OCS Windows Tips

Windows Tips

General Windows 95 Tips	Microsoft Office Tips
Networking Tips	Speed Up Windows (more for power-users)
Multimedia	Free Disk Space
Boot-Up Configuration	Keyboard Stuff
Windows Explorer Tips	Troubleshooting Windows
My Computer

General Tips:

You can hide your taskbar so it only appears when you move your mouse to the very bottom of the screen. To do this, right-click on the task bar, select Properties, and then click on Auto Hide.

You can minimize all open windows at one time by placing your cursor on the task bar (the bar on the bottom of the screen) and clicking the right mouse button. When you click the right mouse button, a menu will appear and one of the choices will be to minimize all windows. Make sure to put the cursor in an open space (i.e. not on a program’s button).

You can see examples of all your fonts by opening the WINDOWS\FONTS folder and double clicking on any of the fonts. You can even print out examples of each font.

Beautify your desktop: Find an attractive picture and turn it into wallpaper. Convert it into a .bmp file and save it in c:\windows. Click the desktop, select Properties, click the Background tab, and make your selection.

Manage your Start Menu: You can make the Start menu more manageable by displaying small icons. To do this, right-click the Taskbar, select Properties, and check Show small icons in the Start menu.

To place frequently used apps on your Start menu, click on an executable file in Explorer and drag it to the Start button. Win 95 will add the app to the top of the Start menu.

Long filenames are great… until you need to access them in a DOS window. For instance, to change to the "My Documents" directory, most people would type 'dir myd*.*' and see that the directory name in DOS is 'mydocu~1'. After that, they type 'cd mydocu~1". This is beyond frustrating and sllooooowwwww.
Instead, place the file name or directory name in quotes. For instance, to change to the 'My Documents' Directory, type: cd "my documents".

Make a habit to disable any virus-checking software before you install any software. Virus checking software will sometimes interfere with setup programs that need to create or modify system files.

You can adjust the time on your computer by right-clicking the time in the lower right corner and selecting Properties.

You can cut from almost every Windows application by pressing Ctrl + X. You can copy by pressing Ctrl + C. You can past from either a cut or copy by pressing Ctrl + V. This is especially helpful in Microsoft Word.

How to Access URLs (Web addresses) from the Start Menu: Select "Run" and type any URL address in the command line. For instance, to connect to the Washington Post, Select Start, then Run, and then type 'www.washingtonpost.com'. This will load a web browser and bring you to the Post’s site.

To capture screenshots of your Windows desktop, hit the Print Screen key, and Win 95 will save an image of your desktop to the clipboard. To capture only the active window, hold down the Alt key when you press Print Screen (this is good for printing error message boxes when you don’t need the rest of the screen). To print the screen picture, you can open Microsoft Word and paste it in or… even better, open Paint (Start, Programs, Applications) and paste it into there.

You can use the right mouse button to drag and drop objects to Win 95 applications, Explorer, and the desktop. It works just like dragging and dropping with the left mouse button, but when you let go of the button, a context menu pops up asking you how to drop the item. The list of actions you can perform depends on the type of object you're dragging and its destination. For folders, you get Move Here, Copy Here, and Create Shortcut Here.

If you hold down shift while dragging items into the Recycle Bin they will be DELETED immediately rather than being placed in the bin. Just be careful not to accidentally multi-select more files than you wanted. Similarly, pressing Shift-Del gives you the same effect.

BE PREPARED: Upon installing Windows 95, you're given the opportunity to create a Startup Disk--a boot disk that, should you have trouble starting Windows 95, gets you to MS-DOS, where you can check key files and run utilities in an attempt to figure out what's up. If you're impatient like the rest of us, you probably opted not to make the disk at the moment and figured you'd get to it later. Well, later is here (you never know when something's going to go wrong), so let's make that disk.
Open the Control Panel and double-click Add/Remove Programs. Select the Startup Disk tab and click the Create Disk button. When prompted to do so, insert a blank formatted disk into your floppy drive, then wait as Windows 95 copies all the necessary information to the disk. Better safe than sorry, you know.
Where's that $#%@#$&* CD! Do this and forget about your Windows 95 CD!
It seems like the time you need your Windows 95 disk most is when it is hardest to find. Only a fraction of the Windows 95 CD has the actual program, the rest has music videos, etc. The programs are stored in the \win95 directory and take 34 MB (which is relatively small, considering how large hard disks are now).
Create a directory on your C: drive called win95 ('md c:\win95') and then copy all the files from the CD to your hard drive ('copy d:\win95\*.* c:\win95'). When Windows 95 asks for the CD, type the new path ('c:\win95') in the dialogue box and presto! It works. Of course, you want to keep your CD in case of a crash BUT with this method, you will rarely use it.

Copying the files to the hard drive is also recommended if you are loading Windows 95 for the first time (it prevents several potential problems and is much faster).

There's a magical little program that is automatically installed by Win95 that you can use to make Win 3.x programs more compatible under 95. It is called MKCOMPAT.EXE and is in the Windows\System directory. Just run MKCOMPAT.EXE - Select File/Open - Open the EXE file that you are having problems with - Start highlighting things that seem like they may make a difference. - Select File/Advanced for more control options - Select File/Save to save the new configuration There is no online help - so some trial and error is in order until you find the optimal settings.

Ever have too many programs open, and the taskbar has a bunch of "icons" that you can't read the title in? Make it bigger! Just move your mouse cursor to the top of the task bar (if it's on the bottom) and drag it up. Win95 remembers position as well.

To select what folders and programs are displayed when you click Start, Programs -- right click on Start, click Open, and double click on Programs. This will bring you to the folder where this information is stored.

Here's an unbeatable way to close all the windows that Win 95 opens when you drill through folders: Hold down the Shift key when you click on a folder window's close button. Like magic, all of that folder's parent windows automatically close, along with the folder you clicked on. Combine Shift with the close button's keyboard equivalent, Alt-F4, and you get the same results.

Not everything you delete ends up in the Recycle Bin. Files you delete from network drives and floppy drives will be deleted permanently.

Hold the mouse pointer over the Taskbar clock to see the date displayed.

One of the great features of E-mail is the ability to attach files to an E-mail message. Unfortunately, many popular E-mail programs (including Eudora and Outlook) do not have the ability to select multiple files at once to send them through E-mail. Instead, you need to select each file to attach separately. Here is a way around it:
First, go to explorer and right-click on a file. Under 'Send To', see if there is an Icon for your E-mail program. If not, go to your E-mail directory (e.g. C:\Eudora) and find the main executable file (e.g. EUDORA.EXE). Copy this file to the C:\Windows\SendTo directory. Now, when you want to attach multiple files to E-mail, select the files you want to mail in Explorer, right click, choose 'Send To' and then click on your E-mail Icon. This should open a new message will all the files attached to it.

Microsoft Office

In Microsoft Word, you can select an entire sentence by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on any word in the sentence. By moving your mouse (and holding down the Ctrl key), you can select multiple sentences at a time.

There's an ancient Excel shortcut that still works in Excel 97, which lets you display formulas in your worksheet. Simply press the [Ctrl] and ` keys simultaneously. (The ` key is the top-left regular key on most keyboards.) This shortcut works as a toggle: Press the key combination once to display formulas, then press it again to return to the standard display of formula results.

Microsoft Word tip: Nonbreaking spaces offer a dependable way to ensure that your document doesn't contain unsightly or confusing text breaks. For instance, when you enter a date such as January 15, 2000, you want to make sure Word doesn't place January and 15 on different lines. Similarly, you don't want Word to break the line between a person's first name and middle initial. To enter a nonbreaking space, just press [Ctrl][Shift][Spacebar]. This also works with hyphens.

You can customize what icons appear on your Microsoft Office Toolbar. To do this, place your icon on the toolbar, right click your mouse and click "Customize." After you select Customize, select the "Buttons" option. From this you can add and remove different program icons. Also, if you have the Toolbar set to automatically hide between uses (e.g. it pops out when you mouse hits the side of the screen), I find it works best on the left. When on the right, it always comes up when I try to access my scroll bar.

When opening a file in Word, you can preview the documents without opening them (useful when you do not know what exact file you need). First, Select File, Open (or click on the second icon from the left – the yellow open file), and while in the Open dialog box, select the second to last icon on top. This will create a small window where you can view each document that you tag.

You can move your MS Office Tool Bar to any edge of your screen by dragging it with your mouse.

In Microsoft Word, you can choose a line by clicking in the far left margin. If you double click, you can tag the entire paragraph and if you triple click, you can tag the entire document.

Word for Windows 95 underlines all misspelled words. If you right-click on a misspelled word, it will provide you a list of possible correct spellings.

In Microsoft Word, you can select an entire sentence by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on any word in the sentence. By moving your mouse (and holding down the Ctrl key), you can select multiple sentences at a time.

If you use a word often that you do not wish to always type, you can use Word’s AutoCorrect feature. For instance, if you use the words "Equipment Maintenance" often, you can type EM and Word will know to automatically change it to "Equipment Maintenance." This is also handy for words you often misspell. To add a word to AutoCorrect, select Tools, and then AutoCorrect.

Explorer

Microsoft Explorer hides the file extensions (e.g. .exe, .doc) which can be annoying. To display the file extensions, open Explorer, click View and then Options. Un-check the second to the last box that says, "Hide MS-DOS file extensions…"

Microsoft builds associations with certain file types. For instance, when you click on a file with the extension of .doc, it knows to use Microsoft Word to open the file. If you want to open an already associated file with a different program than the one it is associated with (e.g. you want to open a .doc file with something other than word), hold down the shift key and then right click the file. "Open with" should be added to the menu now so you can open the file with a different program.

You can sort files in Explorer by clicking on the field heading. For instance, if you want to sort by date, click the column header that says "Modified".

If you have been copying files and need to re-fresh you list in Explorer, press F5.

When moving files in Explorer, take the file(s) you want to copy or move, click the right mouse button, and select copy or cut. Then, move to the folder you wish to paste the file(s) to and after right-clicking your mouse again (while in the destination folder), select paste.

You can use your right mouse button to drag files. Try it and see what happens!

Optimizing column width: As you probably know, you can adjust the width of the Name, Size, Type, and Modified columns in Windows Explorer’s Details view using your mouse. To do so, you first position your mouse cursor over the column border. When the mouse pointer turns into a doubled-headed arrow, just drag the pointer to enlarge or shrink the column. To quickly set the optimal column width, when the mouse pointer turns into a doubled-headed arrow, double-click the column border. When you do, the column width will be set to a size large enough, or small enough, to display all the data in the column.

In any Explorer folder, typing a letter will take you to the first file in the folder that starts with that letter. Pressing the letter again will take you to the next file that starts with that letter.

In an open Explorer or My Computer window, you can jump to your file or folder of choice by typing its first few letters. The trick is not to type too slowly. If you do, you'll end up at the first file or folder that starts with the first letter you type, then the first file or folder that starts with the second letter you type, and so on. But if you type fast, Windows 95 reads the whole combination of letters together.

To change an icon’s name, whether on the desktop or in Explorer, click on the actual text of the name (i.e. not the actual icon or folder), wait a split second and click on the name once more. This will allow you to enter a name up to 250 characters.

You can change the way you view files in almost all Windows 95 applications. For instance, when you are viewing files in explorer, or you want to open a file in Word, you can see just file names with small icons, file names with large icons, file names with information, etc. First, if there is not a toolbar in Explorer or My Computer (i.e. line of icons on top of window), click on View, and then select Toolbar. Most applications like Word's Open File window already have this toolbar included. On the right of the toolbar will be four icons that will allow you to view your files and folders with large icons, small icons, list view and details view. If you use small icons but need to see a file’s size or date, you can switch to list view or details view to get that information and then switch back.

Tip for working in Explorer (and other programs where you deal with files): To tag multiple files at once, click the first file in the range of files you wish to select, and while holding down the shift key, tag the last file. All files in-between will also be tagged. If you wish to tag individual files that are not listed in sequential order, click each file name while holding down the Ctrl key.

To fully expand a folder's contents in an Explorer window, click once on the directory and press the asterisk key (*) on your numeric keypad. All sub-directories and sub-sub-directories will immediately show. Ready to collapse it again? Don't bother with all those minus signs (-). Simply click the plus sign next to the top of the branch, then press F5.

Networking

To make a network share hidden, put a dollar sign ($) on the end of the share name. Only people who know the exact name of the share will be able to access it.

If you are tired of browsing through the Network Neighborhood to find files and folders stored on network servers, and are out of letters to use for mapped drives. What should you do? Mapping drives to fixed letters is an inelegant solution to a complex problem--after all, how are you supposed to remember that R: is where you've stored the 1998 budget forecasts? Besides, if you have a CD-ROM changer and a corporate campus full of servers, you'll reach Z: before you know it. So use universal naming convention (UNC) names instead. This syntax allows you to refer to any network location (including your own PC) using a common syntax: \\server\sharename\filename. (On a Novell NetWare network, replace the sharename entry with the volume name.) UNC names are legal in shortcuts, in the Filename line within dialog boxes for 32-bit applications, in the Run dialog box, or anywhere a file or printer's name is required.

If you think you have lost your network connection (e.g. your web browser and E-mail don't work), try using a TCP/IP command called ping. To do this, go to a DOS window and type "ping 162.79.3.5". This will send a signal to another computer asking "are you there?" If the command responds with, "Request Timeout", your network connection is down. In this case, you should re-start your PC and try again. If it still doesn't work, call your systems administrator.

To add other people’s printers to your PC, first, Click Start, Settings, Printers. This will open your Printers folder. Next, click on Network Neighborhood located on your main desktop and double-click on the person who owns the printer you want to use. A window should open and one of the listed icons should be for their printer (assuming they have shared their printer). With your mouse, drag that printer into your Printers folder. It will ask a few questions in which you should just accept all the defaults. EXCEPT – when it asks for Printer Name, rename it to, for instance, Vic’s HP4. This way, you will know whose printer belongs to whom. Once you complete this, the printer you just added will appear as one of the options when you go to print a document.

Speed Up Windows

Right-click on My Computer, select Properties, and then choose the Performance tab. Click on the File System button that appears on the bottom left and change the setting to Network Server.

Right-click on recycle bin, and choose "Empty Recycle Bin." Next, right-click on recycle bin again, and select properties. Adjust "Maximum size of recycle bin" to 2%.

Speeding Up the System Restart: Add 'BootDelay=0' to the [Options] section of C:\msdos.sys You may have to change the attributes on this file to be able to edit it.

To quickly re-boot windows, select Start and then Shutdown. Select "Restart Computer" and hold down the shift key while you hit OK.

Freeing Memory: Freeing Memory in DOS Windows In the [386Enh] section of 'System.ini', add 'LocalLoadHigh=1'

Removing DriveSpace: If you are not using DoubleSpace or DriveSpace, delete 'drvspace.bin' and 'dblspace.bin' from both the C:\ and C:\Windows directories. This will free additional DOS memory and speed system startup.

Defragmenting Your Disks: As files are opened, modified, and re-written to your hard disk, they gradually become fragmented. This means that your computer has to look in more and more locations to find all the parts of the files. To speed up your system, regularly run 'Disk Defragmenter' included with Windows 95 and located on the 'Start' menu under 'System Tools'.

Virtual Memory: Even though Windows 95 advises you to let it manage your virtual memory for best performance, this means that it will adjust it on the fly, causing moments of wild disk activity while you are virtually frozen. To set the disk cache permanently and stop this activity, do the following:

First, defragment your hard disk using 'Disk Deframenter' - see above
Right-click on 'My Computer', and select 'Properties'
Select the 'Performance' tab, and click 'Virtual Memory'
Select the drive you want your swapfile to be located on
Specify the same size for both 'Minimum' and 'Maximum' size. You may want to try different sizes for your swapfile. If you have less than 16 Megs of RAM and/or work a lot with 24-bit images, a good starting place is 2.5 times your amount of RAM.
Click 'Okay' a couple of times, and restart your computer.

Virtual Cache: Setting these values will prevent VCache from filling up your RAM and causing your applications to be paged out to disk.

Using Notepad or Wordpad, open 'System.ini'
Find the [vcache] section (or add it if it is not there), and add these two lines:

MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=4000

3. Restart Windows 95

Memory - RAM: Although Windows 95 will run in 4 Megabytes of RAM, I cannot envision anyone wanting to do so. With Windows 95, like Windows 3.1x, adding RAM will significantly boost performance. For the best price-to-performance ratio, 16 Megs is recommended. You will see an additional performance increase with even more RAM, but, unless you are working with many complex applications simultaneously, or editing 24-Bit color images, you get diminishing return on your money above 16 Megs.

To turn off the Microsoft Windows logo at boot-up, put the following in your CONFIG.SYS -or- MSDOS.SYS [options] logo=0

For maximum DOS memory in an MS-DOS session, add the line LocalLoadHigh=1 to the [386Enh] section of system.ini.

When you drag a file to the Recycle Bin, Windows 95 always displays the Confirm File Delete dialog box and requires you to click Yes before the file is moved to the Recycle Bin.

However, since you can easily retrieve a file from the Recycle Bin, this extra step could be considered overkill. Fortunately, you can disable this confirmation dialog box. To do so, right-click the Recycle Bin icon and select Properties from the context menu. When the Recycle Bin Properties sheet appears, click the Display delete confirmation dialog check box to disable this feature. Then click OK.

Troubleshooting

This is for experienced users only: If a program keeps crashing, do this: 1) go to the directory where the program is located and right-click on the file name (e.g. go to C:\Eudora and right-click on EUDORA.EXE if Eudora keeps crashing on you). Choose Quick View and scroll down the list that appears. Write down the names of the .dll files it uses. 2) Go to Find (Start, Find, Files or Folders) and type in the first .dll file name on your list. If only one file appears, that is good – go to the next file name. If more than one file appears, right click on the file with the older date and select "rename" and then change the .dll extension to .dll-old. This should fix a lot of your problems.

To see what is going on behind the scenes during the startup sequence, hit the ESC button while the Windows 95 startup screen is visible.

Multimedia

Here is a little tip on how to install PC Speaker on a computer with Win95. Go to Control Panel, then "Add New Hardware", then "Sound, Video, Game Controller." Don't let Win95 search for new hardware. Select "Have Disk". Browse to where you have your PC Speaker .drv file. Install !!! Presto...your mute PC will now have sound. To modify the settings for PC Speaker go to Control Panel, Multimedia, Advanced Tab, In Audio devices you will see PC Speaker.

You can hold down the shift key when you insert a CD-ROM to disable AutoPlay or you can make the following changes: Open any folder and select view, options, file types. Select AudioCD and click Edit. Select Play from the Action listbox, choose Set Default (this actually toggles the default). If Play is bolded, the CD will play when inserted. If it is not bolded, it will not.

Free Disk Space

Deleting Animated Help Files: If you already know how to scroll, minimize windows, etc., you can recover 7.1 Megs of disk space by deleting the .AVI files from /windows/help

Deleting Extraneous or Leftover Files: You can safely delete the following files in the root directory: *.txt, *.prv, *.log, *.old, *.___, and *.dos (unless you use dual-boot). You can delete these files from the Windows directory: *.log, *.old, *.___, *.bak, and, *.000, *.001, etc.

My Computer

Opening folders while closing previous ones when using My Computer: Simply hold down the control key (Ctrl) as you double-click to open the new folder.

When you double-click on a folder in My Computer, you can change the settings that determine whether the folder opens a new window (i.e. the new ones keep over-lapping the old ones) or replaces the contents of the current one. Go to the View|Options menu in any folder (disk drives count as folders here). The Options dialog has three tabs. Under Folder, you have two choices: "Browse folders using a separate window..." (the default) and "Browse folders by using a single window that changes...." Select the latter and click on OK.

Here's an great way to close all the windows that Win 95 opens when you open folders and sub-folders and those sub-folder's sub folders. To see how this works, click "My Computer", click on your C: drive, click on Eudora, then Attach. You now have four open windows, one for each folder. Hold down the Shift key and click in the Attach window's close button ("x" in the upper-right corner). Like magic, that window and all of it's parent windows automatically close. (Combine Shift with the close button's keyboard equivalent, Alt-F4, and you get the same results.) Otherwise, you would have to close each window one at a time.

Boot-up Configuration

To turn off the Auto Load feature of Windows 95, put the following in your CONFIG.SYS -or- MSDOS.SYS... [options] BootGUI=0

To have the option of booting your old DOS every time you boot up put this in your CONFIG.SYS -or- MSDOS.SYS... [options] BootMenu=1

You can have programs start when you start Windows by dragging their icons to your StartUp folder (located at: C:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup).

Keyboard Stuff

You can switch between applications by either 1) clicking on that application listed on the task bar below, or 2) by hitting Alt + Tab.

To open the Start Menu without the mouse, press Ctrl-Esc.

You can improve keyboard access to the items at the top of the Start menu by numbering the icons there (rename them with a number at the beginning of the name). Then, you can press Ctrl-Esc followed by the number to launch your most commonly used programs.

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