There is ONE option that you should deactivate in the Windows Control Panel as it is often used by viruses and trojans to fake dangerous file extensions. Once logged into Windows, open the Control Panel by clicking Start -> Control Panel. Select the Appearance and Themes entry and locate the Folder Options applet.
Double click the icon to open the applet and uncheck the Hide extensions for known file types. If you leave this option checked, Windows hides known extensions such as .EXE and would display an application called MyApp.exe as MyApp. Numerous malware exploit this issue to hide the real extension. For example, an application Hello.txt.exe shows as Hello.txt which refers to a text file, but the real type is an application !
Change keyboard layout for non English Apple keyboards
In Windows Control Panel (Start -> Control Panel), select the Regional and Language Options applet to configure the keyboard layout. Select the Languages tab and click the Details button to configure you non English keyboard layout.
In the Installed services area of the dialog box, add/remove the services necessary input services. Ensure, that Default input language drop down listbox reflects your configuration.
Customize Desktop
The initial Windows XP desktop is somehow empty and it's quite difficult to access the filesystem at first glance. But it's possible to add some important icons such as My Documents and the My Computer icons back to the desktop.
Right-click on the Windows desktop and choose the Properties menu entry to show the Display Properties applet.
Select the Desktop tab and click on the Customize Desktop button to show the customization dialog box to configure the visibility of desktop icons.
