Auto Logon in Windows XP

In Windows XP Home and Professional you can make your computer automatically logon as a specified user when the computer starts. This eliminates the need for the user to select a user name and enter a password to logon. You get this auto logon feature if there is only one account on the computer (other than the Admin account) and it has no password.

You might ask yourself why you would want to do this (besides security issues). Well, I setup a computer for a friend of mine and I loaded SpyBot Search & Destroy. I wanted SpyBot to update itself every night. SB sets up a Windows Scheduler job to make this happen. You cannot run a Windows Scheduler job under an account that does not have a password. So I had to add a password to the user's Windows Account. This means they have to logon now. Instead of making my friend have to logon I just followed the instructions below and they were immediately back to auto logon functionality.

These are the steps to make the auto logon feature work on XP Home and Professional:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type control userpasswords2, and then click OK.
3. Clear the "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" check box, and then click Apply.
4. When you click Apply or OK you will get an Automatically Log On window popup. Type the password in the Password box, and then retype the password in the Confirm Password box.
5. Click OK to close the Automatically Log On window, and then click OK to close the User Accounts window.

This information is outlined in a Microsoft KB article - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315231

Cloud Computing

I was talking to a friend of mine last week about the Microsoft Live Mesh platform. He told me about a service named DropBox. I'm new to this cloud computing stuff and haven't tried either of these products, but would like to sync some files across the different computers I use every day. I was going to name this blog post "DropBox vs Live Mesh" but thats not really fair because I haven't used Live Mesh. PC Pro has an interesting Blog Entry on this topic, and I believe its probably pretty accurate.

I checked out DropBox and decided to install it. This program has minimal features but it does everything its supposed to do very well and its really easy to use. It works on Linux, Mac and the PC. On Windows it installs a folder in your My Documents folder and anything dropped into that folder syncs into your cloud and all other computers will automatically get the file. Delete or modify a file and those changes are reflected on all computers as well. You share files and photos with friends too. Theres a folder named Public that allows anyone who knows the secret link to view/download the file. So you send this link to friends via email and they can get the file. This is great for large files or file types that you may not want to send through email. DropBox gives you 2gb of space for free. You can upgrade to 50gb of space for $99 a year. The link I provide here includes my referral code - when you use this link to sign up both you and I will get an extra 250mb of free storage space.

DropBox is very fast too. It only sends the parts of a file that are different over the internet. You may recognize this kind of "delta" processing from using version control systems. If you change part of a 20mb file, only the part you change is uploaded to the cloud and downloaded to the other computers - not the entire 20mb. This makes things quick. I was amazed at the speed of this service.

So I installed DropBox and played with it a little and I really like it. I'm going to use this application. I don't think I need more than 2gb, but maybe I'll become dependent on it and will need to upgrade to the $99 version. Who knows? :) I like simple and well written applications and DropBox is both of these things!

On the other hand we have Microsoft Live Mesh. I decided to hit their web site and take a look at this product. In true Microsoft fashion this product is very polished looking and has great graphics and colors on the web site. It sure looks nice, but I'm skeptical. I never installed it because it really looks complicated and bloated to me (then I read the PC Pro blog and really decided not to try it). As usual MS is trying to do everything in this product and I just don't need all that complexity. So I can't really review Live Mesh, but I can say I decided to stay away from it and use DropBox instead.

Public Files in DropBox - check out this public file I posted in my DropBox Public folder. Its a text file, but happens to be HTML. I haven't dug into all the tips that DropBox has in their Wiki but I think there will be some interesting things we can do with this service if you use your imagination.

Boot Acronis True Image from USB Flash Drive

I have used Acronis True Image since version 7. They went from 7 to 8, 9, 10, 11, then to version "2009". I have 2009 now and I thought it might be nice to have a USB flash drive configured to boot with the Acronis True Image Rescue application. There is a good bit of information out there on how to do this, but I figured I'd post what worked for me. My first attempt worked so I thought I'd share. I found this article on the Acronis Support site which explains how to use the Windows Vista DISKPART utility to make the USB drive bootable. DISKPART is included with Windows so you don't need to download it - you already have it. I actually use Windows XP and although it has a similar DISKPART tool the one in XP doesn't seem to recognize USB drives. So I used a Vista computer to do the DISKPART work. Once I did the DISKPART steps outlined in the Acronis article I went back to my XP machine, started up Acronis True Image and told it to make a rescue media out of the USB flash drive.

I had one desktop computer that would not allow booting from a USB drive. The other desktop required me to change a setting in the BIOS. But booting from the USB drive worked good once I got it all setup.