Setting User Permissions in Windows XP

If you have several accounts on a computer running Windows XP Home Edition or Windows XP Professional, you can set specific permissions that limit what certain users can do with certain files or folders. For instance, if you have a really important file and you don’t want your little brother wrecking havoc on it from his user account; you can set a user permission that will prevent that file from being accessed or edited from your little brothers user account.

To set user permissions in Windows XP, you need to reboot in Safe Mode. To do this, click on Start. Then click on Run. The Run window will appear. In the textbox in the Run window type in the following:
Msconfig Then press Enter or click on OK. The Msconfig window will appear. It allows you to configure how your computer runs. Click on the General tab in the Msconfig window if it is not already selected. Under “Startup Selection” click on the little circle next to “Diagnostic Startup.” A little green dot will appear in the circle next to “Diagnostic Startup.” Click on Apply. Then click on OK.

Now your computer is set to startup in Diagnostic Mode, also known as Safe Mode.
Click on Start. Then click on Turn Off Computer. Then click on Restart. When your computer restarts, it will restart in Safe Mode, instead of restarting normally. Safe Mode will look different then Normal Mode in several ways. The cool looking blue and green Windows XP Startbar will be replaced by an old fashioned grey startbar. Your custom desktop background image will be replaced by a boring single color. And windows may appear really large since Safe Mode operates in low resolution. Don’t worry; your computer will be back to normal once you restart in Normal Mode.

So, if a login screen appears when Safe Mode loads, click on any account with Administrative rights. In some version of Windows XP, only accounts with administrative rights will be listed in the Safe Mode login screen. Once logged in, double click on My Computer or right click on Start and then left click on Explore to access Windows Explorer. Then go to whatever file or folder you want to set user permissions for. Then left click on Properties. The Properties window will appear. In the Properties window, click on the Security tab. You’ll see a list of the user accounts on your computer, and underneath those user accounts you’ll see a list of user permissions. First click on a user account that you want to set permissions for. Look at the list of permissions. Next to each permission are boxes under the Allow Column and under the Deny Column. If there’s a check mark in a box under the Allow Column, then the permission listed
to the left of the box is allowed. If there’s a check mark in a box under the Deny Column, then the permission listed to the left of the box is denied (not allowed). For each permission listed, click on an empty box under the Allow Column to allow the permission. Or click on a checked box under the Deny Column to allow the permission. If you don’t want to allow permission, just click on an empty box underneath the Deny Column to deny the permission. Or you can click on a checked box under the Allow column to deny the permission. When you are done setting user permissions, click on Apply and then click on OK. Then go to any other files or folders you want to set user permissions for and use this same process to set user permissions for those files or folders.

When you are all done setting user permissions, it’s time to restart your computer in Normal Mode. To do this, click on Start. Then click on Run. The Run window will appear. In the textbox in the Run window type in the following:

Msconfig Then press Enter or click on OK. The Msconfig window will appear. It allows you to configure how your computer runs. Click on the General tab in the Msconfig window if it is not already selected. Under “Startup Selection” click on the little circle next to “Normal Startup.” A little green dot will appear in the circle next to “Normal Startup.” Click on Apply. Then click on OK.

Now click on Start. Then click on Turn Off Computer. Then click on Restart. Your computer should restart normally.

How to find the IP address of the email sender in Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail, AOL, Outlook Express, etc

When you receive an email, you receive more than just the message. The email comes with headers that carry important information that can tell where the email was sent from and possibly who sent it. For that, you would need to find the IP address of the sender. The tutorial below can help you find the IP address of the sender.

Note that this will not work if the sender uses anonymous proxy servers.

Also, note that if you receive an email sent from a Gmail account through the web browser, you may not be able to find the real IP address because Google hides the real IP address of the sender. However, if someone sends you a mail from his/her Gmail account using a client like Thunderbird, Outlook or Apple Mail, you can find the originating IP address.

Lets begin this. First of all, the IP address is generally found in the headers enclosed beween square brackets, for instance, [129.130.1.1]

■finding IP address in Gmail
■finding IP address in Yahoo! Mail
■finding IP address in Hotmail
■finding IP address in AOL
■finding IP address in Outlook/Outlook Express

Finding IP address in Gmail 1.Log into your Gmail account with your username and password.
2.Open the mail.
3.To display the email headers,
■Click on the inverted triangle beside Reply. Select Show Orginal.
4.You may copy the headers and use my IP address detection script to ease the process. Or if you want to manually find the IP address, proceed to 5.
5.Look for Received: from followed by the IP address between square brackets [ ].
Received: from [69.138.30.1] by web31804.mail.mud.yahoo.com6.If you find more than one Received: from patterns, select the last one.
7.Track the IP address of the sender
Finding IP address in Yahoo! Mail1.Log into your Yahoo! mail with your username and password.
2.Click on Inbox or whichever folder you have stored your mail.
3.Click on the Subject of the email you want to track and right-click. You should get a menu like this.

4.You may copy the headers and use my IP address detection script to ease the process. Or if you want to manually find the IP address, proceed to the next step.
5.Look for Received: from followed by the IP address between square brackets [ ].
That should most likely be the IP address of the sender.
If there are many instances of Received: from with the IP address, select the IP address in the last pattern. If there are no instances of Received: from with the IP address, select the first IP address in X-Originating-IP.
6.Track the IP address of the sender
Finding IP address in Hotmail Hotmail has been integrated with Windows Live, or vice-versa. And the format has changed. Here is how you find the IP address of the sender.

1.Log into your Hotmail/Windows Live account with your username and password.
2.Click on the Inbox link on the left.
3.Under the column that says "Sort by", find the email that you want to track and right-click on it. You should get a menu that has something like Mark as read, Mark as unread, and so on. The last option in the menu should be View message source. Select it.

4.You should see the email headers now.
5.You may copy the headers and use my IP address detection script to ease the process. Or if you want to manually find the IP address, proceed to step 6.
6.If you find a header with X-Originating-IP: followed by an IP address, that is the sender's IP address
7.If that doesn't work, look for Received: from followed by IP address within square brackets[].
8.* If you have multiple Received: from headers, eliminate the ones that have proxy.anyknownserver.com.
9.Track the IP address of the sender
Finding IP address in AOL1.Log into your AOL Mail AIM account with your username and password.
2.Open the email that you want to track.
3.On the top row, click on Action and in the drop-down menu, select View Message Source

4.It opens a new page with the headers. Once you have the headers, look for the IP address that follows X-AOL-IP:. That should be the IP address of the sender.
5.Track that IP address of the sender
IP Address Detection ScriptI wrote a Perl script to automate this task for you. All you have to do is select your email service and copy your email headers in the box below.

You may do one of the following:

■You can copy all the headers from your email and paste them here.
In this case, the unnecessary headers (like Subject:) will be removed automatically.

■You can remove all headers except those beginning with
■X-Originating-IP:
■Received:
Enter your email headers below

Select your email service Yahoo! mail Hotmail Gmail

How To Use the Group Policy Editor to Manage Local Computer Policy in Windows XP

Uses of Group Policy
In Microsoft Windows XP, you use Group Policy to define user and computer configurations for groups of users and computers. You create a specific desktop configuration for a particular group of users and computers by using the Group Policy Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in. The Group Policy settings that you create are contained in a Group Policy Object (GPO), which is in turn associated with selected Active Directory containers, such as sites, domains, or organizational units (OUs). With the Group Policy snap-in you can specify policy settings for the following:
Registry-based policies.
These include Group Policy for the Windows XP operating system and its components and for programs. To manage these settings, use the Administrative Templates node of the Group Policy snap-in.
Security options.
These include options for local computer, domain, and network security settings.
Software installation and maintenance options.
These are used to centrally manage program installation, updates, and removal.
Scripts options.
These include scripts for computer startup and shutdown, and user logon and logoff.
Folder redirection options.
These allow administrators to redirect users' special folders to the network.
With Group Policy, you can define the state of users' work environment once and rely on the system to enforce the policies that you define.


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How to Start the Group Policy Editor
To start the group policy editor, follow these steps.

NOTE: You must be logged on to the computer using an account that has administrator privileges in order to use Group Policy Editor.
Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type mmc, and then click OK.
On the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap-in.
Click Add.
Under Available Stand-alone Snap-ins, click Group Policy, and then click Add.
If you do not want to edit the Local Computer policy, click Browse to locate the group policy object that you want. Supply your user name and password if prompted, and then when you return to the Select Group Policy Object dialog box, click Finish.

NOTE: You can use the Browse button to locate group policy objects linked to sites, domains, organizational units (OU), or computers. Use the default Group Policy Object (GPO) (Local Computer) to edit the settings on the local computer.
Click Close, and then in the Add/Remove Snap-in dialog box, click OK.

The selected GPO is displayed in the Console Root.
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How to Use the Group Policy Editor
The Group Policy snap-in contains the following major branches:
Computer Configuration
Administrators can use Computer Configuration to set policies that are applied to computer, regardless of who logs on to the computers. Computer Configuration typically contains sub-items for software settings, Windows settings, and administrative templates.
User Configuration
Administrators can use User Configuration to set policies that apply to users, regardless of which computer they log on to. User Configuration typically contains sub-items for software settings, Windows settings, and administrative templates.
To use the group policy editor, follow these steps:
Expand the GPO that you want. For example, Local Computer Policy.
Expand the configuration item that you want. For example, Computer Configuration.
Expand the sub-item that you want. For example, Windows Settings.
Navigate to the folder that contains the policy setting that you want. The policy items are displayed in the right pane on the Group Policy Editor snap-in.

NOTE: If no policy is defined for the selected item, right-click the folder that you want and then on the shortcut menu that appears, point to All Tasks, and then click the command that you want. The commands that are displayed on the All Tasks submenu are context sensitive. Only those commands that are applicable to the selected policy folder appear on the menu.
In the Setting list, double-click the policy item that you want.

NOTE: When you work with policy items in the Administrative Templates folder, click the Extended tab in the right pane of the MMC if you want to view more information about the selected policy item.
Edit the settings of the policy in the dialog box that appears, and then click OK.
When you are finished, quit the MMC.
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Example
The following example illustrates the use of the Group Policy Editor to customize the Windows XP user interface. In this example, we will use the Group Policy Editor to temporarily remove the Turn Off Computer button from the Start menu. To do this, follow these steps:
Start the Group Policy Editor and open the Local Computer policy by using the steps provided in the How to Start the Group Policy Editor section of this article.

NOTE: You can start the Group Policy Editor snap-in from the command line. This automatically loads the Local Computer GPO. To do this, follow these steps:
Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type Gpedit.msc, and then click OK.
Expand User Configuration (if it is not already expanded).
Under User Configuration, expand Administrative Templates.
Click Start Menu and Taskbar.
In the right pane, double-click Remove and disable the Turn Off Computer button.
Click Enabled, and then click Apply.
Click Start.

Notice that the Turn Off Computer button is no longer displayed.
Select the Remove and disable the Turn Off Computer button Properties dialog box.
Click Not Configured, then click Apply, and then click OK.
Click Start.

Notice that the Turn Off Computer button is again displayed on the Start menu.
Quit the Group Policy Editor snap-in.