TopSpeed 98 Tips and Tricks Edition Date: October 13, 1998 Release: v1.0 Written by: acidbrnd^ Well here I go again. This file is a complete new one from the old Topspeed 2 that I updated. This is Topspeed 98 Tips and tricks Edition. All tips and tricks were taken from the Beta News groups for Windows 98 so credit to everyone that is posting these tips and tricks. This file is being created for 1 reason so that everyone has a chance to try them out and so that it is not limited to the beta testers. A lot of beta testers have posted tips and tricks that a lot of Normal people will not be able to know or find out unless they hear it from a friend or someone else so hence the reason I created this file. So that everyone can just download it and read all the tips and tricks the 98 beta testers have found to date. I hope you like and enjoy. acidbrnd^ Internet Explorer 4.0x Tips & Tricks: Search the Web Using Keywords with Internet Explorer: If you type in "go x" in IE 4.x or later (where "x" is any keyword) you can search for ANYTHING using IE, it will default to Yahoo for searching for that item that you entered for "X". Animated gif’s on your desktop: Like web pages you can put those animated gif's on the active desktop by selecting Web under display and then enter in the path for the Gif. make sure it's either on a hard drive or network drive.. then select OK. The animated gif will appear on the desktop playing. Keyboard Shortcuts in Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer offers numerous keyboard alternatives for computer users who prefer the keyboard over the mouse: Alt+D Jumps to the Address Bar. Alt+Left Arrow Back. Alt+Right Arrow Forward. Backspace back, or up one level when using folders. Ctrl+D adds the current page to your favorites. Ctrl+F Brings up the "Find on this page" dialog box. Ctrl+N opens a new window. Ctrl+O brings up the "Open" dialog box. Ctrl+P brings up the "Print" dialog box. Ctrl+R Refreshes current page. Ctrl+S saves the current page. Ctrl+Shift+Tab Move backwards among frames. Ctrl+Tab Move forwards among frames. F4 Displays the Address Bar history. F5 Refreshes current page. F6 Jumps to the Address Bar. F11 Toggles Full Screen mode. Page down Scrolls down, one page at a time. Page Up Scrolls up, one page at a time. Space Scrolls down, one page at a time. You can find more keyboard shortcuts for Internet Explorer by going to the Help menu, choosing Contents and Index and then looking in the Accessibility section. How to get "Start Menu" cascading from ANY DRIVE OR the CONTROL PANEL, PRINTERS, DIAL UP NETWORKING & TASK SCHEDULER icons, with no muss or fuss: It has been stated, a person can make a new tool bar from many things, including the 'My Computer' folder. I find that this tool bar is a MUST if you have more than a few drive letters. (my 'lastdrive' is Q: only two are logical devices!) For even more flexibility, you can use this method below. First create a tool bar out of "My Computer." On the tool bar, you right-click on any 'blank' space, and then you scroll up to 'tool bars' and when the menu opens, you'll see the 'new tool bar option at the bottom of the list. Left-click on this, and you will get a small window which asks you to "Choose a folder or type an Internet address." At the bottom of the 'My Computer' type listing, is an 'Internet Explorer" icon, which if you click on the '+' sign, will open up and reveal some goodies depending on what you have set up. In any case, you can simply click on 'My Computer' to create this new tool bar, and it will spread itself out. I usually will quickly go and change the settings to whittle down the size. RIGHT-click on the "My Computer" text, then left-click on "Show Text" to remove the written drive names, and leave you with just icons. You can always point your mouse over an icon to see which drive it anyway, so there's no worry. If you want to pare it down even more, again right-click on the "My Computer" text and click on "Show Title" to remove that from the display. I'm sure you'll know what the icons are for! With your drives as icons on the tool bar, HOLD down the CONTROL key, and LEFT click on a drive letter. Presto! A pop up CASCADE menu of your drives root contents will appear, just like the "Start" menu does! Now once the list is showing, you can let go of the CONTROL key, and choose your selection. If you choose a file, it will execute as usual, click a folder and it opens. HOWEVER, here is an even BETTER trick! If you need to navigate a few folders deep, open the drive list as above with CONTROL left-click on the drive icon. Now when you go to choose the next folder, HOLD the CONTROL KEY down again, and left-click the folder desired. A new list will cascade off the side of the main list! Now, you can keep holding the CONTROL key, and navigate as many folders deep as you want this way. If at ANY time, you want to OPEN that folder to work on the contents, let go of the CONTROL key and LEFT-click on that folder. Presto, a window will open and the folder will be displayed as usual. Same for a file, let go of CONTROL, and left-click to execute it. Now by default the icon lists that are displayed seem to show using LARGE icons. If you want to size them down, it's no problem. Simple CONTROL left-click on the drive letter, and when the list pops up, let go of CONTROL and RIGHT-click on the area at the TOP of the list. Here you will get the usual size control options to manipulate this list. With these tricks, you can speed to a folder two levels deep and select a file in a few seconds! Remember you can SIZE the tool bar to make it a little bit larger, and thus get TWO rows of tool bars' to display. You have to work at it a bit, but you can do nearly anything with it. Wait! There's more! Yes, you CAN do the same trick on the CONTROL PANEL, PRINTERS, DIAL UP NETWORKING & TASK SCHEDULER icons as well! When you hold down CONTROL and LEFT-click on CONTROL PANEL for example, you will get a cascade style menu of the available icons there! Same goes for the others, whatever icons are in those folders will pop up into a cascade display! Making Explorer run in Explore view instead of open: If you want to make Explorer run in "Explore" view when My Computer is clicked on rather than "open", then do the following: Open Explorer (Click on "My Computer") Select View, Folder Options, File Types. Click on "Folder" then edit. Click on "Explore" then "Set Default" Select "OK". This is an IE4 effect (can also be done on NT): Create one or more empty directories (I did c:\toolbar) Now right mouse click on empty space in the task bar and choose toolbars->New Toolbar It will open a browse window, select, your blank directory. It will appear on the task bar. Drag-n-drop desktop shortcuts into the toolbar to populate it with whatever you want. The directory will now contain shortcut files. Now the imprecise science. To arrange the toolbars (helps if you have two and resize the task bar to two lines or more). Drag them by the edge (or near the title) left right up down to get them ordered. If you drag the toolbar off the task bar, they become a floating window that can be snapped to any edge of the screen. If you drag a toolbar to an edge, consider another right click on a blank space and choose Auto-hide to make it pop up only when you bang that edge of the screen. Customize the Titlebar: In the Registry, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Microsoft\SOFTWARE\Internet Explorer\Main Create a new String Value by clicking “Edit - New - String Value.” Give the String Value the name “Window Title” [without the quotes]. Right click on the new value and select Modify. Under “Value Data:” enter the String you’d like to appear in the Title Bar of Internet Explorer, such as; My Global Company, Inc., Ltd., PTY. This new string will replace the default string “Microsoft Internet Explorer.” Internet Explorer 4 Hidden feature: 1)Drag MyComputer to the far right of the screen. 2)Click the little bar at the top of the new toolbar and drag it to the center of the screen. 3)Drag drive C to the desktop. Choose yes to make a shortcut. 4)Drag the new shortcut back to the bottom of the new 'My Computer' toolbar. 5)Move the mouse to the bottom and make the window larger. Resizing/Moving the taskbar: If you are using a lot of windows, you might find that the taskbar representation of the windows is becoming too small to be useful. Here's a way to make some more room. First - you can move the taskbar around, by dragging it from a point where there is no window or toolbar button. At first it may appear that nothing is happening, but don't release the mouse, and place it near the side or the top of the screen. The taskbar will move there. Next - you can resize it. Place the mouse at the bottom (or whatever side of the screen the taskbar is located), and slowly move the mouse towards the edge of the taskbar until it changes shape to the double arrows for resize. Now drag the mouse with the button pressed until the taskbar is the size you want. If the taskbar is at the top or bottom, it will only resize in whole lines increments. If your problem is lack of space, don't resize the taskbar to zero size (even though it is possible). Instead, right click on a point at the taskbar not active for anything else, and choose "properties". You have two interesting options there. Checking autohide means that the taskbar disappears into the side of the screen whenever the mouse is not over it. Unchecking "Always on top" means that other windows can overlap and hide the taskbar (which means that the taskbar no longer makes your screen smaller). You can still bring it to front fast by clicking the start button on your keyboard (ctrl-esc for no win95 keyboard), or by configuring Intellimouse to activate the start menu upon middle button press. IE Drag Program Shortcuts to Links: Make a shortcut for notepad or some other small WP program and drag it to link Toolbar in IE. It's a great way to catalog your downloads or take notes about web sites you visit! Now if I could only find a small 2 column WP to use, that would be even better. Creating Custom context menus for HTML files: If you develop web pages, you might want to be able to edit the HTML files with the classic notepad instead of any HTML editors. All you need to do is the following: 1. Open the Registry Editor (start menu -> run -> regedit) 2. Go to My Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile. From here, you can edit the shell context menu, add, edit or even delete keys that are not useful to you. 3. Right-click on the shell key and choose 'New -> Key'. A new key will be created. Rename this the way you it to appear in the context menu (when you right click an HTML file icon). You can call this 'Notepad'. If you want to be able to access this from the keyboard with the 'n' button, add an '&' in front of the word (that is something like & Notepad). 4. Right click the newly created key and select 'New -> Key' again. This new key should be called 'command'. Now you need to add some info and your new context menu is ready: Click on 'command'; on the right there will appear a string value named 'Default'. Right click to modify the value. In the 'value data' field type in 'c:\windows\notepad.exe %1'. In case your windows directory has a different path, make sure you correctly insert its path the registry. 5. If you right click on any HTML file now, you will have the option to edit it using the Notepad. This sometimes might be more useful than any HTML editor! Fast and easy way to populate multiple toolbars: 1.) Open Windows Explorer 2.) Navigate to c:\windows\application data\Microsoft\internet Explorer\ 3.) Create a new Folder for every type of toolbar you want 4.) Navigate to c:\windows\sendto 5.) Create a shortcut in c:\windows\sendto for each folder created in step 3 6.) Right click on the toolbar 7.) Select Toolbars / New toolbar 8.) Point at toolbar created in step 3 9.) Repeat for each folder created in step 3 10.)Now you could either open the Start button / programs and right click on each icon and select send to to move the icon to the toolbar, or you can go to c:\windows\start menu\ in the Windows Explorer and do the same. Quickly Launch Control Panel: If you use IE4's Active Desktop, you can easily add a shortcut to the Control Panel in the Quick Launch toolbar. Just right-click the desktop and choose New, Folder. Name the folder exactly as follows: ControlPanel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} Press Enter when you're done. IntelliMouse Shortcut: In Microsoft Internet Explorer you can go backwards and forwards using the wheel on the Microsoft IntelliMouse (or whatever wheel mouse you may have). All you have to do is hold 'Shift' and roll either backwards or forwards. Quick IE4 Trick: * in File Explorer, when viewing details, you can sort the list by clicking the column title bar. Clicking again will reverse the sort order. * the column sizes can be resized by grabbing the line separating column titles and dragging them with the mouse. New one for me: * you can customize the details view by dragging the column title bar sideways. So you can take Name which if normally the leftmost column and make it column3 by dragging it to the right of the Type column. There is a slim highlight line that shows where the column will insert well you release the mouse button. Note that this works with NT4 as well as Win98. It is an IE4 feature. That’s about it so far for the IE4 tips and tricks now onto the Windows 98 Tips and Tricks. Windows 98 Tips & Tricks: Upgrading but not upgrading: This is not meant as a hack or anything illegal, just a way to dual-boot without having to reinstall everything from your old copy of Windows. Some people like the dual-boot features of Windows 95/98 that let you keep booting to an existing OS such as Windows 3.x and a previous version of DOS. A simple way to migrate your current Windows 3.x apps to Windows 95/98 without losing Windows 3.x and you don't have to reinstall any of your programs. All you have to do is make an exact duplicate of your Windows 3.x folder and all the files and subdirectories within it, and that's usually just your Windows and Windows\System folders and the files contained in them. Usually it is less than 10 megabytes so this isn't a problem if you're short on disk space. All you need to do is make a folder named Win95 or Win98 depending on which version you are installing. Go into MS-DOS or use the Windows File Manager program to copy all your files from C:\Windows (substitute your drive/folder/directory name in place of C:\Windows) and your C:\Windows\System (same) to your C:\Win95 or C:\Win98 System folder. You will need a sub-folder/directory in your DUPLICATE COPY of Windows 3.x named "System" where you copy the old Windows 3.x system files from the Windows 3.x system sub-folder. Then simply run Windows 95 or Windows 98's installation program and tell it to install to C:\Win95 or C:\Win98, overwriting your "previous" (actually a copy of your previous) version of Windows. All of your existing programs and applications will be automatically ported to Windows 95/98 while still being accessible in your original copy of Windows 3.x. This will update the Win95/98 registry and even put the programs into the Start Menu so you don't have to worry about it. This tip should also work for Windows NT 4.0 and in the future, NT 5.0. Quad-booting Operating Systems: Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for anything that happens as a result of using this information. It is possible to quad-boot Windows 98/95, Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and MS-DOS all on one PC with no special utilities or third party programs. Make sure you are using a FAT16 partition on your primary hard drive. First, install Windows 98 or Windows 95 normally. Click Start, Shut Down, and Restart the Computer. Click Yes. Once the computer reboots and Win98 or Win95 starts loading, press F8. Choose "Safe Command Prompt Only." Take an MS-DOS disk (where "A:" is your floppy drive letter) and type: attrib a:\msdos.sys -h -s -r attrib a:\io.sys -h -s -r attrib a:\command.com -h -s -r copy a:\msdos.sys c:\msdos.dos copy a:\io.sys c:\io.dos copy a:\command.com c:\command.dos attrib msdos.sys -h -s -r edit msdos.sys Make sure it has "BootMulti=1" under "[Options]". Press ALT + F. Press "S" for save. Press ALT + F. Choose "Exit." Remove the floppy disk. Power off the PC and after 10 seconds power it back on. (The ten seconds gives it time to spin down to avoid un-necessary wear and tear). Press F4 when Win98 or Win95 starts to load. Windows 95 will say "Starting Windows 95..." but Windows 98 will not, so be careful to press F4 it at the right time. It will load MS-DOS (in my case 6.22). A "DIR" command will reveal that Win98 or Win95's IO.SYS file has been renamed to WINBOOT.SYS and that the Win98 or Win95 versions of COMMAND.COM and MSDOS.SYS, and AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS now have the extension ".W40" after them. Now that you are into MS-DOS, you can install Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 into a folder. Make sure you don't accidentally install it over Windows98 or Windows 95!!!! I suggest a folder name such as "Win3" or "Wfw" as the location 3.x version of Windows. Usually Win98 or Win95 are installed in C:\Windows by default. Now, reboot the computer and let Win98 or Win95 load completely. Once it's loaded, go to Start, Shut Down, Restart the Computer. Click "Yes." This is an important step so do not skip it! It will say "It is now safe to turn off your computer." At this point, put in your Windows NT Workstation 4.0-setup disk #1. Restart your computer by pressing reset or ALT CTRL DELETE or by turning the power off and back on again after 10 seconds have passed. Windows NT Workstation 4.0 setup will load. Follow on screen instructions. It will automatically detect that Win95 or Win98 is installed. If it asks permission to overwrite the Windows 3.x installation tell it "NO". I suggest installing NT Workstation 4.0 it into the folder C:\WINNT. Once NT setup is done, the next time you reboot you will get a boot menu asking if you want to load "Microsoft NT Workstation 4.0", "NT Workstation 4.0 [VGA mode]" (similar to Win95 and Win98's safe mode) and "Microsoft Windows". "Microsoft Windows" actually refers to Windows 98 or Windows 95, not Windows 3.x or Windows for Workgroups. In System Properties in Windows NT Workstation 4.0, you can easily tell the PC if you want to boot to NT or 98 or 95 by default and you can even specify the delay until it automatically loads the default choice (which you can pick). I set a time of 5 seconds and chose Windows 98 ("Microsoft Windows" as my default OS). Now, after rebooting Windows NT Workstation, you can let NT load, OR you can choose "Microsoft Windows." This sounds a little complicated but is actually quite simple. If you choose "Microsoft Windows" from the boot menu at startup, Windows 95 or Windows 98 will start to load normally. You can let it proceed by not doing anything, OR you can press F8 for the normal Win95/98 boot menu and make yet another choice there, such as Safe Mode, Command Prompt Only, Previous Version of MS-DOS (such as 6.22 and Win3.x), etc. Or you can just press F4 when Win95 or Win98 starts to load and it will take you to MS-DOS and/or Windows 3.x. I have found that its okay to use Windows 98's Defrag and Scandisk utilities on the hard disk as well as NT 4.0's CHKDSK. Try to avoid using MS-DOS and Windows 3.x based utilities as they don't understand long file names and other things that are only in 32 bit Windows operating systems. Using Windows 3.x and MS-DOS based utilities can cause problems for Win95/98 and NT 4. If you can't find drivers for hardware you need to work with any of the operating systems, visit the manufacturer's website. WARNING: This is not advisable unless you are an EXPERT at computers. The Author that wrote this and myself (acidbrnd^) will not be held liable if anything happens to your computer as a result of this. Get More CPU Info from Win98: If you have an Intel Pentium, the General tab on the My Computer screen probably reports that your computer is a GenuineIntel (one word) Pentium(r) Processor (or something close to that). For more information, open this Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Hardware\Description\System\CentralProcessor\0 Double-click on VendorIdentifier and put a space between "Genuine" and "Intel" on this line. Now reopen the Properties sheet. Underneath the Genuine Intel line, you’ll see that your CPU is displayed as coming from the "x86 Family X Model Y Stepping [version] Z," where X, Y, Z are the correct values in your system. Close the Properties sheet, reopen the Registry key and the same information will be seen on the Identifier line. Restart Windows 98 and the default information will be reinstated. Using LFNFOR: LFNFOR is an internal MS-DOS mode command for those of you who like running programs/DOS commands by writing DOS style batch files. LFNFOR, when enabled, allows for IsF, FOR, DO, ERRORLEVEL, GOTO batch style commands to take in consideration the use of Long File Names (LFNs). Running LFNFOR from a DOS prompt, without parameters, will display the status of LFN DOS batch usage: LFNFOR is off Turn it on by running: LFNFOR ON By default LFNFOR is off. To turn it on permanently, add this line to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file: LFNFOR ON To turn it back off, run: LFNFOR OFF Create 1 icon to run more then 1 program: Create a Batch file, in the batch file use the Start command to run your links. i.e.: @echo off Start C:\windows\desktop\ISP.Lnk Start c:\windows\desktop\Outloo~1.Lnk Start C:\Progra~1\Icq\Icq.exe Exit I have not tried to use the long file names under 98. Then create a shortcut to run the batch file. Change the properties to close on Exit in the program tab. I use this to connect and launch my ISP toys. Get a new registry: Use at your own risk. If you are having problems starting Windows 95 on your machine, or believe that your Registry files are corrupted, you can create a new Win95/98 Registry without a total Win95 reinstall. All you have to do is run this command at the real (native) MS-DOS command line (outside Win95/98): SETUP /Pf from your Win95 install CD-ROM D:\WIN95 or D:\Win98 folder (change the CD-ROM drive letter if different on your machine). This will create a new Registry from scratch (replacing SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT in your Win95/98 folder with the new ones). As you may have noticed the letters have to be typed in EXACTLY as shown: capital "P" and small case "f" (don't type the quotes though). I suggest you BACKUP your old (working) Registry files before doing this! Read the "Windows 95 Setup Switches" Microsoft Knowledge Base article for more details: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q128/4/00.asp Add a windows key to your keyboard: If you wish you had a Windows Key on your keyboard but you don't, and you don't want to shell out money for a new keyboard when your existing one is perfectly fine, then make one. All you must do to complete the operation is the Keyboard Remap Kernel Toy and your Right Ctrl or Right Alt key. You can download the kernel toy for keyboard remapping at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/info/kerneltoys.htm Just click the Windows 95 Keyboard Remap link. Download the file to any location of your choice, then open Keyremap.exe to extract its contents. Right-click the Keyremap.inf file and select install. Next, open the Control Panel, open Keyboard properties, and select the Remap tab. Under Right-hand Side, select the key you want to use--such as Right Alt--in the left-hand box. In the right-hand box (still under Right-hand Side), select Windows. Click OK, and you now have a Windows key. To test it press the key you used once and the start menu pops up. Windows 98/95 SETUP SWITCHES: If you try to install Windows 95/98 from a DOS prompt, SETUP allows several command line switches, also available to their Windows counterpart. Run (Win95/98 Setup screen shown below): SETUP /? "Setup Options: SETUP [/C] [/IL] [batch] [/T:TMP] [/IM] [/ID] [/IS] [/IQ] [/IN] /C Instructs Setup not to load the SmartDrive disk cache. /IL Loads the Logitech mouse driver instead of the Microsoft mouse driver. Use this option if you have a Logitech Series C mouse. [batch] Specifies the name and location of the file that contains Setup options. /T:TMP specifies the directory where Setup will copy its temporary files. If the directory doesn't exist, it will be created. WARNING: Any existing files in this directory will be deleted. /IM Skips the memory check. /ID Skips the disk-space check. /IS Doesn't run scandisk. /IQ Skips the check for cross-linked files. /IN Runs Setup without the Network Setup module. Note: The /a and /n options are no longer valid. Use NETSETUP.EXE instead." NEW Setup switches added by Windows 98: /ie Does not create an Emergency Boot Disk. /ih Skips the registry check. /iv Skips the display of billboards during setup. UPDATES: "Undocumented SETUP switch: /IW Bypasses Microsoft EULA licensing screens/dialog boxes. [EULA = End User License Agreement]." /NTLDR Bypasses an existing Operating System detection. By default OEM/VAR Win95/NT full releases can be installed ONLY on a new PC, without ANY previous OS, but this switch allows SETUP to circumvent this "problem". /Pf Creates a NEW Win95 Registry from scratch, in the case of corrupted registry files [BACKUP your WORKING WIN98/95 REGISTRY FILES FIRST]! Also read the "FRESH REGISTRY" topic (included) for more "SETUP /Pf" details. /nm Bypasses the internal processor detection, to allow Win95/98 install on systems that do NOT meet Microsoft minimum requirements (i.e. 386, 486SX etc). Also skips the check for the math coprocessor. Works especially for Windows 98! NOTICE: Also read these Microsoft Knowledge Base articles to learn everything about the "official" SETUP switches: 1. "Windows 95 Setup Switches": http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q128/4/00.asp and: 2. "Description of the Windows 98 Setup Switches": http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q186/1/11.asp Install Plus 95 over IE3.0x/4.0x: Use this information at your own risk. This is an often overlooked BUG: If you installed Internet Explorer 3.0x/4.0x on your Win95 system, you can't install Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95. CAUSE: MS Plus! Setup looks in the Registry for previously installed MS Plus! components, "sees" your current IE version, and as a consequence doesn't continue properly. FIX: Start Regedit.exe and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer In the right hand pane you'll see the entry "IVer", which has a default value of "103" (could be different on your machine). Delete the IVer key by right clicking on "IVer" and then selecting Delete (or by pressing the Del key). Close Regedit.exe and restart Win95. Reinstall MS Plus! Pack. Fast access to System Properties: Windows Key + Pause/Break key Also, ALT+any icon gives you its properties. Even My Computer, the Network Neighborhood, and the Recycle Bin. How to get the Win98 logo background without using Active Desktop: 1) Start computer with active desktop set. 2) Set your background to the blue Win 98 background. 3) Drag all of your desktop icons to the bottom of the screen so that the desktop is clean. 4) Hit PRINT SCREEN to copy the desktop image editing out the desktop icons. 5) Paste to PAINT. 6) Save the image as a c:\windows\WIN98.BMP 7) Turn off active desktop with TWEAKUI. 8) Setup your background with the new WIN98.BMP that now shows up as a wallpaper option. How to remove the SHEDULER SYSTRAY icon: 1) Start the SCHEDULER (Scheduled Tasks) from the SYSTRAY. 2) Select ADVANCED | STOP USING TASK SCHEDULER. Organize your Start Menu: After you install a ton of programs your start menu can get full, or looks overwhelming. So create some new categories like: A Microsoft folder, and copy all of the Microsoft Programs into it. If you are into graphics (creating or collecting) you can make a Graphics folder and copy all of your graphic programs into that folder. You can greatly reduce the screen space your start menu uses. If you are going to do this it is best to right click on the start menu, and click explore. This will bring up the explorer with your start menu as the folder (I really liked the old power toy Explorer from here.). You can then start creating folders under the StartMenu/Programs folder. Once you have your new folders you can drag other folders/short cuts from the right pane to the new folders on the left pain. Now you have a clean customized start menu. Adding NotePad to Sendto Right Click Option: By adding a shortcut to Notepad in your C:\Windows\SendTo menu you can simply right click and select the Notepad Icon on the SendTo menu to quickly edit a file. Shortcut to Device Manager: create a shortcut on your desktop to device manager, bypassing the general tab: C:\WINDOWS\CONTROL.EXE SYSDM.CPL,SYSTEM,1 (changing the number will display the corresponding tab) Fixing those Quick Launch Toolbar Icons fast: As you all know there is still a small bug in Win98 that scrambles the Quick Launch Toolbar Icons every now and then. Well if that really annoys you, read on. Here is the fastest way to restore them to the originals. Just right-click on a blank space on the Quick Launch Toolbar and select "Refresh". It’s instantaneous and no fuss. Change the Generating preview to anything you want: You can change the "Generating preview..." text to whatever you want by opening notepad and doing a find for "Generating preview..." without the quotes then change it to whatever you want. Specifying a default folder for downloads: After backing up your Registry, browse your way to this branch in Regedit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer Right click the Download Directory value and choose Modify. Enter the path for the folder you want to use as your default download folder. Open Regedit by going to Start>Run, then typing regedit and ok. Adding Sendto context menu to favorites: Click start ...run...and type "sendto" (without the quotes) in the dialog box click okay. The sendto menu opens as icons for shortcuts to be added such as a shortcut to notepad and paint etc. Now select favorites from the menubar and "add" this window to your favorites. This makes it easily accessible to update with other shortcuts. New Gradient Toolbars: 1. To display properties (via control panel, or right-click on the desktop and select "properties" from the menu that appears) 2. Then click on the "appearance" tab 3. In the appearance window click on the title bar, and you'll notice there are 2 color buttons - pick 2 different colors and preview the change in the display properties window 4. Click "apply" to see how it looks on your open windows 5. Click "ok" when you’re happy with your choices. also notice that you can have different gradient schemes for your active and inactive windows. Preview Graphics Files with Thumbnail View: In addition to Web View, Windows 98 includes a little known feature which makes it easy to preview images from Explorer. This is known as Thumbnail View. To enable Thumbnail View, right-click a folder and choose Properties. Place a checkmark in the "Enable thumbnail view" box and click OK. Next, double-click the folder to open it. Click the View menu and choose Thumbnails (below "as Web Page"). You will now see a thumbnail preview of all graphics files in that folder. Adding Dividers to Quick Launch (and other) toolbars: If your Quick Launch or other toolbar has become so crowded with icons that it's hard to find what you need, you can reduce the confusion by organizing the icons into groups (communications apps, word-processing, graphics, etc.) and separating the groups with spacers. Since the Windows 98 toolbars don't provide spacers, you have to make your own. Here's how to do it: 1. Create a blank icon that is either set to the transparency color or the same color as you're using for the toolbar background (you need a graphics program that can save in .ico format for this). You can also create an icon that contains a vertical line or anything else you might want to use for a toolbar spacer. 2. Save the icon file anywhere you want except in the toolbar folder. 3. Open the folder for the toolbar you want to use the spacer in, and create a shortcut to any screen-saver file (e.g., Flying Windows.scr or any other .scr file that you want to use). 4. Name the shortcut "0". 5. Assign the blank icon to the shortcut. 6. Make copies of the shortcut, and rename each copy with the next available number. Your toolbar now contains a blank icon for each shortcut you created. The spacers appear to be just blank spaces, since the icon is the same color as the toolbar background. You can drag the spacers anywhere you want within the toolbar just like you would any other toolbar icon. Since each file in a directory must have a unique name, naming the copies with successive numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.) is easiest to manage, since they'll be grouped together. Anytime you need another spacer, just make another copy and rename it with the next available number. To delete a spacer, just drag it to the recycle bin (from either the toolbar folder or the toolbar itself). Here's the reason for making the shortcut point to a screen saver: First, the shortcut has to point to some executable. Since you may inadvertently click the spacer button once in a while, you don't want it to point to something that takes a while to load and you have to manually close. Since the spacers are all pointing to a screen saver, if you click on one of them by mistake, your screen saver pops up, so you know right away what happened, and as soon as you move your mouse pointer even one pixel, the screen saver is gone. It is best to use a screen saver that loads very quickly, such as Blank Screen.scr, or if you want to go to the trouble, you could create your own unique screen saver, such as a message like, "Hey sucker -- you clicked in the wrong place!" Speed SWAP File size Placment: To make windows go faster, you can partition your drive into multiple drives and make one drive only for the swap file. Make this drive at least 200 Megs. In Control Panel, system, performance, virtual memory, click on 'let me specify my own settings' and set it to the drive you have reserved for virtual memory. If you made it 200 Megs in size, make the minimum 150 Megs and the maximum 200 Megs. Reboot. You should find that this will increase your systems speed a lot and make it a lot more stable. If you don't want to repartition your drive, you can get a lesser effect by making a permanent swap on your drive that’s both a minimum and maximum of 3 times your ram (its faster on its own drive because it doesn’t fragment as much). Networking Desktop Shortcuts: If you are networking a couple of computers at home or a small office setup. Make a shortcut to the other computer's desktop folder on your desktop. When you want to send a file to the other computer so that the user might notice it, just right click drag and drop the file on the desktop shortcut and select copy here. The file will show up on the other computer's desktop. Defragging Tips and Tricks: In addition to defragging, the Windows 98 Disk Defragmenter can place the files for your most frequently used programs at the front of the disk for faster access. It manages this trick by keeping a log file to identify which applications you use the most. If the list has changed since the last time you defragmented, reordering the files may slow down the process. If you want to check the setting for this feature or turn it on or off, start Disk Defragmenter by choosing Start|Programs|Accessories|System Tools|Disk Defragmenter. If you start it through the Properties dialog, the utility will immediately start defragmenting the disk. But if you go through the Start menu, you'll see the Select Drive window first. Choose the Settings button, and you can check the option labeled "Rearrange program files so my programs start faster." Speeding up the Defragging Windows 98 will let you work with programs while Disk Defragmenter is running, but it's better to close all programs, avoid your computer, and go out to lunch. Depending on your disk capacity and performance, how much data is on it, and how fragmented it is, Disk Defragmenter can take hours. If you try using the computer while the utility is defragging your hard disk, you'll only slow the process down. In fact, if you set Disk Defragmenter to show details, and you keep an eye on the status line as you work in another program, you'll see that every time you do anything that writes a change to disk, Disk Defragmenter will report that the disk's contents have changed, and it will restart the defragging process. The simple thing is: You'll get your PC back faster if you leave it alone. Also on the CD, in \tools\mtsutils, is a defrag.inf. Rightclick/install will set a "RunOnce" entry for the next time you boot, to run Defrag before the login prompt, so that NO other programs are running. Windows 98 Faster App Loading: Delete the files in your Win98 \Applog subfolder (C:\Windows\Applog is default). Run Walign (located in your Win98 \System subfolder). Defrag your drives with the "Rearrange program files so my programs start faster" box checked. Your applications will load in about half the time from now on. Repeat this procedure periodically (at least once a month), eventually scheduling periodic unattended defrags on all your fixed drives using Win98's Task Scheduler. A good idea is to ScanDisk all your fixed drives prior to defragging them, to fix eventual lost clusters or disk errors. On large drives (2 GB and over), especially if partitioned with FAT32, these tasks can take a long time (sometimes hours) to complete, so it is advised to leave your computer on at all times, and schedule such maintenance chores at night time (or when your machine is not in use). Msconfig: Start->Run enter "msconfig" It’s a great tool for disabling features of Win98 like fast-shutdown. (you can disable entries in system.ini, win.ini, autoexec.bat ... with this tool). Just be careful on what you disable, as you can render Win98 unbootable. (in that case install Win98 again using the emergency boot disk, and you will be able to recover). Free up a quick 300k: If you’re really scraping the HD free space barrel, and you’ve already converted to fat32, you can get a quick 300 - 400k by removing the fat 32 converter via windows setup add/remove. Registration Bypass: After you have installed 98 again AFTER registrated yourself at MS it can be a tip to search for "regdone" in the registry, in the valuefield there you type an "1" then you don’t have to register yourself again and again and again and again. Mac users made to feel at home: If you're used to a Mac interface there are ways to make your Windows desktop seem familiar. 1) Click on the My Computer icon so it shows all your system drives and other resources. 2) Right click on the 3 1/2 Floppy [A:] and drag this icon over to the upper right hand corner of the screen where you'd normally see the floppy icon on the Mac. Release the right mouse button and Choose, "Create Shortcut(s) Here. 3) Do the same with your Hard Drive, CD-ROM and other drives of choice. You'll soon have a comfortable looking screen with quick access to your files just like on your Mac. 4) Optionally, right click on your new shortcuts and choose Rename to make it even more familiar. *Personal note Mac’s SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!* Quick reinstall of all hardware: *** Warning don't try this unless you can handle the problems if something goes wrong! *** If you need to "reinstall" windows because drivers are detecting wrong or you have ghost hardware try the following first at it may save you quite abit of time. 1) Reboot into Safe Mode 2) Run Regedit 3) Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE delete the ENUM key. 4) Reboot the computer and if it does not start a hardware detect go to the control panel and do one Optimizing the Swap File using Win98 Defrag: First, right click on My Computer. Go to the Performance tab. Select Virtual Memory. Select "Let me specify my own virtual memory settings" then select "Disable virtual memory". Reboot. After reboot run Defrag. It will defragment the file system and recover the space of the fragmented swap file. After Defrag is finished, re-enable Virtual Memory. You should see an improvement in your system. **Warning - You may get a low memory warning or a very slow defrag if your system has less than 32 MB of memory** Ok that’s about it for release v1.0 I will update this file later when there is more to add. Also look for a updated Topspeed once again some things that were messed up and left out are being fixed. October 13, 1998 Release: v1.0 Written by: acidbrnd^ E-mail: acid@sleepers.net EFFNET IRC: #SleeperS, or #asylumsoft