Administering Microsoft’s server-oriented Windows operating systems can sometimes seem like living on the edge of river that’s prone to flooding. You ford the effluvia after each new flood, picking through the detritus for what’s worth keeping, and leaving the useless bits lying in the muck. Then, when you have everything shipshape again, the next new release comes along. System administrators find themselves grappling with new concepts and just when they’ve mastered one set of changes, another comes along and suddenly they’re scrambling once again to get up to speed.

One source of help for the beleaguered system administrator has always been the technical book market; each major operating system release has always been accompanied by books written to support it. But Jonathan Hassell, author of Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide, reflects on an interesting phenomenon: “Over the years, many of these books have become as complex, and have accumulated as much detritus, as the operating systems they explain,” he says. Bookstores are filled with 1200-plus page volumes that lead you through how things worked in the last four versions of the operating system. And Hassell’s belief is that you don’t need all that information to get your work done effectively.

“It was in this spirit that I set out to write Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide, he says. “I have trimmed the content of this volume to include just enough background on a subject for you to understand how different features and systems work in this version of Windows. I want you to come away from reading sections with a firm understanding of what’s happening under the hood of the system, but without the sense that you’re taking a graduate course in OS theory.” Most of all, he has written the book to be a practical guide that helps sys admins get their jobs done: “here’s how it works; here’s how to do it.”

The book offers step-by-step procedures for using all of the major components of Windows Server 2008, along with discussions on complex concepts such as Active Directory replication, DFS namespaces and replication, network access protection, the Server Core edition, Windows PowerShell, server clustering, and more. Simply put, this is the most thorough reference available for Windows Server 2008, with complete guides to:

• Installing the server in a variety of different environments
• File services and the Windows permission structure
• How the domain name system (DNS) works
• Active Directory, including its logical and physical structure, hierarchical components, scalability, and replication
• Group Policy’s structure and operation
• Managing security policy with predefined templates and customized policy plans
• Architectural improvements, new features, and daily administration of IIS 7
• Terminal Services from both the administrator’s user’s point of view
• Networking architecture including DNS, DHCP, VPN, RADIUS server, IAS, and IPSec
• Windows clustering services — applications, grouping machines, capacity and network planning, user account management
• Windows PowerShell scripting and command-line technology

The clock in the Vista System Tray can be configured to display the time in different formats. Some individuals may prefer or may even be required to use military time. If so, switching the time format is very simple to do.

To switch to military time in Vista:

1. Open the Control Panel and open Regional and Language Options. You can also type intl.cpl in the Start Menu Search field.
2. From the Regional and Language Options window, click the Customize this format button.
3. Click the Time tab.
4. Use the drop down arrow to change the time format to :HH:mm:ss.
5. Click OK.

The Notification Area, located in the bottom corner of your desktop, displays several icons, some of which you may never use. You can clean up the Notification Area in Vista by removing such icons.

To remove an icon from the Notification Area in Vista:

1. Right click an empty area of the notification area and click Properties.
2. The dialog box that appears allows you to show or hide the system icons.
3. Click the Customize button to show or hide non-system icons.
4. Locate the program icon you want to remove from the notification area.
5. Use the drop down arrow beside the program and click Hide.
6. Click OK.

The icon for the particular program you selected in the above steps will no longer appear in the notification area.

Some people may want to increase the default font size in Vista, possibly to help overcome visual impairments. Vista makes it simple for users to increase the font size to suit their individual preferences and physical needs.

In a previous tip, I showed you how to increase the font size in Vista. If you are an XP user, you can still increase the font size but the steps to do so are slightly different.

To increase the font size in XP:

1. Right click a blank part of the desktop.
2. Click the Properties option.
3. From the Display Properties dialog box, click the Settings tab.
4. Click the Advanced button.
5. Click the drop down arrow under DPI setting and click the Large size (120 dpi) option.
6. Click OK twice.

Some people may want to increase the default font size in Vista, possibly to help overcome visual impairments. Vista makes it simple for users to increase the font size to suit their individual preferences and physical needs.

To increase the font size in Vista:

1. Right click a blank part of the desktop.
2. Click the Personalize option.
3. On the left hand menu, click the Adjust Font Size (DPI) option.
4. Select Larger Scale (120dpi).
5. Click OK.

Bulgarian Gnomie Nik writes:

Hello, Chris. My name is Nik (aka K915 on YouTube and in the chat room). I would like to present my top five things to do to make Windows faster and more reliable. I know there are a lot of videos and materials about this out there (you probably even have a video covering this topic), but still I decided to share my little experience with you and the people on YouTube.

1. Increase the virtual RAM. It’s also called the paging file — and believe me, it plays a big role. It acts like RAM for applications, including games and programs. You can expand it to whatever size you want, but it also depends on the size of your hard drive. I use a 40 GB hard (yes, I’m looking forward to upgrading it) and I’ve set up the maximum for the paging file: 1900 MB. I’ve tested the Windows performance lots of times with little virtual RAM and with the maximum capacity, and there is a big difference in a very good way.

2. Windows visual effects must go! Switch off all the visual effects, dragging windows with contents, mouse shade, and so on. These take RAM and slow down the process of other programs. This is very useful for Windows XP and Vista.
3. If you are an experienced user, you can edit the registry entries to make things faster. There are delays for minimizing windows, program starting, and even the Start menu. For example, did you notice that you have to wait some time to bring up the Start menu? Yes, you have. It’s a matter of milliseconds, but when you edit most of the stuff to work without delay you can see good results.
4. Keep the registry clean! A messy registry with unnecessary and useless keys is a very bad thing! Cleaning it up and sorting it can prove to be very effective. But be careful — registry entries are not to be played with, so this tip is recommended for medium-level users. There are also a lot of programs on the Web to do that for you.
5. Disable the Windows sounds! Sure you can listen to music, but Windows Startup, Shutoff, and Logon sounds take time to load and play. My advice is to get all the Windows sounds disabled. That way the sound doesn’t play before you start and program, and there’s no delay.
6. Bonus: Always use CPU-friendly programs. For example, don’t run many chat clients separately; they take a lot of CPU. Why have WLM , Yahoo! Messenger, and ICQ all started when you can have Miranda and use them all in one program? Switch off unnecessary programs that you don’t use at the moment.

Gnomie Chuck writes:

Chris,

This may be better addressed in “Diana’s Tips” but I am sending you the request just in case. We currently have three users set up on my computer and because it is located in the central part of the house, all three of us use the computer on a very regular basis. Here is my problem:

Using Windows Vista, we change between users very often. When we click the Windows icon (in the bottom left corner) and slide the cursor over to the arrow on the right of the window that pops up, we often mistakenly select “shut down” instead of scrolling up to “switch user.” Obviously we then have to go through a whole shut down sequence and then turn the computer back on. Is there a way to tweak the order of that pop up window so switch user can be located to the bottom of this list?

I believe our old XP operating system had the “switch user” at the bottom of the list, so we were quite used to that arrangement and now we are having trouble getting used the new configuration.

I know this a pretty trivial request but I figure that if anyone can find a fix for this it would be you or your readers. Keep up the good work on your site and emailed newsletters.

Gnomie Sam Horne writes:

Have you ever decided that you want quick access to system programs that dont give you the option of installing quick launch shortcuts when you wish that you could? Say, if you wanted to have quicker access to your volume mixer? Well, there is a quick and simple way of doing it.

Open up your volume mixer, then right click on the taskbar and go to task manager. When task manager comes up, make sure you’re on applications, then right-click on volume mixer and click on “go to process.” Once on the process, note down the .exe file name (in this case, SndVol.exe). Then click on your start button and type in the program file name, and it will show up. You then have to drag it into your quick launch icons and place it where you like.

If you want to have a keyboard shortcut for the quick launch of your program of choice, put it within the first 9 quick launch buttons. A WINDOWS +1 shortcut is for the first designated quick launch (second quick launch button equals WINDOWS +2, etc.). So there you have a quick launch shortcut for a system program of your choice! Now enjoy getting to those programs that hide in the corner much more quickly!

One of the easy ways of launching applications is to use the Run command. For example, if you want to launch the calculator, simply open the Run command and type ‘calc’. If you wanted to open Microsoft Word, simply type in winword, press Enter and the program opens.

You can customize the name used to open an application. For example, instead of having to type winword you could type in “Word.” This can be accomplished in a few simply steps. Using the Microsoft Word example:

1. Locate winword.exe in the Program Files\Microsoft Office directory. Right click the executable and click Create Shortcut.
2. Right click the shortcut and click cut.
3. Locate the Windows directory and paste the shortcut in here.
4. Right click the shortcut and choose rename.
5. Type in the name you want to use to open the application, such as Word, and press Enter.
6. You can now open the Run command and type in Word instead of winword to launch Microsoft Word.

A shortcut is a pointer to a file or application that is stored in another location. When you create a shortcut, you will notice the icon has a small arrow in the corner. This little arrow indicates that the icon is indeed a shortcut.

Here is a tip that lets you remove the shortcut arrow and it works with all versions of Windows. A word of caution before you proceed since it does require making changes to the registry. Do so carefully and create a backup of your registry before you begin.

To completely remove the shortcut arrow, open the registry and delete the Isshortcut from the following three keys:

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\piffile
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InternetShortcut

Once you’ve made the change Windows no longer considers shortcuts to be shortcuts and the shortcut arrow will no longer appear.

Normally when you want to launch the Run command, you have to do so from the Start Menu. This is obviously not difficult or time consuming since it only takes a few clicks. However, you can speed up the process and reduce the number of clicks required to open the command by one or two by placing a shortcut on your desktop or Quick Launch toolbar.

To do so, click the Start Menu, click the Run command and while holding down your mouse button, drag it onto your desktop or onto the Quick Launch toolbar. I prefer to place the shortcut on the Quick Launch toolbar to avoid a cluttered desktop. In any case, a shortcut will now be available to launch the Run command.