COOKING WITH WINDOWS XP

Are you involved in deploying, administering or automating Windows XP? If you are, this book is for you. Authors Robbie Allen and Preston Gralla, have written an outstanding end user book that covers the spectrum of topics involved with running Windows XP in both small and large environments.

Allen and Gralla, begin by setting the stage for the rest of the book by covering their approach on where you can find the software tools used in this book; as well as, where to find additional information. Next, the authors cover tasks related to installing and upgrading Windows XP, installing hotfixes and service packs, and performing initial system configuration. Then, they cover adding and managing hardware, troubleshooting hardware related problems, resolving device conflicts, and dealing with USB devices and printers. The authors continue by showing you how to remotely install, uninstall and redeploy applications using Group Policy; deal with installation and uninstallation problems; change the default location for installing applications; customizing application launches; and resolve compatibility problems between applications and XP. In addition, they cover customizing the desktop, controlling and customizing the Start menu, and customizing the Control Panel and Windows Explorer. The authors also focus on creating a multiboot menu, running multiple operating systems in addition to XP, performing a clean boot, halting services that run at startup, changing your boot screen, speeding up startup and shutdown times, disabling error reporting, and customizing reboots. Then, the authors cover disk quotas, converting between disk types, creating drives, mapping drives, and managing volumes. They continue by showing you how to manipulate files and folders, create shortcuts and links, modify file properties, and manage share points. The authors also cover basic Registry administration. Next, they discuss both basic and advanced process and task management, including how to create, suspend, and kill processes, and schedule tasks. Then the authors look at ripping and burning digital music, using Windows Media Player, playing Internet radio stations, using media metadata, converting images between graphics formats, capturing video, and making DVDs.
They continue by looking at tasks related to configuring network adapters, viewing network configuration, viewing network traffic, and installing IPv6 support. The authors also show you how to speed up web access, trouble shoot DNS problems and Internet connections, work with Internet Information Services (IIS) and Telenet servers, customizing Internet Explorer, blocking pop ups, handling cookies protecting yourself against spy ware, and using firewalls. Then, they cover working with XPs wireless client, installing a wireless router, wireless security, troubleshooting wireless networking, and using hotspots. The authors continue by discussing how to create and administer local and domain user, group, and computer accounts. In addition, you'll also learn how to create and view events, create and manage event logs, search event logs, and enable various system logging. The authors also cover several tasks related to securing Windows XP, including auditing, screen saver locking, enabling string passwords, and disabling unused accounts. Then they cover tracking and speeding up speeding up system performance, using RAM more effectively, optimizing pagefile size, cleaning your hard disk, and converting a hard disk to NTFS. Finally, the authors examine how to use Safe Mode and the Last Known Good Configuration, using a boot log to trace problems, using the Recovery Console, repairing Autoexec.nt or Config.nt errors, fixing a wide variety of XP errors, configuring error reporting, and using Dr. Watson to troubleshoot errors.

This excellent book covers hundreds of tasks you'll need to do at one point or another with Windows XP. As a result, IT professionals and system administrators will get the most out of this book and find it a great day-to-day reference.

Other Reviews

• The book you need for quick reference administration
• Beware of foreword promises
• COOKING WITH WINDOWS XP
• Not worthless
• I really like this book!