Windows XP Newsgroups Frequently Asked Questions

Generally, Microsoft Update should not harm your system. If you do notice problems after installing a Microsoft Update package, you can always uninstall a specific download, use Device Driver Roll Back to uninstall a specific driver, or use System Restore to return all system and application settings back to their previous state.

You should always install Critical Updates; they are vital to protect your computer from known security vulnerabilities.

To uninstall update packages

To roll back drivers

To use System Restore

For more information, in Windows XP, click Start, click Help and Support, and then type roll back driver or system restore.

There are a number of reasons why this may have happened. You may have downloaded the program Webcon.exe from Webcombo.net as part of its Internet service provider (ISP) package, or the GoHip! Web browser enhancement from GoHip.com may be installed on your computer. It is also possible that your version of Internet Explorer was modified by your system administrator so that the home page cannot be changed. In that case, contact your system administrator or ISP.

For more information about Webcombo affecting your home page settings, see the KB article: Cannot Change Default Home Page Setting from Webcombo Site.

You have a virus. For information on on the VBS/Loveletter Virus, see Information on the VBS/Loveletter Virus.

Normally, if you place storage media in a card reader, or plug in a Universal Serial Bus (USB) mass-storage device (such as a digital camera), AutoPlay recognizes that the storage contains digital images and allows the user to select the Scanners and Cameras Wizard. If AutoPlay has been disabled, however, you can't use the wizard at all, because AutoPlay is the only way to get access to these devices.

Maybe. If you start with an empty hard drive, Windows XP will ask you to insert your qualifying media at some point during setup, to ensure that you are eligible for the upgrade. If you have a retail CD for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows 2000 (either Upgrade or Full version), you 'll be able to continue through setup. If you use a Windows installation CD that came with your computer (such as a "rescue CD"), it may or may not be accepted as qualifying media.

Use the chart at Upgrading from Previous Versions of Windows to find out if your current version of Windows can be upgraded in-place.

Windows XP is a multiuser system, so each user has a separate documents folder. Go to Start, then My Computer, and navigate to C:\Documents and Settings. You should see a folder in that directory for each user. Within each user's folder will be a subfolder called My Documents. Your documents should have been placed there when you installed the new software.

No, this has never been permitted by the Windows license. You can install Microsoft Office XP on both your desktop and your laptop, but Windows has always allowed only one installation per copy. For more information, see the Windows Product Activation (WPA) FAQ.

Windows XP Home Edition does not include or support any versions of Microsoft Personal Web Server (PWS). Windows XP Professional doesn't contain PWS either, but it does contains Internet Information Services (IIS) version 5.1. IIS 5.1 includes Web and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server support, as well as support for Microsoft FrontPage® transactions, Active Server Pages, and database connections. Available as an optional component, IIS 5.1 is installed automatically if you upgrade from versions of Windows that have PWS installed.

Before installing IIS: You need to install the Windows TCP/IP Protocol and Connectivity Utilities. Then make sure you're current on all security patches, even if you're running your server locked down. (Note: IIS does not run on Windows XP Home Edition.)

During installation, IIS installs optional components like Common Files, Documentation, and the Internet Information Services snap-in. You can choose not to install the optional components; however, deselecting specific components can decrease IIS functionality or disable IIS services. If you are unfamiliar with the optional components and how they affect IIS, install IIS with the default settings. After you install IIS, you can view Installing IIS Optional Components in the IIS online documentation for more information.

To install IIS, add optional components, or remove optional components

To Run IIS safely

Download and run the most recent version of the IIS Lockdown Tool to quickly put your server into a secure configuration. We also recommend the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA).

For more information on IIS, see Windows Web Services (IIS).

There are two kinds of Windows XP Updates: recommended and critical. You can set Windows to install critical updates automatically, and still require user interaction to install recommended updates. If you do, the critical updates will be installed, but the recommended updates will not be installed until you decide to install them.

Once you have created regular user accounts in Windows XP Home Edition, you can only log on with the built-in administrator account in Safe Mode. To start in Safe Mode, press F8 after the graphical boot screen appears, and then click Safe Mode with Networking.

Your account passwords may be expiring. When a password expires, the account cannot be used until a new password is provided. You can avoid this by changing your passwords regularly, or by changing the password expiration setting to a longer time, or by disabling password expiration. In Windows XP Professional, passwords expire by default in 42 days. In Windows XP Home Edition, there is no default password expiration.

To change your password

Note: To open User Accounts, click Start, click Control Panel, and then click User Accounts.

In Windows XP Home Edition, changing the password expiration settings is done at the command line.

To change the password expiration setting to a longer time in Windows XP Home Edition

In Windows XP Professional, changing the password expiration setting is part of setting Group Policy. Group Policy is not accessible by default. To access it, and then change the password expiration setting, follow the procedure below.

To change the password expiration setting to a longer time in Windows XP Professional

In Windows XP, the recommended protocol is TCP/IP, and NetBEUI is no longer supported. If you still need NetBeui, it is available on the Windows XP CD. The files necessary for installing the NetBEUI protocol on Windows XP are Netnbf.inf and Nbf.sys.

To install NetBEUI on Windows XP

For additional information on NetBEUI in Windows XP, see the Knowledge Base article, the NetBEUI Protocol Is Not Available in Windows XP.

WinIPConfig has been made part of the individual network connection dialog box, so a separate tool is no longer required. To configure connections, in Control Panel, open Network Connections, double-click the individual connection (or right-click it and click Status), and then click the Support tab. The Repair command performs the same functions as the Release and Renew commands in WinIPConfig. You can also type ipconfig at the Command Prompt, if you prefer to use a command line interface.

To protect your files from other uses on your network, Windows XP uses a feature called Simple File Sharing, which lets you lock folders that are part of your private profile—folders like My Documents or My Pictures. (Note: you must use NTFS, not FAT or FAT32, to use Simplified Sharing.) To protect a folder, right-click it, click Properties, click the Sharing tab, and then click Make this folder private.

Windows XP Home Edition supports Simple File Sharing only. Windows XP Professional supports both Simple File Sharing for non-domain-based computers, and the file sharing model built on Windows 2000 that lets an administrator assign different levels of permissions for each user, and NTFS file permissions for folders and shared resources.

If you mark your own folders as private, you cannot access them from a remote computer.

Many programs let you password-protect individual files (for example, Microsoft Office applications), and with compressed zipped folders, you can password-protect zipped folders. For more information, read How To Use Compressed (Zipped) Folders in Windows XP on the Help and Support site.

For more complex situations, you can use Windows XP Professional and create individual user accounts with passwords, but you will have to create an account on each computer. For larger networks, you should investigate using a domain to create and control user accounts and permissions.

Press the Windows Logo key + L to lock your computer. You can also turn off the Welcome screen to go back to logging on and off by pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE, which opens the Windows Security dialog box that contains the Lock Computer option. (If you're on a domain, you don't have the option of turning off the Welcome screen.)

To turn off the Welcome screen:

If you have Fast User Switching enabled and you are not on a domain, you can lock your computer by switching users.

To switch users:

This isn't an easy question. Sometimes you'll have to dig around a little; sometimes your device may not have a current driver.

Always look to see whether your device came with an installation CD. If not, for a printer, the first thing to try is the Add Printer Wizard, to see if Windows already has the driver you need. (Click Start, then Printers and Faxes, then click Add New Printer.) For other hardware devices, use the Add Hardware Wizard. If they aren't successful, try Microsoft Update. Next try the Web site of the manufacturer of your computer, the manufacturer of the device, or the Web site of the company selling the software that runs your device.

Backup was originally designed for use in corporate backup scenarios with tape backup devices not commonly found in the home. If you want to use Backup, you can install it from the Windows XP Home Edition CD.

To install the Backup utility manually

For more information, see VALUEADD and SUPPORT Folders Are Not Included on OEM CD-ROMs.

Windows XP contains an improved disk utility called Check Disk, so ScanDisk is no longer necessary.

To start Check Disk

To check a particular drive from the command prompt, add the drive letter after the command, for example, chkdsk c: and the check will be limited to that drive.

To disable the Error Reporting Service:

Microsoft uses the data reported by the Error Reporting Service to improve the Windows operating system, Microsoft applications, and applications and hardware drivers from other vendors. If you choose the non-anonymous report option, and there is a fix available for your problem, Microsoft can often provide you with a link or other information that helps you fix the problem.

All things being equal, NTFS is definitely a better format, and required if you have files larger than 4 GB, or you want to format partitions larger than 32 GB. But if you have any of the following requirements, you'll need to use the FAT32 filing system:

For more information on the FAT32 files system, see the KB article: Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP.

For more information on dual booting in Windows XP, see the Technet article: Installing more than one operating system on your computer.

First, you can use PC-to-PC communication to call your contacts on your Messenger list by opening up their conversation window and clicking Start Talking in the task pane. However, Messenger uses Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) technology to establish these types of calls. For it to work through your Linksys router, you'll need a UPnP firmware update. Check the Linksys Web site for firmware upgrades for your hardware. Currently, the only Linksys routers with UPnP firmware are the BEFSR41 and BEFSR41W models.

Windows Messenger no longer supports PC-to-Phone based calls.

Sometimes, if you right-click an image in Internet Explorer and choose Save Picture As, the list of available types in the Save As dialog box will not contain .jpg, .gif, or .png. It will either contain both .bmp and .art, or only .bmp. Here are two procedures that may fix this problem.

To empty your Temporary Internet Files cache

To turn off graphic compression in the AOL client

Because those graphic files were probably downloaded in a compressed format, which is the default setting.

To turn off graphic compression in the AOL client