Did you know that your Windows XP CD-ROM contains many handy utilities you can install? It does - but they're not installed by default. Why? We don't know. But, you can install them anytime you wish - A couple of them like the Duplicate File Finder and Windiff, which lets you compare directories and files are very useful. All you have to do is install them. Here's a list of some of the utilities available on the Windows XP CD (both Home and Professional) and how to install any of them

A few of the more useful utilities are:

dupfinder  - This utility finds duplicate files
windiff  - You can compare files and directories with this nifty utility
netdiag - This utility diagnoses many network problems and components
diruse  - This utility shows disk usage
hostname -  Displays the host name of the computer
getmac  - this one gets the MAC address of the network card - useful for networking
pviewer  - Shows a list of processes - you can get memory detail or kill any process

How To Install any or all of these utilities:

Insert your Windows XP CD-ROM in your CD drive. In the \Support\Tools directory, there are a lot of additional support and troubleshooting utilities, including the ones above. Run SETUP from that directory to install any of them - one at a time of course.
 

---

Bonus Tip!

Create A Shortcut to "Suspend" Your Computer
Windows XP Home and Professional

Did you know you can create a an icon on your desktop you can use to suspend your computer? You can and here's how:

• Right click on the Desktop
• New / Shortcut
• Enter in rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState

Give it whatever name you like - just make sure it's descriptive! Now when you click on that shortcut, your computer will shutdown and suspend. Easy as pi - eh?