|
General Tips
These are tips that don't really fit into any of the other categories.
How do I make programs start at bootup?
If you click the START button, then Settings/Taskbar, you will see the panel to modify the taskbar. Select the other tab option at the top, then click on 'advanced'. A mini-version of the Explorer will pop up, showing the hierarchy of your START menu. One of the items listed is 'startup'. This is the equivalent of the Windows 3.1 startup folder. If you click on that, in the right side of the panel you'll see all the things that are automatically run at startup. Right click on each item and select 'delete', or drag it to somewhere other than the startup area if you want to remove any of these items.
Last Modified: June 25, 1998
Music CDs and Autoplay
By default, Windows 98 is set up to automatically start the CD Player applet and begin playing a music cd as soon as it is inserted into the CD-ROM drive. This is set up in Windows 98 much like a file extension association. To change this, start Explorer, and select View/Folder Options/File Type. Scroll through the list until you find a listing for Audio CDs. Highlight it, and select the Edit button. You'll see a panel showing the option 'play'. Select that, then click on the Edit button on this panel. You'll see the command that is invoked for that option. It is by default set to execute CDPLAYER.EXE with a command parameter of '/play'. If you delete the entire line, then when an audio cd is inserted, nothing will happen. If you delete just the '/play' parameter, then when an audio cd is inserted, the CD Player applet is started, but it does NOT immediately begin playing the cd.
[July 5, 1998]
Explorer isn't showing all files!
By default, Windows Explorer in Windows 98 doesn't show all files in a folder - it hides system and hidden files. To change this, select View/Options. The first tab ,View, has an option for 'show all files.' Change to this option and all files will be displayed from then on.
[June 25, 1998]
Taskbar Tips
Options: Right-click on an empty part of the taskbar and select Properties for a list of options including auto-hide, always on top, and others.
Location: You can change the location of the taskbar to be the bottom, top, or either side of your screen by simply dragging it to where you want it.
Size: You can increase the size of the taskbar by simply grabbing its edge with the mouse cursor, and dragging it. This is useful if you are running a large number of programs, and want to have bigger buttons on the taskbar so that you can read see of the title on that application's button.
[June 25, 1998]
Windows Key Shortcuts
Windows 95 has built-in support for the Microsoft Natural Keyboard, using the special keys as follows:
Run dialog box.
WIN + M = Minimize all windows currently open.
WIN + Shift + M = Undo Minimize all windows
WIN + F1 = Start Help
WIN + E = Start Explorer
WIN + F = Start Find Files/Folders dialog box.
CNTL+ WIN + F = Start Find Computer dialog box.
WIN + TAB = Cycle through taskbar buttons.
WIN + BREAK = Display Systems Properties panel.
[June 25, 1998]
Turning off Window animations
When you minimize or restore a window under Windows 98, a little animation is displayed that makes the windows appear to "grow" to full size. Some people find this animation annoying. To turn it off, right-click on an empty portion of the desktop and click Properties to bring up the Display panel. Click the "Effects" tab, and uncheck the "Animate Windows" checkbox.
[June 25, 1998]
Customizing the Startup and Shutdown screens:
These screens are standard 320x400 bitmaps that can be edited with many different programs, including PAINT. These screens MUST be EXACTLY 320x400!. Logow.sys and Logos.sys are the "wait" and "it is now safe to shutdown" screens, respectively. The startup screen is buried in a different file - but all you have to do to override the standard startup screen is create a replacement (again, exactly 320x400), name it Logo.sys, and place it in your root directory.
[June 25, 1998]
Changing the Clock to 24-Hour Time:
Double-click My Computer/Control Panel, and then open the Regional Settings panel. Click on the "Time" tab. In the Time Style field, change the style to read H:mm:ss. If you prefer a leading zero (so that 9:00am is viewed as 09:00), change the style to be HH:mm:ss.
[June 25, 1998]
Tweaking the User Interface (TWEAKUI):
One of the most popular add-on's for Windows 95 was a tool called TWEAKUI. Well, there's an updated version for Windows 98, and it ships right on the installation CD-ROM! It can be found in \tools\reskit\powertoys - right-click on the file named tweakui.inf and select Install.
TWEAKUI lets you control many things - definitely install it and take a look!
[July 11, 1998]
Tweaking Startup and Other Options:
Windows 98 comes with a slick little utility called MSCONFIG that allows you to easily configure startup options, your autoexec.bat/config.sys files, and other options. To access it, go to File/Run, and type "msconfig", then press enter. (Thanks to Dre Selen for that tip!)
[August 1, 1998]
Restoring Windows 95 Backups on Windows 98:
There is reportedly a problem restoring backups from Windows 95 onto Windows 98 if the original backup has files that span multiple disks. This is described in Microsoft's Knowledge Base article http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q189/6/02.asp. The article states that to work around the problem, use the Windows 95 backup program to restore the files.
In order to use the Windows 95 backup program, I've been told that copying the following files from a Windows 95 system will allow the older backup program to work: backup.exe, chiadi.dll, chikdi.dll, Qic117.vxd, and backup.cfg. Once those are copied to /windows/system then backup.exe can be double-clicked to start the Windows 95 backup program. WARNING: I have not tested this myself - beware if copying any of these files overlays newer Windows 98 files!
[August 6, 1998]
Switching Between Programs
There are many ways in Windows 98 to switch between running programs. The most obvious way is the Task Bar (normally at the bottom of your screen). Click the button of the running program you want to access, and it will pop up to the front.
Another method is to hold down the ALT key, then tap the TAB key. Keep holding ALT. A window will pop up showing the icons for all running programs, with a green box around one of them. If you keep tapping TAB (don't let up on ALT yet!) you can move the green box to a different icon. Select the one you want, then let up the ALT key and Windows 98 will switch you to that program.
Yet another way is to run the Task Manager applet. To run it, click Start/Run and type taskman and press Enter. A window will pop up showing all the running programs within large buttons - click the button to switch to it. If you want to have easier access to this, create a shortcut on your desktop and point it to c:\windows\taskman.exe (modify this to reflect your computer setup if you don't have Windows 98 installed in \windows on the C: drive).
[March 14, 1999]
Disabling/Removing Windows Update
Windows Update is a great feature, which makes it very easy to update your system via the internet. However, in some cases you may wish to disable this feature (for example, if the computer is in a school, or other location where you want more control over what updates are applied).
Windows Update is listed twice on the start menu - immediately at the top of the menu, and also on the Start/Settings menu. To remove it from the Start/Settings menu, open a RUN command line (Start/Run) and enter wupdmgr.exe -shortcut
To remove it from the top of the Start menu, run regedit and drill down to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Under that key, find the value NoWindowsUpdate and set it to 1 (if you don't see that item, add it). You will need to reboot the computer before Windows Update will disappear.
[March 14, 1999]
|
|
