Windows XP Tricks

I recently ran across an article by a fellow blogger listing "20 Things the Average User Doesn't Know About Windows XP". Typically, these lists offer little more than stuff we true geeks have known since the release date. However, this post actually contained a few interesting tidbits with which I was previously unfamiliar.

http://windowsxptricksforu.blogspot.com/2007/04/20-things-that-average-person-doesnt.html

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type ’systeminfo’. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type ’systeminfo > info.txt’. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).

This is useful for troubleshooting purposes. All of this info can be gathered via WMI, but this is a quick-and-dirty method if you're just trying to find out about the machine you're sitting at.

5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ’schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options.

I write and schedule tasks for a lot of batch files and VBScripts. Previously, I had to write my own log files, but not anymore! Now I can simply toss my status info over to the Windows System Logs (or Security, or Application), and let Windows stroe and manage them!

7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.

This is something that NO Linux Admin can live without. Previously, I was using TLIST.EXE and KILL.EXE from the Windows NT4 (or was it 2000?) Resource Kit. NO LONGER! Now, apparently, XP/2003 has this functionality built-in.

Again, there's nothing ground-breaking here, but these little tips will definitely prove useful in my day-to-day life as a Systems Engineer when I have to hit a Windows box. (which is coming to be more and more often...)