Tips
for Windows 98
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Speed up your ModemEven if
your modem is apparently working well, the baud rate of
your COM Port might not allow you to reach top-speed. To
improve your port's speed: 1. Click
Start > Settings > Control Panel > System. 2. Click
the Device Manager tab, and click on the "+" sign
next to Ports (COM & LPT). 3. Select
the port your modem uses, click Properties, then click the
Port Settings tab and set the Bits per second to 115200
bps. That way you won't have a sort of filter on the Port. Trace the routeA great
utility included with Windows 98 is a program called Trace
Route. Open a DOS window and type tracert <location name>.
The location name can be any IP address or Internet domain
like tracert www.WarezBB.org. The program
will then trace the route from your Internet service provider
to that location, and show you every server along the way.
This could be useful for when you can't connect to a site
- it will show you if some server is down along the way
RedialingDial-Up
Networking provides for automatic redial. 1. Open
Dial-Up Networking. 2. Select
your connection. 3. From
the menu select Connections > Settings. 4. Enable
Redial, select the number of times to redial and Click OK
Speed-up your Connecting timeTo Speed-up
the time it takes for Dial Up Networking to establish a
connection with your ISP: 1. Open
Dial-Up Networking. 2. Right-click
your connection and choose Properties. 3. On the
Server Types Tab, under Advanced Options, make sure that
the check-box for Log on to network is unchecked. 4. Under
Allowed network protocols select only TCP/IP and uncheck
NetBEUI & IPX/SPX
Stay ConnectedIf you get
disconnected frequently, try this extra modem setting: 1. Open
Control Panel > Modems. 2. From
Modems select Properties, select the Connection Tab and
click the Advanced button. 3. In the
Extra settings dialogue box, enter ATS10=250.
Icon spacing and ResizingChanging
icon size & spacing is handy if you have a desktop clustered
with dozens of icons. 1. Right-click
on the Desktop Choose Properties from the context menu.
On the Appearance tab look in the Item list box. 2. Once
you find Icon you can choose the size from the Size box. 3. Similarly,
locate Icon Spacing (Horizontal) and Icon Spacing (Vertical)
and you can choose different values for each. 4. Once
you are satisfied, click OK to exit the dialog box. 5. Press
F5 to refresh the Desktop.
Select your MonitorWindows
98 might not always detect your Monitor accurately. This
affects display and refresh rates. To select your monitor
manually: 1. Right-click
on the Desktop. 2. Choose
Properties from the context menu. On the Settings tab press
the Advanced button. Select the Monitor tab. If your monitor
is not listed (correctly) here, click on Change. 3. Select
your Monitor from the list, or if you have a driver disk
for your monitor, select have Disk. 4. Click
Apply, and follow any other instructions on screen.
Change the Refresh rate of your Graphics AdapterRefresh
rate of your monitor determines how fast the screen is updated.
Generally, the higher refresh rate the monitor can support,
the better. Optimum refresh rates can be set manually for
flicker-free display, if Windows hasn’t already configured
it. Right-click
on the Desktop, click on Properties and open Settings >
Advanced > Adapter. Depending on your graphics card and
monitor, you will get different choices for the refresh
rate. Click on Apply after setting the appropriate refresh
rate. Click through the warning messages to change the refresh
rate. If, for some reason the display becomes garbled, don’t
do anything ? Windows will restore the original refresh
rate.
Adding items to Send ToSend To
is an option available when you right click any file in
Windows. It can greatly simplify file management, especially
routine tasks. 1. Browse
to the \Windows\SendTo Folder using Windows Explorer. 2. Right-click
an empty space on the window and click on New > Shortcut. 3. In the
Create Shortcut window, enter the source of the program
or the directory (e.g. C:\My Documents\) in the Command line
box. 4. Click
Next and Finish to create the shortcut. You can
use the Send To feature not only for copying or moving files,
but also for quickly opening files with programs they are
not associated with. For example, you could create a shortcut
to Notepad and send any ASCII text file (like .HTM files)
to Notepad. Similarly, you could use a shortcut to an image
viewing program to quickly view images.
Opening files with multiple programsTo be able
to open a file with more than one program, do the following: 1. Select
Start > Settings > Folder Options > File Types. 2. Locate
the file type you want to work with and double click it. 3. In the
Edit File Type dialog that opens, you will see a box marked
Actions. This is where Windows 98 stores the various actions
that can be implemented on a particular file type. 4. To add
an entry, click New. In the New Action dialog box, type
the name of the action in the Action box. Use the Browse
button to find the Application that you want to open the
file with. 5. The action
that is set as default would be carried out when you double
click the file. Other actions will be available on right-clicking
the file.
Associations in a jiffyTo associate
files of a certain type with a different program, hold down
the Shift key while right-clicking on a file of that type
and click on Open With... from the context menu. Select
the program you want to open files of this type with and
enable Always use this program to open this type of file.
Henceforth, the file will always open with this program
when double-clicked.
Adding a File Type to the 'New' MenuWhen you
right-click on the desktop or in Windows Explorer, the New
menu lists many options of registered file types. Clicking
on any of these creates a blank file of that type. You can
add more items to the New menu. 1. In the
program that creates the file type you wish to add, create
a blank document with any preferences you wish to use and
save it. 2. Copy
this file to \Windows\ShellNew ? this is a hidden folder. 3. Start
the Registry Editor. 4. Open
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and locate the extension for the file
type you wish to add to the New menu. 5. Right-click
and click on New > Key from the context menu. Name it
ShellNew. 6. Within
this key, create a String Value and name it FileName. 7. Double-click
the string and modify it to be the filename of the blank
template you created, including the extension. 8. Exit
the registry editor and restart Windows.
Cascading menus on clicking StartCascading
menus of folders like Control Panel or My Computer could
be very handy to have at start up. Here’s how to get them
there. Right click
the Start button and click on Explore. Create a new folder
and type the following string, all on one line, replacing
the words New Folder with this new line. You must type the
period, the curly braces, all four hyphens, and the hexadecimal
numbers exactly as shown. Control
Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} Briefcase.{85BBD920-42A0-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D} Dial Up
Networking.{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48} Fonts.{BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948F534} Inbox.{00020D75-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} Internet
Cache.{7BD29E00-76C1-11CF-9DD0-00A0C9034933} Network
Neighborhood.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D} My Computer.{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D} Recycle
Bin.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} Subscriptions.{F5175861-2688-11d0-9C5E-00AA00A45957} URL History.{FF393560-C2A7-11CF-BFF4-444553540000}
Back to old waysIn Windows
98, when a menu is too tall to fit on your screen, you will
see a scroll arrow at the bottom, allowing you to scroll
further down. In Windows 95, a second menu would appear
next to the first, where the entries which would otherwise
not fit on your screen would be displayed. For Windows 95
like behaviour in Windows 98: 1. Start
the Registry Editor. 2. Navigate
to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Advanced. 3. Right-click
an open area in the right pane and select New > String
Value. 4. Name
it StartMenuScrollPrograms. 5. Double-click
this entry and add the value false. 6. Exit
the registry editor. To restore
Windows 98 behavior, simply change the value of StartMenuScrollPrograms
to true.
Window and Menu AnimationsOne of the
desktop enhancements built into Windows 98 is the animation
displayed when you minimise and maximise windows or when
displaying menus. Disabling this makes navigating Windows
a lot faster. Open the
Desktop Properties dialog by right-clicking any blank area
of the desktop and clicking on Properties. Disable Animate
windows, menus and lists from the Effects tab.
F8 free start-upsInstead
of hastily clicking on F8 at StartUp to display the start
up menu, you can configure it to open automatically. 1. Use Explorer
and locate Msdos.sys in the root directory ? it is a hidden
file. 2. Maintain
a copy of the Msdos.sys file in case of an error. 3. Open
a command prompt window and strip the file’s attributes
by typing attrib –h
–s c:\msdos.sys 4. Edit
the file in Notepad. Under the [Options] section, type:
BootMenu=1 BootMenuDefault=1 BootMenuDelay=x where x
is the delay in seconds. Default value for x is 30. 5. Save
the file. 6. Again,
open a command prompt window and reset the file’s attributes
by typing attrib +h
+s c:\msdos.sys
Arrow-free ShortcutsShortcut
icons have a small curved arrow in the lower-left corner.
To remove the arrow, follow these instructions: 1. Start
the Registry Editor. 2. Locate
the keys HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\piffile. 3. Delete
the value IsShortcut under both these keys. 4. Close
the Registry Editor and restart Windows. You can
also do this using TweakUI.
Automatic LogonYou can
have Windows log on automatically every time you start Windows. 1. Open
the Registry Editor. 2. Navigate
to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Winlogon 3. Add the
following String values. AutoAdminLogon DefaultPassword DefaultUserName 4. Double-click
each of them to enter their respective data. Set the value
of AutoAdminLogon to 1. Enter your user name and password
in the DefaultUserName and DefaultPassword items respectively. You can
also do this using TweakUI. Instant Shut Down or RestartTo shut
down or restart Windows with one mouse click: 1. Right-click
the Desktop and select New > Shortcut. 2. In the
Command line box type: C:\WINDOWS\rundll.exe
user.exe,ExitWindows (for shut down) C:\WINDOWS\rundll.exe
user.exe,ExitWindowsExec (for restart) 3. Click
Next, name it appropriately and click on Finish to create
the shortcut. Be careful,
clicking on the shortcuts will not ask for any confirmation
before shutting down.
Reclaim CD-ROM CacheIf you do
not use the CD-ROM drive very often, you could very well
reclaim some precious memory. This could be especially useful
for low-end computers. 1. Right
click on My Computer and click on Properties. 2. Click
File System from the Performance tab. 3. From
the CD-ROM tab, you can configure the amount of cache that
is assigned to the drive. Adjust the slider according to
your needs. The minimum amount is 64KB and the maximum is
1238KB. 4. Changing
the Optimise access pattern for drop-down selection also
affects the amount of memory used (maximum for Quad-speed
or higher and minimum for No read-ahead).
A clean RunTo remove
unwanted items from the Run menu: 1. Start
the Registry Editor. 2. Open
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU. 3. Delete
the entries that you do not want on the Run menu. 4. Close
the Registry Editor and Restart Windows. Note: Do
not delete the (Default) or MRUList values.
Permanently delete filesTo permanently
Delete files without moving them to the Recycle Bin, hold
down the Shift key while pressing Delete. To stop using
recycle bin altogether, right-click the Recycle Bin and
click on Properties. On the Global Tab, select Do not move
files to the Recycle Bin. If you enable Configure drives
independently, you can set this up for the drives you want
to.
Dummy entries in Add/Remove Programs listSometimes,
even after programs are uninstalled, or due to the files
being deleted instead of a uninstalled, the entry in the
Add/Remove Programs list does not get deleted. To remove
it from the list: 1. Start
the Registry Editor. 2. Open
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall. 3. Delete
the program entry here. You can
also use TweakUI to do this.
Windows 98 Easter Egg1. Right-click
an empty space on your Desktop, and select New > Shortcut
from the context menu. 2. In the
Command line field, type the following line, exactly as
it appears: "C:\WINDOWS\Application
Data\Microsoft\WELCOME\WELDATA.EXE" You_are_a_real_rascal 3. Click
Next and then Finish. 4. Edit
the Properties for this shortcut. Change the Run field to
Minimized. Also, make sure that the Start in field shows
“C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\WELCOME”. 5. Double-click
the shortcut and enjoy the Easter Egg.
Preview Media FilesInternet
Explorer 4 and allow previewing media files (wav, mid, avi,
mov, mpg) in Windows Explorer. Using Windows Explorer, navigate
to \Windows\Web, and open Folder.htt in Notepad. Look for
wantMedia = false and replace this with wantMedia = true.
You should now be able to preview media files in folders
that are viewed as a web page.
Optimising the Windows 98 RegistryWindows
98 compresses the registry by default at restart if it finds
that there is more than 500KB of empty space in the registry.
This is controlled by the line Optimize=1 in the Scanreg.ini
file in the \Windows directory. To compress
the registry manually: 1. Restart
in MS-DOS mode. 2. At the
MS-DOS prompt, type scanreg/backup. This will backup your
registry. 3. Now type
scanreg /opt. 4. Scanreg
will compress the registry.
Preview ImagesYou can
preview your Image files by viewing the folder they are
in as "Web View". From the Windows Explorer menu,
select View > as Web page. A better way to preview images
is as thumbnails instead of icons. To enable this view in
Windows Explorer, right-click the folder you want to preview
and click on Properties. Check the box against Enable thumbnail
view and click Ok to exit the dialog box. Now, from the
View menu, select Thumbnails.
A clean registryA computer's
registry accumulates a lot of corrupted, unused, and unnecessary
registry keys, especially if keys are not removed when you
uninstall a program. As a result, you may begin to experience
problems and your machine might function slower than expected. The latest
version of Microsoft's RegClean could delete a lot of such
registry junk. You can download this from ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/REGCLEAN.EXE.
System ConfigurationA very useful
tool included with Win98 is the System Configuration Utility.
Select Start > Run and type msconfig in the Open box
to launch the application. The System Configuration Utility
makes fiddling with programs to launch at Startup or editing
autoexec.bat, config.sys etc. a lot easier. The System Configuration
Utility also allows you to create a backup of your system
files ? it would be a good idea to use this before you begin
making changes. Be careful with what you enable or disable.
Do not touch anything that you may not understand.
Optimising the Swap FileWith most
resource hungry applications today, the RAM is not enough
to hold all its data. Windows uses a portion of the hard
disk as RAM, constantly swapping data between the RAM and
the hard disk as required. The speed of your hard disk is
nearly 1000 times slower than that of your main memory.
Inefficient use of the swap file could considerably slow
down your system to a very great extent. One of the
best ways to speed up the swap file usage is to create a
permanent swap file. In a permanent swap file, the file
used for swapping information has a fixed size and location
on your hard disk. When a temporary swap file is used, the
location and size of the file is determined by the application
being used and is not predictable. Also, since a temporary
swap file is constantly written to and is not fixed in size,
it would be highly fragmented across the partition that
holds it. A better
option is to create the swap file on a dedicated partition
on your hard disk. By doing this, the swap file will never
be fragmented since that partition is only being utilised
by the swap file itself. You can configure the swap file
size and location from Control Panel > System > Performance
> Virtual Memory. The size of the swap file should be
around 2.5 times the amount of RAM on the system.
Direct Memory AccessThe advantage
of using Direct Memory Access (DMA) with IDE CD-ROM and
disk drives is that it lowers CPU usage during I/O transfers.
This drastically improves performance when using these devices. Ensure that
your drive supports DMA before making these changes, otherwise
it could lead to unpredictable results. To use DMA: 1. Open
Control Panel > System > Device Manager. 2. Click
the + sign next to the Disk drives entry. 3. Select
the drive you want to enable DMA for and click Properties. 4. On the
Settings tab, there should be a DMA check box. You can enable
this to enable DMS for the drive. Note: If
there is no check box (or it is greyed out), your motherboard
chipset does not support the feature. If the check box is
not checked after you restart your system, your hard disk
probably has been automatically disabled again because the
hard disk may not support DMA. If you are unable to restart
Windows after the change is applied, boot to Safe Mode and
disable DMA from here.
Improve Removable Disk Drive PerformanceWindows
98 gives you the option to use write-behind caching to improve
the performance of removable disk drives. 1. Open
Control Panel > System > Performance and click on
File System. 2. Check
the Enable write-behind caching on all removable disk drives
check box under the Removable Disk tab and click OK. Note: If
this results in a problem with disk operations, uncheck
the Enable write-behind caching on all removable disk drives
check box.
Change the Typical role of your computerIf you have
24MB or more RAM, you can optimise performance by selecting
Network server as the typical role of your computer. 1. Open
Control Panel > System > Performance > File System. 2. On the
Hard Disk Tab, select Network Server as Typical role of
this computer. The setting
you use controls the size of various internal data structures
used by the 32-bit file access driver (VFAT). When you
use the Mobile Or Docking System setting, VFAT allocates
memory to record the 16 most recently accessed folders and
the 337 most recently accessed files. This consumes approximately
4KB of memory. When you
use the Desktop Computer setting, VFAT allocates memory
to record the 32 most recently accessed folders and the
677 most recently accessed files. This consumes approximately
8KB of memory. When you
use the Network Server setting, VFAT allocates memory to
record the 64 most recently accessed folders and the 2729
most recently accessed files. This consumes approximately
16KB of memory.
MS Office memory hoggersA typical
installation of MS Office installs Find Fast, an indexing
utility that loads at startup. This hogs system resources
by regularly indexing the entire hard disk(s). You can improve
performance of your computer by removing Find Fast from
your StartUp folder. To reclaim the space used by the Find
Fast index, open Control Panel > Find Fast, select your
hard drive(s) and from the Index menu, click on Delete Index.
When you've deleted your Index, click on Close and Stop
from the Index menu. Another
item installed in the StartUp folder is named Microsoft
Office. This does nothing apart from loading all MS Office
libraries at startup to speed up launching of any Office
applications. Since this is not necessary, you can delete
this shortcut, too.
Restart only WindowsWhen restarting
Windows, you don’t always need to go through the BIOS initialisation
and POST. Instead of simply clicking on Restart from the
Shut Down Windows dialog box, hold down the Shift key as
you click on Ok. This will restart only Windows. This is
particularly useful when you change some registry entries
or a few system settings.
Stop Automatic DiallingMany Internet
applications or software are often set to automatically
dial up and connect. To stop automatic dialling, open Control
Panel > Internet Options. Under the Connections tab,
enable Never dial a connection.
Automatic maintenanceThe Windows
Maintenance Wizard can automate a lot of the routine system
maintenance tasks. To open this wizard, choose Start >
Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Maintenance
Wizard. It sets up the Task Scheduler to regularly run Scandisk,
Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup.
Using two monitorsYou can
install two display adapters (AGP or PCI) and connect them
to two monitors to increase screen display area. First,
install a single display adapter with its drivers. Shut
down Windows, install the second card and start the machine.
When you turn on your system, Windows will recognise the
new video card and the attached monitor and install drivers
for both. You'll then be prompted to restart your system.
You'll see both your video cards in the Device Manager tree
once the drivers are installed. If everything
is functioning correctly, as Windows is loading, you'll
see a message that reads "If you can read this..."
on the second monitor. Once Windows loads, right-click on
the desktop and click on Properties and then the Settings
tab. You'll now see two monitors in the middle of the page.
Click on the second monitor icon. When you do so, a message
box prompts you to enable the second monitor. To continue,
click Yes. Make sure
that the monitor icons correctly represent your actual monitor's
physical positions. The icons' positions control how you
drag icons and windows from one monitor to the other. Right-click
on the first monitor icon and select the Identify command
from the shortcut menu. If the monitor icons are in the
wrong positions, simply click on one of them and drag it
to the correct position. After you're
finished, click Apply.
Customise the Start menuYou can
customise the start menu to show only certain items. Open the
Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. To remove
the Run command, create a new DWORD value and name it NoRun.
Double-click it and change it’s value to 1. To remove
the Documents folder, create a new DWORD value and name
it NoRecentDocsMenu. Double-click it and change it’s value
to 1. To remove
the Favorites folder, create a new DWORD value and name
it NoFavoritesMenu. Double-click it and change it’s value
to 1. To remove
the Log Off … command, create a new DWORD value and name
it NoLogOff. Double-click it and change it’s value to 1. Restart
Windows once you are finished.
Clean DesktopTo hide
all the icons on your Desktop, open the Registry Editor
and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\Policies\Explorer. Add a DWORD value and name it
NoDesktop. Change it’s value to 1. Close the Registry Editor
and restart Windows.
Bitmaps as iconsYou can
preview bitmaps (.BMP files) as icons in Explorer instead
of the default icon of the application it is associated
with. Open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Paint.Picture\DefaultIcon.
Double-click the Default string and change it’s value to
‘%1’ (without double-quotes). Close the Registry Editor
and restart Windows.
ToolTipsTo disable ToolTips in Windows, open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. Double-click UserPreferencemask and change its value to 3E 00 00 00. Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows.
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