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What You Need to Know About Windows XP
PCs left over after an upgrade often do an admirable job as file servers. You just need to know what components are important, what parts you can do without, and how to adjust Windows so other computers on the network can access the file server. The following steps will tell you how to create a file server using an old computer with Windows XP installed, although with a little tweaking most of the following tips apply to a computer using any version of Windows...
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2. check your current network. All the computers on your network should be talking to each other, and you must have at least one free slot on your router to plug in the new server. At least one of the computers on your network must be ready, willing, and able to run the Windows Home Server connection software. Any Windows XP or Vista machine will suffice. 3. CDs that you will need.
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If you're looking for a Windows XP laptop, you've come to the right place. Tried and tested, and enjoyed by millions of users, Windows XP laptops are perfect if you're looking to add a new computer and don't want the hassle of learning Windows Vista. PC World Business stocks a huge range of all you have to do is decide on your budget and what extras you'd like such as laptop cases, widescreen, memory upgrades, Norton Antivirus.
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It seems like only yesterday we were all worried about the level of effort required to get our applications ported to Windows 95. Well, the Windows saga continues. Microsoft OS platforms in the business world now includes Windows 2000 and Windows XP (nee Whistler). This summary discusses some of the issues you can expect to face with Windows XP, and thus some of the areas we can help with.
And then, of course, we have the Standalone Server product, which is called Acronis True Image Server for Windows or Linux and that will manage a single standalone server. What type of computers can we back up, because in a medium to a large sized, even some small sized businesses, who knows what kind of computers they have They may have laptops, they may have desktops, they may just have anything and everything
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PC today(USA) "CyberLink's DVD Solution 3 Platinum can help you make the most of your digital creations." said PC today, USA, March. 2005 On Computers(USA) "Cyberlink DVD, Platinum Solution" has a great Windows user interface, said On Computers, USA, March. 2005 Windows XP Made Easy (UK) "A great package bringing together 10 great programs for your entire DVD needs, " siad Windows XP Made Easy, UK, March 2005
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Introduction
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Microsoft nbsp;Windows nbsp;XP has enough new features and capabilities that your customers will undoubtedly be upgrading to it soon. The good news is that despite the changes, if you've been writing successful applications for Windows, you can write even better applications for the new Windows XP. The bad news is that if your code as been around since Windows 95, it is probably not well behaved.
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Windows XP (code-named "Whistler" in beta form) is Microsoft's newest operating system that builds upon Microsoft Windows 2000, while incorporating and expanding the consumer portions of Windows Millennium Edition (Me) and Windows 98.
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Windows XP - What Is It?
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Windows XP is the version of the Microsoft Windows operating system that follows Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows Me and replaces both. Windows XP is based on the Windows 2000 code base and inherits that operating system's reliability and performance. Windows XP also inherits and enhances the new features of the Windows Me (9x) operating systems.
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For client machines, Windows XP has two editions, Professional and Home. Professional is for use in businesses and supercedes Windows 2000 Professional, offering the functionality needed for corporations and other businesses. The Home Edition is for consumer use and supercedes Windows Me. Both Windows XP editions include such features as enhanced support for digital media and the new computer sharing capabilities of fast user switching.
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On the server side, the three editions match the current Windows 2000 server configurations: Server; Advanced Server for departmental servers, line-of-business, and Web-enabled applications; and Datacenter Server, for high-availability, mission-critical applications.
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In order to live up to the promise of a system that works equally well for business and consumer use, Windows XP is loaded with new features. Perhaps the most readily apparent is a whole new look, with completely new visuals and larger, high-quality icons that provide a stronger user experience with minimal development cost. Task bar improvements, such as the grouping together of windows of the same application, make it easier to organize information. And there's more underneath, with enhanced power management, side-by-side component sharing, fast user switching, support for high-density displays, Passport integration, easier-to-use balloon notification, and GDI+.
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The primary areas of concern for program migration include: writing for the new UI with the new ComCtl32 version 6, writing for side-by-side sharing, and writing applications that take advantage of Windows XP's fast user switching and remote desktop features, and 64-bit Windows (for more information, read 64-bit Windows Is Almost Here! ).
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The UI - A New Look
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With the release of Windows XP, we see a whole new visual style. Windows XP builds on the desktop themes first introduced in the Windows 95 Plus Pack to provide multiple themes that determine the visual style of the system. Windows XP themes change the way controls, window borders, and menus are drawn.
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The task bar has undergone a complete overhaul. If you have many windows open at one time, so that the buttons are too small, Windows XP will begin to group the buttons. For example, say the user has five Microsoft Word nbsp;documents currently open; rather than having five buttons, you have one. Click it and a menu opens, listing all of the open windows.
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Windows XP itself provides two visual styles: the classic Windows style and the new style that we're calling the Whistler style. On top of that, Windows XP has mechanisms for ISVs to synch with new styles, and as Microsoft adds styles over time that allow for individual preference, the applications you write for Windows XP will have the ability to automatically receive those refinements.
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You're familiar with the classic style, with windows and dialog boxes appearing in the familiar gray, chiseled look. This Windows XP option allows users to keep a familiar interface. The Windows XP Whistler style provides a whole new set of visuals. As much as the new visual style varies from classic windows, however, the overall look and feel is still similar. New to the Windows XP are buttons and tabs that change color when the pointer rolls over them in much the same way as hot spots on a Web page.
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Among other changes, Windows XP features an entirely new user interface.
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Themes & Controls
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With Windows XP, Microsoft has coalesced the User Win32 controls with the common shell controls in ComCtl32 version 6. These new controls use the new theme manager to render the appropriate visuals.
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In earlier 32-bit versions of Windows, some controls are implemented in User32.dll, others in ComCtl32. The rendering of nonclient areas of a window (the border and menus, for example) is done with User32.dll. User32.dll is a core component of the operating system, and thus it is tied to a particular version of that operating system. For Windows 2000 and Windows Me, ComCtl32 is under Windows File Protection, so it can also only be changed with a system update or service pack.
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For previous versions of Windows, ComCtl32 actually shipped with many system components and applications, and it was often a cause of applications failing after another application or system component was installed. Windows XP ships with the same ComCtl32 as the most recent service pack for Windows 2000.
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Windows XP introduces the next direction for Windows component development, based on side-by-side component sharing. Remember that the new themes specify the appearance of controls. To allow for the new look in Windows and to give designers the ability to innovate the visual style of the UI without requiring changes to the core functionality, Microsoft is introducing the theme manager, uxtheme.dll. This new DLL provides rendering support for the new controls and provides information APIs to assist controls in positioning parts. It also renders the new Windows XP visual style for the nonclient areas in all applications, unless they are custom-drawn, including scroll bars and title bars. That means that the theme manager is involved with every application.
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Together with ComCtl32, the theme manager allows us to theme the majority of Windows applications, with a visual flexibility that allows ISV designers to get the new Windows XP look into their application.
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The new ComCtl32 has the potential to break some applications. To prevent this, ComCtl32 version 6 is installed as a shared assembly, side-by-side with ComCtl32 version 5, which is installed in the System32 directory. The new DLL is only available to applications that provide a manifest telling the operating system that they work with the new DLL. If they do not provide a manifest, existing applications continue to use ComCtl32 version 5. Versions 5 and 6 both ship with Windows XP and are installed side-by-side. We'll talk more about manifests in the next section.
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To make sure that your application uses the new visual styles in Windows XP, you need to make sure to link to ComCtl32 and use a manifest to specify the dependency on ComCtl32 version 6. If you have any owner-drawn controls, start asking the uxtheme.dll to draw them, rather than drawing them yourself. You'll need to do this if you want them to feel like the rest of the UI.
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One common reason for creating owner-drawn buttons has been the need to add a bitmap. Now the ComCtl32 version 6 buttons can incorporate developer-supplied bitmaps by associating an image list with the button. Be sure to test your application with a ComCtl32 version 6 manifest and with version 5 whether you are updating your application or writing a new one to see how your windows and dialog boxes look with the new visuals.
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Icons
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Windows XP allows for icons that not only look great, but also include enough detail to present a much more complex and sophisticated message than traditional icons. The new icons support up to 24-bit color depth, and they support an 8-bit mask in the alpha channel. Used in icon, tile, and thumbnail views, these images can be as large as 48 by 48 pixels. By the way, the tile view icons are a great new way of presenting information; the icon comes with two or three lines of annotation, so you can present key information alongside the icon.
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The icon format has not changed, but Microsoft has added support in our imagelist APIs to display these 32-bit icons. In order to correctly author these icons so that they work well in previous versions of Windows, you will need to author multiple images for each icon, as shown below.
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The new icons look better and provide three lines of annotation as well.
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In this example, the first three images are used in 16-color mode for safe mode. The next three icons are used in Windows XP 256-color modes. The final three icons have the alpha channel and should only be used in Windows XP or later operating systems when running in 24-bit color or higher.
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Note that the order of these images in the icon format does matter. If the order is wrong, the icons will cause older version of Windows to function poorly when extracting the icons. This poor performance manifests itself in memory corruption and improper rendering. Also note that previous version of Windows had a 10-icon resource limit, whereas Whistler supports a thousands of icons resources in the icon file.
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One way to think about the new icons: Before, you used a relatively simple tool like Microsoft Paint to create your icons; now you'll find yourself using Photoshop.
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DLL Hell: Side-by-Side Sharing
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The workings of the new UI rely on a side-by-side sharing requirements structure. As a solution for versioning problems and DLL Hell, Microsoft strongly suggests that applications adopt a side-by-side versioning strategy. As seen in the implementation of ComCtl version 6, side-by-side components are the future of Windows development.
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With side-by-side components, multiple versions of a component are installed simultaneously. An application is bound to the version of the component with which it was designed and tested.
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With Windows XP, there's an infrastructure to support assemblies and isolated applications (both COM+ and Win32). A code change should not be required to get at side-by-side assemblies from Win32 applications.
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Additional Features, and Sources of Concern...
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The full range of Windows XP features is beyond the scope of this article, although we can look at a few of them from a development standpoint:
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GDI+ (Graphics Device Interface Plus) is the portion of Microsoft Windows .NET that provides two-dimensional vector graphics, imaging, and typography. GDI+ improves on GDI (the graphics device interface included with earlier versions of Windows) by adding new features and by optimizing existing features.
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64-bit Windows. Microsoft is building Windows XP from one source tree for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. Your application will be 64-bit someday, and we strongly recommend that you start getting your applications ready for 64-bit now.
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Support for high-density displays. New 133-DPI monitors are available now, and 200-DPI monitors are on the way. You'll want to test your applications with 140-DPI fonts and large icons. The Windows XP dialog boxes, buttons, title bars, and speech input are all large font aware. Look for an MSDN article on writing applications for high-density displays in March 2001.
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New Win32 API. New Win32 API have been added to XP. Follow the links below for more information:
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AddVectoredExceptionhandler
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CalcMenuBar
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EnumSystemGeoID
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GetGeoInfo
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GetLayeredWindowAttributes
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GetUserGeoID
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RemoveVectoredExceptionHandler
SetUserGeoID
