How to kill multiple processes?

Have you ever had Internet Explorer or Chrome or some other program freeze up (it seems to be especially common with web browsers) and you couldn't get it to close by clicking close button right side of the title bar? So you open Task Manager(Ctrl+Alt+Del), go to the Processes tab and proceed to kill the process (for example, iexplore.exe) but you find there are half a dozen or more of them. Don't you wish you could kill them all at once instead of having to right-click each one and select to end it? Well, you can. Here's how:

1. Click the Start button.
2. In the Search box, type cmd to open the command window.
3. At the command prompt, type: taskkill /F /IM /T

For example, to kill all instances of the IE process, you would type: taskkill /F /IM iexplore.exe /T

How to set up a network printer in XP?

A few years back, printers that connected to the network via Ethernet (rather than to a computer via USB) were mostly confined to expensive models marketed to businesses. Today you can buy low cost printers for your home that plug directly into the network. Here's how to set up a network printer in XP:

1. Physically connect the printer to a hub or switch on the network with an Ethernet cable and turn it on. 
   
2. In Control Panel, open Printers and Faxes.
3. In the Printer Tasks section, click Add a Printer.
4. On the page labeled "Local or Network Printer," select the local printer option and uncheck the box labeled automatic detection.
5. On the page labeled "Select a Printer Port," click Create a New Port.
6. Select Standard TCP/IP Port.
7. Click Next.
8. On the "Add Standard TCP/IP Printer Port" page, click Next.
9. On the "Add Port" page, enter the IP address of the printer, which you can usually obtain by printing out a configuration information report from the printer's Setup menu.
10. Click Next.
11. Click Finish.
    

How to set XP to display the shutdown menu when you press the power button?

By default, when you press your computer's power button, the system shuts down. That can be a problem if it sometimes gets pressed accidentally. You can configure XP to instead display the shutdown menu, giving you the option to choose whether to shut down, restart, etc. Here's how:

1. Right click an empty spot on the desktop
2. Select Properties
3. In the display properties dialog box, click the Screen Saver tab
5. Near the bottom of the dialog box, click the Power button
6. In the Power Options Properties dialog box, click the Advanced tab
7. At the bottom of the page, under "When I press the power button on my computer," select "Ask me what to do."
8. Click OK

How to make your XP more quickly shut down?

If XP is inordinately slow about shutting down, it may be that it's waiting on a hung program. You can edit the registry to change the amount of time XP will wait for a program to close. As always when editing the registry, back it up first, just in case. Then perform these steps:

1. Open your registry editor.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop
3. In the right pane, find the item HungAppTimeout and double click it
4. In the value data box, change the default value (5000) to a lower number (for example, 1000). Click OK.
5. Next, find the WaitToKillAppTimeout and double click it
6. Change the default value from 20000 to 1000. Click OK.
7. Now navigate to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ Control
8. In the right pane, find WaitToKillServiceTimeout and double click it.
9. Change the default value to 1000 and click OK.
10. Then navigate to:HKEY_USERS \ DEFAULT \ Control Panel \ Desktop
11. Find HungAppTimeout and doubleclick it.
12. Change the default value to 2000 and click OK.
13. In the same key, find WaitToKillAppTimeout and double click it.
Change the value to (you guessed it!) 1000 and click OK.

If you don't want the timeout to be quite as short, change these values to something else (for example, 5000). Just make sure the value is the same for each.