Lou,

Tips & TidBITS^©

by Caroline Horton

I think that I am getting a little spoiled and definitely wearing out my shoes at the new two day Peter Trapp shows. There are too many new things to buy and too much time to spend money. When it was a one-day show, I did not spend quite as much money.

Intel has pushed back the date on its new Pentium Pro MMX chip until July – this is the chip that you should wait for if you want MMX performance. The chip will be on a card with a dedicated chip set, which will allow you to upgrade your system by just replacing the card. On top on this new design, Intel has demonstrated a new 433 MHz version – my advice be patient. Even if you do not want this chip set Intel has some drastic price cuts in the pipeline – 25%-33% in April and more for July. Like I said if you are patient the prices will allow you to buy a 200 MHz system at about $1250 (with all the goodies of course).

Kodak has bought out Wang Imaging, which will give them a toehold in the computer imaging business. I suppose that is one way of getting a ready-made market.

More Windows 95 tips:

Speeding Up the Start Menu – obtain the Microsoft Powertoy’s ‘TweakUI’, either from the Microsoft Web Site or from CNYPCUG’s BBS. (The file is called POWERTOY.ZIP on our BBS.)

After TweakUI is installed the icon can be found in the Control Panel – simply double click on the icon once the program is running select the ‘BOOT’ tab and turn of the option for Function Keys. This turns off the other options connected to it automatically. Now select the ‘GENERAL’ tab and set your menu speed. These changes will not take effect until you restart Windows 95.

Another way to speed up the System Restart is by adding the line:

‘BootDelay=0’ to the [Options] section of C:\msdos.sys

To do this you have to change the attributes on this file to be able to edit it. This can be accomplished by starting a DOS session from your Window’s Start Programs – MSDOS prompt option. Once you see the DOS prompt enter the command ‘ATTRIB C:\MSDOS.SYS –R –S –H’ and then hit your ENTER key.

At the new DOS prompt enter the command ‘EDIT C:\MSDOS.SYS’, under options enter ‘BootDelay=0’ save the file and exit. The next time you boot up the change will take effect. Oh yeah – the attributes of the file will automatically switch back to what they were before you changed them.

To Free Memory in DOS Windows – select Start, Run, enter ‘SYSEDIT’ then click OK. Select the SYSTEM.INI folder and add the line ‘LocalLoadHigh=1’ to the [386Enh] section of the SYSTEM.INI file.

To free additional DOS memory and speed system startup – if you are not using DoubleSpace or DriveSpace, delete ‘drvspace.bin’ and ‘dblspace.bin’ from both the C:\ and C:\Windows directories.

To Free More Disk Space –

You can safely delete the following files in the root directory:

*.txt, *.prv, *.log, *.old, *.___, and *.dos (unless you use dual-boot).

You can delete these files from the Windows directory:

*.log, *.old, *.___, *.bak, and, *.000, *.001, etc.

Virtual Cache – setting these values will prevent VCache from filling up your RAM and causing your applications to be paged out to disk and slowing down your system – select Start, Run, enter ‘SYSEDIT’ then click OK. Select the SYSTEM.INI folder and add the lines: MinFileCache=0

MaxFileCache=1000

to the [vcache] section of the SYSTEM.INI file (or add [vcache] it if it is not there).

At January’s Peter Trapp show I purchased Windows 95B or OSR2 (service release 2) and two new Western Digital 3.1 Gig hard drives. I was a little slow at getting around to installing OSR2, as I really did not want to reinstall all of my programs. I have too many programs and I always use the excuse, ‘who knows someday I might want to use it!’ Sounds familiar – huh?

I now have OSR2 installed using FAT32 and still have all of my original software. This can be accomplished by anyone of three ways – a second hard drive, a tape back up, or Partition Magic 3.0. This is the same program demonstrated at last month’s meeting and sold for $30.

The first thing you need to do is back up your C: drive. If you are going to copy your directories be sure to use Windows Explorer to preserve the long file names or you will trash everything! There will be some files that you cannot backup do not sweat it. When through be sure that the files USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT were copied, these are the files used by Windows 95 registry.

Now select Start, Settings, Control Panel, and then double click the System icon. Okay – now select the Device Manager tab and then select View devices by connection. Relax this is not going to hurt at all (not). Select Plug and Play BIOS or BIOS whichever is appropriate and select the Remove button – click on it and remove this item from the list. Now there – it did not hurt did it, now close the folders and back out of the Control Panel.

Select Start, Run and enter ‘REGEDIT’ in the Open dialog box and click on OK. This starts the Registry Editor – select Registry, Export Registry File; fill in the name you want in the Export Registry File dialog box (choose one that you will remember – HOPING). (Also, be sure to save this file on a floppy disk.)

START of SECTION A

At this point, insert Windows 95B-boot disk into your ‘A’ drive. Using the sysedit command check your config.sys file for the name of your CD-ROM driver (??) – you can discover this by checking your AUTOEXEC.BAT first. The line you are looking for will be similar to - C:\WIN95\COMMAND\MSCDEX /D: MTMIDE01 /M: 10. Your line may look different but it will contain the MSCDEX command. The part you are looking for is the second part of the line beginning with the /D. While you are at it write down the line starting with the MSCDEX command and include the rest of the line. (Also, write down any SET statements that are listed.)

Now look at your config.sys file again and look for the line containing the same /D command. Once you have located the line the name of the file just before the /D command ending in ‘. SYS’ is the name of your CD-ROM driver. This file needs to be copied to the Windows 95B-boot disk in drive ‘A’.

Now click on your Start button and choose the Run option – in the dialog window enter the command ‘edit a:\autoexec.bat drvcopy.inf’ and click on ‘OK’. You will now have the editor running which will allow you to switch between both of these files and edit them. In the ‘autoexec.bat’ file look for the line CD\WIN95. On the line just above this check to see if the drive letter is correct for your CD-ROM, if not change it to the correct letter. The next line up may or may not have a command of comment listed, this is the location where you need to put the line I told you to copy from your original autoexec.bat file.

Once this is done save the file and switch to the window with the ‘drvcopy.inf’ file. Check for the lines containing the command ‘SAMPLE.SYS’ carefully replace each of these lines with the name of your CD-ROM driver that you copied to the Windows 95B-boot disk in drive ‘A’. When finished making the changes save this file also.

All right take a deep breath and reboot your system. Yeah! I know what the screen says does it match what you needed to enter, if so you are all set. (No, I did not tell you to put your Windows 95B CD-ROM in yet – so do not put it in.)

Now if you have Partition Magic 3.0 – it’s time to run it and change ‘C’ drive to FAT32 – if not read on.

Hit your ‘ENTER’ key to get to the ‘A:\’ prompt.

Run the ‘FDISK’ command and change ‘C’ drive to a FAT32 drive – enable ‘large disk support’ (also if you have any other drives that are empty change them now) – if you check first it will tell you that you have a FAT16 drive.

Now put your Windows 95B CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive and reboot your system. The boot will stop the same place as last time but simple hit the ’Enter’ key and your Windows 95B CD-ROM should boot. At this point, follow all of the directions on your monitor. The OSR2 install program will automatically format your ‘C’ drive and any other drive you set to FAT32.

When it is through formatting your drive(s), the program continues through the full installation. You will be given three choices for your type of installation – chose the one that suits you.

Once your new system is installed you will need to run the ‘edit a:\autoexec.bat’ command to copy the ‘SET’ lines I told you to write down earlier into the new AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If you check your config.sys file too you will notice only one line – the command for your CD-ROM, "DO NOT ENTER ANY OTHER COMMANDS" under no conditions enter the HIMEM.SYS or the EMM386.EXE commands.

Another WARNING if your mother board supports ‘BUS MASTERING’ do not install the drivers for it— Windows 95B will automatically install the correct BUS MASTERING drivers!

If you do either of these things your system will crash and will not reboot except in the SAFE MODE. If this happens it will take a lot of work to correct the problem and it would take too long to explain in this article – so DO NOT DO IT!

At this point Windows 95B (SR2) should be installed and operational. Using Windows Explorer copy, the SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT files from your window’s directory to the floppy disk you on which you saved your exported registry file.

END of SECTION A

This sounds like a lot of work but these little things only take a couple of minutes and if you have a lot of installed software it is worth it.

Now restore everything to your ‘C’ drive and overwrite/replace all files. Gee, after all this work? Do not panic it all comes out in the end. At this point go into your window’s directory and delete the SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT files. Now – reinstall Windows 95B, do not worry at this point it should only take another 10-15 minutes. During this reinstallation, if you get dialog boxes asking if you want to replace a newer file with an older file choose the option to keep the newer file!

Windows 95B has been reinstalled and is running again – be patient the final steps are coming up.

Remember disk that we used to save the SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT files and the file (‘HOPING.REG’ or whatever you called it) we exported from the registry? Starts Windows Explorer and copy the two files SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT to your window’s directory – when prompted select yes you want to replace the files.

Whew! Last, step.

Select Start, Run and enter ‘REGEDIT’ in the Open dialog box and click on OK. This starts the Registry Editor – select Registry, Import Registry File, select ‘A’ drive as the location for the file and you should see the name you used appear. Double click on the name and select Open – this will cause the file that you exported at the start to be imported. What you have accomplished is; you imported all of your previous software installation information but none of the old hardware settings.

Reboot your system – viola, all your old software is registered with all of your old preferences. It really sounds like a lot of work, but all you did extra was copy a couple of files and do a backup and restore. If you had a lot of programs installed this method will save lots of time.

Now if you simply want to start from scratch and want a clean installation of OSR2 go to the START of SECTION A and follow the steps through to the END of SECTION A. You skip a lot of steps this way but you will have to install all of your software and reconfigure it again.

SR2 uses a 4K-cluster size all the way up to an 8 gig hard drive before it changes size; so, if you are using a 2 gig hard drive the cluster size under SR1 is 32K. Some quick math will indicate the cluster size is only1/8^th. On the typical system, 25% of the space is wasted due to large clusters or at least 400 Megs, conservatively speaking.

Using the 1/8^th factor – after installing OSR2 your wasted space on a 2 gig hard drive would be 50 megs, giving you and extra 350 megs of hard drive space (this could be a lot higher if you have a great deal of small files). NOTE – The smallest partition available under OSR2 is 512 Meg.

There has been some talk that your system may run slower because it has to address eight times as many clusters when reading your hard drive. I have not been able to measure any speed difference. When defragging your hard drive with OSR2 you will notice that it uses 64 – 8K clusters or 265K blocks at one time. With SR1, the defrag program used 8 – 32K clusters or 256K blocks at one time. What performance difference are we talking about?

In fact my programs load and run faster under OSR2 than under SR1. In addition, OSR2 is more stable than SR1. One safety feature with OSR2 causes some aggravation with people, but I consider it a blessing in disguise. Under OSR2 if you shut your system down without shutting down windows first, the next time you start Windows 95B the program will automatically load and run ScanDisk. You can set the options so that this will run seamlessly into OSR2 without any manual intervention.

With OSR2 you do not need to buy Windows Plus! This is a savings, all of your Plus features are standard except for the additional screen savers. OSR2 includes the all of the upgrades to SR1 plus the 32-bit file system.

I have had no problems running any of my DOS programs that ran under SR1 – DOOM and Duke Nukem included.

This release of Windows 95(B) includes many of the features which will be released in the ‘Memphis’ version of Windows 97(?) to be released this July.

Some of the other features in OSR2 are: Wake-up ring from modem to a system with APM (advanced power management); support for hard drives up to 2 terabytes (1,000 – 2 gig hard drives); ActiveMovieNext generation, Direct X 2.0 including Direct 3D; and MMX support.

So if you want a head start try it and when July comes, you can upgrade if needed without reinstalling your other Window’s programs.

Please note: There have been reports of people selling OSR2 at computer shows in major cities by itself rather cheaply (a violation of Microsoft's OEM agreement). These "versions" of OSR2 are usually counterfeit and should be avoided. If someone tries to sell you OSR2 alone at a computer show for, be suspicious. For more information on identifying counterfeit copies of OSR2, read on.

OSR2 comes in clear shrink-wrap, includes a manual and one or two CD-ROM disks. Without breaking the shrink-wrap, you should be able to see a single sheet of paper between the manual and disks. On the manual, the certificate of authenticity does *not* have a hologram of a little boy in front of a computer on it. One CD-ROM is the OSR2 CD-ROM, and says "Microsoft Windows 95" on the spine. The other CD-ROM is called "Microsoft Windows 95 Starts Here/How & Why" and is not always included. It has a little white-on-white relief of Augusta Ada Byron on it instead; newer pressings of the Original release CD also have the Byron relief now.

If you can actually see the face of the CDROM, check the right side of the face, it should say:

0796 Part No. 000-45234)

If there are any variations, it is not an original OSR2.

The counterfeit versions:

USE - a real certificate of authenticity (which is glued to the page CROOKED!) The embossed picture of Ada is not as clear as in the legit copy. The certificate may be removed from the cover of the original manual;

USE - not so clear writing on the spine of the owner's manual;

USE - a different flying window logo on the upper-right corner of the manual;

USE - different markings on the hub of the CD, whereas all legit copies use the same number;

USE - less clear marks on the CD itself - edges not perfect straight;

USE - loose shrink-wrap, the legit copy is quite tight and strong. Counterfeits are a rather loose and flimsy bag that tries to look like shrink-wrap.

DONOT - have a yellow-green label referring to a contest at www.explorethis.com;

ALLOW – the "d" and the "o" of "Windows 95" on the CD touch;

MAIN - the CD jewel box in the genuine item is oriented so that the longer sides face up and down, the hinges should be on the left or right side running up and down. The counterfeit is opposite, rotated 90 degrees. This is because the counterfeits are placed in the packages by hand, which is difficult when the CD is oriented correctly;

IN ADDITION - the registration certificate for the counterfeit is between the manual and the CD; in the legit copy, it is IN the manual. They are trying to impress you with the certificate!

There is a LOT of vendors peddling these pirated CDs. They look quite real and you would not guess they are counterfeit. The certificate is real. Time for a little speculation on how a real certificate can get on a counterfeit manual:

There are many leased computers. A leased computer goes directly to the customer including an OEM bundle – manuals, certificates, all nicely shrink-wrapped. The CD-ROM may be used, but not the manual. Because the computer is leased, the software is never registered. After the lease expires, the computer and all manuals CD’s go back to the OEM. The OEM winds up with boxes of manuals and certificates. Mysteriously, these certificates end up in the hands of pirates, who use them with counterfeit CD-ROMs. Voila – using a real certificate and a counterfeit manual and CD-ROM a genuine looking software package.

I think that Microsoft shot the government in the foot with this release – AOL and CompuServe are installed along with the Microsoft Network. I guess the other providers cannot complain that Microsoft is not treating them fairly!

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