Hide in the (Network) Neighborhood

Don't want your XP computer to show up in the network browse list (Network Neighborhood/My Network Places) to other users on your network? One way to accomplish that is to disable file sharing. To do this, click Start, right click My Network Places and select Properties. Right click your local area connection and click Properties. Uncheck the box that says File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks. Click OK.

But what if you want to be able to share folders with some users; you just don't want everyone on the network to see your computer's shares? There's a way:

Click Start and select Run.
In the Run box, type net config server /hidden:yes
Click OK.
Now others who know the UNC path (\\computer name\share name) can connect to your computer's shares from the Run box, but it won't show up in the network browse list.

Slow Opening Of File Dialogs

An intermittent slowdown opening file dialogs or Windows Explorer listings is often caused by a mapped network drive. You can select Map Network Drive from Windows Explorer's Tools menu to make a drive or a folder on a remote PC appear as a simple drive letter on your computer. This will let you access that drive or folder as if it were a local drive. After a restart, Windows reestablishes the connection when it's needed—for example, when you open the drop-down box that displays a tree containing My Computer and all drives below it. This initial connection can sometimes be slow the first time in a session. If the remote PC is not accessible, each attempt to display the folder tree may be slowed. Most likely the reason that some of your file-open dialogs are slow and some aren't lies in their initial display mode.

If the inconvenience of this slowdown outweighs the convenience of having a mapped network drive, simply click on Tools in Windows Explorer's menu and select Disconnect Network Drive. Select the drive to disconnect and click on OK.



WISE WORDS:Coming events cast their shadows before.