The Windows 98 Registry; Part 2

Check for Errors
Hacking Registry entries is safer under Windows 98 than it was under Windows 95. Windows 98 adds a few safety nets that come in very handy in case things go wrong, and the Registry Checker is the best of them.

This handy tool kicks in before Windows 98 loads, and inspects the Registry for serious problems. It usually finds no problems, and it will back up system.dat and user.dat--the two files that make up the Registry--as well as the two well worn Windows configuration files, system.ini and win.ini. Registry Checker also retains an audit trail of five backups in the C:WindowsSysbckup folder (in CAB files numbered sequentially rb001.cab, rb002.cab, and so on). When it adds a new one, it tosses out the oldest.

So, all you have to do to restore it is re-boot to a C:\> "C Prompt".
CD WINDOWS\COMMAND
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND>SCANREG\RESTORE.
Then pick your lastest rbxxx.cab and let it do it's thing.

Tweaking the Registry is risky; you're taking your system into your own hands. It's good to note that if you muck with your Registry, screw it up, and then contact Microsoft for tech support, you won't get any support.

Back Up Your Registry Files
To be safe, back up the Registry manually before you make any changes. Run the System Info utility (go to Start menu/Programs/Accessories/System Tools), then click Tools, Registry Checker. After a quick scan, Registry Checker will offer to make a backup. Click Yes to replace the oldest backup file with a fresh one.

Restore the Registry
If the Registry Checker does find errors at start-up, it won't start Windows 98; instead, you'll get a warning message, "Windows has detected a Registry/configuration error." You then boot to a command prompt (select Shut Down from the Start menu, then select "Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode" and click OK), and Registry Checker automatically restores your most recent backup.

Even if the change isn't serious enough to make Registry Checker kick in, it's possible to restore a backup. Restart your PC, but boot to a command prompt instead of Windows. At the command prompt, enter the command Scanreg. Follow the instructions to view your backed-up Registry files and restore the most recent one.

Viewing the Registry
Want to browse the Registry and the changes you've made to it? Use RegEdit (a.k.a. the Registry Editor) to export the Registry to a text file. It's easy to do: just launch RegEdit (select Start/Run and type RegEdit), then choose Registry/Export Registry File and select a filename for the text file. After you make your changes (or install new software), convert the new Registry to a second text file and compare the two text files.

These Registry text files are enormous, but if you use Windows 98's WinDiff utility, you can see any differences highlighted. WinDiff is one of the little tools in the Windows 98 Resource Kit Sampler. After starting WinDiff, click File/Compare Files. WinDiff highlights the file differences in yellow, and you can jump between them with a click of the F8 key.

Ok, Here We Go

Most Recently Useds
Old DOS users never poke around in Explorer to click program icons. They just select Start/Run, enter the filename, and start the program without any mouse work. Better yet, they press the Window key-R combo on their 104-key keyboard to launch the Run dialog. The only problem is that Run maintains a history list, which means people can see what you've been running. (The Start menu's Documents list was worse, until Windows 98 let you right-click and delete items on it.)

Here's how to cover your tracks in the Run dialog box:
1.Back up the Registry.
2.Launch RegEdit by selecting Run from the Start menu and entering RegEdit.
3.Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/RunMRU.
4.Find the items in the right-hand pane that you want removed from the Run history list.
5.Select the commands you want removed one by one and press Delete to remove them.
6.Save your changes as you quit RegEdit, and restart Windows.

To remove the entire Run history (the useful entries and the ones you want kept secret) run TweakUI. Select Start/Control Panels and double-click the TweakUI icon. Click the Paranoia tab and select the histories you want to delete.

Lock Up Your Desktop Settings
Don't you hate it when you let people borrow, say, your car, and then you find they've meddled with your presets and misaligned the rearview mirror? The same applies to your Windows desktop. When Windows exits, it saves the icon location and other settings--unless you lock up the settings with this hack:

1.Back up the Registry.
2.Launch RegEdit.
3.Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer.
4.In the right-hand pane, right-click NoSaveSettings and select Modify.
5.Add a 1 to the value to disable Windows' ability to save settings on exit.
6.Save your changes as you quit RegEdit, and restart Windows.

Edit the Documents Menu
There's a danger in assuming you can completely delete your old documents. But to throw people off the tracks, it's nice to remove lines from the Start menu's Documents listing. The simplest way is to right-click a Documents item and select Delete. But to disable the feature, you need to hack around the Registry like this:

1.Back up the Registry.
2.Launch RegEdit.
3.Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer.
4.In the right-hand pane, double-click NoRecentDocsHistory. (If there is no such value, create a new binary value with that name.)
5.Edit 00,00,00,00 to read 01,00,00,00.
6.Locate or create the NoRecentDocsMenu value.
7.Edit 00,00,00,00 to read 01,00,00,00 there, too.

Rename the Recycle Bin
You can rename most anything on the Windows desktop by right-clicking its icon and selecting the Rename option. But the Recycle Bin doesn't have that option, and we'd prefer to call it Trash, in honor of the Macintosh icon. Sure enough, both RegEdit and TweakUI make this easy to do. Here's the RegEdit way:

1.Open RegEdit (select Run in the Start menu and enter RegEdit in the text box).
2.Open HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and locate CLSID (the Class ID option). Scroll down to the {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} key and click it.
3.In the right-hand window, double-click (Default), and change the name from Recycle Bin to whatever you prefer.
4.Click OK and close RegEdit.
5.To make the new name take effect, click once anywhere on the desktop, then press the F5 key.

The TweakUI way:
1.Select Start/Settings/Control Panel and launch TweakUI.
2.Under Desktop, right-click Recycle Bin and select Rename.
3.Type in the new name and click OK.

Customize the Start Menu
Most of us don't really need your Start menu to include the item Log Off [your name]? If you're using a networked or shared computer, maybe. But the rest of us could happily ax the thing. Here's how you do it:

1.Back up your Registry and launch RegEdit.
2.Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer.

3.Select Edit/New/Binary Value.
4.Name the new entry NoLogOff.
5.Press Enter and set the value to this: 01 00 00 00.
6.Save your changes as you quit RegEdit, and restart Windows.

Change Your Name
1.Back up your Registry and launch RegEdit.
2.Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion.
3.Double-click the RegisteredOrganization or RegisteredOwner options, and type in your real name (or an interesting pseudonym, if you prefer).
4.Exit and restart Windows.

Speed and Fine Tuning

Trim the Registry Fat
The Registry is often full of clutter--old stuff from long-uninstalled software, entries left over from system crashes, and the dross of a thousand system entries. You could go through the big Registry keys-- HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT--looking for programs you've already deleted, and remove their keys. But this is immensely time consuming. (And besides, you should make only one change per Registry editing session, to make it easier to troubleshoot any problems your editing may cause).

Instead, let RegClean ax redundant entries. It's simple to run: just fire it up, wait for it to do its stuff, then restart Windows.

Speed Up Your Boot Cycle
Want to shave a few seconds off your already interminable boot cycle? You can, but you have to hack a different system file from the usual Registry suspects--the msdos.sys file. It's a text file, so you can use Notepad to make alterations. However, the file is hidden and read-only, so you can't easily find it or quickly edit it--unless you know the secret:

1.Select Find/Files or Folders from the Start menu.
2.Enter msdos.sys in the Named box and C: in the Look In box; then click the Find Now button.
3.When the file appears, right-click it and select Properties from the pop-up menu.
4.Click to remove the check marks from the Read-Only and Hidden attributes and click OK.
5.Right-click msdos.sys again and select Open With from the pop-up menu.
6.Enter Notepad as the opening program and click OK.
7.Under [Options], enter BootDelay=0 or BootDelay=1 on its own line. (They represent respective delays of zero seconds and one second, both of which are faster than the default.)
8.Close Notepad after saving your changes.
9.Return msdos.sys to its hidden, read-only state. (Right-click it, select Properties from the pop-up menu, and check the Read-Only and Hidden check boxes; then click OK.)
10.Quit and restart Windows.

Optimize Your Virtual Cache
Notice your system periodically stalling while the hard drive thrashes? This phenomenon is often caused by the Windows virtual cache feature. Like onboard caching, this cache is designed to reduce disk access, but it can easily grow large enough to put a dent in your performance. If you've got 32MB of RAM or more, try setting the cache size at a fixed number. Recommended: 4MB for systems with less than 48MB of RAM, and 8MB for those with 48MB or more.

Here's how to set it up:
1.Run SysEdit. (Select Run in your Start menu, type SysEdit in the text box, and press Enter.)
2.Click in the system.ini window.
3.Scroll down to the [vcache] section. If you don't see one, type in [vcache] as a new heading.
4.If you have 48MB of RAM or less, enter these two lines:
MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=4096
5.If you have more than 48MB of RAM, enter these two lines:
MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=8192
6.Close SysEdit, saving changes on the way out, and restart Windows.

Favorites Ugh!!
As if the Windows Start menu weren't already cluttered enough, IE 4 and later versions add a cascading menu to the Start menu that displays the Favorites folder. Too much! Luckily, the cascading menu is easy to remove. Here's how:

1.Back up your Registry.
2.Launch RegEdit (select Run from the Start menu, type RegEdit in the text box, and press Enter).
3.Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer.
4.Select Edit/New/DWORD value.
5.Change the default name to NoFavoritesMenu.
6.Press Enter and change the contents of the Value Data to 1.
7.Save your changes as you quit RegEdit, and restart Windows.

The Favorites menu will still be available from windows in Explorer, but it won't be cluttering your Start menu.

Remove Add/Remove Items
So you uninstalled a program the Windows way--using Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs. And yet, the listing's still there, and when you try to uninstall it, you get an error message. Or, perhaps you want to prevent someone from uninstalling a program somewhere down the line. One Registry hack can take care of both of these contingencies:

1.Make sure you have a current backup of the Registry.
2.Launch RegEdit.
3.Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, locate Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Uninstall.
4.Under Uninstall, locate any keys you don't want, and press Delete to remove them.
5.Save your changes as you quit RegEdit, and restart Windows.

Sure enough, Add/Remove Programs now doesn't list the item or items you've deleted. (Actually, TweakUI has a setting to do this manually, if you're leery of poking into the Registry. But that's less fun.)

Hide Annoying File Extensions
Like any old command-line fan, we like to see the file extension of files we're exploring. But with some file types, such as icons, cursors, and (in some cases, when they've been changed) bitmaps, you don't need to see the extension. Luckily, it's possible to suppress file extensions in some types of files, while all the others stay intact. Here's how:

1.Pick the file extension to suppress, then back up the Registry.
2.Launch RegEdit.
3.Under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, locate the file extension you want to suppress.
4.Right-click the extension name and select New/String Value.
5.Name the string value NeverShowExt, and don't change the Data value.
6.Save your changes as you quit RegEdit, and restart Windows.

Tips to Survive By

Defrag regularly
Removing data from your system leaves empty spaces on your hard drive. When Windows saves new data, it fills in these cracks, often splitting up files and thus increasing the amount of time it takes to access that file. To help reorganize your hard drive into continuous chunks and consequently speed up system performance, Microsoft includes a defragmenting program in its OSs (and has since DOS 6.0).

The Windows 98 defrag utility is better than its predecessors. It records the way Windows accesses files when you run a program, then reorganizes those files to fit how Windows works. For example, it organizes files sequentially, in the order Windows reads them, and places your most frequently accessed programs on the fastest parts of your disk. The end result? A speed boost for all your programs, and a bigger boost for your favorites.

Windows 98's new defrag program lets you break files into pieces and start apps more quickly.

FAT32?
Compressing your data with the Windows DriveSpace utility is a really bad idea. It does save disk space, but it also slows down system performance. That's because compressing and expanding files hog resources that could be used for running other programs. Even Microsoft agrees--since the release of Windows 98, the company suggests converting your disk to FAT32 format instead of using DriveSpace.

Unfortunately, FAT32 format has its share of problems, too. In our tests, FAT32 disks lagged a few percentage points behind disks formatted in the older FAT16 format. Most home users probably won't notice the difference, but if you really need the speediest performance you can get, stick with an uncompressed FAT16 drive and buy an extra hard disk.

Take care of you video
If your screen redraws slowly, or you experience other video glitches, your video card may be working too hard. Some video cards claim to offer screen resolutions and color depths they can't actually support. If you think your card might be maxed out, try bumping down the color depth or screen resolution a notch in the Display Control Panel (Start/Settings/Control Panel/Display), or right-click the desktop and choose Properties. Unless you're a graphic designer, you probably won't notice the difference between 32-bit true color and 16-bit high color, anyway.

You probably won't know the difference between 16- and 32-bit color, but your video card will.

Upgrade your hardware
Sometimes you just have to take the plunge and buy some new hardware. There's a hardware upgrade for almost every speed problem. Here are a few of the most common problems and solutions:

Problem: System runs slowly, hard drive always spinning
Solution: Buy more RAM. If your Win 98 system is running on less than 64MB of RAM, an upgrade will speed things up considerably.

Problem: Plenty of RAM, but system still slow
Solution: Upgrade your processor and/or motherboard. RAM is generally the biggest processing bottleneck, but if you're running less than a Pentium-166 MMX, a new processor should give you the horsepower you need for number crunching. If you run processor-intensive applications such as Photoshop, or if you plan on upgrading to Windows NT, look for a Pentium II or its equivalent. And remember: Adding a second processor to your motherboard will speed up only NT. Windows 98 won't even recognize it, so don't bother!

Problem: Slow game performance
Solution: Buy a new video card. Today's 3D games demand so much computing power that even the fastest CPU can't handle the job. Instead, a game's speed often depends on the video card, and if yours is short on RAM or runs a 2D-only processor, you're out of luck. You can find plenty of decent 3D accelerator cards for as little as $100.

Update your drivers
Although many Windows 95 drivers will run under Windows 98, most of them work less efficiently with the newer OS--and some don't work at all. To ensure the best performance of your hardware, you need the latest driver. And that may not be the one that was with your original Windows 98 CD-ROM. Why? Because several vendors didn't create Windows 98 drivers in time for them to ship with the OS. Thus, Microsoft included interim drivers whose performance was less than ideal.

The good news? By now most vendors have completed their Win 98 drivers. The best way to get the latest drivers is to hit the vendor sites and look for upgrades.

Start faster

Don't autostart anything
Nothing's slower than having to wait for your computer to launch a bunch of programs each times it starts up. To stop a program from launching at start-up, just open C:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp in Windows Explorer and delete that program's shortcut.

Windows 98's System Information tool (Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information) gives you an even more detailed list of autostarting programs. Just expand the Software Environment menu and choose Startup Programs. This will show you any programs that are automatically launched by the Registry. To keep these programs from autostarting, consult each application's help file.

Stop the floppy scan
When Windows 98 boots up, it wastes time scanning for new floppy drives. You can reclaim these lost seconds via the System Control Panel applet (Start/Settings/Control Panel/System, or right-click My Computer and choose Properties). Select the Performance tab; click the File System button; select the Floppy Disk tab; and uncheck the option "Search for new floppy disk drives every time your computer starts."

There's no need to search for the floppy drive every time your PC boots up.

Speed up reboots
If you think Windows 98 takes too long to boot, you can remove the built-in two-second delay in the OS's start-up sequence. Here's what you need to do:

1. Under the Start button, select Find/Files or Folders.
2. Enter msdos.sys in the Named box and C: in the Look In box. Then click Find Now.
3. When the file appears, right-click it and select Properties from the pop-up menu.
4. Click to remove the check marks from the Read-Only and Hidden attributes, then click OK.
5. Right-click msdos.sys, select Open With from the pop-up menu, enter Notepad as the opening program, and then click OK.
6. Under Options, enter BootDelay=0 or BootDelay=1 on its own line. (This represents respective delays of zero seconds and one second, both of which are faster than the default).
7. Close Notepad and save your changes on the way out.
8. Return msdos.sys to its hidden, read-only state. (Right-click it, select Properties from the pop-up menu, and check the Read-Only and Hidden check boxes. Then click OK.)
9. Quit and restart Windows.

Warning: Any time you make changes to your SYS files, it's a good idea to back up your important files and have your original Windows disk on hand in case you need to reinstall.

Make yourself efficient

Use keyboard shortcuts
These tips won't speed up Windows 98, but they will make the person using it more efficient. Even the most mouse-happy user can save time with a few simple keyboard shortcuts. Here are a few of our favorites:

Alt-Tab: Switch between open applications
Ctrl-Esc: Bring up the Start menu
F2: Rename a file or folder
F5: Refresh folder or desktop contents
Shift-Del: Delete without sending to the Recycle Bin
Alt-F4: Quit the application (or shut down if no apps are open)

If you have a Windows keyboard (with a Windows logo on the key between Ctrl and Alt), here are a few more:

Shift-Windows key-M: Reopen minimized windows
Windows key-F: Launch the Find menu
Windows key-M: Minimize all open windows
Windows key: Bring up the Start menu

You can also create your own keyboard shortcuts to launch frequently accessed applications or files. Just create a shortcut to a file, then right-click and choose Properties. Enter a key combination (such as Ctrl-Alt-X) in the Shortcut key field, click OK, then launch the program at any time with just the keyboard.