Make yourself a user

There are a couple of useful things to do first

Reduce the boot time

Open the System control panel and select the Startup/Shutdown tab. Reduce the "Show list for" item to something reasonable, like 5 seconds. This is the time that the boot loader displays alternative bootable systems.

Make yourself a user

From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, and then User Manager. Select New User from the user menu, and fill in your details. Use the same username and password as you have registered for the departmental NT network. FWIF, my "description" is "5:10', dark hair, malevolent scowl.") Turn "User must change password at next logon" off, and "Password never expires" on. (Few things in life are more irritating than a computer that insists you have to change your password.)

Click on the Groups button, select Administrators, and click on Add. You now have full administrator privileges on your machine (whew!).

Click on the Profile button. Leave User Profile Path and Login Script Name blank, but set Home Directory to c:\. (The standard installation uses d:\users\johnr, but since this is a personal machine, I see little point in using extra levels, especially given how tedious Explorer is to navigate between levels.) If you reboot now and login as yourself, it is easier to log onto ntsww1.

Create directories and customize Start menu

The default Windows setup drives me nuts, so I created the following folders at the top level of the C drive:

• applications: for general-purpose programs, like drawing programs.
• development: for development tools, like Java, Tcl, etc.
• Mail: for my mail files.
• networking: for networking programs, like Ssh, Eudora, and so on.
• public_html: for my Web page.
• temp: for temporary files.
• utility: for utility programs. Note: it is important that the name of this directory be eight characters or less, as some of IBM's driver installers are too stupid to deal with longer directory names.

Right-click on the Start menu button and select Explore. In the Programs folder, add new folders called Applications, Development, Networking, and Shortcuts.