Dec 95 How-To Columns

Adventures in Explorer Land

by: John Woram

If you'd rather skip the bother of opening the Start menu to get at the Explorer, drag its icon onto the desktop instead. Hold down the Ctrl key while dragging the icon to leave the original icon in place. To set up a hotkey combination, right-click on any Explorer shortcut to open the Shortcut menu and introduce yet another problem in semantics. If you're trying these steps, you've just opened a Shortcut menu by clicking on a Shortcut icon, and one of the Shortcut's Shortcut menu options is ... Create Shortcut. Resist the temptation to select this option, or you'll find yet another icon on the desktop, labeled Explorer (2), and it's no spaceship.

While you wait for the language police to issue a summons, select the Properties option at the bottom of the list, and then select the Shortcut (sorry!) tab. Place the mouse pointer in the Shortcut (there it is again) key area near the bottom of the dialog box and press any key. "Ctrl+Alt+X" (where X is whatever key you pressed) replaces the "None" legend. Disregard the unhelpful Help, which claims a Shortcut key must include the Ctrl and/or Alt keys. It always contains both, as you might expect if you're already accustomed to the various Ctrl+X keys found on most Edit and some other menus.

When you open Explorer, its title bar reads "Exploring - label (C: )" where label is the volume label (if any) of your boot drive. The Explorer window contains two panes. A TIPS.TXT file in the C: \WINDOWS directory gives a cryptic reference to a scope and a results pane, but provides no explanation. Therefore, I hereby dub the left and right panes as Folders and Contents, respectively, because the latter shows the contents of the folder selected in the former. The terms are not entirely my invention though, as the "All Folders" and "Contents of" headings at the top of the panes reveal. If you'd rather not see these titles, select View/Options and then the View tab. Move the dialog box so it doesn't obstruct the top of the Exploring window. Now, watch the effect of checking/clearing the boxes labeled "Display the full MS-DOS path in the title bar" and "Include description bar for right and left panes." If you check the former and clear the latter, you pick up a bit more display space in each pane, yet the title bar at the top of the Window clearly indicates the selected folder.

Now that you know all these ways to launch Explorer, let's take a closer look at what shows up when you do so. The Windows 95 Resource Kit refers to Explorer's default Open view and an optional Explorer view. "What's the difference?" you may ask. I know I did. Neither the Resource Kit, nor the Introducing Microsoft Windows 95 pamphlet explains the two terms, but a quick experiment turns up the answers. Right-click on any folder and note the first two menu options: Explore and Open. Click on the first to see the double-pane Explorer view and the second for the single-pane Open view.

And now, a few tips to help you customize your Explorer window. Unlike File Manager, an Explorer window can contain only one single- or double-pane set at a time, and for most operations, that's all you need. To move or copy a file or folder from one location to another, first find it in the Contents window. Then scroll up or down in the Folders window until you find the folder into which you want to put the item. If necessary, click on a plus sign next to any folder to view its subfolder(s). Don't click on a folder though, or its contents will appear in the Contents pane, in place of the item you want to move. Once you see the desired destination folder, drag the file or folder from the Contents window over to that destination.

To do your own Explorer configuration experiments, select the Start menu's Run option, type Explorer, add one or more switches and then press Enter. The following sections describe what you should see.

Explorer In this default Open view, the Folders window shows the folders on drive C: , all of which are closed. The Contents window also shows the folders, followed by whatever files are in the C: \ directory. Click on the Folder pane's Up arrow and scroll to the top of the list to view the Root object. Jargon alert: This is simply the item (object) at the top (root) of the list, in this case the Desktop icon. For a quick view of the basic desktop structure, click on any box immediately below the icon that shows a minus sign. When you're done, you'll probably see just the following desktop components: My Computer, Network Neighborhood (if installed), Recycle Bin and My Briefcase. Highlight any one of them and the Contents pane shows just what you'd expect.

Explorer /e This switch opens the Explorer view, in which the Folders pane shows an open Desktop folder. The Contents pane shows it contains a Briefcase plus whatever application and shortcut icons you've placed on your desktop.

Explorer /e, /root,C: \WINDOWS\ SYSTEM In this Explorer-view configuration, the Folder pane's root object is the Windows 95 System directory, so that's what appears at the top of the pane, with its subfolders listed below. As before, the Contents window shows the root object's subfolders and all its files; or in yesterday's jargon, the contents of the C: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.

Explorer /root,C: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM If you remove the /e switch, the Open view shows a single-paned window you'll recognize as the Contents window. While you're looking at it, click on the View menu, select options again and note the Include Description check box is among the missing.

Explorer /root,C: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM, subobject or Explorer /e, /root,C: \WINDOWS\ SYSTEM, subobject Replace subobject with the name of any subfolder listed under the System folder, and the contents of that folder will show up in the Contents pane. Reinsert the /e switch, and the two-paned Explorer window returns. The specified subobject folder is shown open--again with its contents displayed in the adjacent pane.

Explorer /root,C: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM,/select, subobject Insert the /select switch in front of subobject, and the specified subobject is highlighted in the Contents pane. In this case, the subobject may be a folder or a file contained in the root object, which, in our example is still C: \WINDOWS \SYSTEM. Again, the presence/absence of the /e switch determines if the Folders pane will appear, too.

Explorer /n (followed by other switches, as above) If you insert this switch in the command string, a new Explorer window opens each time you execute the command. If you omit it, a new window opens only if you change one of the other switches before you execute Explorer again.

I've run out of space, so I'll execute Explorer again next month to offer a few more suggestions on how to get the most out of it.

A Good Backup's Like Money in the Bank

by: Jim Boyce

Find a Pearl In Every Win95 CD

by: Karen Kenworthy

If you like to watch what goes on behind the scenes, try System Monitor. It continuously tracks and reports statistics such as bytes read from and written to your disks, CPU usage, free RAM, swap-file usage, even network activity. You can request real-time graphs for up to 38 types of data. View this information on screen or print it to pinpoint performance bottlenecks.

The Long File Name (LFN) Backup Utility allows you to use older DOS and Windows programs to back up and restore data on your Windows 95 disks. Older programs don't know how to read and re-create Win95's long filenames. The LFN Backup Utility creates a special file with a traditional shorter "8.3" filename containing all of a disk's longer filenames.

If you run this utility before using an old backup program, the utility backs up the special file along with the other data on your disk. Later, when you restore from this backup, the special file containing long filename information is restored, too. To complete the operation, run the LFN Backup Utility again, this time asking it to consult the special file and restore the long filenames your Backup/Restore program couldn't.

Other CD-ROM extras include utilities that help you preserve your configuration and recover from problems that prevent Windows from starting. The Configuration Backup Utility (CFGBACK.EXE) can back up Windows' system configuration information (the Registry). Along with the current Registry information, the utility can preserve as many as nine previous versions.

The Emergency Recovery Utility (ERU) is really two programs: ERU.EXE and ERD.EXE. The former creates a backup copy of seven of the most important Win95 configuration files: CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, WIN.INI, SYSTEM.INI, USER.DAT, IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS. In addition, it copies the program COMMAND.COM.

Placing these files--along with the ERU's restore program, ERD.EXE--on a bootable diskette will prepare you for many emergencies. Just insert the emergency diskette in your A: drive, boot your computer and use ERD.EXE to replace any damaged configuration files.

If you share your computer with a co-worker or child, or if, like me, you're just plain clumsy, the System Policy Editor can allow you to limit changes to your configuration. You can restrict access to certain Control Panel settings, block changes to your desktop's contents and appearance, and prohibit certain users from running particular programs.

Liven up your points and clicks with Mouse Pointers, a collection of alternative mouse arrows. The Jungle, Musica, Sample, Utopia and Robotz sound schemes give you lots of neat effects you can assign to system events. For even more great sounds, try CD Player, a program that lets you play audio CDs on your CD-ROM drive.

All work and no play makes a programmer a dull boy (or girl). You say you've never met a programmer who wasn't dull? Well, there are a few interesting, playful programmers. You just have to know where to look.

Take Microsoft's Windows 95 development team. Even during the long march to the August product release, some team members found time to create PowerToys, small utilities that make working with Windows 95 easier and more fun. Many could have become part of Win95, were it not for scheduling issues and size limitations.

Even though these toys didn't make it onto the shipping version, Microsoft has made them available free (see \DIST\WM\WMFILES\9512DEC\POWER on this CD-ROM). So let's dig through this toy box and see what we can find.

Ever wonder what's inside those "CAB" files on your Windows 95 diskettes and CD-ROM? Files with the suffix .CAB (short for file cabinet) are archive files that contain other files in compressed form. Microsoft uses .CAB files to save space, reducing the required number of installation diskettes and leaving more room on a CD-ROM for extras.

The Cabinet File Viewer makes these files behave like folders. They get a new icon--a folder with a document sticking out of the top. If you double-click on this icon, it opens like a folder, revealing the .CAB file's contents.

Hate entering commands? AutoPlay Extender is the ideal toy for you. Insert a CD, and one of its programs runs automatically. If you've never installed the CD, it launches its setup program; otherwise, the CD's main application program starts. No more fumbling with the Start menu's Run command or searching your folders for an icon to click on.

The problem with CD AutoPlay, which is included with Windows 95, is it works only with CDs designed to support it. Older CDs just sit there when you insert them in your drive. AutoPlay Extender changes that. The first time you insert an older CD, you'll see the AutoPlay Extender dialog. This lets you associate any program shortcut on your hard disk with the CD. If the CD allows you to perform several tasks, you can associate more than one shortcut with it, one for each task.

Now, when you insert your CD you'll see the AutoPlay Extender dialog again, with all its shortcuts listed. Click on the Run button, and away you go; the program linked to the selected shortcut will run immediately. The shortcut can refer to a program on the CD or on your hard disk, or even a DOS batch file you've written. AutoPlay Extender even gives you one-button access to any CD's SETUP.EXE program.

Another timesaver is the Contents submenu. It allows you to examine a folder's contents without opening the folder. Right-click on the folder's icon, and you'll see a new menu choice--Contents. Select it, and a submenu appears with one entry for each of the folder's files, folders or shortcuts. This has the same effect as opening the original folder and double-clicking on a particular icon.

Eliminate one of Explorer's most annoying aspects with the Explore From Here feature. Though Explorer is a handy way to navigate your hard disk, it starts all its sojourns from the same home base--the desktop. If you right-click on a drive's or folder's icon, the resulting pop-up context menu contains a choice that reads Explore. Select it, and Explorer starts and displays the drive's or folder's contents in its right windowpane. But Explorer's left pane will show your entire computer or network file system tree, beginning with the desktop.

Explore From Here adds an entry to the context that reads, appropriately, Explore From Here. Select it and Explorer starts, but this time the drive or folder you're examining is highlighted in Explorer's left-hand pane.

If you can't work without music, check out FlexiCD--the world's simplest CD player program. It displays a small CD icon in your taskbar's status window. Right-click on that icon, and you'll see FlexiCD's menu. It's simple but sufficient. Menu choices allow you to Play, Stop, Resume, Skip to Next Track, Skip to Previous Track, Eject the CD and select individual tracks for play.

One of the PowerToys collection's most useful programs may not be available by the time you read this. QuickRes, which lets you change your screen resolution and number of display colors without rebooting, is scheduled to expire on Oct. 31 as I write this. Hopefully, Microsoft will reconsider this decision, or provide an even better utility to take its place.

Shortcuts are handy, but they create a few frustrations of their own. Sometimes a job, such as checking a file's properties or moving or deleting a file, requires the original, or target, file instead. That's why PowerToys includes yet another choice in the pop-up context menu that appears when you right-click on a shortcut's icon. Just select Target to display the Target submenu. All the choices in this menu--Open, Quick View, Cut, Copy, Paste, Properties and more--apply to the shortcut's target file, not the shortcut file you've selected.

Finally, there's something that can make X-Windows refugees feel right at home. XMouse mimics the behavior of this popular UNIX-based graphical user interface, causing Windows' input focus to shift to whichever application window is under the mouse cursor. You no longer need to click on a window before you type. An option even brings windows with the focus to the forefront, making them completely visible with just a pass of the mouse.

By the way, if you have any problems installing or using any of the PowerToys, don't look for help from any of the official Microsoft support channels. Fortunately, despite a couple of rough edges, I've found the toys install easily and work as advertised. Just be sure to read the README.TXT file that comes with the toys prior to installation.

All this is just the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft has released other Win95 freebies, and a bunch of companies have followed suit. I'll save those for another time.