Accommodating All Kinds of Needs
If your computer used by many people with different kinds of need, you can use the User Profiles facility. To activate it, double-click the Password icon on the Control Panel. Alternatively, try to modify the Programs folder. Right-click on the Start button, click Explore, and then double-click Programs folder. Start creating a private folder for every user.
To get easy access to all drives, just open My Computer, and then click and drag all icon drives inside it into the Start button. Shortcuts to all of your drives will appear in the Start menu. This method is effective when your desktop is closed by the running applications.
If you open a folder in the Explorer, Windows will use that folder as an active folder in the Run dialog box. Therefore, you can activate all applications in that folder without typing its full path and drive letter. For example, you can activate Tetris game only by typing "tetris" (without quotation marks) in the Run dialog box, if the Wingames folder (with tetris.exe file inside it) currently opened by Explorer. Don't forget that you can use several last used commands in the Run dialog box, just by clicking the arrow symbol and select them from the list.
If you are running a file with the Run menu, then Windows will search it in that active folder. If they can't be found, Windows will search it in the system directory (C:\Windows, C:\Windows\System). If still can't be found, Windows will search it in the location appeared in the C:\Autoexec.bat file or App Path folder in the registry file.
Therefore, to get faster activation for files that used many times, type the file location in the C:\Autoexec.bat file. Use Sysedit (click the Start-Run button, type sysedit, click OK) to edit the autoexec.bat file. Now, you don't need to access Wingames folder with Explorer anymore, only to get faster activation for tetris.exe file.
Opening Folders inside the Programs branch
If you are using Win ME/98SE or Win 98/95 with Internet Explorer 5.0 installed, you can open every folder inside the Start Menu Programs branch. For example, click on the Start button, and point to Programs-Accessories. Double click on Accessories folder will open that folder in a window.
- To open a folder usually you have to run the Windows Explorer first, and then explore the hard disk contents until you find the right folder. Actually, there is another method by using the Run menu. Click your mouse on the Start button, point to Run, type the name of the folder you want to open (e.g. "Recent"), and then press Enter. A window filled with all files in C:\Windows\Recent folder will appear on the screen.
- To open the main folder, click your mouse on the Start button, click Run, type \ (backslash) character, and then click OK.
- Click on the Start - Run, enter .. (two dot characters), and then click OK or press Enter. You will see C:\Windows folder.
- Want to open your favorite web site via Run menu? Just click on the Start - Run, enter its address (ex: www.microsoft.com), and then click OK or press Enter. Internet Explorer will be opened and after a moment you will see that site.
- If you are working in a network, use the Run box dialog to enter UNC (Universal Naming Convention) to folder at the server.
- To find out about full path and hidden extension for some files that hidden in the Explorer window, just click and drag that file to the Run box dialog.
When you are waiting for the Disk Defragmenter, Scan Disk, or Compression Agent process, the screen saver suddenly appears on the monitor screen. Obviously, the defragmentation process for example, will be repeated from the beginning. To solve this problem, usually you have to deactivate the screen saver facility by using the Display Properties dialog box. Actually, there is another method. First, run the Disk Defragmenter or Scan Disk and then press Ctrl+Esc key to show the Start menu. Leave the Start menu open until the Disk Defragmenter or Scan Disk process is completed. This method will prevent the screen saver from appearing on the screen.
Quick Method to Activate an Application (1)
Placing too much shortcut in the Start menu can make it difficult to access. To get around this situation, you can use the Run menu to activate your favorite applications, which is not yet including in the Start menu. To do so, perform these steps:
First, open the Windows Explorer, and then select your favorite document or folder. Click Edit-Copy menus. Switch to c:\Windows\command folder, and then click Edit-Paste Shortcut menus.
Select the shortcut, press F2 key, and then type a new shorter name. For example, for a shortcut to Microsoft Paint you can name it "paint" or "pnt". From now on, to activate Microsoft Paint, all you must do is click on the Start button, click Run, (or press Ctrl + Esc + r), type paint, and finally press Enter.
Quick Method to Activate an Application (2)
Add & character right before the name of an application on the Start menu (C:\Windows\Start Menu), for example Microsoft &Excel. From now on, you can activate Microsoft Excel by pressing Ctrl+Esc, P, and then E.
Save one mouse click when you activate an application using the Start button. Hold down the mouse button while clicking the Start button and then drag the mouse pointer to the application you want to activate.
Probably you want to simplify your Start-Programs menu, since too many shortcuts inside it. For examples, you can remove the StartUp folder or shortcuts to unusable applications. You do not have to delete those items from the Start Menu-Programs folder that make you difficult to display it again in the future. The better method is by activating hidden attribute on all those items. To hide the StartUp folder for example, try these steps:
Right-click on the Start button, choose Open, and then go to Programs folder. Right-click on the StartUp folder and choose Properties. Check the Hidden attribute, and finally click OK.
From now on, the StartUp folder will disappear from the Start-Programs menu, but all files/programs inside it are still be activated on Windows startup.
Here is another utility you definitely want to put into your System Tools folder. It's called Start Menu Cleanup and it's located in C:\Windows folder as SMTIDY.EXE. It is only available if the Microsoft Plus! Maintenance Wizard installed in your computer.
It locates any non-working Start Menu shortcuts, as well as any folders that may only contain a single object. In the case of broken shortcuts it will simply remove them. As for folders containing only one item, it will offer to move them up one level to cut down on the number of folders. Best of all, you can be selective about which items to change and which ones to leave alone. Simply uncheck any items you don't want to change before clicking OK. To get a log of all Start Menu Cleanup activity, look for SMWIZ.LOG in C:\Windows folder.
Windows 98 is an Unfinished Program?
Click on the Start button and point to Settings. While holding down the CTRL key, click on the Taskbar & Start menu option. The Taskbar Properties dialog box will appear on the screen. Watch there is a new tab called DeskBar Options, but you cannot change anything on this tab.
These are the steps if you want to search for files across all drives, including your network drives:
First press F3 to open the Find/Search dialog box. Secondly, in the Named box, enter file or folder you want to search for. In Look in select My Computer. This will search all drives including mapped network drives. Easier than using the comma's.
Here's a quick way to clear the list of files that appears when you select Start, Documents. Right click the Taskbar and select Properties. Click the Start Menu Programs tab (Win98/95) or Advanced tab (WinMe), click the Clear button, and then click OK. Alternatively, you can delete a single item from the Documents list in Start Menu without wiping out the entire list. Just right click on the item in the Document list you want to delete and select Delete.
Find A File within Your ZIP Archive
If you have a lot of ZIP archive files probably finding a specific file within those archives could put you into a trouble. Now you can use the Windows Find/Search tool to locate that file. First click on Start-Find/Search-For Files or Folders (or hit F3) to display the Find/Search window. Enter "*.ZIP" (without the quotation marks) in the 'Named' field, and then type the whole or partial file name in the 'Containing text' field under the Advanced tab. The results should contain a list of ZIP files containing the file for which you were looking.
When you find an interesting web site, then you will bookmark it in your Favorites folder by pressing Ctrl+D (or click on Favorites – Add to Favorites menu) in Internet Explorer. Most of you probably never visit it again in the future. Since you'll browse your local system more often, then make a subfolder inside that Favorites and put shortcuts to frequently accessed folders and files in there.
You are not limited to access these shortcuts through Internet Explorer. The Favorites folder (and your shortcuts inside it) can be accessed anywhere, from the Start Menu, My Computer menu, or even Windows Explorer menu. 100% faster than browse your hard disk manually.
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