The checklist below is to be used to harden Windows XP Workstations.
I fully support efforts such as the SANS Gold Standard, CIS, NIST, and Microsoft's tools and documentation. I have developed what I feel is a safe baseline of hardening that can be safely implemented in many existing mixed-mode production environments. The hardening settings also takes the need for system administration into account.
Make sure to test the checklist in a development environment before rolling out to production.
Note: Some registry edits on the checklist are implemented by SP3 and security update installations.