Win95 supports a large number of popular video cards from about 30 different vendors—but that's not the same as saying it supports every feature of every card. If your card, or some special feature you need or want on your card, isn't supported, you'll need your old-style Win 3.*x* video setup disks. Similarly, some video cards need the help of a small program (often called "monitor" and placed in the AUTOEXEC file) to properly communicate with the monitor. Win95 usually leaves this program alone—which it should. But it's a wise precaution to make sure you hang onto your old Win 3.*x* drivers and setup disk until you're 100 percent sure your video is working properly under Win95.
Normally, when you select Restart from the shutdown menu, the system "warm boots"--it shuts down as though you'd pressed control-alt-delete (though in a more orderly and less dangerous way). But if you just want to restart Windows without restarting your whole system, click the Restart Computer option on the Shutdown menu, hold down the Shift key and click on the Yes confirmation option. Windows 95 will now shutdown and restart without rebooting your whole system.
Win95's built-in peer networking services makes it very easy to share the files on your system. But don't let it be too easy: If you're using Win95's built-in Internet connectivity, it's smart to turn off "print and file sharing" for TCP/IP—the Internet networking protocol. To put it another way, if you leave print and file sharing turned on for TCP/IP, your system could potentially peer-share its files to anyone else on the Internet, anywhere in the world. Yes, you can and should set passwords to protect your system, but why leave the front door open in the first place? It's easy to turn off print and file sharing for TCP/IP. In Control Panel, open the Networks applet and double-click on TCP/IP in the Configurations tab. Click the Bindings tab, and then uncheck "File and printer sharing for Microsoft networks." That's all there is to it.
It's a great idea to have an emergency boot floppy handy for worst-case accidents—but you should know that the floppy may not be all you need. For example, if your personal disaster recovery plan hinges on accessing your CD or the network, make sure you also have all the drivers or other software you need along with your startup disk. And test your emergency startup procedures so you'll know they'll really work when you need them.
When telling Win95 where in the world you live (on the timezone map), you should know that the map is more sensitive than you might think. New York and Lima, Peru are both in the same general time zone, for instance, but Win95 knows that Lima does not observe daylight savings, while New York does. So don't just click on a general time zone—be sure you've selected the actual locale where you live, or you may get inappropriate clock behavior in spring and fall.
Logow.sys and Logos.sys are graphic screens shown during Windows shutdown. The former is the "wait" screen, and the latter is the "it is now safe to shutdown" screen. Unlike the "RLE" weirdness of past Windows versions, these files are standard bitmaps you can modify with the Paint applet or another bitmap editor. Make a backup copy first so you can get the system back the way it was, then have at it. Make your system look the way you want when it's shutting down.
You can bypass the Windows 95 Logo at startup. Just press the ESC key during start. For a permanent fix, use Notepad to edit the MSDOS.SYS file. Add the line LOGO=0 to the Options section. If you ever want the logo back, change the 0 to 1.
When installing new software under Win95, try to do it through Control Panel's "Add/Remove Programs" applet when possible. It not only automates some of the setup of new software, but also allows Win95-aware programs to register themselves in such a way that Win95 can automatically uninstall the software at some later point, if you wish.
Win95 comes with a full complement of system tools that are the best ever to ship with Windows. Use 'em all:
Scandisk is now a full Windows program (although Win95 also includes a command-line version). You can run Scandisk even while other software is running, and it will thoroughly snoop your disk for a wide variety of potential and actual problems. It's worth running regularly.
Defrag likewise is now a full Windows program--no more exiting to DOS to defragment your hard drive. Because Defrag is CPU-intensive, it will run far faster and better if you let it do its thing either during a lunch hour or overnight. In any case, keeping your disk files smoothly contiguous speeds disk accesses, makes file recovery easier in case of a problem and is generally considered good practice.
Drivespace is fast and fine, doubling your disk space effortlessly. Although all disk compressors steal some CPU cycles to crunch and fluff your files, Drivespace is now a 32-bit application, and the performance hit isn't noticeable in most cases.
Drivespace 3, part of the Win95 Plus Pack, is even better. It offer four levels of compression (none, standard, HiPack, UltraPack) and can deliver well over double your normal uncompressed disk space. It's also 32-bits, and offers a wide range of optimization and tuning options.
Sysedit was—and still is—a fast, fine way to get at your Autoexec, Config, System, Win and Protocol files. In Win95, you also gain access to MSMail and Schedule+ .INI files. Just type SYSEDIT on the Start button's Run command line.
Well, check out MSInfo (usually found in the windows/msapps/msinfo folder). MSInfo gives you a ton of information about your system, its components and how everything fits together. It's a great learning tool, and a great way to help spelunk the depths of your system to resolve obscure problems.
On its own, Recycle Bin will consume up to 10% of your hard disk space. If you want it to use more (!) or less, right-click on the Recycle Bin and select Properties. You can set exactly how much--or how little--space the Bin should use.
Win95 always asks if you really mean it when you try to delete a file or drag it to the Recycle Bin. If you often kill the wrong file, that's a useful confirmation. But if you generally only throw out files you really want thrown out, the confirmations are a pain in the carpal tunnel. Right-click on Recycle Bin/Properties, and you can turn off delete confirmations.
Some files may be so sensitive (budget reports, for example) or toxic (some ripe Internet downloads, for example) you want them immediately gone forever, without an intermediary stop in the Recycle Bin. To *immediately* delete a file, no fooling around, hold down the Shift key when you delete it.
Retrain yourself to use shortcuts and drag and drop. These aren't Win3.1 habits, but they're well worth picking up as soon as you switch over to Win95. Both are huge timesavers and let you use the new operating system to its fullest. So stop and ask yourself: Could I make a shortcut out of this? Is there a drag-and-drop equivalent? If there is, try it out until it becomes second nature. You'll end up far more productive.
As of press time, Microsoft hasn't said how the Resource Kit for Win95 will be distributed. But it'll be worth its weight in gold, filled with everything you need to know about Win95 and more. When the Resource Kit becomes available--get it!
The new 32-bit applications for Windows 95 are starting to appear in serious numbers now. As soon as you can, make the move. You'll loose all the 16-bit weirdness of your old apps and gain full benefit from Win95's increased resources and power. You won't regret it, so make the move to 32-bit as fast as you can!
By right-clicking on folders, documents, programs and desktop objects, you can bring up the Context menu for that item. Using the Context menu, you can invoke the Properties dialog, as well as do file-management tasks.
To quickly create a shortcut (an icon that resides on the desktop), right-click on the document or folder and select Create Shortcut.
Empty the Documents item on your Start menu by clicking on the Start button and selecting Taskbar from the Settings menu. Click once on the Start Menu Programs tab and then on the Clear button.
Documents are usually associated with a single application. Normally, when you double-click on a document type, the system tells Windows to open a specific application, then open the document in that application. But you can expand your options. Double-click on My Computer, select View/Options and click on the File Types tab. Look in the Registered File Types list for the document type that you'd like to open in other apps. Click on Edit, then New. Type something like "Open in <your application>" in the Action field. Click on the Browse button to find the application. Click OK, Close, then Close again. Now, whenever you right-click on that document type, you'll see the option you added.
View a folder in a two-pane Explorer window by clicking once on the folder, holding down the Shift key and double-clicking on it. Note that you must first click once on the folder because holding the Shift key when single-clicking on any file selects all the files in that container object to the one you clicked on. If you just hold down the Shift key and double-click, you'll open all the objects from the one you double-clicked on to the top.
You can launch Control Panel items by clicking Start/Settings/Control Panel, then double-clicking on the item from the Control Panel folder. But if you're like us and find yourself frequently using Control Panel applets, you'll want to set them up so they're available directly from the Start menu. Here's how. First, open the Control Panel the old way (described above) and leave it open on your desktop. Then, right-click on the taskbar and select Properties. Select the Start Menu Programs tab and click on the Advanced button. From the File menu, select New/Folder. Name the folder "Control Panel." From the original Control Panel window, select all the items in the window and drag and drop them onto the new Control Panel item you've created in the Advanced dialog. A dialog box will ask you if you want to create a shortcut. Click on the Yes button. You'll probably want to remove the "Shortcut to" that Windows will put in front of all the shortcuts you create.
When using the Save As command in an application in Win95, you can create a new folder into which you can put the new file---right in the middle of your Save As! When you select Save As from the file menu of your application, the Save As dialog box will come up. Right click on the white space of the dialog box, and select New/Folder from the context menu. Name your folder, then save your file into the new folder.
When you right-click on a file or folder, you'll see the Send To item on the Context menu. If you select an item on the same drive, the object will be moved to the selected location. If you want to send the file or folder to a location on another drive, the object will be copied.
You can add locations to or remove them from the Context menu's Send To item by adding or removing shortcuts in the SENDTO folder, which you'll find in your WINDOWS folder.
The desktop is one cool destination for the Send To item on your Context menus. Open the SENDTO folder in your WINDOWS directory and right-click in the white space, then select New/Create Shortcut Here from the context menu. Type in the path C:\WINDOWS\DESKTOP.
You can share folders on a network without making them visible to others by adding a dollar sign ($) to the end of the folder name.
Drag any application or document onto the Start button to place that item on the Start menu.
Create a "scrap" by cutting and pasting part of a document and dragging it to the desktop. You can later use the scrap by dragging it and dropping it back into a document. Scraps can be text or images.
Press Alt+F4 from the Windows desktop to shut down your PC.
Press Ctrl+Esc to open the Start menu. Once it's open, use the arrow keys or the underlined letters on the menu to navigate.
Hold your mouse pointer over the time on the taskbar, and the date will pop up as a tool tip. Double-click on the time, and the dialog box to change the time and date will appear. If you want to remove the clock from the taskbar, right-click on the time, select Properties from the Context menu and remove the check from the Show Clock box.
Open the Start menu folder by right-clicking on the Start button and selecting Open from the Context menu. Inside, you'll find the Programs folder, which contains the Startup folder. Any programs you place in that folder will start up automatically when you launch Windows 95.
To maximize a folder or program into which you want to place a file, drag the file to the taskbar. Hold the file in mid-drag, for a second or so, over the folder or program into which you want to place it. The folder will automatically maximize.
Hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a document to add the Open With command to the Context menu. By selecting Open With, you'll be given the opportunity to choose an application.
Don't like your taskbar at the bottom of the screen? You can move it to the top or to either side of your desktop by simply dragging and dropping it.
Hold the Shift key while closing a folder to close all open folders in the path to the folder all the way to the root.
Right-click on the taskbar and select Minimize All Windows to clear your desktop.
Teach Win95 to leave the words "Shortcut to" off the title of shortcuts---by example! Create several Shortcuts in a row, and delete "Shortcut to" each time. After 5 or 6 times, Windows gets the hint and stops putting the words "Shortcut to" under the icon. However, you'll have to start over in your next Windows session.
Hold down the Ctrl key while you double click on folders. If you've set up your folders to open a new window each time you double-click on a folder, it will just show you the new level in the same window. If you've set up your folders to open in the same window, it will open a new one.
You can select icons or folders on the desktop or within folders in large numbers by clicking outside the body of icons, pressing and holding the left mouse button, dragging the pointer so that the square encases all the icons you want to select, then letting go. Now that they're all selected, you can move, copy or delete them en masse.
You can add or delete folders surgically by pressing and holding the Ctrl key. Click on it once and it's selected. Click on it again, and it's de-selected.
There's a happy medium between selecting all icons by "circling icons with squares" and "surgical selection." Hold down the Shift key while you select your first icon in a contiguous group of icons. With the Shift key still down, click on the last icon, and all those in between will be selected as well.
Find out how much available hard disk space you have. Double-click on My Computer, select the C: drive icon, then press Alt+Enter (or right-click on the C: icon) to bring up the Properties dialog. You'll see a pie chart of your hard disk space usage.
Right-click on the Taskbar, select Properties from the Context menu, then select Auto Hide. The Taskbar will pop up when you move the mouse pointer near the bottom of the screen.
You can launch programs by clicking on the Start menu, moving the mouse pointer up to the Programs group, selecting the program group, then the program----but there's a much faster way. Open My Computer and find the programs you use the most. Drag and drop the executables onto the start button. That will put all your most frequently used programs right on the first Start menu, available for fast access.
On your notebook, hold the mouse pointer over the battery (or, if it's plugged in, the plug) icon in your task bar. You'll see the percentage of battery power remaining.
Send your letter fast, if you're running Exchange. Right-click on the file you want to send, select Send To, then choose Mail Recipient. Exchange will launch by itself, open a message, attach your file and give you the opportunity to address the e-mail or send it.
If you have a folder active when you launch the Run dialog (Start/Run), Windows uses that folder as the current directory when you delete the default choice and click the Browse button.
You can actually drag documents and folders into the Run dialog, and Windows types the path for you (after you delete the default path). You can then modify and launch with your changes.
Sometimes it's hard to tell what the DOS file extension of a document is (Win95 does a good job hiding that information from you). An easy way to find out is to drag the file to the Run command dialog as described above. The entire path---including the file extension---will be revealed.
Your most recently launched Run commands are always available. Click on the down-arrow in the Run dialog or use the down arrow key to see a menu.
If you've loaded the Internet Explorer application from the Microsoft Plus! CD, you can type a URL (universal resource locator) Web address in the Run dialog command line. For example, typing http://www.winmag.com in the Run dialog box and pressing enter will send you hurtling toward *Windows Magazine's* Web site.
If you're on a network, you can type the UNC (universal naming convention) path to a folder on the server into the Run command line.
If you find yourself searching the same folder or for the same kind of file (say, a Word document), save your search for future use. After you conduct a search, select File/Save Search. It'll place an icon on your desktop which, when launched, will bring up Find with all the parameters pre-set.
Hold the mouse pointer over folders or Win95 applications on the taskbar. A tool tip will pop up and give you the name of the folder or application and active document names.
From the View menu of any open folder, select View/Tools to bring up the folder toolbar. The button on the left is the Up One Level button. Click on the button repeatedly to move toward the root.
Running low on disk space? Right click on the Recycle Bin and select Empty Recycle Bin from the context menu.
At first glance, Win95 seems to be a mouse-lover's dream system. Look again and you'll see that it's a keyboarder's paradise as well. One of the more powerful features is that any object can be assigned a hotkey. Here's how to do it. Create a shortcut for the item youwant to hotkey. Bring up the Properties dialog by right-clicking on it and selecting Properties. Click on the Shortcut tab and click once in the Shortcut Key field. Actually do the hotkey combination you want to assign, then click on the OK button. Assigning a hotkey in this way will allow you to switch to the program if it's already running on your desktop.
Win95 will load your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files if it thinks you still need them. But that may be unnecessary. To find out whether you really need the files, make backup copies of each, and make sure you have an emergency boot disk handy. Change the name of CONFIG.SYS to CONFIG.OLD by right-clicking on the file (you'll find it in the root directory of your hard disk), selecting Rename and typing in the new name. Now, shut down your system and restart. If everything works OK, do the same with your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
The quickest way to put a file or folder on a diskette, is to right-click on it, select Send To from the Context menu, and choose 3 ½ Floppy.
Admit it. In your haste and excitement, you failed to make a startup disk when you installed Windows 95. Don't worry. You can still redeem yourself. Open the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel item and click on the Startup Disk tab. Put a diskette in your diskette drive and click on the Create Disk button.
You already know that when you drag an object to or from the desktop using the right mouse button, you're given the option to Move, Copy, Create Shortcut or Cancel when you let go of the button. But if you don't want to use the right mouse button (or don't have one), you can accomplish the same thing by pressing and holding Ctrl+Shift and using the left mouse button.
If you drag and drop a file or folder on the same storage device (say, from one location on your hard disk to another), the object is moved. But if you press and hold the Ctrl key while you drag, the object is copied to the new location.
Chose the files or folder you want to put in your Briefcase, right-click on one of them, select Send To/Briefcase.
By pressing the Esc key, you can quickly close any open dialog box.
Press Alt+Tab to bring up the Coolswitch box. By holding down the Alt key and repeatedly pressing the Tab key, you can move through your running applications. When you let go, the currently selected item will come to the foreground.
To see the path of a folder or file, right-click on it and select Properties from the Context menu. Hold your mouse pointer over whatever shows in the Location field. A tool tip will pop up with the DOS path.
Double-click on the time in the taskbar to bring up the Data/Time Properties dialog, where you can change your system's time and date settings.
You can double-click on the mini icon in the upper left corner of an application to make a quick exit.
If you do a lot of printing, find your printer in My Computer and drag it to your desktop while holding the right mouse button. When you let go, select Create Shortcut Here. Place your new printer shortcut icon where you want it on your desktop.
Don't you hate that feeling? If you move a file and wish you hadn't, just select Undo from the Edit menu.
If you rename a file then change your mind about it, just press Alt+Backspace.
Press Alt+Esc to move from one open application or folder to the next.
Move from one item to the next in a dialog box by pressing the Tab key.
In dialog boxes with multiple tabs, move from one tab to the next by pressing Crtl+Tab.
Select the highlighted item by pressing the Spacebar.
Print out the fonts on your system by opening Control Panel and double-clicking the Fonts icon. Then choose the font you want to print and click on the Print button.
Or at least let several people share it. Double-click on the Passwords icon in Control Panel, then select the User Profiles tab. Click on the "Users can customize their preferences and desktop settings" radio button. Restart the computer. At the welcome screen, enter a new user ID and password. If you want to create more custom desktops, restart the computer and enter new user IDs and passwords. You can fully customize each desktop without affecting the others.
Place a cascading Control Panel menu on your Start menu. Open the Start menu (right-click on the Start button and select Open) and create a new folder with the following name:
Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
You can also place your Dial Up Networking folder and its contents on the Start menu by adding a folder with this name:
Dial Up Net.{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CC48}
Your Control Panel Printers item will also end up on the Start menu if you take the steps outlined above and give the file the following name:
Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
When you drag and drop a file, it is moved or copied depending on whether you're moving it within a drive or to another drive--unless, that is, the file is a program. Whenever you drag and drop a program file, Windows creates a shortcut in the new location by default. To avoid this, right-drag the application and choose to create a copy.
If you're halfway through a drag-and-drop operation and change you're mind, just hit the Esc key to bail out.
Right-click on the My Computer icon and select Properties. This tabbed dialog is your hardware's Rosetta Stone. By exploring the various tabs and items, you can find out about all the devices installed on your system, memory and port settings.
Whenever you have a dialog box open, right-click on items in the box to get a label for the selected item. Then click on the "What's This?" item that pops up to get a more detailed explanation. You can also click on the question mark icon in the upper right-hand corner of the dialog, then click on any area of the box for further information.
Double-click on the title bar of any application, document or folder windows to toggle between maximized and restored states.
Right click on the taskbar buttons of minimized applications and select Close from the menu to quickly exit them.
Depending on the size and layout of your desktop icons, your icon titles may crowd each other. In extreme cases, they may even overlap and obscure one another. The solution is twofold: Right-click on the desktop and select "auto arrange" from the "Arrange icons" menu. Next, right click on the desktop again and choose Properties, the Appearance tab, and the Item menu. Scroll down and adjust the Icon Vertical Spacing and Icon Horizontal Spacing until your desktop looks clean and orderly again.
Yes, you're getting older, but it may not be your eyes. On large-screen monitors, the standard icon title fonts can appear to be really, really small. On small screens, the type may seem huge. Either way, you can fix it. Right click on the desktop and choose Properties, then the Appearance tab, then the Item menu. Scroll down and select Icon from the list, and choose the font and size you wish from the pick-lists.
Grab an edge of the taskbar to resize it when it gets filled with tasks. A larger taskbar is easier to read and won't make the tasks appear so crowded.
Right-click on the taskbar and select Properties and Autohide. The bar will fade offscreen when you don't need it, giving you full use of your video real estate. Put your mouse near the edge of the screen where the taskbar is hidden, and it will pop back out, ready to use. Next, left-click anywhere on the taskbar and hold the click. You can also click and drag the taskbar to any edge of the screen. (No, you don't have to live with the taskbar at the bottom!)
If you want applications to run minimized, full screen or "normally," create a shortcut for the application, right click on the shortcut icon, select Properties, click on the Shortcut tab and make your selection in the Run pulldown menu.
You can search your diskette drive, hard drive and mapped network drives at the same time by selecting My Computer in Find's "Look in" box.
Search multiple drives that you select using an undocumented feature of Find. Separate drives with a semi-colon. For example, if you want to search your A, C and D drives, type the following in the Look In box: A:;C:;D:
Here's how to select items on the desktop without a mouse. Press Ctrl+Esc to bring up the Start menu, hit Esc, then Shift+Tab.
The Win95 Recycle Bin can give you a false sense of security. You know you can retrieve items you move there, so you'll feel increasingly comfortable dumping stuff in there without a second thought. But beware! Items from other drives (say, the network or floppy drives) that you place in the Recycle Bin are permanently and instantly deleted, not stored.
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