Tips_&_Trix. MS-XP Patches Info - PatchDayReview.com. World of WIndows Networking Home. Home vs Professional Edition. XPTuneup. Managed Environment. Published: August 18, 2004 On This Page Introduction Key benefits of using SUS to deploy Windows XP SP2 Situation overview Factors to consider when using SUS to deploy Windows XP SP2 Overall recommendations Summary Introduction Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) contains major security improvements designed to provide better protection against hackers, viruses, and worms. Windows XP SP2 also improves the manageability of the security features in Windows XP and provides more and better information to help users make decisions that may potentially affect their security and privacy.
As a best-practice approach to implementing a managed rollout of Windows XP SP2, customers are encouraged to use a corporate update management solution such as Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 or Software Update Services (SUS). The following section details considerations for deploying Windows XP SP2 using SUS. Key benefits of using SUS to deploy Windows XP SP2 Situation overview Where: Pros: Cons: XP Professional. DMA Mode. Console Registry Tool. Services Tweak Guide.
Windows XP, just like Win2k & NT before it, runs many background Services for a wide variety of tasks, e.g. Plug & Play support, Print Spooler & even Task Manager. There are ways of optimizing the usage of these Services and configure your machine for improved performance and even security by modifying their respective Startup types, and in some cases disabling them altogether.
This guide will take you through a multitude of different Services, how and what they work for. Special thanks to Azzo Computers and Microsoft themselves for supplying us with copies of Windows XP so we can continue with the development of our OS related guides. Before doing anything else ensure you are logged in as a User with Administrative privileges. Before making any changes to your Services it would be a good idea to backup the current environment.
Another alternative would be to simply backup you current Services & their settings. Internet Connection Firewall. Windows ICF (Internet Connection Firewall) is the built-in firewall in Windows XP, both the Home and Professional editions. ICF is an excellent personal firewall and will prevent most attacks from the Internet. However, the lack of granular control makes ICF much too restrictive for power users. So, as they say, you can’t live with it, you can’t live without it. For this article, we put ICF into the lab and set our hackers (well, security penetration testers) loose at it to see how good it is. In this article, we will give an overview of ICF, see how ICF performs under a simulated attack, and discuss the pros and cons of ICF. ICF Overview ICF is a stateful packet filter. The ICF ruleset can be modified manually by configuring “services” or programmatically by using the ICF API.
Besides manual configuration of the ruleset, ICF contains an API that allows applications to temporarily modify the ruleset. This is both a good and scary feature. Putting ICF Under Attack Tools Pros ICF is free. Optimise XP Home and Pro. 1. Go into My Computer and go into your hard drive. 2. Right-click anywhere that a file is not and select the 'New' submenu and click 'Text Document' 3. Name it "deleteprefetch" 4. Double-click on the text file you just created. 5. Note: It will prompt for you to delete the files so if you schedule for it to be done, make sure you'll be on the comp at the time of it's execution. In the Run box, type "Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks". When using the start menu the you will notice a delay between different tiers of the menu hierarchy. 1. Modify application timeout The operating system has a set amount of time that a program must be frozen for before it is timed out. 1.
Disable Indexing Services Indexing services is a small program that hogs HUGE amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. To disable it, go to the Control Panel and click Add/Remove Programs. Microsoft Speed-Up-Boot Tool Increase speed by tweaking prefetcher settings 1. @echo. Example: Shutdown Troubleshooter. WindowsXPForums. XP Home Edition. Group Policy XPerience. In-Depth Group Policy XPerience You can do more with Group Policy in Windows XP than in Windows 2000 Professional. Here’s a guide to the changes. ARE YOU REAPING the benefits of Group Policy yet? Or, will your perfect Win2K Group Policy utopia all fall apart when you introduce your first Windows XP Professional client machine? If you’re happily deploying Group Policy to Win2K clients, then you’ll be well poised to also deploy it to your XP clients. New! When you upgrade your desktop to XP, you’ll find the tools inside the Adminpak.msi won’t work.
Just What You Need—200 More Group Policy Settings Since XP has more features than Win2K Pro, it stands to reason there’s more “stuff” that can be controlled using Group Policy. The good news is that if you apply a policy meant for XP on a Win2K Pro machine, the policy is simply ignored. Recall that Win2K Group Policies are initially applied at startup (for Computer policies) and at logon (for User policies). Windows XP Tips. Service Pack 1 Resources. Command Prompt in Your XP Right-Click Menu. Data Protection and Recovery. Common Windows XP Tips For Help Desk Technicians!! WinXPnews. Services Optimization. Configure the Command Prompt.
NTBackup in XP Home Edition. Enable Internet Connection Firewall. Network Bridge. Install Win2K's NetBEUI in XP. Elder Geek.