By Mike Hutchison, Tampa PC Users Group
myankee@ij.net

Once again, Microsoft has plunged ahead cramming more features (many of which have dubious utilitarian value to most users) into an operating system before they get the basics fully ironed out. Do you really need your computer to periodically access an Internet time server to see if your system clock and date values conform to the values contained therein? Do you really want to have to go into a dialog box to prevent this from occurring? (If the modification is desired: Double-click the clock on the taskbar, make any changes to date / time as usual, go to the Internet Time tab and clear the Automatically Synchronize with an Internet Time Server check box.) This is a minor feature overload example compared to the Microsoft Management Console (MMC).

The MMC allows the user to manage the machine that the console is running on and remote computers. In rough terms, a console is the basic unit of the MMC’s user interface. Per the Help in the MMC: You can use MMC to create, save, and open administrative tools that manage hardware, software and network components. The MMC can be run on the various Win 9x and Windows NT operating systems. The MMC does not perform administrative functions; it hosts tools that do. There are two general ways you can use the MMC:

The primary type of tool that you can add to a console is called a snap-in. For example: Disk Management is a snap-in that allows the user to manage disks and volumes in a graphical environment. On the Compaq machine which I recently bought, in part hoping that the XP OS would provide greater stability than 98, you go into Control Panel Administrative Tools.

Once in that far, you see shortcuts for Component Services, Data Sources(ODBC), Performance, Computer Management (the MMC), Event Viewer and Services. To get to the Disk Management snap-in, double click Computer Management. Next, expand the Storage category so that Disk Management is displayed. You must log on as the computer administrator or be a member of the Admin's group to use Disk Management. This snap-in can be used to: change drive letters and paths, format disks, create or delete partitions, upgrade basic disks to dynamic disks and eject removable media. Basic disks are disks that contain primary and extended partitions and logical drives, mirrored volumes, striped volumes, spanned volumes and RAID-5 volumes. Dynamic Disks are hard disks that contain dynamic volumes, of which there are five types: simple, spanned, mirrored, striped and RAID-5. Note: Only Windows XP and Windows 200 can access dynamic disks.

Another snap-in is the WMI or Windows Management Instrumentation. The purpose of this is to let you manage your enterprise over the Internet or an intranet. Shared Folders is a MMC snap-in which allows you to view and manage shares on the computer you are using, remote connections to the computer you are using and files that are in use by remote users. I have been told that the nature of many of these features reveals the underlying structure of Windows XP; namely, Windows NT.

Many of the things found in the MMC are repetitions of System Tools familiar to Win 9x users. I guess to boil it down; it seems odd that Microsoft tries to put ultra-power user features into an OS which also includes “cookie cutter” send pictures (or now in XP make your own movie on your PC) of the grandkids, burn CDs, store My Favorite J Lo tunes, junk. I think that if Microsoft took the Home/Professional categorization process just a half to one full step further to include Home Office (or some such designation) it would benefit many users. For instance, in my case they could omit any joy stick / game support, accessibility options, speech capability, etc., and I would be just as happy. Instead, according to a reference book bought to help cope with the new OS (Windows XP Home Edition COMPLETE from Sybex-$19.99), which was also used heavily to jot down these lines, Pro XP has all of the Home Edition features (superfluous or otherwise) and then some.

I would prefer that they see to it that the Wizards for Networking perform as advertised, as just one instance of practical functionality that this user wants as opposed to constantly trying to coerce you into accessing the Net to update Windows.

Footnote with regard to network configuration in Windows XP Home: Norton Internet Security 2002 will put up a roadblock in terms of your network computers seeing each other. So far, the best I can do is set Norton Internet Security so that it does not come on automatically when the machine boots. My three machines then can see other and seem to still see each other if you subsequently put the Internet Security program on, which would seem prudent if you are going to try to access the net from one of the other machines. u