Essential Advice for Beginners Tips 62 to 64

62. Formatting a hard drive partition larger than 32 Gigs with FAT32

A built in, intentional limitation of Windows XP is that it will only create FAT32 (the older file system seen in Windows 9X\ME operating systems) partitions up to 32GB in size. If you have a disk larger than that and you wish to format it with FAT32, your only choice is to create multiple partitions of 32GB or less. There is an option however. You can use a boot disk
from an older version of Windows such as Windows 98 or ME to partition the drive into one large FAT32 partition. Windows XP will then be able to use the space.

You can obtain the necessary boot disk files at www.bootdisk.com

Download the ME or 98 disk image, then use the FDISK utility to partition the drive and the FORMAT utility to format it with FAT32. See PCstats' hard drive installation article for details on how to complete these tasks.

63. Finding your IP address and other information with IPCONFIG

If you find you need to quickly discover your computer's current IP address, or other information related to your networking setup, the easiest way to do this is to go to the command prompt

Start\run\'cmd'

And type 'ipconfig /all'

Among other things, this will give you the name of your computer, your current IP address for all network adaptors, as well as the default gateways and DNS server information.

64. Update your machine automatically.

Keeping your machine updated with the latest Microsoft patches and bug fixes can be considered an essential task involved in owning Windows XP. On one hand, it's a pain, and there's something to be said for the school of thought that claims that Microsoft's operating systems are unnecessarily complex and full of security holes and flaws.

On the other hand, XP's internal complexity makes it externally simpler to use, certainly it's easier than Windows 2000 to get to grips with. Also, the fact is that the world works with Windows, meaning that all those nefarious and non-nefarious hackers out there are targeting Windows simply because of its popularity, not because it is any less inherently secure than alternative operating systems. Microsoft is simply trying to keep up with the work of thousands… But I digress; there is an easier way to update your box.

To set your copy of Windows XP to update itself automatically: Right click on 'my computer' and select the 'automatic updates' tab.

To enable automatic updating, choose either of the first two choices in the 'update notification' section. You can either have XP search for and download updates automatically, and only prompt you when you need to install them, or it can prompt before downloading so you can pick the updates you want.

Once automatic updating is turned on, XP will periodically check for updates over the Internet. If your computer is not connected to the internet, the system will be unable to update automatically.