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Tech Tips / Windows XP / Tools and Tasks

Access XP's additional utilities

Although the most important product on the Windows XP CD is the operating system itself, the CD also includes additional applications that are not installed during the Windows XP setup.

If you insert the CD in your CD-ROM drive, you'll receive several options in the autorun dialog box. Selecting Perform Additional Tasks allows you to run some of them, but not all are accessible through this dialog box.

You can find most of them, however, in the folders on the CD. You should take a look at two folders in particular: support and valueadd. The support folder contains:

• Support Tools in the Support.cab file, which is a minicollection of former
  Resource Kit utilities.
• Application Compatibility Toolkit (Act20.exe), which includes several
  utilities that can help you run older applications on Windows XP.
• Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (Fastwiz.exe), which allows you to transfer
  user settings from machines running older Microsoft operating systems.
• Remote Desktop Connection Client (Msrdpcli.exe), which allows users to
  connect to a Windows XP Remote Desktop from machines running older
  Microsoft operating systems.
• Deployment tools like Sysprep.exe in the Deploy.cab file.