Introduction

Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home Edition are Microsoft's newest operating systems and are designed to replace Windows 2000 Professional and Windows Me. These two Windows XP operating systems are built on a Windows 2000 code base but also incorporate many Windows Me features, such as Plug and Play, stronger support for legacy devices, and utilities such as the Device Manager.

Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home Edition are designed to support different groups of people. Windows XP Home Edition, as its name implies, is targeted directly at the home user. It includes a number of userfriendly features that are designed to make it easier for the home user, such as Fast User Switching, which allows family members to simultaneously share a computer without having to log each other off. While many of these features are available in Windows XP Professional, some of them are automatically disabled when used in a networked environment in order to provide Windows XP Professional with better security.

Windows XP Professional is Microsoft's offering for corporate, engineering, and power users. Unlike Windows XP Home Edition, which is limited to small peer to peer networks, Windows XP Professional is designed to work in networked environments of all sizes. Like Windows NT and Windows 2000 before it, Windows XP Professional is a very complex and powerful operating system and requires administration and maintenance in order to keep it running smoothly over time. That's why this book was written—to provide the person charged with keeping Windows XP Professional up and running with the tools and instructions that are required to get the job done. Whether you are maintaining one stand-alone computer running Windows XP Professional or thousands of networked Windows XP Professional systems, this book is designed to help you do your job and keep things running smoothly.

What This Book Is About

This book is task oriented and is designed for readers who have previous Windows experience. It does not spend a lot of time on theory or in long-winded explanations. Instead, it focuses on the practical, hands-on application of Windows XP Professional administration. Key administrative tasks have been collected and organized, and they are explained with supplemental information often provided in lists and tables. Step-by-step procedures are used to provide a detailed outline of how to perform each task.

This book's primary focus is to explain and demonstrate the administration of Windows XP Professional. Windows XP Home Edition is discussed only briefly for comparative purposes. Other Microsoft operating systems will receive similar coverage. Because of its administrative focus, this book will not attempt to cover every aspect of Windows XP Professional's operation. For example, use of built-in applications and utilities such as Notepad, WordPad, and the Calculator have very little to do with the administration of the operating system. Likewise, while certainly useful and exciting to the end user, Windows XP Professional's multimedia applications are not usually considered when administering Windows XP Professional. Instead, this book's primary focus is to show you, as an administrator, how to perform the step-by-step administration of Windows XP Professional.

You'll also be able to apply much of what you read in this book to the administration of Microsoft Windows .NET Server. Windows .NET Server, while not available as of the release of this book, is Microsoft's replacement for Windows 2000 Server; despite the lack of "XP" in its name, it will look and operate in much the same manner as Windows XP Professional.

By the time that you finish reading this book, you will have acquired the knowledge and skills required to perform the following tasks:

• Perform a new installation or upgrade of Windows XP Professional

• Install and configure Windows device drivers

• Use the resources provided by the Windows XP Help and Support Center to troubleshoot and repair Windows problems

• Manage the installation and removal of Windows applications and components

• Install and configure local printers

• Set up and manage the Windows XP Fax service

• Configure all aspects of the Windows XP desktop, Start menu, and taskbar

• Configure accessibility options that support people with disabilities

• Administer security on Windows XP Professional in order to prevent unauthorized access to system resources

• Create and manage user and group accounts and apply security policies that govern computer and user activities

• Use the Computer Management console to administer Windows XP

• Enable encryption, compression, and disk quotas

• Administer and back up disk resources

• Edit and configure the Windows Registry and other critical system files

• Monitor Windows resources and tune Windows XP performance

• Work with Windows XP from the Windows command prompt and perform basic administrative scripting

• Set up and manage remote access

• Administer TCP/IP and configure network clients

• Set up Internet access and work with built-in Windows Internet applications

• Establish virtual private connections over the Internet

• Support and administer Windows XP network clients and configure networking services and clients

• Share and access Windows XP print and disk resources on Windows networks