Some of the essential tips of Windows XP

1. Lock Windows XP Workstation

You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a
new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter
' rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation ' in the location field. Give
the shortcut a name you like. That's it, just double click on it and
your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows
key + L will do the same.

2. Remove Windows XP system software

XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows
Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using
Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for
the word ' hide' and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove
Programs in the Control Panel , select Add/Remove Windows Components and
there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

3. New commands

For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of
interesting new commands. These include ' eventcreate' and
' eventtriggers' for creating and watching system events, ' typeperf' for
monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ' schtasks' for
handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by
" /?" will give a list of options.

4. Windows XP supports IPv6

XP has IP version 6 support, the next generation of IP. Unfortunately
this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on
your LAN. Type ' ipv6 install ' into Run... (it's OK, it won't ruin your
existing network setup) and then ' ipv6 /? ' at the command line to find
out more. If you don't know what IPv6 is, don't worry and don't bother.

5. Kill tasks from the command line

You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line
by using ' taskkill /pid ' and the task number, or just ' tskill' and the
process number. Find that find out by typing ' tasklist', which will also
tell you a lot about what's going on in your system.

6. Enable ClearType by default

XP has ClearType, Microsoft's anti-aliasing font display technology,
but doesn't have it enabled by default. It's well worth trying,
especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at
a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable
ClearType, right click on the desktop , select Properties, Appearance,
Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the
selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use
ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry

HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

7. Run program as different user

You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back
in again. Right click the icon, select Run As... and enter the user
name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The
trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative
permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can
have some fun by running programs multiple times