Windows Client OS

One of the biggest nags for an IT administrator facing the need to format and reinstall a Windows-based operating system is the need to recover that system’s Product ID (or CD-Key). Normally you’d find the Product ID for the installed Windows OS either on the computer’s sticker (found on the bottom of a laptop, or…

Sometimes you might need to retrieve the CD Key used to install Windows in order to find out if it’s legally purchased, or just for safe keeping. I usually find myself in that position whenever I’m at a client’s location, trying to see if the copy of Windows 2000 he’s using is indeed legally registered….

How can I quickly edit the items in the Quick Launch toolbar in Windows 2000/XP/2003? The Quick Launch toolbar is the area that’s just right to the Start menu button, and where you can place your own shortcuts to some of your most used applications. Launching applications in this manner is much faster then having…

Can I open Explorer in the C:’ drive instead of the My Computer view? Yes. You can execute explorer from the command line or from a shortcut and use switches to control the view. The syntax is: ​EXPLORER.EXE [/n] [/e] [,/root,{object}] [[,/select],{sub object}] /n – opens a new "My Computer" view of the object, even…

This procedure assumes that Windows XP is installed on drive C: Drive C: must be FAT16 or FAT32 to be able to install Windows 98 after XP is already installed. The 98/Me installation routine cannot write to an NTFS partition. You must have a second hard disk or partition formatted for FAT16/32 in order to…

How do I install Windows 2000 after I’ve installed XP? This procedure was performed on FAT32 drives but it should also work for NTFS. Install Windows 2000 Use a Win98/Me Startup disk (with CD support) to boot your computer. If you don’t have one, you can download the files to make a boot disk at…

Information collected by Windows Update Does Windows Update collect personal information from your computer? Go to Windows Update, click on About Windows Update in the left side bar, and then scroll down to Windows Update Privacy Statement. From the Windows Update Privacy Statement: Windows Update is committed to protecting your privacy. To provide you with…

How can I improve performance on a Windows Server 2003 file server? Windows Server 2003 is pre-configured with some settings that might cause performance overhead. Caution: Although these configurations changes were tested by myself and other users, modifying your settings without testing them first might cause problems on your network. These settings were tested with…

How can I delete files in Windows XP/2003 without having them go to the Recycle Bin? You can delete files immediately without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. There are 2 ways to do so: The first and easiest (also works for other versions of Windows) is to delete the file, files or…

Can I hide the Windows Messenger icon in Windows XP? Yes, and this is much better than to Uninstall Windows Messenger in Windows XP. To turn hide Windows Messenger in Windows XP do the following: Start Registry Editor (Regedit.exe). Note: As always, before making changes to your registry you should always make sure you have…