COMPUTER TIPS
PAGE 7
- INCREASE DIAL UP SPEED
If you access the Internet primarily by dial-up connection, Win95 may be holding you back-way back. That's because, by default, Win95 optimizes some of its internal Internet settings for LANs, and not for modems. For example, Win95 normally sets an MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) packet size of 1500, an Ethernet standard. But standard dial-up Internet connections use a packet size of 576 bytes. The packet-size mismatch can lead to needless slowdowns. If you use your company's Ethernet LAN, leave MTU and its related settings alone. But if you access via modem, grab a free copy of Mike Sutherland's MTU-Speed applet at . This nifty little utility lets you easily adjust MTU and various other Registry settings that can affect dial-up speed. Some users report their download speeds have doubled after using the optimizations suggested by MTU-Speed!
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- STICKY DESKTOP ICONS
"If you enable user profiles on a system, it seems that all of the desktop settings are individual with the exception of certain desktop icons. If one user changes these icons, they are changed for ALL users on that computer. Is there a way around this?"
Microsoft confirms that this "sticky icons" phenomenon (which arises when a user selects one of the Plus! desktop themes) is a bug. The problem is, Windows looks in the wrong place for the desktop icon information. (The instructions for the desktop icons are located in the System.dat file, but with user profiles enabled, the instructions for each user's desktop settings are stored in his or her User.dat file--a pointless location, since Windows never looks there for the information!) As a work-around, you may wish to try Microsoft's suggestion for setting up a custom scheme in each user's Startup folder. For more details, check out Microsoft's Knowledge Base Article ID #136898 ("Desktop Icons Do Not Change When Different Users Log on") at
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- PUTTING ADDRESSES FROM A MAIL MESSAGE INTO THE ADDRESS BOOK
Ordinarily you don't need to copy the address; you don't need any special procedure at all. All you have to do is double-click the message to open it and then right-click the sender's address (From). Now choose Add to Address Book.
Once the address is added, you may want to edit the name. To do this, choose File, Address Book, select the name, and choose File, Properties. Edit the name and click OK.
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- PRINTING ALL FONT FAMILIES IN WIN 95
To print any font family
1.Double-click the My Computer icon on your desktop and open Control Panel.
2.Open Fonts.
3.Right-click any font icon and click Print.
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- NETWORK CONNECTION / MODEM
If you access the Internet primarily by dial-up connection, Win95 may be holding you back-way back. That's because, by default, Win95 optimizes some of its internal Internet settings for LANs, and not for modems. For example, Win95 normally sets an MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) packet size of 1500, an Ethernet standard. But standard dial-up Internet connections use a packet size of 576 bytes. The packet-size mismatch can lead to needless slowdowns. If you use your company's Ethernet LAN, leave MTU and its related settings alone. But if you access via modem, grab a free copy of Mike Sutherland's MTU-Speed applet at This nifty little utility lets you easily adjust MTU and various other Registry settings that can affect dial-up speed. Some users report their download speeds have doubled after using the optimizations suggested by MTU-Speed! MTU is reported as having moved to:
(at which location I found it).
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- USING THE KEYBOARD FOR WINDOWS APPLICATIONS
You can move or resize open Windows applications using only your keyboard. First, press Alt+Spacebar to bring up a menu. Press S, then use the arrow keys to resize the window. Press M and move the window using the arrow keys. Press Enter to keep the window change or Esc to return the window to its previous state.
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- PUT SOME MEAT ON THAT TASKBAR'S BONES
Admit it: When it comes to opening programs and windows in Windows 95, you have no self-control at all. Five or ten minutes into any work session, your taskbar is crammed with tiny little buttons so small that the names of the programs and windows they represent are entirely truncated, rendering the taskbar entirely useless. How can you prevent this problem? Well, you COULD learn to control yourself. You could develop good working habits: open only the programs and windows you need, close them when you're through with them, clean your taskbar periodically. You could expand the principles of taskbar
cleanliness to the rest of your life, keeping your desk and your office neat, cleaning out your glove box regularly, picking up your room at home. You could change the entire direction of your life by taking a
neater, more organized approach toward everything you do! Or you can just make the taskbar bigger, to hold more of your mess:
- Hold the mouse over the top edge of your taskbar (or left edge, right edge, or bottom edge, depending on where your taskbar is positioned); a double-headed arrow appears.
- Drag up (or down or to the right or left) until the taskbar is as large as you want.
Note that the taskbar can only be half as tall (or wide) as your screen, which means that , whether you want the help or not, Windows keeps you from filling up your ENTIRE screen with junk--at least of the taskbar variety.
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- MOUSE CURSOR FILE AS AN ICON
To use a mouse cursor file as an icon, right-click on the document or shortcut and select Properties from the Context menu. Click on the Shortcut tab, then the Change Icon button. Use the Browse button item to navigate to the C:\Windows\Cursors folder. Select All Files from the Files of Type drop-down menu. Select the cursor file of your choice and click OK.
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- USING ICONS AS MOUSE POINTERS
You can also use icons as mouse pointers or cursors. Just launch the Mouse Control Panel item, select the Pointers tab, then double-click on the pointer or cursor you want to change. Select All Files from the Files of Type box, then find and double-click on the icon of your choice. Click OK.
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- MAKE YOUR OWN WINDOWS KEY
Wish you had a Windows key on your keyboard, just like your friends with Microsoft Natural Keyboards? Then make one. All you need to complete the operation is the Keyboard Remap Kernel Toy and your Right Ctrl or Right Alt key.
Point your Web browser at
and click the Windows 95 Keyboard Remap link. Download the file to your location of choice, then double-click Keyremap.exe to extract its contents.
Right-mouse-click the resulting Keyremap.inf file and select install.
To use this utility, open the Control Panel, double-click Keyboard, and select the new Remap tab. Under
Right-hand Side, select the key you want to transform--such as Right Alt--in the left-hand box.
In the right-hand box (still under Right-hand Side), select Windows. Click OK, and you now have a Windows key.
See for yourself--press the key you transformed once and up pops the Start menu!
Below are some more Windows key shortcuts.
Holding down your Windows key:
* Press E to open Windows Explorer.
* Press R to open the Run dialog box.
* Press F to open the Find dialog box.
* Press F1 to open Help.
* Press M to minimize all open windows (Shift-Windows-M
to undo Minimize All).
* Press Tab to cycle through the Taskbar buttons.
* Press Break to open the System Properties dialog box.
Tipworld at -win 95 tip of the day)
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- MAKE YOUR OWN WINDOWS KEY FOR CD-ROM
If you used Windows "Startup Disk" to make an emergency bootable floppy disk, you've probably realized how incomplete it is. The Startup Disk will not give you access to your CD-Rom or any other device that requires DOS-level drivers, for example.
So, if you make a Startup Disk expecting to be able to use it to rebuild your system after a bad crash, you may be unpleasantly surprised when your system boots fine from the floppy but then won't let you access your CD to reinstall Windows or any other software. You can be left dead in the water.
<(http://www.langa.com/newsletters/7-Jun-98.htm>
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- STOP, IN THE NAME OF PROPERTIES!
If you're trying to free up some hard disk space or speed up your Windows startup, you may opt to remove some unused fonts from your system. Good idea, but whatever you do, don't try to find out how much space they all take up by opening the Control Panel's Fonts folder, selecting all the fonts inside, right-mouse-clicking the selection and choosing Properties. Doing so will not open a single Properties dialog box listing the total size of all the selected fonts, as you might expect. Instead, Windows will proceed to open a Properties dialog box for EVERY selected font (yikes), most likely resulting in a system
crash. (Go ahead, try it and see. We dare ya.)
Instead, right-mouse-click the Fonts folder (inside the Control Panel or your Windows folder), and select Properties. The resulting dialog box will tell you the total size of all installed fonts.
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- SHORTCUT TO WEB PAGE
To create a shortcut to a Web page, drag and drop a text link from the page onto your desktop. Clicking on the link will bring you directly to that page. To save a graphical link's image, right-click on the image and select Save Picture As (In IE4) or Save Image As (In Netscape).
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- FREE TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Free Online Technical support for WIN95
Drivers HeadQuarters
This site is a free, advertising supported service that provides links to hardware manufactures' Web sites or BBS phone numbers. If you can not find a driver this is the place for you!
WINfiles:
Hardware Driver Updates...
BugNet - The Global Authority on PC Bugs and Fixes
(NOTE: Not a free site)
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- MAKING SURE THAT DATE AND TIME ARE INCLUDED
A good way to keep track of your printed Web pages, is to include date and time information in the header and footer. To do this, run Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 and choose File, Page Setup. When the Page Setup dialog box opens, click Headers/Footers. Now you can enter the information codes that you want
to use in the upper-left, upper-right, lower-left, and lower-right entry boxes. After you enter the codes, click OK. Back in the original dialog box, click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes
.
HERE IS THE LIST OF CODES
- &p - will print page number
- &P - will print total number of pages
- &d - will print date
- &t - will print time (a.m./p.m.)
- &T - will print time (24-hour format)
- &w - will print window title
- &u - will print URL (page address)
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- EDITING
As you go about your Windows 95 business, there are many occasions for moving, copying, and creating shortcuts to file or folder icons. To ensure a move, you can always hold down the Shift key as you drag and drop an icon. Similarly, you can ensure a copy by holding down Ctrl during a drag and drop. But if you want choices up until the last second of any drag-and-drop operation, stick with the right-mouse
button. Right-mouse-click and drag an icon or selection of icons to their destination, let go, and in the resulting menu, select your operation of choice: Copy Here, Move Here, Create Shortcut(s) Here, or Cancel.
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- LIST OF ADDRESSES
To see the drop-down list of addresses of sites and folders you've recently visited, press the F4 key. You can click on any entry in this list and IE4 will immediately take you there.
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- WHAT TIME IS IT IN 502?
We all collect numerous phone numbers. Before you call an unfamiliar area code, you may wonder what time it is at the number's location. Say you're in business and planning to call a potential customer: It's
to your advantage to find out the time before you make the call and inadvertently wake up everyone in the house.
What you need is a copy of Area Time. When you run Area Time, you get a small floating dialog box. Type in an area code, and you get the local time and the name of the state.
There are no operating restrictions or time limits. There's not even a collection of nag screens. But if you like the program and use it, the programmer, Josef Schauer, would very much appreciate it if you register for $10. You can download Area Time from http://www.pcworld.com/fileworld/file_description/frameset/0,1458,2388,00.html
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- VARIATIONS ON AN MS-DOS THEME--PART 1 OF 2
In a previous tip, we suggested some MS-DOS commands for opening
Windows 95-style windows from a DOS session (running under Windows 95,
of course). A reader, E. MaLossi, suggests the following variations If you type: explorer ..at an MS-DOS prompt, it will open a single-paned Explorer window and carry you back one directory (from the current directory). If you type: explorer \ it will open a single-paned window focused on the C drive (assuming
that Windows is installed on drive C).
This same form of shorthand will work from the Start menu's Run command. For example, select Start, Run, type a period (.) and press Enter to open the Desktop folder.
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- NOT LOOKING AND PRINTING A WEB PAGE
In IE4, you don't have to be looking at a Web page in order to print it or save it to your hard disk. You can highlight its link and right-click, then pick the appropriate option from the context menu-either Print Target or Save Target As. (You can't print the page a link points to without viewing it in Netscape Navigator 4.0, but you can save it by right-clicking the link and selecting Save Link As.)
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- PRINTING THE CONTANTS OF A FRAME
If you want to print the contents of a frame in IE4, right-click on the frame and select the Print option from the context menu. To print the whole page, select File/Print; it brings up a dialog that lets you print either
the whole window or just a frame. (Netscape users can print the contents of a frame from the File-) Print Frame menu item. Netscape doesn't give the option to print the whole window, however.)
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- FORWARDING MAIL
When you want to forward mail to someone who might be interested in the topic, you have two choices: You can click Forward and then add a short message, or you can choose Mail, Forward as Attachment.
In the first case, the message is sent along with your explanatory note in the body of the new message. In the second case, the message is sent as an attachment and will retain its original formatting. It's just like attaching a Word document or a picture.
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- NAMES OF FILE EXTENSIONS
Every file format in the world - A through E . This is a list of file name extensions or suffixes that indicate the format or usage of a file and a brief description of that format. http://www.whatis.com/ff.htm
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- SPIFFING THE REMINDER WARNING
Want to spiff up the reminder/warning messages that pop onto your screen, such as, "You cannot move or copy this item . . .blah-de-blah-de blah . . "? You can make them look much nicer by changing the font Windows uses to write them. (Just be careful not to choose something that's almost impossible to read, such as NuptialScript!) Right-mouse-click the desktop, select Properties, click the Appearance tab, and under Item, select Message Box. At the bottom of the dialog box, change the Font (and Color, too, if you
dare), then click OK.
To test your change, open the Control Panel, then click and drag any item onto the desktop. A stylin' error message will appear!
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- SHOWING IMAGE WHILE TURNED OFF
If you've turned off images in order to speed up downloads, you can grab a single picture file if necessary by right-clicking on the image and selecting either Show Picture (in IE4) or Show Image (in Netscape 4).
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- IDENTIFYING YOUR DYNAMIC IP ADDRESS
When you use Dial-Up Networking in either Windows 98 or Windows 95 to connect to the Internet, the server at your ISP (Internet Service Provider) dynamically assigns you an IP (Internet Protocol) address. If you would like to know what IP address you have been assigned, you can use the undocumented WINIPCFG.EXE utility. To use this program, choose the Run command from the Start Menu and enter WINIPCFG.EXE in the Run dialog box and click OK. The IP Configuration dialog box will appear, displaying your computer's IP address.
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- SHORTCUT FOR LONG DOS PATHS
Here's a shortcut for typing in a long path to a DOS program. From Explorer, a folder or the Desktop, drag any file and drop it into the MS-DOS Prompt window. The path and the filename will appear on the command line.
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- DECREASING THE SIZE OF MAIL FOLDER
Save your messages as text files. Select a group of messages, select File, Save As, navigate your way to
the desired location of the file, name the file, and click Save. The result is a single *.txt file. (Note: This technique does NOT save attachments, so you'll need to save them in another location. Just be sure to change the attachment reference in the *.txt file to match your new storage location.)
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- BATCH FILE FOR MAIL
Before you can write a batch file to back up your Mail messages, you need to know where your mail files are located. To find the files, run Windows Explorer and look in c:\Program Files\Internet Mail and
News\Mail. If this is not your Mail location, choose Tools, Find, Files or Folders. When the Find dialog box opens, click in the Named entry box and type inbox.mbx
Now, click in the Look in entry box and type c:\
Select the check box labeled Include Subfolders and click Find Now. When Find locates your Inbox.mbx file, make a note of the full path. Now you're ready to create the batch file. Run Notepad and enter the
following as shown here (using the correct path for your mail files, of course):
@echo off
cls
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo
Insert a blank formatted floppy disk into Drive A
echo.
echo.
echo.
pause
cls
copy "c:\Program Files\Internet Mail and News\Mail\inbox.*" a:
copy "c:\Program Files\Internet Mail and News\Mail\outbox.*" a:
copy "c:\Program Files\Internet Mail and News\Mail\sent*.*" a:
Choose File, Save As and name the file Mail.bat. Choose a folder in which to keep the file (c:\ will do) and click Save. When you run Mail.bat, you'll be prompted to insert a blank, formatted disk into Drive A. After you insert the disk, press the spacebar to continue. Mail.bat will copy the Inbox, Outbox, and Sent Items files to the floppy disk. To run Mail.bat, you can locate it using Windows Explorer and use the
right-mouse button to drag its icon to the desktop. When you release the mouse button, a menu will appear. From this menu, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. Now you can double-click the shortcut to run the program.
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- CUSTOMIZING INTERNET EXPLORER
Would you like to put your own name or your company name into the Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 title bar? You can do this with a REG file that we just happen to have written. As always, we can't guarantee that running this REG file won't cause you problems, so run it at your own risk.
Open Notepad and enter the following text into the new Notepad document exactly as shown here (except for the actual title, of course). This is very important--you must enter the code exactly as shown and make sure the title is between the quotation marks.
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"Window Title"="Your title goes here"
Now choose File, Save As and name the new file Title.reg. Locate a folder in which to save the file and then click Save.
To enter your new title, make sure IE 3 isn't running and double-click Title.reg. You should get a message telling you that the Registry has been modified. When you next run IE 3, the new title will appear in
the title bar.
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- COPYING MS-DOS DATA
To copy data from the MS-DOS Prompt, right-click on the title bar and select Edit/Mark. In the MS-DOS Prompt window, highlight the area you want to copy by pressing and holding the left mouse button and dragging across the data. Press Enter, and you're ready to paste the information.
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- BEST WAY TO DELETE WALLPAPER
"What is the best way to delete wallpaper in Windows 95?" Each wallpaper listed on the Background tab of the Display Properties dialog box is nothing more than a bitmap (BMP) file in your Windows folder. To delete a wallpaper from your system, open the Windows folder, find the *.BMP file with the same name, and delete it. For example, to delete the Clouds wallpaper, delete Windows\Clouds.bmp. (Tip in a tip: If you never use the wallpapers that come with Windows 95, you can delete a number of them in one fell swoop. Open the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Programs, and click the Windows Setup tab. Select Accessories, click Details, deselect Desktop Wallpaper, and click OK twice.)
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- POWER TOYS
It sounds like a silly collection of games, but "Power Toys" is actually a set of free tools that no serious user should be without. There's a tool to make Win95's "CD AutoPlay" work on any nonaudio CD; a taskbar audio CD control; a way to change your screen's resolution and bit depth without rebooting; customized Find menus; and lots more, including Tweak UI 1.1. Tweak UI is a great way to adjust your Windows user interface. It's worth a download just by itself. (Incidentally, many of the Power Toy tools also work on NT.) Grab a copy at
(Note: Since this is a rather long URL, it may not work if your e-mail program wraps it to the next line. If you have trouble opening it, try copying the URL into your browser's Address or Location bar.)
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- Win95 and Win 3.0
Windows 95 should handle anything that Win 3.1 can dish out. You might, while in Windows 95, try the "3 fingered salute," to see what is running.
You can experiment by shutting off various program -- (End Task) button and see what effect it has on the operation of the computer. If you have 8 or 10 running, this can be tedious, but some things are not essential and can be removed (at least temporarily). If those are the programs that are conflicting you can possibly move them or remove them After you find what is conflicting, you, can figure out what is best.
You should NOT move, remove or delete anything unless you have a good (current, tested) boot up disk and a good back up on your registry files.
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- IE4's DESKTOP OR WIN98
If you have IE4's Desktop Update or Windows 98 installed, you can drag HTML files and drop them on the Taskbar for quick access to your favorite sites. Right click on the Taskbar and select Toolbars. Make sure Links is checked (select it if it is not). Then simply drag an Internet shortcut or a HTML file onto the Links Toolbar. Clicking on it will open the associated web page.
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- INSTALLING A NEW SYSTEM
Now just start the installation over from scratch. Turn off your computer and unplug the device you just removed. (Note: Unplugging the device may not be necessary, but you may as well do it, just in case).
Plug the device back in, turn your computer back on, and repeat the steps you followed to install the device the first time-selecting different drivers, of course!
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- REMOVING A DEVICE FROM YOUR SYSTEM
Remove the device from your system, then reinstall it. You can remove any device from your system using the System Properties dialog box. Right-mouse-click My Computer, select Properties, and click the Device Manager tab. Click the plus sign next to the category of the device you'd like to remove, then select the exact device. Click the Remove button, click Yes to confirm, and Windows will remove the device from your system.
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- TURNING OFF YOUR AUTOMATIC CD PLAYER
Windows 95 automatically plays some CDs as soon as you insert them. If you find this annoying, you can disable the AutoPlay feature. Simply open the Control Panel, double-click on the System icon, then click on the Device Manager tab. Locate your drive in the list and bring up its properties page. Click on the Settings tab, uncheck the Auto Insert Notification box and restart your computer. To override the AutoPlay for a single disc, press the Shift key as you insert the CD, holding it down until the CD indicator light goes out.
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- LET YOUR TRUE COLORS SHINE THROUGH
Right-mouse-click the desktop, select Properties, and click the Settings tab. Click the down arrow under Colors and you'll find four choices: 16 Colors, 256 Colors, High Color (16 bit), and True Color (32 bit). These four options determine the number of colors Windows uses to display what's on your screen. Select one, click OK, then restart Windows to see the change in effect.
For maximum performance, opt for 16 Colors. The fewer colors Windows has to display, the faster it can throw an image up on the screen. Of course, you'll have to put up with mottled images.
The 256 Colors setting still gives you decent performance (256 is a relatively small number of colors, as you'll see in a minute), but it allows you to view more realistic images on-screen. This is probably the most common setting.
If you prefer realistic images, you'll want to select the High Color setting. Then, Windows will use over 65,000 colors to display images. Of course, this setting can slow your video performance down significantly.
And last but not least, there's True Color. Would you believe this setting allows for around 16.8 million colors? You definitely don't need this setting unless you work with graphics for a living. It doesn't look any different from High Color (at least, not to the untrained eye), and as you might expect, it can really drag down performance. (Note: The effect these settings have on system performance will depend on your video hardware.)
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- ASSIGNING A LETTER TO YOUR CD-ROM DRIVE
It's easy to assign a different letter to your CD-ROM drive. Under Windows 95, go to the Control Panel, double-click on the System icon, then click on the Device Manager tab. Locate your drive in the list, bring up its properties, and click on the Settings tab. In the section at the bottom of the dialog box, enter the desired drive letter in the boxes labeled Start Drive Letter and End Drive Letter (for a single CD-ROM drive, these letters will be identical).
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- ADDING A NEW HARD DRIVE
You may encounter problems if you're attempting to upgrade an older system with a new hard drive. Many old PCs have a system BIOS that won't recognize hard disks larger than 2.1GB. Luckily, many PCs can overcome this problem through flash BIOS upgrades. It may be just a matter of downloading an upgrade file and running an installation. Call your system manufacturer or check its Web site for more information.
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- HARDDRIVE SPECIFICATIONS
If you want to buy a hard drive but are confused by all the specifications, remember that the key number is average access time. This is the time it takes from the issuance of a command to access a single sector to the time when the drive's head reaches the sector. But beware, some ads quote seek time that is not the appropriate measurement. Access time is seek time plus latency (the time it takes for the chosen sector to come around to be positioned under the read/write head).
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- TOO MANY TEMP FILES?
If you use a dual boot computer, one that runs both Windows NT Workstation 4.0 and Windows 95, you may be using up a lot of disk space needlessly for your temporary Internet files. This happens because Microsoft Internet Explorer will set up two identical caches: one in \Windows, and one in \Winnt. When you delete the cache files (choose View, Options, click Advanced, click Settings, and then click Empty Folder), both caches are deleted.
If you'd rather get rid of this redundant disk usage, boot to Windows NT Workstation 4.0 and then run Microsoft Internet Explorer. Choose View, Options and click the Advanced tab. Click Settings and then
click Move Folder. Select \Windows\Temp (the default for Windows 95) as the folder for the Internet files and click OK. Close the Options dialog box and then close Internet Explorer.
From now on, Microsoft Internet Explorer will use the same cache folder for both operating systems.
MENU
PAGE 6
REVISED Aug. 28, 1998
You can reach me by e-mail at: bentivegna@earthlink.net