Why is XP running slower while logon 1

When I login into a Windows 2000 active directory from a new xp pro machine the login in is extremely slow.  After logged on, everything works fine. But other windows versions don't have this problem.

A: This is almost like name resolution issue. Comparing with previous versions, XP is heavily dependent on DNS to find DC. If the DNS is configured incorrectly, XP will take longer time waiting for it to timeout before it tries using NetBIOS. Make sure

1) The DNS setup correct and have the server information.

2) XP clients can find the DNS server.

3) XP machine's DNS server is pointed to your internal DNS server rather than your ISP's DNS server.

4) Make sure no errors on logon scripts or  GPO's  that  could  be causing  the  delay.

5) Check any errors on event viewer.

6) Disable NetBIOS on the interfaces that client will not use.

Why is XP running slower 2

If the resolution of "Why is XP running slower while logon 1" doesn't fix the slower issue. And if other Operation Systems including w2k don't have the same issue, you may check the hardware settings, for example, configure all of the computers' network cards for half duplex.  Most Hubs don't support full duplex.

Home Data Communication


Here you will get the basic Introduction Home Computer Networking-Basic Setup, wireless access point, lan troubleshooting, lan connectivity, dsl modem, gateway device, vpn and wi-fi. Computer Networks exists for more than 30 years and only recently they have become more popular at home both in forms of wired and wireless networking. Now many computer literate people from all over the world wish to have a computer network at home. There are many advantages and usage of a network, which we have described in the other sections of this website.

Millions of people have adopted the home network and now they are looking for the more advanced technology in the home networking and that is “wireless home networking”.

We will discuss the various basic and advance aspects of the home networking considering that no prior knowledge of the network technology. We will briefly explain the setup, troubleshooting, installation, network devices used and other aspects of the home networking.
Today in the age of Information technology, it’s not difficult for someone to have more than one PC at home.

If I apply this situation to you (that you have more than one computer at your home) then most probably you would wish to have access on the data and resources like, hard disk, printer, modem of the other PC and you can even access the broadband Internet like DSL or cable modem and you can also play a multi-player network game. All this is possible by just connecting and configuring the two computers at your home. There are several ways to do the home networking but all it depends on budget, security needs and nature of your work.

Your cable/DSL modem plugs straight into the computer. The computer is exposed to the public Internet (indicated by the color red). There is no connection for more than one computer. You only have one IP address from your ISP.
If you have a broadband Internet connection at your home like DSL or cable net then you can share your internet connection with more than one PC at your home by installing the network card in each PC and configuring the hub/switch or a router.

If you have two PCs at your home and you want to share your internet connection with the other computer then you can simply share the internet connection by following these steps.

1. Connect two PCs with CAT5 cable and make it a cross over cable.

2. After connecting both the PCs, assign a different IP addresses by going in the properties of the LAN card like 100.100.100.1 and 100.100.100.2 or you can assign any other IP address. (Please note that these IP addresses that you use for your home networking are the private IP addresses and they have nothing to do with the IP address that are used on the internet (public IP addresses).

3. After assigning the IP addresses install software on the computer one, which will be used for sharing the Internet connection and this will be called proxy software (and your computer one will act as a Proxy Server). The more common proxy software is Wingate, Win Proxy and Internet connection sharing (ICS). ICS is by default installed in Windows operating systems and can be configured separately.

Internet access by using a hardware router/gateway/firewall device
In this situation, you have to install a hardware router, which will be act as a gateway. Your router will be connected with the public IP address, which will be assigned to your by your ISP and hub/switch will be attached to the router. All the other PCs in your home or small network will be directly attached to that hub or switch.

How to setup the Gateway Device

Gateway device – There are different gateway devices available from different companies like

dlink.com, linksys.com, netgear.com and Cisco systems. Each device has difference setup configurations but the basic purpose of all these devices is the same.

The Gateways have a number of common features and functions such as NAT (Network Address Translation) that translate your public IP address into the private IP address on your network, DHCP server, PPP. Before buying any gateway device, make sure gateway device must have all these features.

Some advance gateways have the following features.

• wireless access point
• VPN
• print server
• DMZ (make one PC available to the Internet but still protect it through the firewall
• multi-port
• Content filtering

Most advance gateways comes with integrated hubs or switches and if your gateway don’t have the functionality of a hub/switch then you will have to buy a hub/switch for your home network. Before buying a hub/switch you should consider the two main things 1. it should support dual speed i.e 10mbps and 100mbps and 2. it should have maximum available ports.
Cat5 cable – For setting up a home network, you will need a several pieces of the CAT5 Ethernet cables. These cables can be used in the different scenarios like for connecting the two PCs (if you have a two computer network) and if you have more than two computers then each computer will be directly connected with the hub/switch or gateway device. The most commonly used cable for computer networking is Cat5 cable.

Once you have all the required things like cables, hub/switch, LAN cards etc. then install a network card in each PC. You must make sure that each card is properly installed and is not showing any signs of conflict with the other network devices.

How to connect two computers wirelessly

In some recent years, wireless networking solutions have became very popular. There are several wireless technologies exists to support the wireless networking.

These technologies include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and infrared.

Wi-Fi connections can reach at a greater distance than the other wireless solutions that are mentioned above. Many new PCs and Laptops now have the built-in capability of the Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi can be used with or without network fixture. In the two computers Wi-Fi networking minus a fixture also called ad-hoc Wi-Fi.

Bluetooth technology supports high speed wireless connectivity and communication between the two computers without the need of a network fixture. Bluetooth is commonly used when networking a computer with the consumer’s cell phone or handheld device. Bluetooth works well if both the devices are in the same room or location. While networking among the handheld devices consider the Bluetooth technology solution.

Infrared networking exists before the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth technologies on the Laptops. Infrared wireless connections only work between two computers and do not require a fixture. Infrared networking is relatively fast so consider using it if your computer supports it and you don’t have the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth features in your computer.

How to Setup Local Area Network

Computer networking enables you to share the data and resources with the other network users.  You can communicate with the other people in your home or office, send and receive files, share internet connection and printer, play games, listen to music and share the multimedia experience with the other users. Today no business is successful without fulfilling its data, voice and video communication requirements. No office work can be performed efficiently where there are more than two computers.
 
Setting up a computer network requires the little technical knowledge and the required software and hardware tools.  There are three main types of the computer networks i.e. LAN (within an office), MAN (within city) and WAN (within two cities or two countries).  In this article, you will learn that how to setup LAN in your home or office.  The first step is to identify your requirements and based on these requirements you need to purchase the following software and hardware devices.

Software/Hardware Requirements

  • Computers with LAN Cards.   (Number of computers is based on the number of users).
  • Hub or Switch.  (Switch is recommended and the number of ports in the switch is related to the number of computers in your network.
  • UTP/STP Straight Cable. Each piece of cable is required between a computer and the hub/switch.
  • DSL Router to share the internet with the computers.
  • Windows based operating system CDs (Windows 2000 Professional is recommended for the client computers) and Windows 2000/2003 Server is for the Server computer.
  • All other required software.

A LAN can be configured in a variety of ways as mentioned below.

  • Peer to Peer
  • Client/Server

In the Peer to Peer there is not centralized server and each computer acts as a workstation.  Peer to peer is ideal for the scenarios where security is not the major concern.  In the client/server networking, there is a centralized server, which act as a domain controller and it provides the user authentication and other resources and privileges to the client computers.  All the client computers are dependent on the server for the resources and services.

Configurations

The following configuration steps will tell you that how to setup peer to peer network.

  • After installing the Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional on all the computers, you need to install and configure the LAN cards.
  • Make a straight network cable and attach one end of it to the computer and one end to the hub/switch.
  • In most of the cases Windows 2000 Professional/XP Professional has built-in drivers for the LAN cards.
  • Click Start > Services > Control Panel > double click network connections.
  • Right click the Local Area connection > Click properties and in the general select TCP/IP and click Properties.
  • In the TCP/IP Properties select this option “Use the Following IP Address” and provide the IP address and subnet mask.  The IP addresses should be of the same series like 100.100.100.1, 100.100.100.2, 100.100.100.3, 100.100.100.4 and 100.100.100.5 etc. one for each computer.  The subnet mask will be automatically selected when you will press the tab.
  • Click Ok and click all the open Windows.
  • Now, you need to provide the unique computer names and same workgroup name to all the computers.
  • Right click My Computer on your desktop and click Properties.
  • In the Network Identification or in the Computer name provide your unique computer and in the Workgroup provide the same workgroup name and click Ok.
  • You will be prompted to restart the computer.
  • You’re done.
  • Now you can share your files and folders with the other users in your home or office network.

Data Recovery Free Tips

How to Recover the Lost Files?

In this section you will learn how to how to recover data from the physically damaged hard drives, data recovery tips, files recovery, hard drive crash, physical damage drive and basic recovery methods. Data recovery means retrieving deleted and inaccessible data from the electronic storage media such as hard drives and removable media. There are different causes of the data loss such as Electro-mechanical failure, natural disaster, viruses, sabotage, human error and data corruption. If the problem is not of severe nature than you can recover the data with a good recovery tool.

What data recovery is important?

Over the past few years, hard drives have gotten a lot faster and quieter with the capacity of 350 GB. The downside is that their consistency is far from perfect and they are often burdened with mechanical defects and failures however, this warning has never been mentioned in the vendor’s product specification. From the experience of the past it is shown that the users are divided into the two groups. The first group of the users is well informed about computer, data and may be he/she has experienced the data loss.

In this scenario, the user will naturally be very careful to back up information such as files, website, emails, pictures and backup of the financial files on the CD/DVD or other media. In the big companies there must be an IT department or a network administrator who take cares of his backups. In this way digital devices can be protected however still a virus attack, hardware failure or simply human error can destroy this asset.

The other groups of the users live with the risk, either because they are not aware of the possible horror of the data loss due to any unwanted thing, so they don’t take it seriously. It should be clear that a multifaceted component at any day may fail to provide its services. If that scenario occurs one day then all data stored on the hard disks or any other storage devices may be lost. Study shows that 30 percent of the small businesses admit that they have no formal backup and storage procedures implemented in their organizations.

The majority of the small and big companies take backup of the critical data on the daily basis. But one out of three small businesses still wait until a problem occur before reviewing and implementing their data storage procedures.

Some basic questions before the recovery process starts.

1. What is the data, which needs to be recovered?
2. What happened when the hard drive failed?
3. How much data was on the hard drive?
4. What type of hard drive is it?
5. How fast do you need that data?

Recovering the critical data is a specialized process that requires the right software, hardware and the advanced techniques. In many failure-related cases, the chances of recovering the lost data from a damaged hard drive, ranges from 90% to 100%. If the electronic control panel is only damaged then it can be replaced and the hard disk can be reused. If the defect is of the mechanical nature then data recovery will be little bit tough. If the problem is related to the file system, which has caused the inaccessibility of the data then it can be recovered by using the data recovery software.

Data recovery can sometimes be worked out yourself with the help of good software and some tips. This is usually the situation when the drives are not physically damaged. If they are damaged, then you will need to send the drives to a specialist who will be able to recover the data. There is no foolproof method that where you will have 100% of your data recovered or your hard disk will never crash again. If you suspect any data corruption, data loss, drives corruption the possible symptoms can be.

• Previously accessible data is suddenly nowhere to be seen.
• Error messages will inform you that the device is not recognized
• Computer or hard disk will not function and no booting will start.
• There can be scraping or rattling sound in the hard disks.
• Hard drive may not spin and can be still.

All the above symbols indicate that the drive is corrupted.

Here are some of the good tips on how to recover the lost data.

1. Recovery through software: First try to find some good software, that can recover your lost data, from your technically inclined friends. They may have some good data recovery software.

2. Hardware Crash: If you have detected that your hard drive is crashed then tries the normal shutting down procedures. Just pull out the plug and do not wait. Never try to save or recover the data at this time as you may lose the other saved data as well.

3. Pinpoint the trouble in the hard disk: If you are not sure of the problem listen to your hard disk for any rattling or unusual sounds. If this is the case then you will need data recover service.

4. Determine the health of the drive: If you have determined that the drive is healthy, then you may still be able to recover the data by yourself, try using the software that can recover the data.

5. Slave disks: Try to connect the drive as a slave to another computer. In this way, you might be able to recover all the data. I have practically used this technique and I was successful in recovering the data.

6. Locate the corruption: You should locate the corrupted partition and this can easily be done by booting the system from the floppy drive or using the F disk command.

7. Shop for recovery software: Do an online research in Google for the data recovery software and see what software is ranked best and suits you. Usually the data recovery software is not free so you will have to buy it and it will surely recover your lost data if the problem is not severely mechanical.

8. Server Crash: If you are working on a server and it has been crashed then never to recover the data on the same server.

9. RAID Drive Crash: Replace the RAID data drive that fails and never ever use it again.

10. RAID Drives: Label the multiple drives in the RAID array.

11. Database files: In case of Microsoft Exchange or SQL failure, never try the direct recovery operations on the corrupted database file instead make a copy of the database files and then start recovery on these files.

12. Utilities: Do not try to run the system utilities such as Defragmenters and volume repair utilities.

13. Other utilities: Also avoid using Volume Repair utilities if there has been power outage or if the files system is corrupted.

14. Keep information: Always keep the following information handy.

- The size of the drive
- Operating system (i.e. Windows 98, Windows 2000 or Windows XP, etc.)
- Situation of failure (you must know that what happened just before the drive stopped working)
- Is the drive still recognized by the computer or not

15. Boot drive malfunction: If the corrupted drives also have the Operating systems then things are tricky and you can boot the system from the recovery software and in this way you can find you corrupted data and you can recover it to some safe place.

16. Avoid physical cleaning of drives: Never attempt to shake or clean the data drive at your own this can do harm to your hard drive physically.

17. Do not remove drive covers: Never try to remove the hard drive covers because they have to be used by the specialists for getting the configurations and features of the hard drive.

18. Dropping the hard disks: The hard disks should not be unstuck.

19. Exposure to water: Never try to expose the hard drive to water because there is not dryer to dry the hard disks.

20. Scrutinize the workplace: Pay full attention to the places where you have placed your computer because humid environment, warm places and shaky desk can do harm and can become the cause of the hard drive failure.

21. Firewalls: Make sure that you are well protected from the viruses, adware, malware, Trojan horses. An up to date anti virus and anti spyware should be installed on your computer and you should guard your PC with by putting it behind a firewall.

22. Physically damaged drives: If the drives have been corrupted physically they must be sent to a good laboratory where experts can recover the data.
If you have tried all the normal methods and still have a problem with your data then its best thing that you hunt a good data recovery company. You can find their websites and see the technical features of how to recover data and lost files from the crashed hard disks.

Forgot Your Window Password?

Sometimes we will set the window password to prevent other people using it but how about if you forgot the setting password? here i show you how to access and log in to your computer

Step 1 - After power on your computer (before window logo appear), then press F8 key access to safe mode and select safe mode with command prompt.

Step 2 - After entered into window, selected the 'administrator' account and it will show up command prompt.


Step 3 - Now we use 'Net' command to add another window user, for example add a user name jet, key in net user jet /add into command prompt.

Step 4 - Upgraded new user to administrator level, net local group administrators jet /add key in into command prompt.

Step 5 - Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, select 'shutdown' -> 'restart'.

Step 6 - After restart, the window will appear new user,




If your 'administrator' account already set up the password, the method that mentioned above can't be use.

How To Disable Automatic Restart For BSOD If You Are Unable To Get Into Windows

The other day I came across a clients computer that was getting the infamous Blue Screen of Death (aka BSOD). However, since the computer had the “Automatically Restart if the event of a bluescreen” option switched on, the system would restart and the blue screen disappear too quickly for me to read. Most technicians will just go into Safe Mode and switch this off, but what if you cant get into Safe Mode? What happens if the option to “Disable Automatic Restart” doesn’t show in the F8 menu either?

I had this happen to me and I found a way around it. Read on.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the blue screen of death. It is a screen that shows up when Windows has a critical failure. It has messages of what went wrong with the computer and can greatly help technicians figure out what is causing the error.

Anyway, most of the time this “automatically restart” option isn’t a problem for computer technicians because we can just log into Windows Safe Mode (F8) and turn it off by doing the following:

Right Click on “My Computer” and goto “Properties”. Then goto the “Advanced” tab and under the headline “Startup and Recovery”, press the “Settings” button. Untick the “Automatically Restart” box and press Ok.

However, in this instance Safe Mode wouldn’t start up either. In most cases if you press F8 after a BSOD crash you will have the option “Disable Automatic Restart”. I wasn’t getting that either. So here is my way to turn off Automatic Restart.

Note: You will need access to a working computer to do these steps. You will also need a fairly good knowledge of computers, BIOS and registry editing in order to do this. This article is aimed towards computer technicians.

1. If you don’t have it already, download UBCD4Win using one of the mirrors here. To run it, create an ISO and burn it to CD you can read the instructions here. I wont write the instructions here because the ones on the previous link are better and this article is more targeted at computer technicians and most of them already have this CD.
2. Once the CD has been created, goto the BIOS and make sure your CDRom is set as the first boot device. Start up the computer with UBCD4Win in the CDRom and you will have some boot options. Choose the “Launch The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows” option.
It will take a few minutes to load fully, but when it does you should see a Windows XP like interface like in the picture below:



3. In the UBCD4Win interface, goto Start > Programs > Registry Tools > RegEdit(Remote)

4. The program will then ask “Do you wish to load remote user profile(s) for scanning?”. Choose Yes.

5. It will then ask you to “Select User Profile”. Choose the main user account. It may be “Administrator” or some other username (but not Local Service, NetworkService or systemprofile). In the instance of the screenshot below, its “Julia”.



6. Now you should see a Window named “Registry Editor” which is identical to the usual “regedit” under Windows. Navigate to the following key:



HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CrashControl
7. In here you will find a key named “AutoReboot”. Double click on it to edit its DWORD Value and under “Value Data:” the current value should be 1, which means AutoReboot is turned on. Change this to 0 (which turns it off) and press OK.



8. Restart the machine and try and boot into the normal Windows mode. You should now see the blue screen of death. Write down the “STOP:” number and the error message. You can look for the solution up using Google or check out our article on common blue screen error messages.

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