P. Bournias, Management Information Systems and Technology

P. Bournias
Management Information Systems and Networking Technology

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WINDOWS RESOURCE #3

XP SYSTEM SETUP & CONFIGURATION - the operating system

When I setup Windows, I like to install these from the cd:

all the accessories and utilities
forget the fax service if it is available
the indexing service, for quicker searches especially for larger hard drives
internet explorer, of course, unless you use a compatible third party like Mozilla
internet information services, on pro,

can take it or leave it, unless you want to experiment with webpage creation or open your system to the internet for others

management and monitoring tools, on pro, have them available if needed such as for an intranet
message queuing, installed by default for email
msn explorer, forget it
networking services, basic networking functions for the internet and intranets
other networking file and print services, for intranet or sharing files between home or office users
outlook express, usually in the Office package, unless you are using outlook, and unless you want to use a compatible email / news program
update root certificates, installed by default for internet security reasons and microsoft program updates
windows media player, unless you use a compatible third party media player
windows messenger, unless you will be using some other chat / voice communication program
install anti-virus programs last because they will only slow your installation

In any case if you wish, you can add or remove programs from the cd even after your initial setup.

After finishing this, you will either have to provide windows with a KEY to unlock and/or register your copy of windows manaully or using the internet.  Then you should load any hardware drivers and/or software particular to your system that were not loaded previously.

Finishing your base installation and key entry, you should create a RESTORE POINT using the utility in:

START PROGRAMS ACCESSORIES SYSTEM TOOLS system restore

Click create a restore point, click next, give it a description such as:
xp base setup installation and click CREATE.  This will create a set of files on your c: drive so that you have an point to return to if you happen to install some program that doesn't agree with windows too well.

By the way, this utility is your safety net when installing programs that you are not sure of with the exception of viruses and/or worms.
CHANGING THE WINDOWS DATA STANDARD This is where you begin to change the standard structure of where Microsoft puts your data by default.
Before using your newly installed system, right click on MY DOCUMENTS, click on properties and change the drive letter to your second partition, drive D removing the C so that XP creates the My Documents folder there and uses that as the default.

Here are some more challenging changes to the registry:
In your My Documents directory - folder, you should create some new folders as follows.   Click My Documents and you should now see some folders like MY Pictures, My Music, etc..   Right click on your mouse and select NEW then FOLDER and give it the name Program Data then hit the enter key.   If you made a mistake then you should see a folder named NEW FOLDER.  Right click and then type the correct name.
Now let's go to the registry editor.  If you make a mistake, hit the ESC key on your keyboard to avoid problems.

The following changes may require the same process to be performed for each user login name.
START RUN regedit  This will start the program that that controls every aspect of the system.   From the program menu, select EDIT FIND and paste c:\microsoft\application data\microsoft\address into the find what area.

FROM:   c:\microsoft\application data\microsoft\address book
TO:       D:\My Documents\program data\address book

This will put the location of the address book file into D:\My Documents\Program Data\address book\addresses.wab so that when you enter new addresses or import your old addresses, they will be stored on the D drive in the folder that you created.

Some other folders and files to create and copy in the D:\My Documents\program data\ area are:

Desktop

a copy of your quick launch shortcut icons from C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop

My_templates

your office templates, change the folder location from the TOOLS, OPTIONS, FILE LOCATIONS, User Templates

Word

for all your word documents

Excel

for all your excel documents

I think that you get the point.

In Word, TOOLS, OPTIONS, FILE LOCATIONS, User Templates

While you are there check to see that the Documents location is set to D:\My Documents

You can change other folder locations in the registry but always do a search for what you are changing as the file location parameters maybe in more than one area of the registry.

In Excel, it's different, TOOLS, OPTIONS, General, you will find the file settings to make the changes.

When you have installed Microsoft Office, unless you intend to use Open Office or Star Office compatible programs, then you will want to change the email storage folder from the menu TOOLS OPTIONS MAINTENANCE STORE FOLDER to D:\My Documents\program data\ but I would create a new folder called EMAILS in D:\My Documents\program data\ due the number of email files that are created.
Then copy D:\My Documents\program data\email into the store folder location, close outlook express and when you restart it, outlook express should have created or moved the files.

Once this is done, you can install your other programs like OFFICE, etc.. Don't forget that you can create a restore point after every package or group of packages that you install, of course if you restore a previous point then everything included after that restoration will not exist. It's like going through a time warp back in time. This is another reason for the separation of programs and data files on two partitions, so that the data is not affected.

Wow, you may have lost the justification for all that you have done somewhere along the way, but when you want to backup your system now, even just a quick backup will save your emails, your address book, word, excel, and whatever other program data files that you save data onto that second partition.

Now imagine doing all these steps for 5 or more systems in one day! This can be done much easier and quicker through scripts and ghosting or cloning.