Creating a Shutdown Shortcut

Windows XP has a program called shutdown.exe which allows you to easily create shortcut to shutdown or restart your computer.

To create a shutdown shortcut on the desktop:

1. Right click on the desktop.
2. Click New - Shortcut.
3. Enter in “shutdown -s -t 00” (type without quotes).
4. Press the Next button.
5. Type a name for this shortcut.
6. Click Finish button.

Common Command Console Utilities

Windows XP comes with quite a few console utilities you can easily run from the command line (Start - Run):

• Component Services - comexp.msc
• Computer Management - compmgmt.msc
• Device Manager - devmgmt.msc
• Disk Defrag - dfrg.msc
• Disk Managment - diskmgmt.msc
• Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc
• Group Policies - gpedit.msc
• Local Security Settings - secpol.msc
• Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc
• Performance Monitor - perfmon.msc
• Resultant Set of Policies - rsop.msc
• Services - services.msc
• Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc

Customize Drive Icons

With the following tips you can change the drive icons.

1. Create autorun.inf file in the root directory of the hard disk you wish to change. You can use Notepad to create that file.
2. Insert this code into autorun.inf,
   [autorun]
   icon=<icon file name>

   example:

   [autorun]
   icon=C:\Data\icon1.ico

3. Restart Windows.

Show / Hide Run Menu

Show / hide Run Menu from Start Menu.

1. Right click on the taskbar.
2. Click Properties.
3. Click Start Menu tab.
4. Click  Customize.
5. Mark checkbox “Display Run” to display run menu.

Send Message with Net Send

Net Send is a service that can be used to send message to other users, computers, or messaging names on the network.

To use net send, start a MS DOS or command prompt with the following syntax:

net send {name | * | /domain[:name] | /users} message

name

Specifies the user name, computer name, or messaging name to which you want to send the message. If the information that you supply contains spaces, use quotation marks around the text (for example, “Computer Name“). Long user names might cause problems when you use them as NetBIOS names. NetBIOS names are limited to 16 characters, and the sixteenth character is reserved.

*

Sends the message to all the names in your domain or workgroup.

/domain:name

Sends the message to all the names in the computer’s domain. You can specify name to send the message to all the names in the specified domain or workgroup.

/users

Sends the message to all users connected to the server.

message

Required. Specifies the text of the message.

net help command

Displays help for the specified net command.

Example:

net send john “hallo john”