Windows XP tips Pt 2

Windows XP tips Part 2

Just a quick list of tips and tricks for Windows XP as I move along. Don't expect any organisation here, but if you think a tip needs expanding on, e-mail bofh@mvps.org and I'll be happy to re-visit it, or expand it into an article of it's own.

I'm mostly going to be talking about XP Professional here, for a couple of reasons; firstly because that is what I am running, and secondly, most of what I deal with tends to be along the lines of domain based networking and similar stuff, which Home can't do anyway. Again, if you want to tell me how a tip I give for XP Pro can be modified for XP Home - for example, if you know a registry hack that performs the same function in XP Home as a change to something in Group Policy Editor does in XP Pro, let me know and I'll post your tip, including credit of course!

Q. How can I uninstall things like MSN Messenger and MSN explorer?

You can edit a file to make things like this visible in the add/remove programs - windows components section of the control panel as follows.

Open your windows inf folder. By default this is at c:\windows\inf and is a hidden folder. To make hidden folders visible, in windows explorer or my computer go to tools, then folder options and select the view tab. In the window that appears scroll down to Hidden files and folders and select Show hidden files and folders and click ok.

In the c:\windows\inf folder, locate the file named SYSOC.INF and double click to open it. Now the .inf file should be open in notepad, and if you look at the things listed in the components section, some of them will have an entry ",hide," in their line. Remove the "hide", leaving the two commas as they are, with NO space between them once you take out the "hide" - e.g. ",hide," becomes ",,". The fastest and simplest way to do that in notepad is to hit ctrl+h and type ",hide," into the find what section, and ",," into the replace with section. Again, note there is no space between the two commas. I know I'm repeating myself but this is important.

Once you've done that, save the file and close notepad. Open the control panel, then add or remove programs and click on add/remove windows components to see an updated list of windows components you can install or remove, including MSN explorer and messenger, and a few other things besides.

Q. What is a MMC and why do you techie people always talk about it snapping in?

MMC is short for Microsoft Management Console and its a special interface Microsoft have designed for use for administrative tools for computers that is designed so that every tool that uses the MMC will, as much as possible, appear and behave in the same way as every other tool using the MMC. The idea is that you only have to learn one interface, and you can concentrate on just getting on with whatever it is you have to do.

To open a "basic" no frills MMC session, go to the Start Menu, click Run, and type MMC and then hit enter. "Snap-ins" refer to the different components that you can use within the MMC, to do whatever job you wish to do. As an example, lets create our own custom MMC interface. With the MMC open, from our example above, go to the File menu, and click Add/Remove snap-in. In the window that appears, click Add near the bottom.

A new window appears, labeled "Add Standalone snap-in"; select a snap-in you like the look of (I'm picking device manager because its handy on my screen!) and click Add. At this point, some snap-ins will ask if you want to manage the local computer (the one you are sitting at) or a remote one. For now, pick local computer. Once you've done this, click Close. Click OK on the Add/Remove snap-in window to return to the main MMC window.

Your chosen snap-in should now appear in the main MMC window. You can open and use it as if you had selected it from the control panel. But now it gets really interesting - lets say you always wanted your own custom view of what is going on with your computer and you don't like the way Microsoft have arranged the utilities in the control panel. Well with MMC you can create your own combination of controls.

In our original MMC window, with your first snap-in still loaded, go to the File menu, and click Add/Remove snap-in. Click Add again. Pick as many snap-ins as you wish from the list, clicking Add after you highlight each one you want, or just double click them in the list for speed. Answer any questions you get from wizards, as in the first example of adding a snap-in. When you are done, click Close. Then click OK. You've now got all your 'Favourite' computer admin tools in one window! This is for you if you forever find yourself going backwards and forwards between two different admin tools.

If you like the console you've created, you can save it by going back to the file menu, selecting save, and giving it a name. Job done. Your custom MMC snap-in will be in the start menu, programs, administrative tools section.

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