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Fine-Tuning Windows 95/98 |
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| General Tips: Prevent file corruption problems: Run Scandisk whenever you suspect a problem. This includes if the system crashes whenever you try to perform a particular action, and if a particular program or driver refuses to load. It's also good practice to run Scandisk and the Disk Defragmenter after a serious crash of any kind, as well as on a regular basis (such as at the end of the week). Additionally, running the Disk Defragmenter will improve disk performance under many circumstances. Get the latest drivers: It's good practice to check with the manufacturers of your various hardware and software for any updates they may have. Companies frequently come out with new drivers for hardware, and new updates for software, and since most of them are now on the World Wide Web, it's easy to do so. Search the registry: You can learn a lot from using the Search command in the Registry Editor. Even if you don't edit any information (it's good to play it safe), just looking at your registry can provide valuable insight to nagging problems. Watch this site for an entire section on the structure and use of the registry. Clean up your hard disk: By erasing unneeded files and folders on your hard disk, you'll not only get more space, but make it faster and more responsive. Additionally, removing drivers and applications that are no longer used will clear more memory for your other applications, which can substantially improve overall system performance. Be careful, however - removing files that are still needed can cause some applications, or even Windows95 itself, to stop functioning. It's always good practice to move any files in question to a different directory or drive (or just simply rename them) before deleting them entirely. Again, backing up your entire hard disk is very important. Specific Tips: Display your file extensions: Open My Computer, and select Options from the View Menu. Click on the View tab, turn off Hide MS-DOS file extensions for file types that are registered, and press OK. Speed up the Start Menu: In the Registry Editor, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Control Panel\ desktop, and add a string value named MenuShowDelay, with a value specifying the number of miliseconds (400 is default, smaller numbers are faster). Load DosKey in a DOS box automatically: Right-click on DOSPRMPT.PIF (in your Windows directory), and select Properties. Click on the Program tab, and enter "DOSKEY" in the field labelled Batch File. (FYI, I use Keyboost, an antique version of DOSKEY) Change a file association on the fly: Hold Shift while right-clicking on a file, and select Open With.... Edit the "Send To" menu: The Send To menu is simply a directory on your hard disk (usually C:\Windows\SendTo). Just drag-drop any folders, programs, or drive icons into this folder to add their shortcuts to the Send To menu. Hint: if you drag a shortcut for the Send To folder into the Send To folder itself, it makes it easy to add new objects later on! Things that slow down system bootup: You don't have enough free RAM - you should have a minimum of 8 megabytes, but 16 is better. Your hard disk is too slow - try optimizing it using Defrag. If you have some money burning a hole in your pocket, you might want to invest in a new, fast, huge hard disk. You don't have enough free disk space for a swapfile - you should have 20 to 40 megabytes of free disk space (including the size of the swapfile, Win386.swp), or see (b.). You have 850 fonts installed. If you can survive without all those fonts, try removing 600-700 of them to see if that makes a difference. Your network drivers (LAN, Dial-up Networking) take too long to load - try disabling them to see if it makes a difference. Index all the files on your system: Select Find and then Files or Folders from the Start Menu, select a drive (or use My Computer for all drives), and click Find Now without specifying anything in the Named field. You can then sort the results by clicking on the appropriate column heading (useful for finding the largest or most recent file on your system). Unfortunately, there's no way to save or print out these results, but we're working on it... Useful Windows 3.x programs not included in Windows95: The following 16-bit Windows 3.x programs can be used in Windows95 to provide functionality that otherwise isn't supported by Windows95. Cardfile (cardfile.exe) - a simple electronic addressbook Macro Recorder (recorder.exe) - record and playback mouse movements and keystrokes Write (write.exe) - although Windows95 comes with Wordpad, it can't save Write files Better Floppy Formats: Although you can right-click on a floppy drive in Explorer or My Computer and select Format to format a floppy, there's a better way. Type Format a: /u at the MS-DOS prompt (substitute A: for whatever drive letter you wish). Using DOS instead of Windows to format floppies will yield better multitasking, meaning you'll be able to do other things while formatting floppies (strange how it multitasks DOS better than Windows). Furthermore, using the /u paramter specifies an unconditional format, meaning that it won't save unformat information, yielding a faster format and more free diskette space. To simply erase a floppy, type Format a: /u/q - this is much quicker than a full format, but will not ensure an error-free disk. Remember, if Format reports any bad sectors, throw away that floppy immediately. Advanced Tips: Remove DoubleSpace/DriveSpace from memory: Whether or not you're using the DoubleSpace/DriveSpace disk compression utility, these drivers are taking up valuable memory and slowing system startup. If you're not using disk compression, simply delete DRVSPACE.BIN and DBLSPACE.BIN from C:\ and your Windows\Command directories. Note: Do not do this if you are currently using DriveSpace or DoubleSpace to compress your hard disk!! Limit Access to Users: Load up the System Policy Editor (poledit.exe) on your Windows95 CD-ROM (it's in the Admin\Apptools\Poledit folder). If you are asked to "Open a Template File," choose admin.adm in the same folder, and click OK. Select Open Registry from the File menu. Double-click on the Local User icon. Open Local_User\ Shell\ Restrictions. Set the desired options here, and select Save from the File menu when you're finished. Speed up system restart: Add BootDelay=0 to the [Options] section of C:\MSDOS.SYS More free memory in DOS windows: Add LocalLoadHigh=1 to the [386Enh] section of SYSTEM.INI. - Warning: this may cause unpredictable results if you are not using the EMM386 memory manager. Keyboard Shortcuts: Switch between running applications: Press Tab repeatedly while holding Alt. Switch easily between a full-screen and windowed command prompt: Press Alt - Enter. Open the Start Menu: Press Ctrl - ESC. Tab (move from one control to another) in reverse: Hold Shift while pressing Tab. Send the active window to the back: Press Alt - ESC. Move to the next tab in a tabbed dialog box: Hold Ctrl while pressing Tab. Send the focus to the menu: Press Alt by itself, and use the cursor keys to navigate. Keyboard equivalents of Undo, Cut, Copy, and Paste: Hold Ctrl while pressing Z, X, C, and V, respectively. In many applications, the following will also work: Alt-Backspace, Shift-Del, Ctrl-Ins, and Shift-Ins, respectively. Expand all the directories in a a branch in Explorer: Select the desired branch in Explorer, and press * (the asterisk key). If Desktop is selected, all directories in all drives will be expanded. Switch to the TaskBar: Press Ctrl-ESC at any time to bring up the Start Menu. Once the Start Menu appears, press ESC to close the menu while keeping the Taskbar active. Then, press Tab to switch to the row(s) of running applications on the Taskbar. Switch to the Desktop: Follow the above directions to Switch to the Taskbar. Press Tab again to switch to the Desktop. Right-click (display an object's context menu): Make sure the desired object has the focus, and press Shift-F10.
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