Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter teaches you to work with various types of computer setups, specifically those with multiuser or multiple boot configurations, and computers that participate on a network. For the most part, this chapter revolves around configuring applications and allowing access to them for each type of configuration. Other topics include understanding the three basic file system types—file allocation table (FAT) and file allocation table 32-bit (FAT32), and NTFS—and how applications should be configured when these file systems are used.

Before You Begin

Before you begin this chapter, you should have basic familiarity with the Microsoft Windows XP interface. You should also have access to a computer running Windows XP on which you can experiment with changing various settings.