How Windows XP will survive death

Come June 30, and sun will set on probably one of the most loved operating systems: Windows XP. With just two weeks left to the XP's official "kill" date, it seems fans have not been successful in persuading the Redmond giant to extend the XP deadline.

Here's looking into how XP, which analysts term as the biggest competition for Microsoft's latest OS Vista, can continue to live after its termination.
XP will be available on PCs from smaller computer makers known as "system builders" until January 31, 2009.

Also, the low-end Windows XP Starter Edition will continue to be available in emerging markets until June 30, 2010.

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XP will be available for so-called ultra-low-cost-PCs until June 30, 2010. According to Microsoft documents outlining the programme for PC manufacturers, Windows XP Home will only be available on systems with the following specs:

* A 1GHz or slower single-core processor (with exceptions for the Via C7 and Intel Atom N270)

* Up to 1GB of memory

* Hard drives up to 80GB

* Displays that are 10.2 inches or smaller

* No touch-screen

For companies manufacturing PCs that meet these specs, Windows XP will be available.

Know the Exact Time of when did You last turn On the Computer

Most office employees do not shut down computers at night - they just lock the workstations and switch off the monitor but that doesn’t stop the computers from consuming power.

According to estimates, 30% of all office PCs in the US are left on all night while 18% of office workers in UK admit that they have never switched off computers over night or at weekends.
So do you remember the exact date or time when you last switched on the computer ? Here’s a simple DOS command to help you out:

systeminfo | find /i “boot time”

This will show the time when you last rebooted the computer.

systeminfoSubtract that from the current date-time to know for how long you have been running the computer.

windows-task-manager Alternative, you could start Windows Task Manager (Alt+Ctrl+Del), switch to the Performance tab and you should see a field that says “Up Time” - that’s even more convenient but some computers have Task managers disabled.

To Protect the Computer from Internet Attacks - Set a Blank Pasword in Windows XP

Some useful information. Your Windows XP computer is more safe if you don’t set any password at all than using some weak password like "abc123" which can be easily guessed by hackers.

Using a blank password (or no password at all) makes your computer more secure because Windows XP accounts, that are not protected by a password, cannot be accessed remotely over the network or the Internet.

You have to be physically infront of the computer in order to get in. Due to this default behavior, it is better to leave a blank password assigned to an XP account rather than assigning a weak, easily guessed password.

An official guide from Microsoft on Password strength therefore suggests using blank passwords on Windows XP machines when the following criteria are met:

• You only have one computer or you have several computers but you do not need to access information on one computer from another one

• The computer is physically secure (you trust everyone who has physical access to the computer - like your family members)

The use of a blank password is not always a good idea particularly when the computer is not in a secure location. For example, a laptop computer that you take with you is probably not physically secure, so on those you should have a strong password.

Update: If you want to access your XP Professional computer over the network ever after the password is blank, run gpedit.msc in the Run box and disable the setting "Limit local account use of blank passwords to console login only" available under Local Policies.

Windows Desktop on a USB Drive - Microsoft StartKey

Microsoft StartKey will put your entire Windows desktop on a USB Flash drive including the software programs, files and settings.

You can then plug this USB stick into any PC and use it as if it were your own personal workstation.

Related: Carry Your Windows Computer on a USB Drive

While this is not a new concept and existing applications like MojoPac do offer similar functionality, Microsoft Startkey will definitely help in popularizing this whole idea of converting a portable storage device into a computer, especially among the non-techie crowd.

The first public beta of StartKey is expected later this year. For more on Windows Startkey, check out ZDNet.

Copy Command Line Output to Windows Clipboard Directly

Windows XP offers no easy solution for copying the output of DOS commands to the clipboard.

You have to select Mark from the contextual menu, use the mouse to highlight text that has to be copied and then press Enter.

Some DOS veterans use the redirect operator (> or >>) that puts all the command line output to a text file which can be opened in Notepad. (Also read: "Most Useful Windows DOS Commands")

Since both the above methods involve way too many steps, we look at a simple alternative - use Clip - a free DOS utility from Microsoft that is included in Windows Server 2003 resource kit but works just fine for Windows XP or Vista.

Just copy this clip.exe [14 kb] file to your Windows folder and then use it with a PIPE (|) operator in your DOS commands. Here are some examples:

dir /h | clip - Copy the help manual for DIR command to the clipboard

tracert www.labnol.org | clip - Trace the path from your computer to another website - the output is automatically copied to the clipboard and not displayed on the screen.

netstat | clip - Check if your computer is connecting to websites without your knowledge.

The clip.exe utility can also be used to copy contents of text files to clipboard directly from the command line.

clip < C:\AUTOEXEC.bat - this will copy all the text from autoexec.bat to your Windows Clipboard.



The clip.exe file comes only with the Windows 2003 or Windows Vista so I am not sure if they are distributing the original Windows file on petri.co.il or written something similar on their own.