Emacs newbie - Syntax Highlighting and Indentation

[David Rasmussen]

I've installed the Windows version of Emacs 21.3.1.
I have read some tutorials, but I have two questions (for now):

1) How do I enable syntax highlighting by default, for any type of file 
/ extension / mode that supports it? I have enabled it in the Options 
menu, and saved my options. But isn't there a non-menu-way of doing 
this, so I can get to learn and understand how to configure emacs myself?

2) When I edit a java file, the Java major mode i automatically loaded. 
But when I press TAB at the beginning of a new line, i get an 
indentation of 4 spaces. How do I alter this to 2 spaces instead? Or any 
other number of spaces? What if I want to get a tab character instead of 
spaces, when indenting (I really don't, but I would like to know)?

TIA!

/David