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Written by Sine
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
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Page 2 of 3 Automatic Update Settings
The automatic update settings for Windows XP are the same as for Windows ME and Windows 2000. You can access the settings by right-clicking on My Computer, choosing Properties, and changing to the Automatic Updates tab. If you have a permanent and fast Internet connection (DSL, cable or LAN) you would probably be best served by choosing the top button to download updates automatically. Users on slow connections or using dial-up should choose one of the other two settings, though, so your connection isn’t automatically tied up by downloads. You can always disable it altogether and check Windows Update manually.
User Accounts
Windows XP is being marketed towards the consumer, even though it’s built on the Windows 2000 architecture. Because of this, there are a few features that normal users may not be familiar with, and having multiple users on one computer is one of them. Windows XP Professional takes user accounts beyond what Windows 2000 provides, so even those familiar with 2000 may be surprised.
When you install Windows XP, you are asked to create an “administrator” user. This is different from Windows 2000, which automatically creates an Administrator and then creates a normal user of your choice.
Windows XP provides for two kinds of accounts – Administrator and Limited. An administrator user can change any aspect of the computer and generally has full control of the system, whereas a Limited user has control over their own files and settings but can’t mess with the system. (You can change the permissions of Limited users, to provide varying degrees of limits).
 You control all of this through the “User Accounts” Control Panel applet. You can create new users, delete users, change passwords, and modify permissions. One of the neat parts about XP’s users is that each user has a separate picture that shows up on the login screen. Another interesting feature is that you can switch users without logging out of the first user – you can still have programs running on the other user.
The New Folder Settings
Windows Explorer has some new features, as well. Aside from the normal icon, list, detail and thumbnail views, XP includes a tile view which looks somewhat like the normal icon view, but provides more information. Explorer also has the ability to read the ID3 tags from MP3s and can show things like album, artist and song name under tile or detail view (to configure this, click on “Choose Details” under the View menu of an explorer window).
You still have all the same folder options that came with other versions of Windows. To view these, open an Explorer window and click on View, and then Folder Options. Once you get everything set the way you want it, you can make it the default across the system by clicking on the View tab and choosing “Apply to All Folders”.
The New Control Panel
Windows Millennium first introduced a simplified Control Panel, but this one is much better. Instead of showing all the Control Panel applets all at once in a big menu, it has categories that you can traverse, giving you menus that you can use to change whatever you want.
I’m sure that experienced Windows users will switch back to the old Control Panel (by clicking on Tools, then Folder Options, and picking “Use Windows Classic Folders”), but some may like the new, less overwhelming Control Panel.
Internet Time Synchronizing
This is a feature that I’ve wanted all along, though I never really noticed. Windows will now automatically update your time via the Internet, using the Network Time Protocol (NTP). You can even run your own time server on a network (using third-party tools) and have all of your computers sync to that one.
The settings are accessed by double-clicking on the time on the taskbar, and switching to the “Internet Time” tab. Windows will use time.windows.com by default, though you can change this to whichever time server you prefer. You can disable the whole thing altogether, but for some reason you can’t change the default interval of two weeks – motherboards with badly drifting clocks may need to be updated more often, and there’s an “Update Now” button just for that.
There are a variety of shareware and freeware programs that will do this for you, and are much more configurable. If you want to see a list of these, you can try visiting http://www.tucows.com/sync95.html.
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Last Updated ( Monday, May 08, 2006 at 12:00AM )
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