PC Resource Guide, Windows95 Tips

Gain some Speed

To get some more speed, go to the Control Panel (Start/Settings/Control Panel), and double-click the System Icon. Select the Performance tab and hit the File System button.  Change the Typical role of this machine to Network Server. This will enhance the use of upper memory, especially in machines with more than 32 MB of RAM.                

Use Emergency Recovery

The Emergency Recovery Utility, which ships on the Windows 95 CD-ROM (look for it in Other\Misc\Eru), roots out a whole slew of Windows configuration and system files, backs them up, and can restore them if you experience a disk disaster of epic proportions. An ERU backup is done by a Wizard; it's so simple, it doesn't even need a description here. The backup file isn't compressed, so it can take up more than a  high-density floppy's worth of space. But they are bytes well spent, and if you do want to store them on a floppy, you can always use WinZip to  crunch 'em.  The process of restoring the settings you've saved after disaster strikes has a couple of wrinkles, but it's far from difficult.

1. Start your system using an emergency boot disk (you have made one, right?), and when you see the words "Starting Windows 95," press the F8 key.

2. Select the Safe Mode Command Prompt Only option.

3. Use the DOS cd command to change to your backup directory (the syntax is cd c:\backup).

4. To run the restoration utility, erd.exe, type erd at the prompt, and restore whichever files have been corrupted.

Custom Right-Click

To customize the right-click menu, open any folder, and click View\Options. Select the File Types tab and choose the type of file you wish to edit. Click Edit, and in the Actions display, click New. The   action is what will appear in the menu.

Check Folder Size

To find out the total size of a folder, right-click the folder (or group of folders) and choose Properties from the context menu.

Remove Programs from Add/Remove Program

You can remove these entries from the Add/Remove Program list by either manually editing the registry or using Tweak UI Power Toy, which can be downloaded from Microsoft's Web site.     http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/wutoys/w95pw rtoysset/default.asp   To manually remove the program entry, open regedit.exe and navigate down to     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVer sion\Uninstall
     Now find the entry in this key that relates to the application(s) to be     removed (you may need to look at the DisplayName value). Once located, delete the appropriate key entry. To use Tweak UI, download and install the program. Now, open Start |Settings | Control Panel | Tweak UI and select the Add/Remove tab. Locate the program entry you wish to delete and click Remove. When you're done, click OK and close Control Panel. NOTE: As always, we'll remind you that registry editing can be risky, so be sure you have a verified backup before making any changes.

   WHAT ARE .CHK FILES?
 Windows 95/98 will automatically run the Scandisk maintenance application (Scandisk.exe) following an improper system shutdown or a critical disk error. You should run ScanDisk at least once a month as part of your PC maintenance.  Scandisk will often find files or parts of files that appear to have no properly formed beginnings, it marks these chunks of data as .chk files and saves them to the root directory. These .chk files could be part of a document you were working on when your computer crashed or a portion of an unsuccessfully exited program, driver, or temp file that was in use at some point on the computer. If you open the .chk files in Notepad or Wordpad, you may find useful text that you want to keep. These files may have become corrupt during an improper shutdown or program error, freeze and contain useless data. Once you salvage  anything from the .chk files that you want to keep, you can delete the files safely.  Chk files are no longer used by Windows and just take up space on your hard drive.

CHANGING THE DEFAULT ACTION FOR A FILE
If you click on a Web page link to download a media file or document inWindows 98, you may find that Media  Player or the document's application opens instead of the Save As dialog  box. For example, you may click on an MP3 file and your MP3 player starts  up, instead of a dialog asking where you want to save the file. When this happens, it means the Default Action for the file type (in this example, .mp3) has changed from Save As to Play. Note that in other cases, the  Default Action may have changed to Open.To view the current Default  Action and change it, open Windows Explorer and select Folder Options from  the View menu. Click on the File Types tab and select the file extension required. Now click the Edit button and the current default action is  highlighted in bold. Select the new action to be made default and click the  Set Default button. OK yourchanges.Now restart Internet Explorer and try downloading a file of the type you have just changed. The default  action you have just selected should now be in force.