... Windows Tips 'n Tricks 12 ...
As he teaches, so he learns.

Note: This tip applies to Windows 98.

The first time you open NetMeeting in Windows 98, Microsoft's online conferencing tool, you need to go through a registration process and microphone test. You can then use NetMeeting to call one other person on the Internet:

1. Choose Call, New Call on the NetMeeting menu bar or press Ctrl+N to open the Place a Call dialog box.

2. Enter the computer's IP address (the machine number that identifies the computer on the internet) in the To text box.

3. Click the Call button or press Enter to place the NetMeeting call. Easy breezy. Aha, thought I forgot this part, didn't ya?:

To find out a person's IP address, have the person get onto the Internet and then start NetMeeting. Next, that person should follow these steps:

1. On the menu bar, choose Help, About Windows NetMeeting. Doing so opens the About Windows NetMeeting dialog box. The IP address used is displayed at the bottom of the About Windows NetMeeting dialog box.

2. Have the person send you an e-mail message with the IP address (the long number separated into four sections by periods) so that you can then enter that number in the To text box of the NetMeeting Place a Call dialog box.

Right click on My Computer and go into the device manager. Remove the network adapter and refresh. It should re-find the adapter and may ask for the driver disk. This should put the icon back on the desktop.

Ever wonder how many documents you'll have to watch roll out of your network printer before yours comes out? You can check the printer queue right from your own system.

Select Start, Settings, Printers, and in the resulting dialog box double-click the icon for your network printer. You'll now see a list of all jobs sent to the printer that haven't finished printing, including your own. If yours is next, great. If not, sit tight for a while--you've just saved yourself an unnecessary wait at the printer

Traditionally, you create a new file by launching the originating program and, when necessary, choosing File, New from the menu (or a similar sequence). However, you can cut to the chase by creating the file first and then using it to launch the program. To create a file on the fly, right-click a blank area of the desktop and point to New. Select the file type from the resulting menu (if the file type is not listed, you'll have to open the program first and create a new file from there). Windows places a shortcut to the new file on the desktop, named generically. To edit the file in its originating program, double-click the shortcut. Note that the file is stored only in your Desktop. You can move the file by dragging it from the desktop to a folder in Windows Explorer or My Computer.

To create a new folder, open Explorer, select the Drive and Folder(s) in which you want your document to reside, then select the File menu and select New. After the New menu pops up, select Folder. A folder will be created called New Folder. Rename it as you wish.

To create a personal folder on the desktop in which you want to store files and documents you can do the following:

Right click on the Windows desktop. When the desktop menu appears, select New, and the New menu will pop up. Select 'Folder,' and when the New Folder appears, type in the name you want for the folder.

If you need to draft a letter or spreadsheet on the fly, there's no need to go the long route ... opening the application, starting a new document, and so on. Windows will do it all for you, right from the desktop.

Right-click a blank area of the desktop, select New, and in the resulting menu, select the file type you want to create. And there's your new file, right on the desktop. Give it a name, then double-click it to get inside. (Note: You can also create a new document by right-clicking the blank area of any window, selecting New, and so on.)

You might also note the Properties choice on the bottom of that context menu. You can get rid of specific things in the New menu using the Tweak UI Control Panel applet.

Tweak UI will be in Control Panel only if you installed it, or if you have Win98.

Follow the installation instructions given on the site; once it's installed, open the Control Panel, and double-click TweakUI whereupon you'll find yourself on the Mouse tab.

After you double click on the Tweak UI Control Panel applet, pick the "New" tab. Uncheck entries that you don't want and click "apply" before exiting Tweak UI.

If you want to *add* an entry to the New menu, use the desired "mother" program to make a template (a blank file) and then drag the template onto the Tweak UI window. (For example, make an *empty* text file, name it new.txt, save it, then (using the mouse) drag the file new.txt into the Tweak UI window.)

You can also edit the registry yourself, instead of letting Tweak UI do it for you.

1. Click Start, Run, type: regedit, click OK, which opens the Registry Editor.

2. Select Find from the Edit menu, type ShellNew, and press OK.

3. Every ShellNew that is found will be a branch of a particular file type. If that file type is not wanted in the New menu, delete the entire ShellNew branch.

4. Repeat this for every unwanted tile type, and close the Registry Editor when finished.

I would suggest that using Tweak UI is easier and safer.

Many people get frustrated when a recently downloaded plug-in doesn't work right away. Remember to close and restart Communicator to allow it to recognize the new plug-in. Most installation programs tell you to do this, but you'd be surprised how often users don't read the fine print.

Because the computer looks at the floppy drive first, if you leave a disk in the floppy drive and reboot the computer, you will get an error. The computer will usually say something like this: "Non-system disk error, replace and press any key." Just remove the floppy, press a key and the booting process will continue properly.

If you find yourself using Notepad frequently, you can cut some of the time you spend launching the program and selecting a file by adding a shortcut to the Notepad program to your "Send To" menu. Then, from My Computer, you can simply right-click on the file you want to open, choose Send To, then Notepad. This comes in handy for opening files that are registered to other programs, such as HTML files that by default are opened by a browser.

To add the Notepad shortcut to your Send To menu, open the Windows folder. Find the Notepad file, right-click on it, and choose Copy from the pop-up menu. Open the Windows\SendTo folder, right-click in a blank area of the folder's file list, and choose Paste Shortcut from the pop-up menu. The file, Shortcut to Notepad, will be added to the bottom of the file list. To use the Send To feature to open a file in Notepad, right-click on a file, choose Send To from the pop-up menu, and then select Shortcut to Notepad." You can use this technique with your favorite word processor, too. Locate the program's executable file, copy it, and paste it as a shortcut in the Send To folder.

While we're on Notepad, consider downloading one of many improved versions of that flimsy one that comes with Windows. There's Notepad+ (Notepad Plus, that's the one I like), or DatePad, EditPad, MetaPad, NoteTab, QuickPad, RemotePad, or Arachnophilia, any number of them.

The Num Lock key is a toggle switch. When it is on, the keypad works like a calculator. When it is off, the home, page up, page down, and arrow keys work.

If you wish to speed up the online dialing, go to Start, Settings, Modems, Properties, Connections, Advanced, Extra Settings section, and enter S11=40. If this is too fast for your phone system you can change the 40 to a higher number like S11=60.

The "Open" and "Save As" dialog boxes in most of your applications have a new feature: a View Desktop button in the toolbar. Clicking this button toggles you between the folder you're currently viewing and the Desktop folder on your hard drive.

To quickly open a folder that you use regularly, but that's buried deep inside a tree, check out the Run command. Click the Start button and choose Run. In the Open text box, type the exact name of the folder (e.g., My Documents), and press Enter (or click OK). (If the folder name has space, enclose the name in quotation marks.) Your folder will open in My Computer.

"Open With" will automatically appear in all right-click menus. It's done as follows:

1. Launch the registry editor, backup this registry "just in case" and then navigate to:

   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Unknown\Shell\Openas\Command\.

2. This subkey is actually the action to open the "Open With" box for "unknown" files when windows can't find the suitable application to open a file with.

3. To add this action to every file, copy out the value of the Default string on the right pane. Right-click "Default", Modify, press Ctrl+C, or right-click and select Copy to copy what you see in the Value Data line, and then go back to the top of the list.

A. Navigate to … HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*
B. Right-click on the * key and choose New Key.
C. Name this subkey Shell.
D. Right-click on Shell key and add a new subkey named Openas.
E. Right-click this key and add a new subkey named Command.
F. Now double-click the default string value in the right-hand pane.
G. Paste (Ctrl+V) what you copied in Step 3 into the Value Data line.You have made an exact copy of the subtree in the \Unknown tree. Now, every time you right-click a file, you will have an "Open With" option.

Btw, if you want to have that "Always use this program to open this type of file" box always UNchecked when opening that "Open With" box, that's easy to do. Just add %2 to the %1 at the end of that string.

Finally, delete the "Unknown" key found in Step #1 above.

In my OS the default string (found in Step #1 above) was:
"C:\Windows\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1"

I changed it to:
"C:\Windows\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1 %2" (sans quotes") in Step #3G above.

How to restore them to all the right-click file context menus, you need to have this Registry key.Start Regedit and navigate to:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Unknown\shell\openas\command

In the right-hand pane, you should see the "(Default)" string and it should have this command line as the value:

C:\WINDOWS\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1

If you do not have that key or if some part is missing:

To add keys (folders) you right-click on a folder in the left-hand pane and select "New" then "key". Keep doing this until you have:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Unknown\shell\openas\command
NOTE: Capitalize where appropriate.

Double-click on "(Default)" in the right-hand pane to edit the line. Or click on key (folder) in left-pane and select "Edit" then "New" then "key" from menu bar.

You should now have this key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\openas\command with the Default value C:\WINDOWS\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1

An additional thing you can do is to remove the permanent check mark from the "Open With" menu. That is, "Always use this program to open this type of file". I dislike that so I permanently disabled it. You do this by adding %2 to the command.

You should now have this key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\openas\command with the Default value C:\WINDOWS\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1 %2 Close the Registry editor.

From now on a new "Open" or "Open with..." context menu selection will appear whenever you right-click on any highlighted file. In addition, the "Always use..." will be unchecked.

Windows keeps a list of the appropriate programs to open each type of file. You can make changes to that list in the Open With dialog box -- available by Shift-and-right-clicking a file icon. If the program you want isn't listed there, you can click on the Other button and then browse through your hard drive to find it.

To use the Open With dialog box to change a file association, click once on any file of the type you want to change in order to select the file; hold down Shift as you right-click this file; select Open With; select the application you'd like to use to open files of this type; select "Always use this program to open this type of file" and click OK. So how do you remove items from the Open With dialog box, for example, programs that have been removed from the system? The answer is to remove the file type from your system altogether:

1. Open any Explorer window and select View, Options (or View, Folder Options).

2. Click the File Types tab and, under Registered File Types, select the type associated with the program you want to remove from the Open With dialog box.

3. Click the Remove button, click Yes to confirm, then click Close.

The next time you open the Open With dialog box, that program is nowhere in sight.

In Outlook Express, you can change the priority of an e-mail message from normal to either high or low. When you make a message either high or low, Outlook Express attaches a priority icon to the message (assuming that the recipient of the message uses Outlook Express to read e-mail) that indicates its relative importance. The high-priority icon has an exclamation point in front of the envelope, whereas the low-priority icon has an arrow pointing downward.