Here you will find some tips, tricks and techniques the manuals didn't tell you - but should have.  Clear the Clutter... Empty the Documents items on your start menu by clicking on the start button and selecting Taskbar from the settings menu. Click once on the Start Menu Programs tab and then on the Clear button.   Quick Dump... To immediately delete a file without a stop at the recycle bin. Hold down the Shift key when you delete it.   Quick Start... Press Ctrl + Esc to open the start menu. Once it's open, use the arrow keys or the underlined letters on the menu to navigate.   Quick Date... Hold your mouse pointer over the time on the taskbar, and the date will pop up.   Double - Click Closing... You can double-click on the mini icon in the upper left corner of an application to make a quick exit.   Multiple Drive Search... Search multiple drives that you select using an undocumented feature of Find. Separate drives with a semicolon. For example, If you want to search your A, C, D drives, type the following in the Look in box: - A:;C:;D: Cutting & Pasting... Highlight any text in any program. (PRESS) Ctrl + C To copy the text highlighted. (PRESS) Ctrl + V To paste the text to a desired location. (PRESS) Ctrl + X To cut the text from the document. (PRESS) Ctrl + Z To undo editing of the document.  Auto Don't Play... To bypass the CD Autoplay function, Press and hold the Left shift key while inserting a CD. Control key shortcuts... Control + F4: Closes current window in mdi programs. Control + ESC: Displays the start menu. Control + Z: Undoes last command. Control + B: Bolds highlighted text. Control + U: Underlines highlighted text. Control + I: Italicizes hightlighted text. Control + A: Selects all items in current window. Control + Tab: Moves through Property tabs. Control + F: Opens the Find window. Type in what you're searching for. IE4 Keyboard Shortcuts... Internet Explorer 4.0 is one of the most keyboard-friendly Windows programs ever written. If you're a touch typist, or if you just don't want to switch constantly between the mouse and the keyboard when browsing, it helps to master a few shortcuts. Here are some of my favorites. Backspace... Go to previous page. Ctrl-O... Open new location (Web page or folder) Ctrl-N... Open new browser window. Tab/Shift-Tab... Jump to next / previous link on Web page. F5... Refresh current page. F6... Switch focus between Address bar, Links bar, and browser window. F11... Toggle between full-screen view and normal view. What Does That Windows Key on My Keyboard Do?... Win ...Opens the Start menu. Win + F1 ...Displays pop-up menu for the selected object. Win + E ...Starts Explorer. Win + F ...Finds files or folders. Ctrl + Win + F ...Finds computer. Win + M ...Minimizes all windows. Shift + Win + M ...Restores minimized windows. Win + R ...Displays run-dialog box. Win + Tab ...Cycles through taskbar buttons. Win + Break ...Displays system properties box. Find Your IP Settings... Finding your network setting through Windows can be a challenge. The best way to do it is to go to Start | Run and type in... winipcfg This undocumented program will give you all the info you need if you're having a network problem or not connecting correctly to your ISP. Click on the More Info button to get a complete IP profile. Terrific Troubleshooting... The System Configuration Utility has a cool gem called Advanced Troubleshooting Settings. Launch MSCONFIG from the Run command line and click on the Advanced button under the General tab. You'll have the option to limit memory to any size and to disable features such as fast shutdown. Probe Print Problems... Printer problems? Try Win98's hidden troubleshooter, EPTS.EXE. It's on the Win98 CD in the \Tools\Misc\Epts folder. Quick Custom Searches... What's the absolute, hands-down fastest way to launch an Internet search? Click in the Address box, then type a question mark and a space followed by the terms you want to search for. When you press Enter, IE4 sends the request to Yahoo, the default AutoSearch engine. It's easy to change the default search engine if you've installed TweakUI from the Windows 95 or Windows 98 Power Toys collection. Open TweakUI, click on the General tab, and choose your preferred search engine from the 12 available choices on the drop-down list, including AltaVista, HotBot, Excite, and Infoseek. Get disconnected frequently? Try this... If you get disconnected frequently, try this extra modem setting: Go to Modems in Control Panel (Start > Settings > Control Panel) From Modems select Properties, select the Connection Tab, click the Advanced button In the Extra settings dialogue box, enter S10=50 This will force the modem to stay connected without a carrier, up to 5 seconds. One Click Shut Down or Restart... To Shut Down or Restart Windows with one mouse click: Right-click the Desktop and select New > Shortcut In the Command line box type:  rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows for one click shut down  rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec for one click restart Click Next and give it the appropriate name (Shut Down or Restart) Show all files... By default, Windows 98 does not show hidden or system files. Also file types which are registered with the system (i.e. there is a program associated with the file type), are shown without extension when you view your files in Windows Explorer. To view all files... Open Windows Explorer, and select Folder Options from the View Menu Click on the View tab, go to the Hidden Files header and choose Show all files, and press Apply To see your file extensions for all files, make sure that the check-box for Hide file extensions for known file types is unchecked. Speed-up your Connecting time To Speed-up the time it takes for DUN (Dial Up Networking) to establish a connection with your ISP (Internet Service Provider): Select your connection in DUN (Start > Programs > Accessories > Communications > Dial-Up Networking) Right-click your connection and choose Properties On the Server Types Tab, under Advanced Options, make sure that the check-box for Log on to network is unchecked Under Allowed network protocols select only TCP/IP Win98 To Boot ... Keep a bootable copy of Win98 handy for emergencies. Format a floppy disk with the option to copy system files. Copy C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SCANREG.EXE and C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS to the disk; add the line DEVICE=A:\HIMEM.SYS to a CONFIG.SYS file on the disk. You'll be able to boot from the diskette and use the command "scanreg/restore" to restore the Registry on an unbootable configuration. Speed up your drives Windows may not be taking full advantage of your IDE drive's speed. Ultra DMA drives are capable of burst transfers at more than 33MB per second, double the rate of a standard IDE drive. In Windows 95 and Windows 98, this feature is disabled by default. To enable the DMA option, open Device Manager, expand the Disk Drives branch of the device tree, and select the icon for the UDMA drive. Click on the Properties button and then on the Settings tab. Check the box labeled DMA, close all dialog boxes, and restart your system. Make windows run faster You can use several tricks to make your computer start faster. Get a load of these: Decrease StartUp items: Applications that you don't use during a typical computing session may load themselves automatically at start-up. To find out which programs are auto-launching and stealing your system resources, go into Windows Explorer and open the following folder: C:Windows - Start Menu - Programs - StartUp If you've installed more than a few applications onto your machine during your tenure as a computer user, the number of non-critical applications you'll find in the StartUp folder will probably surprise you. Just right-click on the ones you don't want to load at start-up and choose Delete from the pop-up menu. More sneaky StartUp items: You might have more unwanted stuff self-activating at start-up than what's listed in the StartUp folder. From the Start menu, choose Run and type MSCONFIG in the text box. Click on the StartUp tab. You'll see long list of items. All of those marked with an X launch automatically at StartUp. Uncheck non-critical functions such as Tips (unless you like them), Task Monitor, and Load Power Profile (don't uncheck it if you use a notebook computer). Unchecking Norton products such as CrashGuard and Anti-Virus will expedite the start-up process but will leave you more vulnerable to crashes and viruses. Don't look for floppies: Did you know that each time Windows 98 boots it searches for new floppy drives? But when is the last time you installed a new floppy drive? Sheesh. To save a few seconds at start up, disable the ludicrous floppy drive scan. Here's how: Right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Click on the Performance tab followed by the File System button. Choose the Floppy Disk tab and uncheck Search for new floppy drives each time your computer starts. Delete Auto Insert: You can tweak your CD-ROM drive to save a few CPU cycles by disabling Auto Insert Notification-- the function that tells your computer to launch, say, your audio CD player when you stick that CD into the drive. Auto Insert Notification can be particularly annoying if you put a game CD into the CD-ROM drive and the Installation Wizard opens even though you've already installed the game onto your machine. Here's how to disable Auto Insert Notification: Right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Click on the Device Manager tab. Double-click on the CD-ROM icon and then double-click on the CD-ROM model you're currently using. Click on the Settings tab and uncheck Auto insert notification. System file checker. In Windows 98, Start|Run and entering "sfc" (without the quotes) brings up the System File Checker. This handy utility lets you know if you have corrupt files and tells you how to fix them. Browser Helps Print from disk to save time. Save time as well as toner or ink by saving a page to disk before printing it. You'll save just the HTML part of the page. Note: A page may display images, but these are separate files and will not be saved or printed. To save a page to disk, use File*Save As and make sure the file has the HTM file extension. Then open the saved file in your browser and go to File*Print or click the Print button to print it. Reboot. (IE4) Is Explorer 4 a resource hog? Microsoft will never admit to it, but I've found that after about two hours of surfing, the browser slows considerably. My solution is to clear the decks. Quit everything and reboot. Invariably Explorer returns to normal. Lighten the load. (IE4) If Explorer 4 seems chronically slow and crash-prone, select View*Internet Options*Advanced and scroll to the Browsing settings. Check Browse in a New Process to start a new, separate version of Explorer every time you open the browser. Explorer should then run faster and with fewer crashes.  Change wallpaper from your browser. (IE3+, NN3+) Sure, you can change your wallpaper in the Display Properties dialog box, but you can also change it from your browser. Right-click any graphic displayed in your browser. In Navigator, select Set as Wallpaper; in Explorer, select Save as Wallpaper. The graphic will be saved as Browsername Wallpaper.BMP in the Windows directory. Open a new window. Say you've found a great collection of links on one page, and you'd like to explore them while keeping the first page in sight. Right-click any link and use Open in New Window to keep one copy of the browser on that first page and view the new page in another. You can even tile the two browser windows for side-by-side surfing. Print links. Explorer can print a page's links, including the names of the links and the URLs. In Explorer 3, go to File*Print and check Print Shortcuts at the End of the Document. In Explorer 4, go to File*Print and check Print Table of All Links. Location box search. (IE4, NN4) Both Explorer and Navigator can perform smart searches. That is, you can type a ? and a text string in the Location box, and the browser will automatically connect to a search engine and present the results. View applications from your browser. (IE4, NN4) Navigator 4 and Explorer 4 support viewing and printing of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. You can get the viewers from Microsoft at www.microsoft.com/msdownload/#viewers. Full view. (IE4) To clear out most of the toolbars and get maximum screen space to view Web pages, click the Fullscreen icon in Explorer 4's Explorer Bar, select View*Full Screen, or simply hit F11. If you Don't see what you need try here Windows Help I can't guaranty that these tips will work on all systems.