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While initializing device vkd error - Added 6/22/01 Swapping the Mouse Buttons for Left Hand from the Command Line - Added 6/17/01 Using the Wheel Mouse to Control the Font Size - Submitted 5/12/01 Determining Your Processor's Speed - Submitted 2/20/01 Creating a Directory That is Not Accessible From Windows - Submitted 4/8/00 Creating Custom Boot Floppies - Added 3/15/00 Deleting the TEMP Directory at Bootup - Submitted 2/21/00 Saving File Searches - Added 2/21/00 Searching for Files In All Drives - Submitted 2/12/00 Renaming CD ROM Drive Letter - Submitted 2/12/00 Changing the Colors of the Blue Screen of Death - Added 1/27/00 Powering on the Computer With Your Mouse - Submitted 11/9/99 Removing Programs from the Control Panel - Updated 8/14/98 Not Loading DriveSpace or DoubleSpace Drivers - Submitted 8/12/98 Increasing Performance - Updated 8/11/98 Increasing Disk Performance - Submitted 6/14/98 Clearing the Documents Folder - Submitted 6/7/98 Opening a File with Application that is Different than its Registered One - Submitted 3/29/98 Fixing VMM32 Memory Leak - Added 2/12/98 Removing One Document File from START / DOCUMENTS - Submitted 12/29/97 Finding Files with Specific Text in Them - Submitted 12/29/97 Creating a Support Information Button - Submitted 11/29/97 Create (or replace) the Manufacturer's logo in System Properties - Submitted 11/29/97 Adding printers to the Add Printer Dialog Box - Submitted 10/11/97 Device Problems with Removable Hard Drives - Submitted 10/11/97 Deleting Files Without Sending Them to the Recycle Bin - Submitted 9/13/97 Changing the Recycle Bin Size - Submitted 9/13/97 Displaying Last File Searches - Submitted 9/13/97 Associating Several File Extensions to the Same Program - Submitted 8/23/97 Fast Open of the Start Menu - Submitted 7/4/97 Getting Item Properties - Submitted 4/19/97 Starting Win95 Without Running Apps in the Startup Folder - Submitted 4/5/97 Removing a program from the Control Panel - Submitted 3/12/97 Using FIND to Search Across Multiple Drives - Added 2/19/97 RUNDLL Error Message - Submitted 1/28/96 Automatically Delete Files Sent to Recycle Bin - Submitted 11/29/96 The Simplest Multi-Boot - Submitted 11/24/96 Enabling Telephony Controls - Submitted 11/3/96 Disabling CDs AutoRun - Added 10/20/96 Control Panel CPL Files - Added 10/19/96 Reserving Resources from Plug and Play Devices - Added 10/6/96 Viewing System IRQ, I/O, Memory and DMA Utilization - Added 10/6/96 Installing with an INF File - Added 9/1/96 Automatically Deleting Files in the Recycle Bin - Submitted 8/5/96 Increasing your Sound Card's Bass and Treble - Added 6/8/96 ATI Video Card and COM4 conflicts - Submitted 5/3/96 System Policies when logging on to an NT Domain - Submitted 4/28/96 Changing to Win 3.x Shell - Submitted 4/28/96 Quickly Opening Text Files - Submitted 4/23/96
Changing your Modem's Initialization String - Added 4/9/96 Saving memory by adjusting your CD Cache - Added 3/30/96 Easy File Deletes - Submitted 2/19/96 Update to DTC 2278 D Controller and CD ROMs - Submitted 2/15/96 HP Print Failures - Added 1/27/96 Eliminate banner page from printing when running HP 4 & 5 printer - Submitted 1/26/96 Designating Drive Letter for CD ROMs and other removable media - Added 1/20/96 Upgrading with Pro Audio Spectrum Cards - Submitted 1/16/96 Bypass starting Windows95 - Submitted 1/14/96 Quick Format a Floppy Disk - Submitted 1/13/96 Creating a Boot Menu - 12/27/95 Selecting non-recognized modems - 12/25/95 Creating PRN File Types - 12/13/95 Refresh SCSI Devices - 11/28/95 DTC Controller I/O Problems - 11/18/95 Removing programs listed in Control Panel's Remove Programs - 11/4/95 Drivespace and Memory - 11/1/95 Booting to DOS - 10/2/95 Turning off Numlock - 9/13/95 Quickly Restarting Win95 - 9/12/95 S3 Video and COM 4 - 9/9/95 Potential problems with 16-bit WINSOCK.DLL's - 9/1/95 Speeding up your double-speed CD-ROM - 8/31/95 Copying Graphics Read the TIPS.TXT File
Swapping the Mouse Buttons for Left Hand from the Command Line
Added 6/17/01 If you want to swap the mouse buttons for a left handed person, you can do this from the command line. Win9x: RUNDLL user.exe,SwapMouseButton Win2000: RUNDLL32 user32.dll,SwapMouseButton To swap it back again to a right-hand mouse, you need to run the mouse icon from the Control Panel.
This will perform a short scan of your system files Your processor speed, memory, hard drives will then show up Submitted by Jason Graine
I like this since I usually add a lot more files than the normal StartUp disk Windows creates.
Note from Bob: 1. 2. 3. 4. You can do this from the Device Manager. Open up the CD ROM section Open the CD ROM you want to change Under Settings, change the Start Drive Letter to higher in the alphabet.
4. If PS/2 mouse power on disabled, activate it by press page up/ page down key it will became Double-Click 5. Press Esc key to exit 6. Press F10 to save and exit Power off your PC 7. Now double-click the left mouse button,.. Your PC will turn on Submitted by Ziad Dabash
Submitted by Dennis Riddick Submitted 3/29/98 1. You can remove seected icons in your Control Panel by simply moving, deleting or renaming the *.cpl file in your C:\WINDOWS\SYSETM directory. 2. The icon or file will still work even if it is not on the control panel screen. At list of the CPL files can be found in this section at Control Panel CPL Files Submitted by Joseph T. de Leon
Increasing Performance
Updated 8/11/98 This concerns the "Network Server" option ... You already know about the screw up in Win95 release prior to OSR2 but, did you know you can also customize the settings in the registry? 1. Open Regedit 2. Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates" 3. Add a new key called "Custom". 4. Then add two new binary values under that key with the names "NameCache" and "PathCache", just as with the other entries. 5. I would recommend using values somewhere in-between what the standard values are for "Desktop" and "Network Server". The values I have found to be the best compromise are "00 08 00 00" and "30 00 00 00" respectively, your milage may vary. (2048 filenames and 48 pathnames) 6. Close Regedit 7. Right click on "My Computer" 8. Select Properties then the Performance tab. 9. Select "File System" and you will now find the "Custom" option in the drop down box. 10. Select it and click on OK then be sure to reboot. While this doesn't save a lot of memory, at least your name caches aren't using more than they need. Submitted by CrashMaster Added 11/19/96 If you have 24 Megs or more of RAM, you can increase your performance 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Right Click on My Computer Select Properties Click the Performance tab Click on File System button Select Network Server with Full Read-ahead Optimization
If you do not see a performance increase, occasionally the NameCache and PathCache values are written to the registry incorrectly for the Network Server. To fix the problem: 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Server 3. Make sure the following values are being used:
PathCache=40 00 00 00 NameCache=a9 0a 00 00
To rename the labels Desktop Computer, Mobile or docking system, or Network Server, see Renaming the File System Profiles
Ever wonder why Windows 3.1 was noticeably faster than Windows 3.11? It has to do with something called Synchonous Buffer Commits, this tells Windows whether or not to lie to an application and tell the application that it's writing data to the drive when Windows is actually caching the data in memory. With Windows '95 they give you the option to disable this, thus increasing disk intensive application performance but there are some caveats to consider. If you lose power the data in cache will NOT be written to disk this will be BAD so I'd only recommend using this on a machine with an UPS. Well, Here how you do it. 1. Go to Start \ Settings \ Control Panel \ System \ Performance \ File System \ Troubleshooting 2. Check the box Disable synchronous buffer commits. Expect about a 10% speed increase in disk intensive applications. Submitted by Matthew Arnold
Opening a File with Application that is Different than its Registered One
Submitted 3/29/98 To open a file with a different program: Right click a folder while holding down the SHIFT key This will open the dialog box that includes "Open with" to change what program will open the file Submitted by Scott Tobkes
If it is: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Rename both your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT file Reboot Rename them back again Reboot again Run MEM /C /P again to note any change is size.
This is helpful when you get an error message that tells you something can't be run because the file can't be found. You can find the file that is calling the "non-existent" thing. Submitted by Scott Ibara
Line1="your favorite strings" (require double quotes) Line2="your favorite strings>" Line3="your favorite strings>" etc. 4. Open System Properties dialog box, you'll see a Support Information button. Click on this will display the information you entered Note from Bob: This can be extremely useful if you want to include support personnel and their phone numbers Submitted by Nariaki Ogami
REMOVABLEIDE=TRUE Evidently, if you use a removable drive, Windows 95 does not recognize it as being removable, so you have to tell it that it is. Submitted by Mark Gill
program (for one effect) or worse! a new browser, and it rudely associates each type with itself. The trick is to make one file type (Image File) which you configure to set your preferred graphics viewer. Then to associate multiple file extensions with that type, run WINFILE.EXE, the old Win 3.1 File manager. Use File Associate, and you can quickly associate each extension with that file type. Submitted by Graham Hill
Run the Windows Explorer and go to the Windows/System directory. Find the appropriate CPL file (file with the extension CPL) and delete it. Note from Bob: If you want them still available but not showing up in the Control Panel itself, you can also move them to another directory. To invoke them, type CONTROL \path\cpl_file where path is the full path where they are located and cpl_file is the name of the CPL file. For example, if you don't want users to see the Network icon in the control panel but still want to be able to make changes, you could move the NETCPL.CPL file to another directory. Then type CONTROL \path\NETCPL.CPL. A listing of all the CPL files can be found later in this section at: Control Panel CPL Files Submitted by Neil Ragone
Double click on Computer You can now see what IRQ, I/O, Memory and DMA addresses are in use.
Submitted 2/15/96 They do have a beta driver out now for 95 but it will not work with a CD-ROM on the secondary port. The work around is: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Load the new DTC driver for the Primary IDE But load the original 95 Standard IDE/IO for the secondary port Then you can play music CD's etc.. Then you can remove the DOS Driver and the old Win3.1 driver from the SYSTEM.INI The performance does seem a little faster after doing all of this.
They also have a web site at http://www.datatechnology.com Submitted by Jeff Pennington Jeff@cbsinet.com
The readme file points out that this is typically on Compaq Prolinea or Deskpro models Submitted by Sid Lieberman wa2fxb@ix.netcom.com
BootGUI=0
The next time the computer is started, You will return to the DOS prompt after the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files load.
It's useful when you hate waiting for your slow computer to start Windows 95 every time you turn on your computer. Submitted by Keith Lau klau@sac.on.ca
Modem Selection
Submitted 12/25/95 When Win95 doesn't recognize your modem Don't use "Standard 14400 bps modem" or "Standard 28800 bps modem" Why %3F because this doesn't enable hardware data compression and correction. (In other words, your modem doesn't work at full speed)
Solution : choose any other modem in the list that's compatible with you modem and has about the same specifications (speed, V32, V34, ...). Hayes is very likely to be compatible, as it is used as a standard Submitted by Pedro Tytgat Pedro.Tytgat@ping.be
Go to System in the Control Panel, click on your drive type, click on the drive itself and disable the SCSI options in the drive settings section. This I/O card will not allow me to use my Iomega Zip drive (parallel port interface) with the CDROM as well. I haven't figured out how to fix this problem yet. Submitted by Bob Frenz rfrenz@alaska.net
Removing Programs listed from the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs Section
Added 11/4/95 If you remove an installed program and its files by deleting the files, it may still show up in the Add/Remove programs list through the control panel. In order to remove it from the list (so you don't need to re-install in order to just remove it again). 1. Start the Registry Editor 2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Uninstall 3. Delete any programs here. This will only delete them from the list, not delete the actual programs. Only programs designed for Windows95 will show up here in the first place.
Using Drivespace
Added 11/1/95 If you are using Drivespace, check if Windows is wasting 109K of conventional memory. In graphical windows, type 'mem/c/p' in a Dos box if you see 'drvspace.bin' or dblspace.bin' you are wasting memory. That is the *real mode* driver and it is supposed to be unloaded when the GUI starts. See MS Knowledge base article #Q134364 for how to fix it. Even if you fix the driver unloading in the GUI, if you boot to Dos, it will happen again if you start windows by typing 'WIN'. Submitted by Travis B. Jennings jenningt@db.erau.edu
Booting to DOS
Added 10/28/95 I have a phone controlled switch I use to turn on my computer and have it boot a DOS version of qmodem in host mode. The switch shuts the computer off 5 mins after I hang up.
When I moved into Win95 I need a way to do this without going into Windows. Answer, The MSDOS.SYS in Win95 is a text file. Change the BootGUI=0 to BootGUI=1 and you boot into DOS. You can always type WIN to start Win95 from there. Submitted by Jim Crosson a064@amug.org
Submitted by Jim Blazevski jim.blazevski@icacomp.com In addition to the tip regarding the ability to avoid a warm boot while restarting windows by shiftclicking the yes button, the same method can be used to avoid a warm boot when restart in MS-DOS mode is selected. The result is an exit to DOS much like win 3.11. However, regardless of click or shift click. The result is still a DOS Shell, not true DOS. Submitted by Michael Reach michael_reach@hotmail.com
Ewan.exe (Telnet app) WSIRC.exe (IRC app) WSGopher.exe (Gopher app) NX.Exe (NewsXpress) Netscape v.1.0
We found that if the software listed above is in the same directory as the Trumpet Winsock.dll file, then they will NOT work under the MS-TCP/IP stack. Submitted by Ken D. Walters support@sunbelt.net
Go into control panel Click on System Go to Performance tab Under Advanced settings click on the File System button Click on the CD-ROM tab Set the Cache to max Set Optimize Access pattern for Quad-speed or higher Your CD ROM reacts much faster. You can now play the high quality video clips on your Win95 CD-ROM without interruptions in video and sound. Used on 486DX40 Vesa with 8 mb ram and normal IDE hard drive.
Copying Graphics
You can copy graphics from a DOS box as well as you can text. For example, while running a graphics game, you can press 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Alt-Enter to make a DOS window Click on the upper left hand corner Select Edit/Mark Select a region with the mouse Select Edit/Copy or press the Enter key
6. You can then paste it into another program Thomas tried it on Heretic. I tried in on DOOM2. Everything worked fine Submitted by Thomas Kadlec tmk1@ra.msstate.edu