Welcome to my catch-all section. In this section are topics that either didn't fit into the others because they weren't strictly related to home networks, or are related, but generally don't come up at when first creating a home network. Over time, you may find yourself in one of these situations, so feel free to peruse the goods.
For whatever reason, Microsoft decided that you won't need to browse your disk drives or resources shared on the network in Windows XP. At least, the ability is turned off by default. This seems pretty silly to me, as I use these often, but maybe there really are people who don't. In order to perform some of the steps found in this guide, however, you will need to have these icons displayed. The steps here will show you how to turn them on. You can turn them off again later if you wish.
Start by right-clicking on any open area of your monitor's background and selecting Properties from the popup-menu as shown to the right. The Display Properties dialog box will appear as shown below.
Next, choose the Desktop tab and click on the Customize Desktop button as shown.
Check the check boxes for My Computer and My Network Places (along with any others you think you might want). Click the OK button on the Desktop Items and then the Display Properties dialogs.
The My Computer and My Network Places icons should now have appeared on your desktop. If they do not, repeat the steps making sure you have left checked both the My Computer and My Network Places check boxes.