitors and enforces computer health policies
BITS 2.5 – used by System Center Configuration Manager and Windows Live One Care
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 6.1 – this update facilitates better communication
Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) – Finally! My favorite! XP will now support for WPA2, the latest wireless security standard

By the way, SP3 Does Not Include IE7, only updates to whichever browser you have installed.

Get Vista Drive Icons for XP

sarahintampa — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:08:00 GMT

In Windows Vista, the drive icons in "Computer" include a visual representation of the drive's capacity and how much space has been used by displaying a blue, glass-like bar underneath each drive. Now you can get those drive icons for Windows XP, too. With Vista Drive Icon from SourceForge.net, you can transform XP's icons to resemble those in Vista. The drives will show a blue bar unless they are close to getting full, then the color will change to red. The program actually works on several versions of Windows besides XP, including 2000, 98, NT, and 95.

Direct Folders

sarahintampa — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:35:00 GMT

Don't you wish there was an easy way to add custom locations to the Save/Open dialog box? Well, actually, there is. With Direct Folders, you can quickly find frequently used folders in the Save/Open dialog box. After the program is installed, you can right-click in the white space of the window to access your customized list of folder shortcuts.

Of course, there are other ways to tweak this box too - for example, in Windows XP, a registry hack can let you update the box with your own settings:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32\PlacesBar]
"Place0"="e:\\XP Utils"
"Place1"="e:\\research"
"Place2"="e:\\Registry Patches"
"Place3"="e:\\UtilitiesSet 2"
"Place4"="e:\\UtilitiesSet 1"

TweakUI does it too.

In Vista, it's a bit different. The Places bar is now the "Favorite Links" bar, so customizing them involves going into your Links folder: User_Profile\Links

In here, you can customize the Windows Shortcut (.Ink) files according to this document.

New Weee Laptop Companions

nhodge — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:01:00 GMT

A usable laptop for US$300? 512Mb of RAM, 4Gb of storage, wireless and ethernet networking. Able to run my Windows applications. No, never. Not in my lifetime.

Oh my how technology changes.

With flash-memory falling in price by 50% every year, flash engineered to survive more reads and writes, and processors such as the Intel Atom performing well at small sizes - the price/performance/size curve has dramatically changed.

Two weeks ago, the new little ASUS EEE PC 4G with Microsoft Windows XP pre-installed made an appearance on my local online retailer's price list. Instant purchase!

At home, connected to our wireless network, this little machine is a great twitter-machine. The trackpad and keyboard are large enough - even for my adult male hands. I would not like to write a novel, for hour after hour, on the keyboard. More than sufficient for emails and 140 character twitters.

The inbuilt video camera, microphone and speakers are also handy: if you are a micro-TV producer on Yahoo! Live or similar, this little machine has it all.

Our Windows Home Server has transcoded .wmv TV. The little EEE, which I have named PRINCEEDMUND to keep in my theme of Blackadder names, plays these videos in a watchable manner.

A first installation on the little device is the Windows Home Server backup software. The restoration of the supplied Windows XP and software from ASUS relies on an external USB CD/DVD drive. I strongly suggest obtaining one of these if you plan to install/reinstall your system.

ASUS kindly supply the EEE PC with an external USB mouse and an extra 4Gb Flash storage device.

Whilst I miss Vista, the short cuts for Windows XP are embedded into my brain after 7 years of continual use. Microsoft Works, Windows Live Writer and other tools: biggest constrain is the screen size. This screen size became a hindrance when attempting to install Ubuntu onto the EEE. Not seeing the OK/Cancel buttons on the Ubuntu install dialog box is a wee fail.

Obligatory Disk space and Memory Performance screen dumps

Why should you own one?

Designed for school use, if you are not a student the question is: why? Student-hardened devices are extremely useful if you are a little of a clutz: the plastic and no moving hardware make the EEE robust.

My idea is to have a small machine I can take to meetings. Not to take notes, but rather to read the internet so I don't get bored. The Treo 750 I have is just a little too small to distract me from the powerpoints and management speak.

This little device is going to ensure I am no longer unproductive in meetings; and fits that niche where a laptop is just too large.

For the future, with Intel, Microsoft and broad OEM support: the number of devices in this form factor is going to increase. How we work across multiple devices is a challenge for the future.

Further Watching:

Bohdan Raciborski, Mark Light. Channel 9, Windows XP on Flash-based Ultra-Cost PCs

Windows Desktop Search 4.0 Has Arrived

sarahintampa — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:04:00 GMT

A new version of Windows Desktop Search has just been released - Windows Search 4.0 Preview. (The "preview" part means it's still being tested out, sort of like "beta.") For those of you who don't know, Windows Search is the desktop search feature that is built into Windows Vista, but you don't have to be running Vista to take advantage of Windows Search - you can run it in XP, too.

This latest update is a significant release, with many features designed for enterprise users. However, there are new features that will benefit everyone, like the speed increase (33% faster!), its ability to index encrypted files, and Remote Index Discovery, which means it can index all the Windows machines on your network, no matter what version of Windows they are running.

Other improvements include:

Bug fixes - most of the reported bugs seen since Windows Vista RTM have been fixed.
Rollback Recovery - your search index will roll back to the last known good state if an error occurs instead of being rebuilt from scratch.
Windows software updates for Watson errors
Faster previewer updates for Windows XP

For IT Professionals specifically, important new features include:

Improved performance when indexing Exchange in online mode - less packets and less RPC calls are made, which means less load on the server. Plus, no local cache (.ost)
Support for indexing online delegate mailboxes
Support for Group Policy settings (Search.adm/Search.admx) has been extended and improved, including per-user policies.
An add-in for indexing redirected "My Documents" files (32-bit)

Here's where you can get it:

Adding Virtual Desktops to Your PC

sarahintampa — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:20:00 GMT

Although XP has a Virtual Desktop PowerToy, there's no version for Windows Vista yet. However, there are not one, but three third party programs that Cnet just reviewed: VirtuaWin, which supports up to 20 separate desktops, Virtual Dimension, and Z-Systems' Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager, which takes advantage of Vista's Aero interface.

Out of these, the Z-Systems program looks like the one I would choose, not only because of the Aero aspect, but also because it offers full-screen desktop previews in Vista so that you can easily find the desktop you're looking for. With Z-Systems, you can generate a system tray icon for each desktop, which makes switching really fast. You can also select certain programs that will show up on all of your desktops.

Get Vista's ReadyBoost on XP

sarahintampa — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:14:00 GMT

Which your copy of XP had Vista’s ReadyBoost benefits? Now you can with this new application from eBoostr. With eBoostr, you can use an additional drive (like a USB key or another hard drive) to add another layer of performance-boosting cache for your Windows XP install which lets you PC boot up much faster. The app smartly caches frequently used applications and files for maximum performance speed up and this cache file can be up to 4 GB in size. eBoostr is $29 to purchase and can be used on up to 4 PCs, but you can give it a dry run for free.

Project Dakota

sarahintampa — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:13:00 GMT

Project Dakota is an easy way to update a Windows XP PC using a CD. (Why did I discover this after I left my I.T. job??) The CD contains all the updates found on the Windows Update website, including SP2 as well as standalone programs like Adobe Reader, Spybot S&D, Firefox, Java, QuickTime, and more. The updates comes with a standalone installed that runs them in the correct order (i.e. first the pre-SP2 updates, then SP2, then the post-SP2 updates). Using a CD to install updates is much faster than having to wait for them to download. It's also handy if the computer you're building doesn't have an internet connection available. Or if, I don't know, you want your PC to be patched and secure before you go online. The Project Dakota download is 702 MB and is in an ISO format so you can burn it to a CD. (via gHacks)

Vista-Style Desktop Clock for Non-Vista PCs

sarahintampa — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 22:00:00 GMT

Are you an XP user with Vista widget-envy? One of the most useful Vista widgets is the clock, which is one of the default widgets included with Vista's sidebar. Now Windows XP users can get a clock of their very own. ClockX is a desktop clock that comes pre-loaded with lots of different themes from which to choose. You can also configure several options like whether you want the clock pinned to the desktop, always on top, how transparent it is, whether it should start with Windows, etc. However, its killer feature is the ability to configure alarms. The alarms can be configured to display a message, play a sound or video, execute an application, shut down the PC, or any combination of those options. Now, that's handy! Vista users, don't fret, ClockX will work for you, too. (Via the How-To Geek)

Panoramic View of Your Desktop

sarahintampa — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:01:00 GMT

360Desktop is a new software app that lets you see your Windows Desktop in a whole new way - as a user-generated, panoramic space, which scrolls around in a circular manner. This gives you the experience of having a virtually unlimited desktop, as you can open programs and windows and then spin to the "other side" of your desktop to have more space. You can further customize your desktop with web apps, widgets, RSS feeds, AJAX start pages, and any part of any web page. Even better, the web content placed on your 360Desktop can be viewed independently from your web browser. The download will be free - forever, the company promises. Announced at the DEMO conference, the download is not available yet, but you can sign up to be a member of the beta program if you're interested in testing it out. The software will work on Windows XP and Vista computers.

Skip the Start Menu

sarahintampa — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:17:00 GMT

You can skip using the Start Menu, desktop icons, or Windows Explorer and just use Launchy instead. Launchy is a open-source keystroke launcher for Windows XP (BTW: you can hit the start button and type app names in Vista to launch apps.) The app indexes your Start Menu programs and files so you can launch any application, document, files, folder, or bookmark with just a few keystrokes. When Launchy is running, it hides in the background, but you can bring it up by holding down "Alt" and hitting the spacebar. You then type in a few letters of the program or file you want and hit "Enter" when Launchy finds it. You can leave Launchy visible or hit "Alt" and spacebar again to re-hide it. The app itself is completely skinnable, and there is a gallery of custom skins for you to choose from.