After installing many programs or applications and or if you use your computer quite frequently your hard drive can become cluttered and unorganized. Over time and with continued use, yourWindows XP computer might become sluggish and applications may not be as snappy or start as quickly as they once did. This is a fairly common problem that Windows XP users encounter. It is mainly caused by information being saved to the hard drive in an unorganized manner. This is referred to as disk fragmentation.

 Disk defragmenter, a tool that is built into Windows XP can help reverse the problem. The following tutorial explains how to clean up and defragment your computer to help optimize and restore it’s original freshness.

Performing Windows XP Disk Cleanup:

There is no need to defragment or organize files that we might consider garbage. So, the first step is to clean up or remove and delete the files we no longer use or need.

1. Click Start-> Programs-> Accessories-> System Tool-> Disk Cleanup
2. Select your local hard drive (typically C:) from the drop down list and click ok
3. Select the file types you would like to clean up or delete and then click ok

Defragment your Windows XP hard disk drive:

1. Click Start-> Programs-> Accessories-> System Tool-> Disk Defragmenter
2. Select your hard drive and click Defragment
   

If your looking topassword protect a shared folder on your network, you’ve probably noticed that Windows XP doesn’t have any built in features allowing you to lock access to a folder via a password like previous Windows releases did. This means that anyone using the same workgroup or domain can access the files within your shared folder.

The good news is that there is a work around that seems to do the trick and simply involves creating a password for the guest account. Since shared folders are accessed on the network using the guest account, once the password for the guest account is set, a user in your workgroup or network domain must supply a valid username and password for the guest account to access the shared folder and contents within.

Password protecting a shared network folder:

1. Log into Windows XP as an Administrator
2. Click Start -> Control Panel -> User Accounts, then click on Guest Account and make sure it is turned on
3. Now Click Start -> Run, type cmd in the entry box, and click Ok
4. At the command prompt, type Net user guest password and pressEnter
5. Again, Click Start -> Control Panel -> User Accounts, then click onGuest Account
   Notice that you can now set a password on the Guest Account. Set a Password and restart your Computer
   

   Now, when a person tires to access your shared folder, they will be prompted for a username and password to continue. Use the username “Guest” and “password” you have set to access the password protected shared folders from your network.

The other day a buddy of mine had lost access to his Windows XP AdministratorAccount because he forgot his password. He turned to me for help and as usual I was willing to lend a hand. The following tutorial covers the process of resetting your administrator password on Windows XP or NT Operating Systems. Windows stores its user information, including encrypted versions of the passwords, in a file called sam. This file is commonly found in \winnt\system32\config. This file is also a part of the registry, in a binary format and not easily accessible. We will be using a utility called Offline NT Password and Registry Editor to preform the recovery.

Resetting a Lost Windows XP Administrator Password:

1. Download the Offline NT Password and Registry Editor.
2. Extract the ISO from the zip and burn the ISO to a CD or DVD using your favorite CD Burning utility
3. Reboot your Windows XP computer and set your BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the CD
4. Follow the onscreen instructions to reset your Windows Administrator password

The following simple solution can be used to retrieve a Lost Windows login password. Helpful for those who have forgot Windows Login password and need to Reveal Windows Login Password. I can recall multiple instances when I have needed toFind Windows Login Password for an administrative account. Over time it’s easy to forget what password we have set for the Windows admin account. The good news is that these passwords are easily recoverable by using a tool called Ophcrack.

How to Find Windows Login Passwords:

Ophcrack can be used to reveal or recover lost (user account or admin account) Windows Login passwords for Windows XP or Vista.

1. Download the Ophcrack Windows XP ISO or Ophcrack Windows Vista ISO
2. Burn the ISO to a CD using your favorite CD burning software
3. Reboot your computer, booting from the Ophcrack CD
4. When the Ophcrack LiveCD Menu appears, press Enter
   
5. Next, wait for Ophcrack to load. Once it has loaded and found your Windows partition, it will automatically begin deciphering and decrypting your Windows login password hashes.
   
6. Once the process has completed, write down your passwords, then simply reboot your computer, remove the Ophcrack CD and attempt to login to Windows XP or Vista with the acquired passwords.

Want toautomatically logon to Windows instead of having to click a user and enter your Windows login password? The following simple solution will enable you tologin to Windows automatically and send you straight to your desktop (bypassing the welcome screen) without user interaction. I highly recommend this tutorial if your the only user who has access to your computer.

How to Automatically Login to Windows:

1. Click Start > Run, type control userpasswords2 and press Enter
2. Uncheck Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer, then click OK:
   
3. You should now see an “Automatically Log On” dialog Window. If you previously used a password to log on to Windows, enter your password and confirm it. Otherwise, leave the password blank and Click OK:
   
   Now, when your computer boots, you will no longer be prompted to enter your password and you will be taken directly to your Windows desktop.

you have purchased a new hard drive and would like to add it to your Windows XPcomputer. New drives do not ship pre-formatted, so you’ll need to create a new partition(s) and format them. Using the graphical disk management tool in Windows XP, it’s simple to create a new partition.

Installing and Partitioning a NEW Hard Drive:

1. First, with your computer off, install your new hard drive.
2. Next, start Windows XP and login using an administrator account.
3. Once your at the desktop, click Start -> Run
4. In the Run box type diskmgmt.msc and click OK.
5. When the Disk management console wizard appears, proceed through the steps to initialize the new drive, but “do not” convert the disk from basic to dynamic.
6. On the left side of the console, notice the drive icons that representDisk 0, Disk 1, etc. Your new drive is the one with the highest number. The size of the disk should be listed, and the word Unallocated should be just under the size. Right click where it shows the size of the disk and click the new partition command.
7. Click Next on the new partition wizard welcome page.
8. From the select partition type page, click both of the options and read the descriptions. Let’s assume you’re creating a primary partition. Select Primary partition and click Next.
9. From the specify partition size page, type the size of the partition. Type the size of the new partition in the Partition size in MB text box and click Next.
10. From the assign drive letter or path page, you can bind the partition to a drive letter or mount it in an empty NTFS folder. We will assign the partition a new drive letter. Select the drive letter and click Next.
11. Now, you need to format the partition. Use the NTFS flie system unless you need to allow other operating systems on the same machine to access the drive. You can use the defaults, or customize the allocation unit size based on the types of applications you want to run on the disk. Click Next.
12. Click Finish.

In this simple solution I cover one way to Put Windows XP Install Disk on a USB Flash Drive. Installing Windows XP from a USB Flash Drive might be useful for example if you wish to Install Windows XP on a Netbook or Laptop that has no CD Drive. One of the simplest approaches I have found is via the use of a tool called SARDU, created by Davide Costa.

How to Put a Windows XP Install CD on a USB Flash Drive

Create an ISO of your Windows XP Installation Disk and name the ISOInstall_XP_Home.iso, Install_XP_pro.iso, or Install_XP_x64.iso. I used LCISO Creator to create an ISO image of the CD.

1. Download and unzip SARDU, But DO NOT start it yet!
2. Copy your Install_XP_*.iso to the SARDU/ISO Directory.
3. Start SARDU, navigate to the Windows Tab, and make sure it selected your Windows Installer ISO.
   
4. (1) Click Search USB, and then select your USB Drive from the list. (2) Click the USB Icon to let SARDU create your Windows XP USB.
   
5. Once the process is complete, you should have your very own Windows XP USB Installer.