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January 10, 2008

How to Share OE (Mail/News/Address Book) between Users in Windows XP

Filed under: Windows XP tips — admin @ 10:26 pm

If you don’t mind having Signatures, Rules and all the other settings the same, this method works.

From the user account that is already set up:  Click Start, Run and enter REGEDIT

Locate the following 4 branches of the Registry

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Account Manager
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4\Wab File Name

Right click on each branch above and select Export and save the REG files to your hard drive.

For each account you want to have the same mail settings, log into that account. Click Start, Run and enter REGEDIT. Locate the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities branch, right click it and select Delete. Next open Windows Explorer and locate the 4 REG files you saved above. Double click each one and answer yes to the import prompt.

Now you can open OE in any of the User accounts, and all the settings, accounts, will be the same.  This was tested with the Mail and News Store on a FAT32 drive. I can’t guarantee it will work on an NTFS drive.

Note: You will need to re-enter the passwords for mail and news group accounts.

Note2: If you use Signatures, you should put them in a text file and change OE’s settings to use them. Signatures are often corrupted during the import. This is due to the Unicode storage of the signatures in the Registry.

Sharing the Outlook Express Address Book in Windows XP

While logged on to the user’s desktop that has the address book you want to use:  Click Start, Run and enter REGEDIT:

Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4\Wab File Name

Note the path to the WAB file in the (Default) entry. Log into the other desktop and open REGEDIT there. Navigate down to the same location as above. Double click the entry for (Default) and make it match the entry for the first user.

How do I restrict a User Logon hours?

Filed under: Windows XP tips — admin @ 10:25 pm

You can only restrict when a user can log on to the system.  On a stand alone computer, there is no way, currently, to force a user to log off when their hours expire.

1) Open Help and Support and type “logon hours” (without the quotes) in the search box.
2) Go to Full text matches and click on “Net user”.  See the examples for setting a user’s logon hours.  Some examples would be:

    net user johnsw /time:M-F,08:00-17:00
net user johnsw /time:M-F,8am-5pm
net user marysl /time:M,4am-5pm;T,1pm-3pm;W-F,8:00-17:00
net user johnsw /time:all     (this one means this user can always log on)

3) Open a Command Prompt window.
4) Enter the appropriate “net user” command for the user(s) you wish to restrict access for.

If you need to force a user to log off when their hours expire, you may want to investigate Access Boss, from FS Pro Labs.

Renaming Desktop Icons

Filed under: Windows XP tips — admin @ 10:24 pm

You can easily rename various Desktop (System Icons).

For a Visual Basic utility to do this for you, click HERE.

Click Start, Run and enter REGEDIT.  Navigate to the following Registry brach:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID

The Desktop Icons are located in the sub keys as follows:

My Network Places: {208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
My Computer: {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
My Documents: {450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}
Recycle Bin:{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
Default IE Icon: {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}

Double click the Default value in the above keys and enter the text you desire.  Right click on the Desktop and select Refresh to see the changes. 

To undo the changes, just right click on the Default value and select Delete.  Refresh the Desktop to see that things are back to normal.

Remove TweakUI v1.33 (and earlier) Manually

Filed under: Windows XP tips — admin @ 10:24 pm

To remove TweakUI v1.33, or earlier versions, manually, perform the following steps:

  1. Do a Find for TWEAKUI.CPL, TWEAKUI.HLP and TWEAKUI.GID.  When each of these files has been located, delete it.  Note: TWEAKUI.GID may not exist on your system.
  2. Click Start, Run and enter REGEDIT.
  3. This step is only necessary if you wish to remove the Shortcut Icon customization. Go to the Registry branches indicated and modify or delete the values as instructed.
    a) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons\29
    In the right pane, locate the value named “29″.  Right click on this value and select Delete.
    b) HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
    In the right pane, locate the value called “Shell Icon Size”.  Double click on this entry and set the value to 32.
  4. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
    In the right pane, locate the value called “Tweak UI”.  Right click on this value and select Delete.
  5. Close Regedit.

Windows® XP - Remote Desktop Web Connection - How to use

Filed under: Windows XP tips — admin @ 10:23 pm

Host Machine:

On the server machine, go to Control Panel, System, Remote.  Check Allow users to connect remotely to this computer.  Any account that you want to have access the machine remotely should have a secure password.

On the server, you need to install Internet Information Services from Add/Remove, Windows Components. Specifically you need to install the Remote Desktop Web Connection. This will make your computer accessible via the web. The URL to use would be

http://<youripaddress>/tsweb  You can also use the hostname if one is available for your connection.

Guest machine:

You will be presented with a login screen. When asked for the server name, use the IP address or host name of the server.
Check Send Login information
Enter the user name  (this must be a valid user account on the server)
Domain name (on my setup) is left blank

Click continue

You’ll get a new screen, and a login prompt. Enter your password and you’re all set to go.

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