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Windows 95

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If you thought that Quick Launch shortcuts on Win95 OSR2+ and Win98+ were "quick," try this one:

1. Right-click on the Start button and choose Explore
2. Select a shortcut
3. Press Alt-Enter to bring up Properties
4. Click on Shortcut at the top
5. In the Shortcut key field, enter a key-combination. For example: Ctrl + Shift + X (for eXplorer)

Possible combinations are:

1. Ctrl + Alt + [char]
2. Ctrl + Shift + [char]
3. Ctrl + Shift + Alt + [char]

Some combinations are used by programs and can conflict with your own shortcut keys. For example, in Photoshop Shift + Ctrl + S is used for Save As...

I have shortcut keys for most of my programs that I use frequently, and there's no doubt that this is faster than Quick Launch shortcuts . Besides, you don't need to fill up your whole taskbar with a bunch of "fast-accessed" shortcuts :)

I recently read a tip about getting windows which have moved off the screen back onto it by using ALT-spacebar. This trick does not always work, as some stubborn apps (Winamp in particular) do not respond to this sort of kind treatment.

My advice is: grab the Taskbar (which must be selected as Always on top in Properties) and move it to the side of your screen that the app has moved off of. The taskbar should force your window back onto the screen.

Happy fixins'!

The Windows key + D apparently minimizes all . . .

I find the Windows 95 key on the new keyboards (looks like the flying window) to be very helpful. By combining this key with other keystrokes, you can do several different functions very easily:

Win95 key + E = Windows Explorer
Win95 key + M = Minimize all
Win95 key + R = Run command
Win95 key + F = Find command
Win95 key + I = Mouse properties
Win95 key + P = Printers box
Win95 key + A = Accessibility options
Win95 key + K = Keyboard properties
Win95 key + L = Windows logoff
Win95 key + C = Control Panel
Win95 key + Break = System Properties
Shift + Win95 key + M = Undo minimize all

Quick clicks to inner workings

An easy way to get to your Start Menu directory is to simply right-click on the Start button and select Explore. It's that easy.

A really easy way to get to System in the Control Panel is to right-click on My Computer and select Properties.

Instead of right-clicking and selecting Properties on a file or icon, try Alt+Enter. It does the same thing in a simple keystroke.

Change your CD-ROM drive letters

Have you ever wanted CD-ROM drive Z, but not 26 CD-ROM drives? Here's an easy way to change your CD-ROM drive letter:

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Go to System.
3. Click on the Device Manager tab.
4. Open CD-ROM.
5. Double-click on (one of) your CD-ROM drive(s).
6. Click on the Settings tab.
7. Change reserved drive letters to Z, W, Q, etc.

Now you have drive letter Z!

No more "Shortcut to" words

If you are tired of getting the words Shortcut to appended to the front of every shortcut you make, here's what you can do to remove them forever: Create a shortcut on your desktop and then immediately rename it by removing the words Shortcut to from the start of the shortcut's name. If you repeat the process about 10 times, Windows will get your drift and stop adding that annoying prefix once and for all.

Check how much space your folders are taking up . . .

Wondering where all your disk space went? Go into Explorer, pick a folder on your hard drive, right-click on it, and select Properties. Explorer will recurse the subdirectories and tell you how much space that folder is taking up.

All those Windows . . .

When you are browsing the file system on your computer and you find you have many windows open as a result, simply hold down the Shift key, click on the [X] button on the topmost window, and they'll all disappear.

Closing all apps . . .

Instead of going to File and then clicking Exit, you can close applications quickly by pressing ALT along with F4 (function key). Once you have closed all open applications, this procedure will also shutdown the Windows operating system.

Dragging with the right mouse button . . .

If you drag files around using the right mouse button, when you release the file, you are presented with a menu that asks you whether you intend to copy, move or create a shortcut--handy for those of us that cannot remember whether it is Shift-Drag or Ctrl-Drag to copy a file.

Send To other locations . . .

There is a folder in the Windows directory called "Send To". If you place a target icon in this directory, the icon becomes an available menu item when you right-click on a file and select "Send To." For example, right-mouse drag your "A:" drive icon in Explorer into the "Send To" folder and you now have an easy way to send files to a floppy.

Opening files with different applications . . .

Typically, when a document is opened the associated application is launched. For example, if you double-click on an icon "readme.rtf," WordPad will typically be launched. Suppose you wanted to open the file with Notepad: you hold down the Shift key, right-click on the icon, and select "Open With . . ." This will put up a dialogue that lets you choose which application to use to edit the file, regardless of the association.

Bypass the trash can . . .

If you hold down the Shift key while deleting files they are directly deleted, instead of merely being sent to the trash can.

Minimize all Windows?

Simply right-click on the task bar and select "Minimize all Windows" to clear the desktop. Right-click again on the taskbar and select "Undo Minimize All" to restore the windows.

Copy and Paste taken to the next level

To copy and paste text to and from a DOS prompt, do the following:

1) Activate your DOS prompt
b) If a full screen is displayed, press <ALT> and <ENTER> to switch to a window view.

While in the DOS session, click the icon that has a dotted outline of a square. This icon is MARK. Now click and drag the area that you want to copy. After you have highlighted the area to copy, click the icon next to the dotted outline of a square. That icon is COPY.

Now you can go into any application in Windows that you want and paste in what you copied from DOS.

You can also click on the upper left corner of the window and access the Mark, Copy, and Paste options.

Tired of always changing Explorer's root directory?

Here's a tip that will allow you to control what directory Explorer opens with:

1) Create a shortcut to the Explorer with the following command line to open it at the root of C:\

C:\WFW311\EXPLORER.EXE /n,/e,E:\

(E:\ representing the drive and location where you want Explorer to start from.)

Sick of WordPad opening every time you want to look at a text file?

Just change its association. Open up any window. For example, double click on the My Computer icon. Click View and select Options. Click the tab that says File Types. You have now entered the area where you can change the extensions and what they open with. For example, say I don't want Wordpad to open up my text files anymore. Instead, I want TXTPAD32 to open them.

Click under Registered file types. Press the letter T. Double click on the one that says text document. Then click the Edit button on the bottom of the window. You will see that where it lists which application is used to perform the action you can type in a pathname. Type in the pathname for whatever application you want to launch and click OK. For this example, I'm going to type c:\windows\txtpad32.exe. Close a few windows and that's it. From now on, when you double click on a text document or anything with an extension of .txt, the chosen application will launch with that file inside