Often Internet Cafes lock down their XP version to prevent user from doing any damage (and that's in general a good thing), but sometimes you want to do some things that they don't allow you to. Here are some workarounds, the tools mentioned here are describes in the Working from a USB drive entry.

Downloads are disabled in IE

• Use Firefox for downloads
• Use a command line tool

Some drives are hidden in Windows Explorer

• Use File Manager (winfile.exe)
• Use cmd.exe

Access to Task Manager or the registry is denied by policies

• Use Process Explorer or Regworks who don't care about the policies
• If you have admin rights and access to the run command, you can change the policies by copying the following code into a file named openup.vbs and the execute it using cscript.exe openup.vbs

      Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\default:StdRegProv")

      Call SetValue("DisableRegistryTools",0)
      Call SetValue("DisableTaskMgr",0)

      Function SetValue(sKeyName,iValue)

         Const HIVE = &H80000001
         oReg.SetDWORDValue HIVE,"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System",sKeyName,iValue

      End Function

No run command in the Start Menu
Open to C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe or  4NT.exe from your USB drive via Windows Explorer.