Windows NT Tips #11


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*1. A BRIEFCASE FOLDER         
  
Windows NT Workstation 4.0 
Here is a Briefcase question from subscriber Warren C.: 

"My Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Briefcase originally appeared with
 the special Briefcase icon. Something has happened, and now the
 Briefcase appears with a standard folder icon. Is there a way to
 get the Briefcase icon back?" 

Did you by any chance ever delete the Briefcase and then restore
 it from the Recycle Bin? This would cause the Briefcase to
 appear with a folder icon. 

To solve your problem, delete the Briefcase, then right-click the
 desktop and choose New, Briefcase. The new Briefcase appears
 with the correct icon.


*2. RUN ANYTHING?         
  
Windows NT Workstation 4.0 
Here's a tip from reader Elliot P.: 

"Everyone knows that you can click Start, Run and run a program
 by typing in its name. However, many Windows NT Workstation 4.0
 users don't know that you can run a program by dragging its icon
 to the Run dialog box." 

Elliot is correct. If you click Start, Run, you can drag a
 program's icon to Run's Open entry box and press Enter to run
 that program. You can also drag a registered document file to
 the Run dialog box to open that file in its associated program.


*3. DON'T OPEN EXPLORER         
  
Windows NT Workstation 4.0 
Here is a question from reader Paul A.: 

"I often forget and leave Windows NT Explorer running when I shut
 down for the evening. So when I start the computer the next day,
 Explorer opens. Is there a way to prevent this, other than
 remembering to close it before I shut down the computer?" 

You can prevent Explorer or Control Panel from opening, even if
 you forget to kill them before you shut down. However, you'll
 have to edit your Registry. Be careful--you don't want to damage
 your system. 

Click Start, Run, then type 
 
Regedit 
 
and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

If you don't see an entry called NoSaveSettings, you need to
 add it.  

To add the value, right-click RegEdit's right pane and choose
 Binary Value. Name the new value NoSaveSettings and press Enter
 twice (once to save the name and once to open the Edit Binary
 Value dialog box). Set the value to 01 00 00 00 and click OK. 

If you already have NoSaveSettings, double-click it and set its
 value to 01 00 00 00. Click OK to continue.  

Close RegEdit and restart the computer.


*4. ANSWER WITH HYPERTERMINAL         
  
Windows NT Workstation 4.0  
This question comes from reader Kayla N.:  

"I would like to use HyperTerminal to transfer data from one
 computer to another. To do this, I'll need to have HyperTerminal
 answer the phone. So far, I haven't been able to get it to
 answer. Can you help?"  

Yes, we can help.   

Open HyperTerminal (click Start, Programs, Accessories). Type the
 new name in the Name entry box (Answer will work just fine) and
 click OK. Now, you need to enter a phone number. Since you don't
 need to use a real number here, you can enter 555-5555 and click
 OK. When the Connect dialog box opens, click Cancel, since you
 don't want to connect to anything right now.   

At this point, the HyperTerminal window will open. Choose
 File/Properties. When the Test Properties dialog box opens,
 click the Settings tab and then click ASCII Setup. Select the
 check boxes labeled "Send line ends with line feed," "Append
 line feeds to incoming lines," and "Wrap lines that exceed
 terminal width," and click OK to close the dialog box. Back in
 Test Properties, click OK again to get back to the
 HyperTerminal window.  

Finally, type in:  

ATS0=1  

and press Enter to tell your modem to answer incoming calls.
 The modem will respond with  

OK  

if all is working properly. If your modem won't support auto
 answer, you'll get an error message. When you need to turn off
 the auto answer feature, type  

ATS0=0  

and press Enter. The modem will respond with  

OK  

to indicate that it accepted the command.  

To save your new setting, choose File, Save As. When the Save As
 dialog box opens, you can click Save to save the file and close
 the dialog box. If you prefer, you can enter a new name and then
 click Save.


*5. STOP THE COUNTDOWN         
  
Windows NT Workstation 4.0 
Here is a Windows NT Workstation 4.0 tip from reader Marty M.: 

"I recently discovered that you can stop the start-up selection
 countdown you get when you use dual boot on a Windows NT
 Workstation 4.0 computer. Suppose you start your computer and
 you get the screen that counts down the seconds until you boot
 into the default OS. If time is running out, you can press Esc
 to stop the countdown. Now you can take all the time you need to
 select an operating system. As far as I can see, there is no
 limit on how long the computer will wait for you to make
 a selection." 

Thanks for the tip, Marty. You'll also find that pressing any of
 the arrow keys will stop the countdown.


*6. USING FOLDERS         
  
Windows NT Workstation 4.0 
Here is a tip from reader Yves D.: 

"You can experience a disk-full error if you attempt to store a
 large number of small files on a disk--even if the total amount
 of data you are storing is only a fraction of the available disk
 space. Many users aren't aware that the number of files in the
 root folder of any disk is limited. For example, a floppy disk's
 root folder will hold 112 files, while a hard disk can hold 512.
 The solution to this potential problem is to store all your
 files in one or more folders."  

Thanks for the tip, Yves.


*7. REMOVE A DRIVE         
  
Windows NT Workstation 4.0 
Here is a question from subscriber David F.: 

"How can I remove a CD-ROM drive from Windows NT Workstation 4.0?
 In my experience, the computer won't restart after you remove a
 CD-ROM drive using the Control Panel." 

You can prevent the drive from appearing in My Computer using
 Disk Administrator. Try this: Click Start, Programs,
 Administrative Tools, Disk Administrator. When Disk
 Administrator opens, click the drive you want to remove, then
 choose Tools, Assign Drive Letter. When the Assign Drive Letter
 dialog box opens, select the radio button labeled "Do not assign
 a drive letter," and click OK to close the dialog box. Click Yes
 when asked to confirm. 

Now choose Partition, Exit to close Disk Administrator. The drive
 you eliminated no longer appears in My Computer or in Windows NT
 Explorer. Restarting the computer will cause no problems. 

If you should need access to the drive again, just run Disk
 Administrator and assign the drive a letter. 

Note: Use this method to remove only unneeded CD-ROM drives--do
 not remove the drive letter assignment for your system disk.
 Removing the assignment from your system disk will cause you a
 lot of unnecessary problems.


*8. OPENING A FOLDER         
  
Windows NT Workstation 4.0  
Here is a question from reader Laura W.:  

"When I double-click a folder in Windows NT Workstation 4.0,
 there is some animation involved. The window seems to move up
 from the bottom of the screen. Is there some way (even a
 Registry edit, if necessary) to stop this animation?"  

Yes, there is a way to stop the animation using a Registry edit
 or a REG file. Let's do it with a REG file this time. Remember
 that REG files can damage your system, so be careful.  

To generate the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following as
 shown. Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to enter
 a blank line.   

REGEDIT4  
BLANK LINE GOES HERE   
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics]  
"MinAnimate"="0"  
BLANK LINE GOES HERE  

Now, choose File, Save As and name your file Animate.reg. Locate
 a folder for the file and click Save.  

To use Animate.reg, double-click its icon. When the dialog box
 informing you that your file has been merged appears, click OK
 to close it. The new setting takes effect the next time you
 start the computer.


*9. FORMATTING FLOPPIES         
  
Windows NT Workstation 4.0 
Reader Mark F. has a question about formatting disks in Windows
 NT Workstation 4.0: 

"If I run Windows NT Explorer and click drive A: to select it, I
 can view the disk's contents. Say I decide to format the disk,
 so I right-click its icon (still in Windows NT Explorer) and
 choose Format.  

"Here's the odd part: The format always fails when I try to use
 this method. If I open My Computer, right-click the floppy disk
 icon and choose Format, the disk still won't format. But if I
 close Windows NT Explorer, I can format the disk using the icon
 in My Computer. Has my Windows NT Workstation 4.0 installation
 gotten messed up?" 

No, there's no problem with your system. You can't format a disk
 while its contents are displayed. This is why the format works
 when you close Windows NT Explorer. 

If you want to format the floppy disk in Windows NT Explorer,
 run Explorer and then, while Explorer still displays the
 contents of drive C:, right-click the drive A: icon and choose
 Format. The format will work now because Explorer is not
 displaying the contents of the floppy disk.


*10. REMOVE THE BRIEFCASE         
  
Windows NT Workstation 4.0  
Here is a Briefcase question from subscriber Lou A.:  

"I am an Administrator for a dozen Windows NT Workstation 4.0
 systems. I always remove the Briefcase icon from the desktop,
 but I would also like to remove the ability to create a new
 Briefcase. Is this possible?"  

Yes, you can remove Briefcase entirely. You'll have to edit the
 Registry, though. So, if you want to continue, be careful.  

Click Start, Run. Type  
  
regedit  
  
and press Enter.
When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKey_Classes_Root.  

Now scroll down to Briefcase and click to select it. Choose
 Registry, Export Registry File. When the Export Registry File
 dialog box opens, type   

Brief  

and click Save.   

Note: Do not skip this step--it is very important that you make
 this backup of the Briefcase key. If you do not, you won't be
 able to restore the Briefcase later.  


delete the key. Finally, choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit
 and apply your changes.  

When you right-click the desktop and choose New, you'll see that
 there is no Briefcase option listed.   

If you want to return Briefcase to your system, locate Brief.reg
 and double-click its icon to merge the original Registry entries
 with the current Registry.
