Password Recovery Disk

Take preventive measures against losing user-level passwords.

It doesn't matter if you never again remember a Windows user password. Thanks to XP's Forgotten Password Wizard, your conscience will be free and clear -- should your mind happen to accidentally misplace your user password.

I highly suggest you create a password recovery disk the minute you create your user account. Why? In order to create a password recovery disk you're going to need your password. Write it down the minute you create your user account and then proceed to creating your very own password recovery disk.

Here's how to launch the Forgotten Password Wizard:

Single-click Start menu, Control Panel, and User Accounts.
Click your user account name.
Under Related Tasks on the left, click "Prevent forgotten password" to launch the wizard.

Now that you've launched the wizard, let it walk you through creating the recovery disk. Make sure the disk you use is formatted and in the drive. After it's finished creating the disk, label it and stash it away for an emergency.

If you happen to forget your password, all you need to do is click your user icon at the logon screen. Even though you don't have your password, go ahead and click the green arrow just like you would to finish logging on to your computer. This will launch a little yellow dialog box directing you to use your password recovery disk.

How to Rename the Recycle Bin

To change the name of the Recycle Bin desktop icon, open Regedit and go to:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/CLSID/{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

and change the name "Recycle Bin" to whatever you want (don't type any quotes).

How To Enable Hibernation

Under Windows 98, Me, or 2000 there was an option in the shutdown dialog box to enter the computer into hibernation (where all the content of the RAM is copied to the hard disk). The shutdown dialog box of Windows XP doesn't offer any longer the hibernation button. Some users may get confused about how to enable the hibernation mode. If this mode is supported by your motherboard (ACPI) you have to do the following:

Click Start and Shut Down,

Point the standby button and maintain the shift key pushed,

A new hibernation button appears: click it while still holding the shift key: voila your PC will hibernate.

Make Use Of Your Windows Key

The Windows logo key, located in the bottom row of most computer keyboards is a little-used treasure. Don't' ignore it. It is the shortcut anchor for the following commands:

Windows: Display the Start menu
Windows + D: Minimize or restore all windows
Windows + E: Display Windows Explorer
Windows + F: Display Search for files
Windows + Ctrl + F: Display Search for computer
Windows + F1: Display Help and Support Center
Windows + R: Display Run dialog box
Windows + break: Display System Properties dialog box
Windows + shift + M: Undo minimize all windows
Windows + L: Lock the workstation
Windows + U: Open Utility Manager
Windows + Q: Quick switching of users (Powertoys only)
Windows + Q: Hold Windows Key, then tap Q to scroll thru the different users on your PC

To change drive letters

To change drive letters (useful if you have two drives and have partitioned the boot drive, but the secondary drive shows up as "D")

Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management, Disk Management, then right-click the partition whose name you want to change (click in the white area just below the word "Volume") and select "change drive letter and paths."
From here you can add, remove or change drive letters and paths to the partition.

Make your Folders Private

•Open My Computer
•Double-click the drive where Windows is installed (usually drive (C, unless you have more than one drive on your computer).
•If the contents of the drive are hidden, under System Tasks, click Show the contents of this drive.
•Double-click the Documents and Settings folder.
•Double-click your user folder.
•Right-click any folder in your user profile, and then click Properties.
•On the Sharing tab, select the Make this folder private so that only I have access to it check box.

Reduce Temporary Internet F ile Space

The temporary internet files clutter your hard drive with copies of each page visited. These can build up over time and take up disk space. Even more bothersome is that instead of getting new pages each time IE often takes the page out the temp internet files. This can be a problem if you are viewing a website that is updated all the time. If you are on a slow connection such as a 56K or lower then this can be good but if you are on a fast broadband connection, like me, then you can get away with decreasing the size of your temp internet files to just one meg without any performance decrease.

Launch Internet Explorer.
Select the Tools from the menu bar.
Then select Internet Options... from the drop down menu.
Once the internet options has loaded click on the general tab.
Under the temporary internet files section click the settings button.
A settings window will load. Slide the slider all the way to the left so the size indicated in the text box on the right is one.
Click OK
Click Ok

Speed Up Browsing

When you connect to a web site your computer sends information back and forth. Some of this information deals with resolving the site name to an IP address, the stuff that TCP/IP really deals with, not words. This is DNS information and is used so that you will not need to ask for the site location each and every time you visit the site. Although Windows XP and Windows XP have a pretty efficient DNS cache, you can increase its overall performance by increasing its size. You can do this with the registry entries below:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Dnscache\Parameters]
"CacheHashTableBucketSize"=dword:00000001
"CacheHashTableSize"=dword:00000180
"MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000fa00
"MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000012d

Make a new text file and rename it to dnscache.reg. Then copy and paste the above into it and save it. Merge it into the registry.

Installing Windows XP with MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition

You must address file system compatibility to ensure a multi-booting configuration with these earlier operating systems and Windows XP. Remember to install the latest operating system last, otherwise important files may be overwritten.

Checklist Summary

To configure a computer containing Windows XP and Windows 9x or MS-DOS, review the following guidelines:

On computers that contain MS-DOS and Windows XP:

MS-DOS must be installed on a basic disk on a partition formatted with FAT. If MS-DOS is not installed on the system partition, which is almost always the first partition on the disk, the system partition must also be formatted with FAT.

Windows XP must be installed last. Otherwise important files needed for starting Windows XP could be overwritten.

On computers that contain Windows 95 and Windows XP:

As in the case above, Windows 95 must be installed on a basic disk on a partition formatted with FAT. (For Windows 95 OSR2, FAT32 may be used.) If Windows 95 is not installed on the system partition, which is almost always the first partition on the disk, the system partition must also be formatted with FAT (or FAT32 for Windows 95 OSR2).

Compressed DriveSpace or DoubleSpace volumes won’t be available while you are running Windows XP. It is not necessary to uncompress DriveSpace or DoubleSpace volumes that you will access only with Windows 95.

Windows XP must be installed last. Otherwise important files needed for starting Windows XP could be overwritten.

On computers that contain Windows 98 (or Windows Me) and Windows XP:

As in the cases above, Windows 98 or Windows Me must be installed on a basic disk on a partition formatted with FAT or FAT32. If Windows 98 or Windows Me is not installed on the system partition, which is almost always the first partition on the disk, the system partition must also be formatted with FAT or FAT32.

Compressed DriveSpace or DoubleSpace volumes won’t be available while you are running Windows XP. It is not necessary to uncompress DriveSpace or DoubleSpace volumes that you will access only with Windows 98.

Windows XP must be installed last. Otherwise important files needed for starting Windows XP could be overwritten.

Disable CD Autorun

( WinXP PRO Only)


1) Click Start, Run and enter GPEDIT.MSC

2) Go to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System.

3) Locate the entry for Turn autoplay off and modify it as you desire.

Disable Error Reporting

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click on Performance and Maintenance.
3. Click on System.
4. Then click on the Advanced tab
5. Click on the error-reporting button on the bottom of the windows.
6. Select Disable error reporting.
7. Click OK
8. Click OK

Dropping into drop-down lists

If you don't have a mouse or for some other reason you want to use the keyboard to open a drop-down list, here's what you can do:

Press "ALT+SPCAE"

Looking for a way to log extended information such as referrer, user agent, cookies and host names (reverse DNS lookup) in Microsoft IIS 3.x web servers?

If upgrading to Microsoft IIS 4.x is not an option, you can use an ISAPI filter to extend the log files generated by Microsoft IIS 3.x. An ISAPI filter is a dynamically linked plug-in compatible with Internet Information Server's programming interface that can extend its functionality. Some of the following plug-ins may support Microsoft IIS 1.x, Microsoft IIS 2.x, Personal Web Server 3.x and other ISAPI compatible web servers as well.

If you're using Microsoft IIS 4.x+ or can upgrade to it, the Extended Log Format option can log above mentioned information as well as other data not logged by Microsoft IIS 3.x and lower versions.

Did you miss the chance to view bootup chkdsk results when your computer rebooted?

Whether your computer rebooted with an error while you're away or you scheduled an automated check disk upon bootup, you might not get enough time to examine bootup chkdsk results. The good news is that Windows NT will save this information in the Events Log.
Open Event Viewer

Windows NT 4.x:
Select "Start | Programs | Administrative Tools | Event Viewer" from the Start Menu.

Select "Log | Application" from the main menu.

Scroll through the events until you see an event with "Autochk" as the "Source".

Double click on the selected event to view the results of previous bootup check disk operations.

Maybe it's hard to win an argument about saving bandwidth these days. Still, the next time you're about to send an email with large attachments, think twice!

If the file you're about to attach to your internet email can be found elsewhere on the net, it maybe better to send the address of that location rather than attaching a copy of the file itself. If nothing else, this will save you some time because your system doesn't have to transfer the large attachment. Also, your recipient(s) can decide whether to download the file or not, where as if you had attached it, they may not have any option but to take the time to download it even if they don't want to.

On the other hand, if you're sending intranet email, it maybe better to attach the file. This is because, unlike with internet email, most intranet email does not have to travel too far on slower links. Also, going out to the internet [from your intranet] to get a file usually takes longer than getting it from a local intranet email.

If you use Windows' "DOS box" (also called "Command Prompt") frequently, you may wish to have a window that has more than 25 to 50 lines. Even if your display isn't large enough to show more lines, you can still have a DOS box that can have much more virtual lines, so that you can scroll up to view the results of a long operation, for example.


1) Open a DOS box as usual (for example, select "Programs | DOS box / Command Prompt" from the "Start menu"

2) Right click on its title bar and select "Properties..."

3) Change to the Layout tab

4) Change the Height parameter under Screen Buffer Size group to the number of virtual lines you'd like to have in your DOS box.

5) Click "OK"

6) Select a way to save the recent changes, if you get a "Apply Properties to Shortcut" or similar prompt.


Now you can run command line programs that output more than the number of lines you're able to see at once. Simply scroll up to see the output or history you missed.

Are you having trouble booting your Windows 95 or DOS 5.x-6.x system after modifying CONFIG.SYS and/or AUTOEXEC.BAT files. Of course, you could try to create a system boot disk and boot from it, but here's an easier way:

1) Simply hold SHIFT key down while Windows or MS-DOS is bootig.

Just as you can add background images to your web pages, now you can add background images to your individual tables. Although Navigator 3.x and lower versions doesn't support this feature at the moment, you may still be able to use table backgrounds to give something extra for Internet Explorer users; without loosing any important information when viewed using any other browser.


<TABLE BACKGROUND="MyTableBackground.gif" >



<!-- rest of the table goes here -->
<!-- without any modifications ---->


</TABLE>As you can see, the only change you have to make is add the "BACKGROUND" tag to the opening "TABLE" tag.

H1 All,

I want to remove the password policy from windows xp but i cant....
Can somebody help me?

Hi arjkhanna,

If you are looking for a way to program a solution you will have problems as the objects for the policy are held deep inside the registry for a local policy and in the case of a domain they are held inside the active directory. To edit them or remove them you will have to learn how to work the registry or the directory services classes.

If you are just looking for a way to remove them you will need to be a local admin or part of the local security groups on you machine.... if it is only a local policy that is implemented. Once the permissions is correct have a look at you administration tools inside the control panel.

For a network solution you will need to look at you Active directory and the policy items on the specific OU or domain that you belong to.

But to finish up for support questions on doing this you should have a look at the windows XP or Windows Server support groups as this group is for the development of windows forms applications, if you need to develop a solution I would try posting in the base class groups.

__________________
J Suresh Kumar
Google Hacks