Windows XP and 2000 Tips & Tricks UPDATE, May 13, 2002

Windows XP and 2000 Tips & Tricks UPDATE—brought to you by the Windows & .NET Magazine Network and the Windows 2000 FAQ site
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(below COMMENTARY)

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May 13, 2002—In this issue:

1. COMMENTARY

2. FAQS

3. ANNOUNCEMENTS

4. CONTACT US

1. COMMENTARY
(contributed by John Savill, FAQ Editor, [email protected])

This week, I explain how to manually enter an OEMPnPDriversPath value longer than 256 characters in Windows 2000 unattended installation files, how to uninstall and reinstall Microsoft NetMeeting in Win2K, and how to modify the installation credential settings in Win2K. I also describe why a machine takes longer to shut down after you enable the "Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile When System Shuts Down" setting and how to replace the Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA) logo in Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server. Finally, I explore some new Windows XP features and tell you about the Automatic Update feature and how to configure which icons appear in XP's notification area at the bottom of the screen.

Microsoft will begin beta testing XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) soon, and I'll be participating in the testing phase. Look for SP1 to be available by August.

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2. FAQS

A. By default, Win2K limits the OEMPnPDriversPath value in the unattend.txt file to 256 characters, which can prevent the OS from automatically installing some drivers. To work around this limitation, you can modify the .inf file that stores the default paths for drivers and manually add extra paths by performing the following steps:

A. Win2K will run only NetMeeting 3.0, which is the version that ships with the OS. Newer versions (e.g., NetMeeting 3.0 Service Pack 2—SP2) simply won't install on Win2K, and earlier versions (e.g., NetMeeting 2.x) can cause audio and visual problems or can appear as uninstalled in the Control Panel Add/Remove Programs applet.

If you've tried to install one of these other versions, you can restore the original NetMeeting 3.0 functionality by performing the following steps:

A. An administrator can lock down a system to prevent a user from installing new software, or the administrator can configure the system so that the user can provide credentials to allow the installation to continue. To modify the installation credential settings for one machine, perform the following steps:

To modify the installation credential settings for network installations, perform the following steps:

A. In a previous FAQ, I explained how to configure the system to clear the pagefile at shutdown for security purposes. When you enable the setting to clear the pagefile, your machine will take longer to shut down (depending on the size of the pagefile and on the disk subsystem performance) because the shutdown process must physically write to each page in the pagefile to clear the page.

A. To replace the standard image, save your new image as logo-ie5.gif in the %programfiles%exchsrvrexchwebimg folder on the server. The new image needs to have dimensions of 138 pixels by 48 pixels.

A. XP's Automatic Update replaces Windows 2000's Critical Update Notification utility, which notified users when software updates were available on the Microsoft Web site. Automatic Update takes the next step and lets the system automatically download the updates and prepare them for installation at the user's convenience.

To access the Automatic Update settings, go to the Control Panel System applet and select the Automatic Updates tab. The tab provides three options:

A. XP lets you configure which notification icons appear on screen and whether XP hides an icon when its process is idle. To configure the display notification settings, perform the following steps:

3. ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Our mobile and wireless computing site has it all—articles, product reviews, and other resources to help you support a wireless network and mobile users. Check it out today!
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4. CONTACT US

Here's how to reach us with your comments and questions:

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