Okay, what folks usually do on an NT domain network is this:

- Everyone on the network has regular "User" privileges. They are all members of the Domain Users group.

- On a local NT box, they can add their domain user account into that box's local Administrators group so that they have regular User privileges on the network, but Administrator privileges over their local box.

- For instance, let's say our domain is named "Domain". Suppose there is an account of "Domain\JoeBlow" in the Domain Users. When he sets up a new NT box named "JoeBlowsComputer", he logs in temporarily as "JoeBlowsComputer\Administrator" and adds "Domain\JoeBlow" to the Administrators group on JoeBlowsComputer. So later, when he logs into the box as "Domain\JoeBlow", he can install software etc., while still having regular privileges on the network.

- This procedure is done in the Windows NT "User Manager", which in 2000/XP is now the "Local Users And Groups" MMC snap-in, but it's essentially the same tool.

- Note that to do this procedure, he doesn't need to be a Domain administrator. His box needs the trust relationship with the domain, but let's assume that's already been done. He only needs to be a local administrator in order to modify the local box's security accounts.

All right. All well and this all works as it's expected to work for NT and 2000.

But just now I ran into the most irritating bug in XP, and it made me so angry that I had to share it.

In XP, if you try to add "Domain\JoeBlow" via the "Local Users And Groups" snap-in, it gives you all sorts of strange errors in this situation. Complains that you can't log in twice, you don't have permissions to do that, etc. A bunch of stuff is grayed out, it won't let you see the list of users in "Domain", etc.

One of my users spent a couple hours this morning trying to get this to work. I sat down at her XP computer and verified she was doing everything right. At least, she would have been doing everything right if this were NT or 2000. But XP was f*cked up six ways from Sunday.

Then, on a whim, instead of picking the "Local Computer Management" icon and choosing "Local Users And Groups", I picked a different icon related to user management, buried somewhere in that new incomprehensible menu of theirs. I assumed it would bring up the same old "Local Users And Groups" snap-in. It didn't. Instead, up came a wizard-like interface which asked me if I wanted to add a user. I said yes, picked the user from a list for the domain (the list that the other screen refused to give me), told it to add it to the local Administrators group, and bingo, there it was.

Son of a bitch. And to add insult to injury, that user now properly appears in the "Local Users And Groups" snap-in, which is what I was trying to make it do from the beginning. Literally, this stupid AOL-OS wizard-thingy let me do the exact same thing that the MMC snap-in wouldn't let me do. The EXACT same thing.

I hate XP.

Ahh, another enlightened soul. People wonder why I run Windows 2000 and Mac OS X. Well, here is another reason. (And I have run into this one personally when I tried XP out to make sure it was crap. Though I'm probably one of the few people with a fully functional domain at his house).

I am an early adopter. I used XP for a bit and had to switch back to 2000. There is something really wrong with that OS and all the wizards. Windows2000 is very stable and very good. Next to WindowsXP, 2000 is a masterpiece.

Any clues as to why Word 2002 takes for-freakin'-ever to open a document already on my XP system? It hangs at "Requesting virus scan" for 10 munutes, literally 10 MINUTES! But when I open a .doc from an email attachment, it pops right open.
Also printing does the same, the printer is on another PC (Win98) on the home net because it wouldn't print when directly connected to the XP. It kept erroring and sending me to the useless troubleshooter. So printing takes 10 minutes as well as connecting to the other computers on the home net. Other boxes (98 and Me) connecting to the XP are fast though... It drives me nuts. Any suggestions? It didn't do this when I first built the box, only after doing recommended Windows updates...

In the past, when earlier versions of Word took a long time to open documents, it was due to a feature called "Outlook Journaling" being activated. I do not know if this is the same thing as what's happening to you or if it's even remotely related. I'm just taking a stab in the dark based on past experience with older Word versions.

Thanks, Tony, I'll look for that. But I'm thinking it's not related to my printing/browsing the network problem. You think that's possible, or is it more than likely a totally different problem?

They are probably related. Could be interference from the virus scanning software. Try disabling that temporarily and see if the problem goes away.

Heck, I'm still running Win98SE. With good hardware and good drivers it can be very stable, and with current hardware, it's VERY fast. The only reason I'm running a Microsoft OS at all is that I (unfortunately) develop MS Access based software (puts food on the table and pays for my technology habit). Otherwise, I'd be using some flavor of Linux.

Obviously, that's not an option in most corportate IT environments run on M$ domains, but it works for me.

Did you disable the MSN Messenger by any chance? Doing this causes Outlook Express to hang for about 60 seconds.

Yeah, it's definately things like this that piss me off about XP. But to tell you the truth (and i -hate- giving MS accolades) their Windows product has really matured and improved over the years in a lot of ways. I'm still stuck supporting Win95 on some machines at my work, i can't handle it.

Start->Settings->Printers (on fresh boot) and the Printers window hangs. *sigh* *throws pc out window*

I just get the feeling that things have come into shape (especially with 2k, it actually made running a win32 desktop tolerable) and matured over the years. So I run XP at home, and at work.

The one thing that really gets me about XP is all the hidden crap that MS put there for it's own gain.. Reporting of search keywords, phone-home crap, default MS Virtual Desktop login, and jesus christ has anyone looked at the list of open tcp/udp ports on a default install (of Professional)?

So i spent the better part of 3 months fine-tuning my XP install. XP-AntiSpy does a good job of turning all of hidden MS stuff off. It never hangs, never sputters (p3 1ghz w/512mb) and with proper fw'ing i like to think i've got it secured.

Plus i really dig the themes

Where can I find XP - Antispy?

Sean

http://www.xp-antispy.de/news-e.htm for english
http://www.xp-antispy.de/ if you sprechen sie deutsch.

edit:
The programmer's english may not be great but his code performs just fine. In the executable there are recommended settings (what i set mine to), and if something breaks he has the Win XP defaults for each option hard coded. So it is possible to reset things back to their original state.

Oh, and I also noticed that Norton AV 2k2 didn't seem to want to install after I had turned some scripting function off from XP-AntiSpy. turned it back on, installed NAV, and then turned it off again, worked fine.

enjoy

This is awesome! I didnt even know some of this stuff was going on in the background. Thanks for the link!

Sean

Did you disable the MSN Messenger by any chance

Ayup, got rid of it completely. Is that the problem? I don't use OE, but I assume that may be the root of the cause then? Should I reinstall it(MSN Messenger)?

I would try re-enabling/reinstalling the Messenger. See what happens. This is definitely an issue with Outlook Express 6. Maybe also with Word 2000?

I just installed the Microsoft .NET upgrade package via Windows Update and my computer is half as fast now. Argh. And I can't figure out what I got out of the bargain?

Calvin

I would try re-enabling/reinstalling the Messenger. See what happens

Same ol' slowness trying to access the intranet and printer... Oh well thanks for the advice, I'm thinking of switching drives to one of WD that was mentioned cheap at Dell, so maybe I'll reload everything and start over. I've already got one on the D drive for video editing...