Letters to the Editor - 08 Nov 2001

User Picture on Windows XP's Start Menu
In Michael Otey's "Discover Windows XP" (October 2000), Figure 3 displays XP's Start menu with the author's picture at the top. How do you do that? I've been playing with my XP Professional Edition software, and I can't find this feature. Can you help?

—Bob Flaminio
[email protected]

If the system is a member of a domain, the individual picture feature isn't available. Otherwise, to add a picture to the Welcome screen and Start menu, log on as Administrator and open the Control Panel User Accounts applet. On the User Accounts screen, select the Change an account task. On the next screen, select Change my picture to display the standard set of XP pictures. To add your picture, select Browse for more pictures, then navigate to the folder that contains the picture you want to use. Or, if you have a camera attached to the system, you can select Get a picture from a camera or scanner. This selection will display the Capture Picture from Video dialog box. Click the Capture button to use the camera image that's displayed in the dialog box.

This process assigns a custom picture to a user account. However, to display that picture in the Welcome screen and Start menu, you must enable the Welcome screen. Go to the User Accounts applet and select the Change the way users log on or off task; make sure that the Use Welcome Screen check box is selected.

—Michael Otey

Whois Update
In Reader to Reader: "Quick Web Searches from the Command Line" (October 2001), Alex K. Angelopoulos refers to Bill York's whois.cmd file, which solves the problem of Windows NT's lack of a Whois command. Network Solutions has merged with VeriSign, and the whois.cmd file that the article includes is now obsolete. Can you provide an update?

—Gary Stadter

Network Solutions has a new domain name and search syntax. Here's a version of whois.cmd that works now, but be aware that this version might become outdated if the company makes other modifications to the site:

start http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?STRING=%1^&SearchType=do^&STRING2.x=14^&STRING2.y=11

Windows XP has a built-in Whois command, so if you use the updated script (which returns "extended" Whois query data), give it a different name (e.g., whoisx.cmd) to prevent name collisions.

—Alex K. Angelopoulos

Adding CPUs to a Win2K System
Sean Daily's Windows 2000 Pro: "Migrating to Multiprocessor Configurations" (May 2001) relates the author's experience when he added a second CPU to his primary Win2K Professional system. I'm curious about the performance increase that resulted from the upgrade Sean wrote about. In my company, we have several Dell Poweredge Servers with single processors that I'd like to upgrade. Do I need to add a processor that's identical to the one already in the machine, or can I add the fastest processor the machine will handle?

—Mark Stoker
[email protected]

Performance increases related to multiprocessor upgrades are highly application-dependent. For CPU-bound applications that are written for effective multithread use (e.g., Adobe Systems' Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server), the performance increases can be great; however, for standard office applications or for server-based applications that aren't CPU-bound or efficient with their use of multiple threads, the benefits might not be as great. (Unfortunately, my experience has been that more applications fall into the latter category than the former.)

Regarding your second question, additional processors on a multiprocessor system must be the same speed—and in many cases, the same CPU stepping (revision/version)—to function properly. In the case of systems from Dell, Compaq, and other first- and second-tier system providers, be sure to check with the vendor first to identify exactly what you'll need for a successful upgrade.

—Sean Daily

OOPS
The sidebar "Test First" in "Learning from Exchange 2000 Deployments" (November 2001) didn't include an InstantDoc ID. The correct InstantDoc ID is 22806. We apologize for any inconvenience this omission might have caused.

Corrections to this Article: