Windows 2000   Windows 98   Windows 95   Windows NT   Linux    Palm   Macintosh   Beos

Windows 98

General\ Utility

To get rid of shortcut arrows on your desktop, right-click the desktop and select Properties. Go to Appearance and select Icon in the Item: drop-down. Put the size to 30, instead of 32.

Voila--no more shortcut arrows.

Boosting Hard Drive Performance

To boost your Hard Disk's performance

Go to Start >> Settings >> Control Panel >> System

Then choose the Performance tab

Then click the File System button at the bottom

and change the typical role of this machine from Desktop computer to Network server.

I believe this increases disk cache, which will increase performance if you have enough memory. If not, it will take memory away from local programs, causing lower performance. The Network server setting assumes that the local machine does little more than service network requests for data.

Another way to compact your Registry

This is in response to the tip of shrinking the Registry below (5/26).

Why use the SMARTDRV command?

Export the entire Registry to the Desktop and give it a name, e.g. myreg.reg

Restart Win98 in MS-DOS mode

Type attrib -r -a -s -h C:\windows\system.dat

Then type attrib -r -s -s -h C:\windows\user.dat

Then type regedit /c C:\myreg.reg to have the Registy Editor rebuild the Registry

Or if you want to be simple, try C:\scanreg /optimize

Cool Tools in the Win98 Resource Kit

If you don't have this collection of neat stuff installed yet, you should definitely do it.

Put your Win98 (SE works, too) CD in the drive and browse its contents (any way you want). Go to the \TOOLS\RESKIT directory and double-click on the Setup.exe icon. It will take you through the normal installation junk, but when it's finished you'll have another program listing in the Start button's Programs section: Windows 98 Resource Kit.

The Windows 98 Resource Kit program group has Release Notes, Online Book, Tools Help, and Tools Management Console. The Management Console is the best place to start, as you can get to all the other stuff from there.

The Resource Kit has an incredible amount of information and a bunch of useful programs. Here are descriptions of just a few of the ones I thought were neat. You've really got to go through the programs yourself ... and don't forget to take a look at all the great information about how Windows works you can find in the included online documents.

• CHECKLINKS.EXE: Link Check Wizard. Finds and eliminates dead links and shortcuts.
• CLIPTRAY.EXE: Clip Tray. Optimizes and manages the Clipboard.
• LFNBACK.EXE: Long Filename Backup Utility.
• NETMON: Network Monitor. Service for remote monitoring of network performance on Windows 98 client machines.
• QUIKTRAY.EXE: Quick Tray. Organizes the icons in the Windows 98 system tray.
• PWLEDIT.EXE: Windows 98 Password List Editor.
• TEXTVIEW.EXE: Text file viewer. Quickly displays the contents of text files.
• TIMETHIS.EXE: Time This. Scripting tool that times how long it takes for the system to execute a given command.
• USBVIEW.EXE: USB Viewer. USB Device information and troubleshooting tool.
• WHERE.EXE: Command-line tool that reports the location of a specified file on the hard disk.
• WINDIFF.EXE: File and Directory comparison. Compares the contents of files or directories and reports differences.

Not bad, eh? Definitely worth installing. Older versions of the Win98 CD may also include the famed TWEAKUI Power Tool, which allows you to customize desktop settings and such.

What network equipment is in your machine?

Type ipconfig in Start >> Run to find out what network boards (address/mask/gateway) are installed and active on your machine.

If it displays too quickly, go to Start >> Programs >> MS-DOS Prompt and type ipconfig.

Enjoy!

Put Your Printer on Your Desktop

You might now this already, but if you put a shortcut to your printer on your desktop you can then drag documents to the icon and they will print automatically.

Go to Start >> Settings >> Printers, right-click on the printer you want, then drag it to your Desktop and let go. Choose Create Shortcut Here (this works for creating any shortcuts, by the way).

All you have to do then is drag and drop the documents you want to print onto the printer shortcut and they'll print--if you've got the printer power on :)

Shrinking your Registry files

First, backup your Registry!! You should always do this anytime you touch the Registry.

Go to Start >> Run and type SCANREGW.EXE to run the ScanReg utility

Start the Registry Editor and export the Registry to a file on your hard drive--make sure you've got the All button highlighted in the Export Range section at the bottom of the window

Restart Windows in DOS Mode

Type SMARTDRV at the C: prompt--this will load the DOS disk cache.

Type REGEDIT /C MYREG.REG (change MYREG.REG to whatever you want to name your reg backup) at the C: prompt.

This makes a new, compacted version of your Registry in the C:\WINDOWS directory.

Key shortcuts for Lefties

There are some neat key combinations that you can use for undoing, copying, cutting, and pasting: CTRL-Z, CTRL-C, CTRL-X, and CTRL-V. These are pretty neat and are faster than clicking on Edit and then choosing one. These work in most programs.

But if you're a leftie, these stink because your left land is on the mouse. You can still use those, but it's not that easy. Here's something to help:

You can Undo by hitting: ALT-Backspace
You can Copy by hitting: CTRL-Insert
You can Cut by hitting: SHIFT-Delete
You can Paste by hitting: SHIFT-Insert

These are old DOS commands and some of them might not work with all programs, but it should help with some.

Enjoy!

Automatic Computer Maintenance

Win98 has lots of System Tools in the Accessories menu. One of my favorites and most useful is the Maintenance Wizard, which will schedule and automate some of the most useful "cleaning" and "speed-up" features.

You get to the wizard by choosing:

Start >> Programs >> Accessories >> System Tools >> Maintenance Wizard

Once the wizard starts, you have a choice of Express or Custom. I think that when you first open the wizard you may not get the choice (I can't remember anymore!) but are taken directly to the Custom steps, which is what I recommend you do anyway.

The Custom setup takes you through the following steps:

• Select a Maintenance Schedule - choose when you want the tasks to run: Nights, Days, Evenings, or Custom
• Start Windows More Quickly - decide which of the programs listed that start automatically when you start Windows you want to keep starting automatically
• Speed Up Programs - done by setting up a regular runs of the Disk Defragmenter utility. You can choose times, frequency, and defrag options; you can also choose to skip the defragging
• Scan Hard Disk For Errors - done by running ScanDisk. You can choose times, frequency, and ScanDisk options; you can also choose to skip the scan
• Delete Unnecessary Files - you can tell Windows what files to delete on a regular basis. Temporary files, temporary Internet files, Recycle Bin files, and more. Again, you can choose times and frequency to do the deletions, and you can also choose to skip this task, too.

It's always possible to go back and modify any of these settings. These common tasks can save space on your computer and tune it up for better performance. It's a very cool utility because you won't forget to do these if you use the Maintenance Wizard :)

Backing up Outlook Express

It's important to save all of your e-mail and newsgroup account info from Outlook Express 5 so that it can be retrieved in case of a format or hard drive error.

• Create a directory (preferably on a separate drive or partition) called: Account backup
• Open Outlook Express and click on Tools/Accounts
• For EACH Mail and Newsgroup account, click on the account, then click on Export
• Navigate to the new directory you just created
• Report for each one of your accounts

When you need to restore them:

• Install Outlook Express
• Go to Tools >> Accounts >> Import
• Navigate to the directory you saved your backups at and select each account you want to restore

Voila! Your e-mail and news accounts are back.

If you feel something is not right with your PC, ask Dr Watson.

Click on Start > Run and type in drwatson.exe then click OK.

An icon will show up in your System Tray (bottom right of the taskbar).

If you double-click on the icon the program will look over everything for you and tell you if it found something unhealthy. If you right-click on the System Tray icon you will see some options you can set as well.

There's a nice little utility called Hardware Info utility for Windows

Go to Start, then Run, then type in HWINFO /UI (lower-case is okay, too)

This gives you a list of all hardware, where it's located, and all the Registry keys for it. The display is laid out with color-coded entries.

Have you ever had a window somehow get moved around so that its title bar was off the screen preventing you from dragging it back with your mouse? This doesn't happen very often but when it does it's really frustrating if you don't know how to get it back. I've even seen windows that were *completely* off the screen--you wouldn't even know that program was running except that it's still in the Alt-Tab list.

The trick to get them back is this: Alt-Tab to the offending application, then press Alt-Space. This brings up the pop-up menu you get when you click normally on the application's icon in the top left corner of the window. This pop-up menu will *always* pop up on the screen regardless of where the window actually is.

Select the item that says Move. Now press any key (except Escape) and the window will be "locked" to your cursor letting you drag it around without having to hold either of the mouse buttons. You can even drag it around with the arrow keys instead of the mouse at this point. Now just move the window where you want it and press either mouse button to end this move mode and "drop" the window.

For completeness I'll add that if you move the mouse cursor *before* pressing the "any key" the window will jump to the cursor location *when* you start to move the cursor.

Have fun. :)

Built in Windows 98 Utilities

For some more Windows 98 utilities go to Start / Programs / Accessories / System tools / System information / Tools

Here you'll find the System File Checker and System Configuration Utility.

There are also 9 other applets in that menu

DirecX Diagnostic Tool dxdiag.exe
Windows Report Tool winrep.exe
Update Wizard Uninstall upwizun.exe
Signature Verification Tool sigverif.exe
Registry Checker scanregw.exe
Automatic Skip Driver Agent asd.exe
Dr. Watson drwatson.exe
ScanDisk scandskw.exe
Version Conflict Manager vcmui.exe

Cool Utilities

A couple of utilities that I like:

In the Run dialog box (Start/Run) type in sfc (system file checker). Also try msconfig.

Explore and enjoy!