This article discusses Windows XP and all the new features it brings. Microsoft has really established a new operating system and powerful that brings great flexibility and ease of use for the user. He also, along with an operating system is extremely reliable and robust for both the average and the user too. In this paper, we start by talking about the XP requirements needs for optimal operation and how we can meet these requirements. We also talk about the pieces of the installation, modernization and migration of user settings. We also emphasize the powerful new features of Windows XP installation as unattended installations and remote installations. Microsoft also aims to target the market at home with this new operating system and incorporated several new features including user account and group management at a much easier GUI. Yet it remains the same operating system reliable if it is best to ensure the safe, the group’s safety policies and domain security. Microsoft also includes several new features in terms of audit and generate lots of reports in logs for the administrative user. We also talk about the Windows Installer included in this new operating system that helps eliminate interference code and in turn, provides an operating system more stable than previous versions. We also see a significant improvement in the user interface and options with greater ease of use for the average day and options such as multilingual support, targeting the corporate environment. Windows XP is also hardware support and installation of a new level with its new plug-and-play offers compatibility with the material very good mobile. We then discuss the revolutionary new NTFS file system on which Windows XP is running and all its new advantages over the old and fat and FAT32 file systems. Windows XP also gives us a good networking set up and troubleshooting environment with new features such as shared folders and offline resources management. Remote connectivity has become a much more achievable target with the launch of Windows XP and it teleworker flexibility to work from home. We finally discuss how the new operating system resists his older brothers legacy in terms of performance, optimization, recovery, backup and other services. Overall Microsoft has finally released a beast of a powerful operating system for consumers and it is for us to understand and use Windows XP to its full potential. Meeting the needs XP Minimum: Microsoft Win XP minimum requirements can be classified into different categories. The most important requirement is the minimum CPU power, which is set at 233 MHz by Microsoft. Personally, I do not agree with these standards as low cost processor is in freefall and is the biggest driver for a performance factor machines. A minimum of 300 MHz is what I recommend the lowest level. The terminal control studied in this report is the benchmark or just above the average requirements for the user. The processor is a 2. 5 GHz Pentium 4 and is the scene at a rate optimal. Win XP Pro supports multi-processor support, but is not necessary in this scenario. The second condition has caught my attention is the amount of RAM that Microsoft recommends minimum requirements for Win XP Pro operating is 64 MB, which is clearly too low by current standards. However, Microsoft does the state a serious shortage of Win XP Pro Service availability while using 64 MB of RAM. An example of this would be fast switching disabled user in this mode. I personally recommend a minimum of 256MB for a machine with the performance requirements trailing Win XP Pro. The testing machine used in this report has the support of good RAM with 1GB of RAM. The level of RAM on this machine has a CPU load and thus at the same time provide excellent performance for heavy use multiple different software on the market. The hard disk requirements for Microsoft have been growing with new versions of operating systems Win XP Pro and requires a minimum of 1. 5 GB of hard drive space. This greater increase may be attributed to operating systems with greater longer included in them, for E. g. Win XP Pro comes with several features like support for writing to CD and also a built-in firewall. The machine control does a good job of meeting these requirements with a 120GB hard drive primary (master) and another 120 GB hard drive secondary (slave) hard drive. However, there are some gaps in the implementation that are highlighted in the backup section of the report. One advantage of having two hard drives is clear that the swap file can be placed on a separate hard drive for better and faster. The testing machine also exceeds the requirements of Windows XP display. Microsoft has stepped up the bar with this release and has a 800 x 600 display minimum requirement for this operating system and a large number of video players will not let you go below this resolution. The testing machine had a capacity above this potential with display up to 1600 x 1200. Win XP Pro also recommends installation disks or bootable CD standards to repair and reinstall, which is also supported by the machine control. However, I personally recommend CD bootable floppies which are more prone to failure for a long period of time. A better way would also image backups and installs the image that are discussed later in this report. The BIOS is ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) capable, which enables power management functions and stop through HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) installation. Win XP Pro has many features graphical user who can not be used by a good graphics card. The control unit in this audit has a good graphics card with 128 MB of dedicated graphics memory to exploit these features. Installing Windows XP: I would like to bring to the attention of features available with the installation of Microsoft Windows during installation. The text mode is activated during a clean install and gives us the opportunity to press the F5 key to select a laboratory to BIOS from the menu. This is essential for an individual or organization that wants to activate the auto power off. The BIOS must HAL able to use this feature. It is always advisable to update the BIOS to the ability of HAL before you install Win XP. Changing the BIOS after installation of Win XP, there is serious risk of reaching an operating system unbootable and should not be attempted without proper data backup. Microsoft announces the F6 option during the install a SCSI / RAID adapters. You can also enable ACPI by pressing F7 to get a layer of abstraction that is not ACPI capable. ACPI can interfere with certain characteristics of the machine, for E. g. If the machine is a server-based auto close is not really a good way to implement. The rest of the process is the way old style, where you can create and delete partitions on your hard drive. There is also the possibility to choose between NTFS and FAT32. However, I would recommend NTFS if your hard drive is 32GB NTFS is the only choice for you. Windows XP does all the hard work and jumped in the installation in graphical mode and then asks the user information such as the Windows key, the name and locale. The most important thing is setting the administrator password Windows and write and keep in a safe place. He also asked for names of computer and network setup and also asks whether you are in a domain environment or workgroup environment and our IP settings. NetBEUI has been disabled in this version of the Microsoft operating system. You can also enter the hard disk to access files during the installation by pressing Shift + F10. This lets you move files to the hard disks to access files you need and even installing drivers for new hardware during installation. For people who want to install old style, you can press Shift + F11 to the old settings wizard style. Microsoft has also updated dynamically which means that unless you have an Internet connection, it tries to connect and try to download all necessary updates before your machine is running. It will also try to install new drivers, as long as the manufacturer’s logo certified Windows drivers. However, dynamic update is only available for facilities upgrade and is not available on clean installations. Microsoft also allows you to implement your own website dynamic update to prevent clogging of bandwidth in a corporate environment for machines to find updates via the Microsoft website. The administrator can link to the Windows Update site now and download all the updates and the package and put it on a Web server for staff to install. A switch can be installed within the parameter of the answer file for download from these facilities. Another feature is the Windows Product Activation does not exist, the user volume license, where the same media kit will be used for multiple installations. However retail and OEM licenses, require Windows Product Activation by creating a hash of your computer according to several characteristics such material. Windows Product Activation may also be done in the answer file and the information sent by HTTP or HTTPS and Microsoft’s minimum requirement that reactivation is required after a change of 3-4 pieces of hardware on your computer. Upgrading Windows XP: Most administrators do not have the luxury of doing a clean install, because there are many software and data installed on the current operating system. The biggest drawback that any legacy code and luggage in the old OS will be postponed to the new operating system. An upgrade is possible from Windows NT 4 and Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000. 0 with SP6. However, the server class can not be upgraded from Windows 2000 Professional. You can not upgrade from Windows 95 or Windows 3. x. To check the compatibility should always be done before moving to the new OS. Make sure you use the switch (-checkupgradeonly) for the report on hardware compatible hardware on the machine to install Windows XP. If you use Windows NT 4. 0 with fault tolerance and volume sets readers will be inaccessible once you install XP as it does not support fault tolerance or volume sets. Microsoft does not give you an easy way to use the button to put the fault-tolerant Ftonline placed online to save data or recreate a fixed volume or striped volume and get that information back. However, you can not create fault tolerant readers with Win XP. In case of serious error, you can always roll back the upgrade. This feature is accessible from the “Add / Remove Programs” Control Panel. However, the biggest drawback is that once you change from FAT32 to NTFS, you can not return to uninstall the upgrade and get your old operating system running. The installation procedure is almost the same as the time that we met on a clean install without the headaches of disk partitioning. He even tries to download updates (updated dynamically) if an Internet connection is detected. The software and the locale and other user settings are stored on the computer. The upgrade does come with screens of different view after installation. Views change with the kind of environment that you use in e. g. a domain environment the user gets to see the Ctrl + Alt + Del screen while the user is to see the welcome screen in a workgroup environment. Migrating user settings: User settings are an extremely important need in a corporate environment to keep that same user. Transferring files and settings wizard comes to our aid until the last icon on the computer solitary users. Transfer files and settings transfer file transfers into four categories. The first category is the aspect that includes colors, sounds and others. Secondly, it also retains the settings of the Internet as your favorites and your Internet security settings. Thirdly, it also saves all your account settings, like all your e-mail and all Internet addresses stored in your computer via Outlook. Finally, he even transfer the settings of installed software like Microsoft Office and Adobe as well third-party software. But the disadvantage is that the required software must be installed before their parameters can be reapplied to the new operating system. Transferring files and settings wizard can be reached through the Windows CD by going to the icon “perform additional work. The process is simple and visually guided. It enables you to select only the files or both files and settings and transfer all the files required by a direct cable, floppy disks or media or the network. This can also be used from XP on the XP machines, in a case of customizing a new machine to industry standards. However, it is should be used only for small offices or a very small office. An improved version of this for large offices is the tool to migrate users of State for mass migration scripts files XP. The User State Migration Tool consists of several tools that is both Scanstate. exe files which includes as migapp. migsys inf. inf, Migus. inf and sysfiles. inf files and you can edit these files as you please. A simple illustration would be to access the migapp. inf file, put in the settings you need and put in the files you need to transfer and execute Scanstate. exe file on each computer. The new machine would run a different program LoadState. exe file that will decompress the file and load those settings. However, as in the transfer media files may not transfer this application and settings that applications for e. g. it will not install Adobe Acrobat on your computer then transfer the settings. If an application is not detected on the computer settings because it will not be used. This application can be accessed in the following directory “CD: VALUEADDMSFTUSMT. This capability is fully scriptable if an administrator can send these e-mails to all users and do not have to attend all the machines to run this. Unattended Install: Microsoft also provides tools for us unattended installation, which is a great feature for network administrators working in a large enterprise environment. This feature saves the laborious task of sitting at each computer and install Windows XP on each of them. unattended installation is made possible through a tool called the manager of the facility that connects the unattend file. txt files that can answer all questions that Win XP will ask during the installation process. A simple way to implement is to submit all information required to install in unattend. txt file and this file on a floppy disk when installing the script or file inside if you are putting in place through an image. There is a drawback that the computer needs of each unique information as the computer name and IP addresses. This can be treated by a UDF file is unique database. The other IP addresses can be handled via DHCP, and other processes. If you boot from an image, it can be done by the script file winnt32. The command line should read like this winnt32 / s: source path / u: unattend.txt. txt / UDF: UDF way. However, if the boot from a CD, then the file must be placed inside the disk with the name of winnt. sif. This feature is still hidden in the Win XP and can be accessed through the support / TOOLS / path and then extracting deploy. cab. This file must be extracted and then reveal all the tools you need to deploy and unattended installation of Windows XP. There are also three very useful reference files in this folder that gives you plenty of information using these tools. The management tool in place a graphical tool that guides you through setting up the process of creating uanttend. txt file and single database. It follows the simple procedure of asking questions from the organization and the user name, Win XP key (This is the most important feature and must be entered correctly or the installation will not), the parameters the workspace or area, the locale and the Internet, language settings and time zone, the names of computers and external controls, even to start other plants for E. g. Installing Microsoft Office after you install Windows XP. The Configuration Manager also gives us the options of several types of facility as a graphical user interface, read-only facility (user can see everything but can not change anything) and others. You do not create this unattned. txt from zero for each terminal and can edit this file as needed for all other users. However, it does become extremely cumbersome for large environments and the headache of creating a unattned. txt file for each user in a larger area employment business. Microsoft has the answer to what is called the Sysprep tool or the System Preparation tool that gives us the ability to deploy clones of operating systems on each machine. This does give the network administrator the ability to use some style cookie-cutter to deploy applications in machines and operating systems preinstalled custom installation procedure before the mass. The problem may however arise in the security identifiers (SIDs) that Microsoft uses to identify each machine and unique to this machine. You can use the cloning tool to deploy these clones, but you still need to use Sysprep to authenticate the support. Microsoft strips the SIDs and repacks so when the user sits on the brand new, it must enter information for the machine to start. Applications are installed in the background, however, but his way of Microsoft to ensure that each machine has a unique SID after installation. Administrators are invited to run the latest third cloning facilities to obtain optimal results, then use Sysprep to repackage the machine as a new brand for the CIS to work safely and according to Microsoft. However, you should be extremely cautious before deploying clones because they are very specific hardware, so that your devices should have the same HAL, mass storage controllers and devices ACPI support. VAR (VAR) should use the mode switch to the factory to install and reconfigure the machine according to their needs. This is also known as the method of verification and the machine can shut it after running sysprep again with a switch-close. This can also be done automatically using the WINBOM file. INI. Remote Installation Services: A remote installation service gives us the power to install Win XP on the network. Microsoft uses a PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) to achieve this goal and failure is that you are PXE network card must be certified. However, Microsoft also gives hope to some left in allowing us to use boot disks for those who do not have PXE network cards certified, but there is always failure and this time is that this function is supported by the network very specific cards. Unfortunately, if you’re network card does not belong to any of these classes you’re unlucky and can not use this feature. The basic method for the installer is to connect to a serious RIS (Remote Installation Server). Once you are logged on the RIS server, there are three ways to connect and install Win XP. The first is a simple installation where you download and run an image of Win XP CD. The second process is a scripted installation by creating an answer file and perform an unattended installation. The last and most powerful is the image of the system that uses a tool (RIPrep Remote Installation Preparation tool). This allows us to create an image with all custom applications installed on them and then transfer that image to all machines needed. RIS requires an Active Directory environment with integrated DNS, it builds. The RIS server must be configured in Active Directory. Most administrators to dedicate a separate grave for this process. Microsoft also states that the installation partition from a distance if a separate one and is not a boot or system partition, so you have to throw in a spare disk drive and drop this image on it. In addition, the partition must be NTFS. RIS installation utility and usefulness of preparing RIS allows you to put different images on the server. The process then requires the Win XP CD and copy the I386 directory on the server and you can then choose to install a simple script or install later. The RIS uses single instance storage which means it stores only one copy of each file when you download different images on the server. This is to save much space on the server as well, but that’s another reason to put this on a dedicated server and once all this configured, you can set access levels on the images to enable users restricted access so that they can not install any image they like. End users boot from the network and boot from the NIC PXE PXE or floppy disk and ask them to connect and authenticate to the domain server and then give them choices of installation images. In a multi-domain administrators will be required to implement those RIS servers on each domain. Similar drawbacks exist in the HCL. There are limited acceptable differences in hardware on the machines, but the laboratory must be identical and so the hard drives should be equal or larger size. Paper discs only work on PXE NICs limited to mobile users with PCMCIA are not lucky. Also the remote installation can be done on drives C and segregation on the drives do not allow the service to work. Installation Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting is always an enemy an administrator has faced during its work. Even if Windows XP is an operating system rather robust, it is a small chance that you encounter problems during installation. The first step would be to check the compatibility of equipment and hardware health. Mostly the problems I encountered on Win XP were due to faulty hardware. There is no guarantee that the devices under Windows 2000 running on Windows XP. A first step is to install Windows XP with minimum hardware, and then decrease after additional hardware installation. This allows you to isolate the piece of bad or incompatible hardware. You can also access visit Microsoft’s hardware compatibility list. You should also check if the BIOS supports ACPI, as described above. User Accounts: Windows XP requires user accounts to operate on her. It is based on the formula Windows NT kernel. Each user on Windows XP requires a user account. A major advantage of user accounts is to have the ability to customize Windows XP for your environment. Windows XP can run in a workgroup or an Active Directory domain. Windows XP gives us also built in user accounts. The most powerful of all is the administrator account and again and again he was told not to do one day at work logged on as administrator. The machine control in this case is a bigger threat than the user account only present on this machine is the administrator account and is not protected. This is a bigger threat that this user has complete control of E. g. format a disk, even by accident. The other account is guest account that is open for users to access the machine, but not giving it the power to subvert or play with the programs installed. A workgroup environment is good for a small business network, but the biggest drawback is the device everyone should have a user account for that user on this machine, because Windows XP authenticates user accounts. However domain environment, a central storage of all accounts which reduces overhead and it is easy to add new accounts and terminals. In an environment where there is a domain user account, you can use this account to log on a machine in the local domain. The user accounts in a workgroup can be sustained through user accounts in control panel. By default user accounts in Windows XP does not need a password but the administrator can change these default settings. Microsoft has also installed a feature called “Prevent forgotten password”, which through the administrator account, you can create a diskette with your password stored on it for recovery. However, this disk must be saved because it can be a loop hole in security throughout the network. In a domain environment you must log in as a member of the administrator to create and delete user accounts. However, in a domain environment, you need to add domain users to local group to grant them access to machines of this group using this user account. The concept is somewhat different, since the domain user accounts should have g. g. g. g. g. g.
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