1. Click on Start / Run
2. Enter in firewall.cpl
3. Click on the Exceptions tab

Adding a Port for Internet Access:

1. Click on the Add Port button
2. Name it whatever you want
3. Enter in the ports you want to open

Adding a Program for Internet Access

1. Click on Add Program... button
2. A list of all installed programs will be displayed
3. Highlight the one you want to include for Internet access
4. Click on the OK button

Normally in XP Pro, through the Control Panel / User Accounts icon, you are only allowed to create administrators or limited users.
If you want to create

1. Right click on My Computer
2. Manage
3. Local Users and Groups
4. Users
5. Right click on the user you want to change
6. Properties
7. Member of tab
8. Add button
9. Advanced button
10. Find Now button
11. From here you see the full list of possibilities (e.g. Power User, Backup Operator etc.)

One way to run a chkdsk (this is like Scandisk that was with Win9X), is to

1. Double click on My Computer
2. Right click on the drive you want to check
3. Select Properties
4. Click on the Tools tab
5. Click on the Check Now button
6. Check to Automatically fix file system errors - This is the same as running chkdsk /f
7. If you want to Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors, check that box - This is the same as running chkdsk /R. It can also add a lot of time to the scan
8. Reboot if necessary

You can also run chkdsk from the command line with will give you more options.
The following switches are available:

/F - fix any errors
/R - identifies bad sectors
/V - with FAT32, displays a verbose output
With NTFS Volumes:
/I - Performs simpler check (stage 2)
/C - Skips the checking of cycles within folder structures
/X - Forces the volume to dismount if necessary. Intended for server administrators and should be avoided for normal use

source:

There are a lot of things which can negatively impact how fast XP will browse network shares.
One has been previously covered regarding browsing to Win9x computers.

Other things you can try, especially when there is slow browsing to network shares with a lot of files:

1. Remove current shortcuts in My Network Places

2. Change the registry so shared folders on remote computers are not automatically added to My Network Places when you even open a document from that shared folder

1. Start Regedit
2. Create a DWORD value:
3. HKEY_Current_User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer \ NoRecentDocsNetHood to 1.
4. I have also seen setting the following help as well.
   HKEY_Current_User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer \ UseDesktopIniCache to 1.

Download Reg file to do both

3. Increase the amount of data is buffered at one time to send to a client. On the computer with the shared directory:

• Start Regedit
• Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\

• Create a DWORD Key called SizReqBuf
• Give it a value of Hex FFFF