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The Pop-Up Blocker is nice, but you may want to tweak it a bit.

There are a few new features worth noting in Internet Explorer. One is the new Pop-Up Blocker. Blocking pop-ups protects you from malicious websites that either reset your home page or, worse, install a program or obtain  information about you from your computer unwillingly. Having a pop-up blocker is simply a nice feature, too, because it blocks unwanted ads. Unfortunately, the new Pop-Up Blocker can also cause problems. Many web sites use pop-up dialog boxes to allow you to log in, input registration information, print receipts, or display videos or other information. If you visit such a web site, you can make an exception for that web site and still keep the Pop-Up Blocker enabled. By default, the Pop-Up Blocker is enabled. You can disable it easily, or tweak it to disable it for specific web sites:

1. To disable the Pop-Up Blocker completely, in Internet Explorer,

select Tools | Internet Options and click the Privacy tab. Uncheck

Block Pop-Ups. Click OK.

2. If you have not disabled the Pop-Up Blocker but simply want to

tweak it to allow specific sites to offer pop-ups, in Internet Explorer,

click Tools | Internet Options and then click the Privacy tab.

3. Under Pop-Up Blocker, click Settings to open the Pop-Up Blocker

Settings dialog box.

4. Type or paste in the Address Of Web Site To Allow list box the URL

of the web site you want to allow pop-ups for. (If you type it, as you

start to type, autocomplete will offer previously viewed sites.)

5. Click Add to add the site to the Allowed Sites list.

6. At the bottom of the dialog box, you can also identify what should

happen when a pop-up is blocked.

7. Click Close and then click OK after you have made your configurations.

Service Pack 2 applies lots of changes to both Internet Explorer and Outlook Express regarding security and privacy. However, many of these changes were created with application developers and corporate administrators in mind, not the average power user. For the most part, what you’ll be interested in is how to get applications to work the way they did before SP2 was installed. For instance, you’ll be unable to open attachments in Outlook Express until you reconfigure some settings, and you might have trouble downloading files in Internet Explorer until you enable the Automatic Prompting For File Downloads option in Security Settings. Thus, this section touches on some of the new features while focusing on managing the new settings.

Microsoft’s latest upgrade to Windows XP is called Service Pack 2. Its main purpose is to keep your computer and your personal privacy as secure as humanly and technologically possible. It offers security enhancements to Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, as well as an enhanced, automatic firewall (a little more about this later) that blocks pop- up ads and helps guard against Internet threats like viruses and spyware. Service Pack 2 has a new Security Center in Control Panel, and a new applet for setting up a wireless network. If for some reason you haven’t yet downloaded, obtained, or installed Service Pack 2, it’s time to do so. Once installed, you can safely join your friends, family, and coworkers on the Internet without worrying about the latest security threats.

HOW TO GET SERVICE PACK 2

There are multiple ways to obtain Service Pack 2, including the easiest, which is to let the update download automatically through Windows XP’s Automatic Updates feature. It’s a huge file, a whopping 272MB, so it’s configured such that the download will pick up where it left off if you get disconnected or log off. This is a great way to get the update if you have an “always on” connection to the Internet. Besides automatic updates, though, which won’t work for those who aren’t online very often or who have a dial-up connection, there are other options. SP2 also can be obtained from Microsoft’s Windows Update website, it can be ordered on a CD-ROM and shipped to your home, or it can be installed by a technician at your local computer store.

In this section, you’ll learn the best way to get SP2 no matter what kind of setup you have. If you’re on dial-up, the CD-ROM is probably the best option for you. You won’t have to worry about being online long enough to get it, or keep track of how much of it you’ve received, or if it will install properly once it’s on your hard drive. If you’re not online very often, perhaps because your computer is a laptop, or because you just don’t use the computer that much, purchasing the CD is a good option too. However, there are other options besides paying for the CD. Anyone with a valid and licensed copy of Windows XP can go to the Windows Update web site and manually download SP2. If you have the time, this is a good option. You can also choose any other updates that you’d like to install, such as updated drivers or other optional updates. A final option is to take your computer to a computer store and let a technician install it. It won’t be free, but at least you’ll know it’ll be done correctly! Let’s look at all of these options in detail. If you don’t know if you have SP2 or not, right-click My Computer and check the General tab. It will be noted in the information there.

Check to see if the Indexing Service is running on your computer.

The Indexing Service is available from the Computer Management console, and you can use this console to configure, control, and query the service. As mentioned earlier, the Indexing Service is not necessary for the average home user, and may be running in the background unnecessarily, using system resources.

To open this console and access the service to see if it’s running:

1. Right-click My Computer and choose Manage. The My Computer

icon is probably on the desktop and/or the Start menu.

2. Under Computer Management (Local), expand Services And

Applications.

3. Click Indexing Service.  (Notice

that the items under the Indexing Service are also expanded in this

screen shot. This is simply for reference later.)

If you don’t see anything in the Size column (on the title bar in the rightpane) or any of the other columns to the right of it, the service is not running. To start the service, click Action | Start. (You can also use the DVD-type icons

on the menu bar.) To stop the service, right-click Indexing Service and click Stop.The items directly under the Indexing Service are the catalogs. Catalogs hold the indexed information. By default, there is one, System.You can add additional catalogs from the Action menu. The System catalog has two subfolders, Directories and Properties, and an option to query the catalog. Directories are created when the indexing is done, and can include folders for Documents and Settings and for entire drives. You can create new directories from the Action menu. including information such as the date the document was created, the author name, the document’s size, and more. If you decide that you can use and benefit from the Indexing Service, you’ll want to learn quite a bit more about it. To

do so, in the Computer Management console, select Indexing Service and click Help | Help Topics.

If you decide to use the Indexing Service, you’ll want to learn the ways to query it.

To locate a specific document on your hard drive, you use the Indexing Service’s query language. Using this language, you can search for documents based on specific words in the document, or even phrases. You can search by author name, document size, or even the document’s ActiveX properties, such as its summary. There are five types of queries:

■ Free-text You input single words or a group of words, such as

a sentence. The Indexing Service finds documents with the same

meaning, and not necessarily the exact sentence. Think of it as

searching using a web engine, without using quotation marks around

your search words.

2

■ Phrase You input a phrase you believe to be in a document. Putting

quotes around this tells the service to locate the exact phrase.

■ Pattern-matching You input wildcards, denoted by asterisks, to

tell the service you want to search for files that contain patterns.

For instance, you can search for *.xls to locate all of the Microsoft

Excel spreadsheet files on the computer.

■ Relational You input the words you want to search for, and then

add Boolean operators such as And, Or, Not, Near, and =. The results

are sorted in relation to how you input the operators.

■ Vector space You input specific words or phrases you want to find

in a document, and then decide how much “weight” you want each

of the words or phrases to be assigned. There is no easy way to input

this information, and queries look something like this:

book, {weight value=.3} cover, {weight value=.3} Hard Core,

{weight value=.4}

Once you’ve decided on what type of query you want, you need to input it. You can search using the query language from the Search option or from inside the Computer Management console. Since you’re likely already in the console, you can practice from there. You need to know some rules before you get started, many of which are also applied when searching with a web browser and looking for something on the Internet:

■ The search data you input is not case sensitive.

■ Some words are automatically omitted from searches, and they are

all common words: all, as, be, but, did, he, them, to, too, very, and

your.

■ If you must use a character in a query, such as &, #, or @ (and there

are others), enclose those in parentheses so the service does not think

they are operators or wildcards.

■ The best form in which to input dates and times is yyyy/mm/dd and

hh:mm:ss.

■ You can use tags to construct queries, which are indicated by braces,

{ }. Tags are used in long form queries; when tags are not used, it is

referred to as the short form.

■ The @ sign is used to introduce a phrase query. Examples are

@filename=*.xls (all file names created with Microsoft Excel or

with that file extension), @DocTitle“Hard Core XP” (any file with

the title Hard Core XP).

■ & means and, | means or, and ! means not. These symbols are used

in Boolean queries such as hard & core (contains both words), book |

cover (contains either word), and book ! picture (contains book but

not picture).

The Indexing Service Query Language is quite complex, and what I’ve introduced here is only the beginning. To see more details regarding this language, consult the Windows XP Help and Support pages.

The Indexing Service is another service that ships with Windows XP that is likely not needed. The Indexing Service indexes documents by their properties and stores the information in a catalog, a type of database. Once your documents are indexed, you can use the Indexing Service to search those documents using their specific attributes. Searching can be done from the Search option or through your web browser. While this service can be quite helpful and convenient for those who need it, it won’t offer much to the average home user, and will instead slow down the performance of the computer when it gets on its indexing jag. However, if you feel this service will benefit you or your business, by all means give it a shot.

Earlier, in “Stop Unwanted XP Services,” I suggested removing and then disabling the Indexing Service. However, I also suggested that you wait until after you’ve read this section, just in case it looks like something you’d be interested in. If you already uninstalled the service, it can be just as easily reinstalled using the Add Or Remove Programs applet in Control Panel.

Speech Recognition should be removed if it isn’t being used.

Speech Recognition is a text service that ships with Windows XP that allows you to use a input device, such as a microphone, to speak text rather than type it in. As with Handwriting Recognition, if you aren’t using any handwriting devices, you should remove this option, since it requires computer memory and other resources and may affect performance.

To remove Speech Recognition:

1. Click Start | Control Panel | Regional And Language Options.

(If you’re in Category view, you’ll need to select Date, Time,

Language, And Regional Options first.)

2. On the Languages tab, under Text Services And Input Languages,

click Details.

3. Under Installed Services, select Speech Recognition for each

language for which it is not needed (you may only have one

language configured), and click Remove.

Handwriting Recognition should be removed if it isn’t being used.

Handwriting Recognition is a text service that ships with Windows XP that allows you to use an input device, such as a digital pen and tablet, to enter text by writing it on the tablet rather than typing it in. Other devices include mouse pads you can write on or tablet PCs. If you aren’t using any handwriting devices, you should remove this option.

To remove Handwriting Recognition:

1. Click Start | Control Panel | Regional And Language Options.

(If you’re in Category view, you’ll need to select Date, Time,

Language, And Regional Options first.)

2. On the Languages tab, under Text Services And Input Languages,

click Details. Clicking Details opens the Text Services And Input

Languages dialog box.

3. Under Installed Services, select Handwriting Recognition for each

language for which it is not needed (you may only have one

language configured), and click Remove.(If you

don’t have any option to remove Handwriting Recognition, you

never installed it.)

If you are tired of reporting errors to Microsoft or being prompted to, turn that service off.

When an application error occurs with your computer, Windows XP tries to send an error report to Microsoft; it asks for your permission with an annoying little pop-up box that you’ve probably seen. You can disable or stop this service to prevent the box from appearing, and to stop the reporting of errors. If you’re into your privacy, or just want a little peace and quiet, disable or stop the Error Reporting Service:

1. From the Services console, double-click Error Reporting Service.

(Remember, in Windows XP Home, the Services console can be

opened by clicking Start | Search and searching for and opening

the Administrative Tools folder, in which you click Services. In

Windows XP Professional, you can open Administrative Tools from

the All Programs list.)

2. To stop the service, on the General tab, click Stop.

3. To disable the service, on the General tab, in the Startup Type

options, click Disable.

4. Click Apply, and then click OK.

Disable or stop Automatic Updates to increase resources for high-performance tasks.

Automatic Updates are Windows XP’s way of keeping your computer up-to-date, in the background, by automatically checking for, downloading, and even installing updates that Microsoft releases. It’s best to leave this setting on Automatic, but if you want to increase performance for a computer used for gaming or other high-performance needs, you can disable (or stop) Automatic Updates.

To disable Automatic Updates:

1. In the Services console, double-click Automatic Updates.

2. To stop the service temporarily, on the General tab, click Stop.

3. To disable the service, on the General tab, in the Startup Type

options, click Disable.

4. Click OK.

If you have multiple profiles created, for instance a gaming profile, you can disable services for that specific profile only. If you do use your computer for gaming, you’ll probably want to disable as many services as possible for the best performance possible. To disable a service for a specific hardware profile, click the Log On tab in Step 3, select the profile to apply the change to, and click Disable.