Undo That Voodoo That You Do So Well
Q. I like how Windows 95's Explorer forgives me when I'm sloppily dragging files hither and thither and lets me undo almost anything. Trouble is, when I realize I've done something wrong, I'm not exactly sure which file will be affected when I choose Undo Move, Undo Delete, Undo Rename, and so on. Sometimes I choose Undo anyway, but I'm still not sure which file was changed. Is there any way to take the guesswork out of Undo?
A. Relax. You just need to monitor your Status Bar more closely. When you want to undo an action but aren't sure which files will be affected, open Explorer, Control Panel, or even the Recycle Bin. Make sure the Status Bar is visible at the bottom of the window; if you don't see it, choose View*Status Bar. Click the Edit menu, or right-click in a blank area of the window. Move the cursor over the Undo command and pause--don't click. Then look at the Status Bar. You'll see a more thorough explanation of what Undo will do and which files are involved. When undoing a rename action, you'll even see the old and new file names.
10 LEVELS OF UNDO
Have you noticed the Undo item on the right-click menus? This option appears after any file operation and will stay throughout that session. It holds the last 10 operations in memory. Watch the status bar as you hold the mouse cursor over Undo for a description of each undo.
At system-properties click on performance / virtual memory and direct the swap-file to another harddrive (or - to be used with caution - disable it). After defragmenting the drive to be used as the swap-drive direct the swap-file there and set min- and max-size to the same value (We suggest 1.5 to 3 times of your main memory). This process forces the system to use a one block swap-file wich is not changed in size (wasing time).
Have you removed the old swap file?
When you install Win95, the setup program does not remove your old swap file. This being 386spart.par. Some people have it set to 20mb +
You can safely delete it, but must first take the attributes off it and also change you "system.ini" in the [386enh] section by deleting the lines
PagingFile=
PagingFileSize=
After the equal it usually has the 386spart.par file name.
WIN95 uses another swap file called "win386.swp"
Virtual memory and disk caching
Windows 95 handles disk caching and virtual memory much differently than previous versions of Windows. In both cases, if left at default, Windows 95 dynamically sizes the disk caching size and virtual memory according o how it sees the system needs it. I think that it sucks up too much RAM from the disk caching and that means too little left for applications. So some excessive disk activity occurs due to applications being swapped out to virtual memory to soon and too often. Then in addition to this, there is the extra activity of the virtual memory resizing itself. I have made a VERY noticeable improvement on my 8 MB system by fixing the virtual memory at 20 MB and more importantly limiting the size of the disk cache to a maximum of 2 MB. To control the size of disk caching (despite the implication by Microsoft that you can't) you add two lines in the system.ini file in your windows 95 directory in the [vcache] section:
MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=x
Where x= the max size of disk caching in KB
In my case x=2048
I think that if you guys with 8 MB systems (and maybe even higher) who are having excessive disk activity make changes like these, you will be pleasantly surprised. Previous to doing this I was getting disk swapping sometimes even when I was accessing the Start menu. Not so after the changes. I suspect some of the people who are not having this problem somehow got some kind of migration of vcache settings from the existing windows setup they had in their old system.ini. For fine tuning, you can use the System monitor that comes with Windows 95.
Stop Windows95 from Wildly Accessing your Hard Disk (Swap File etc.)
Many users have complained about Windows95 seizing up for up to a minute because of random, pointless disk activity. This is due to the way that Windows95 is set to handle disk caching and virtual memory. Although Windows95 instructs you to "let Windows handle disk cache settings" for best results, this obviously does not yield the best results. Here's how to eliminate the random disk activity and improve system performance:
Part One: Virtual Memory
Part Two: Defragmenting the Swapfile
Once you've set the swapfile size to be constant (see Part One), you won't
have to worry about a fragmented (broken up) swapfile again.
However, you'll need to defragment it at least once for it to remain that
way in the future.
If you have Norton Utilities 95 (with Speedisk), you'll be able to optimize
the swapfile.
Otherwise, if you want to take the time, you can defragment it manually:
If you have more than one partition or hard disk in your system, defragment
all drives first. Then, move the swapfile (using the configuration
procedure in Part One above) to another drive, defragment the first one,
and then move it back.
Although it's also possible to disable the swapfile entirely while you
defragment the drive (and then re-enable it so it will be recreated whole),
it isn't advisable because Windows95 may not start without a Swapfile.
Part Three: Virtual Cache (only if you have 16 megabytes of RAM or more)
Open SYSTEM.INI for editing.
Add the following two lines to the [vcache] section (add the section if
it's not there):
MinFileCache=4000
MaxFileCache=4000
These values, in kilobytes, regulate the size of the VCache, so you can stop it from filling up all available RAM and paging all loaded apps to disk. If you have more than 16 MB of RAM, then set the above values (both of them) to about 25% of the amount of installed RAM.
Part Four: RAM
You may've thought we overlooked the obvious - add more RAM!
The more memory you have, the less frequently Windows95 will use your hard
disk, and the better your system performance will be.
Since Windows95 isn't very efficient or compact (by any stretch of the
imagination), you'll need to feed it as much memory as you can afford. 8
megabytes is the absolute minimum, but 16 is better. If you have the money,
32 megabytes will litterally make Windows95 fly.
vcache - 32megs In regards to switching from "Desktop" to "Server" settings, here is something that bears repeating:
If you've changed the role of your machine to server, be aware that there is a bug in that procedure, verified by MS. There are two hexidecimal entries that got mistakenly interchanged, the result of which has been either no increase in speed or even machine slowing down. In REGEDIT, look for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version \FS Templates\Server.
The default will be :"Network Server", but the value given for NameCache will be 40 00 00 00 and the value given for PathCache will be a9 0a 00 00. This is reversed from what it should be. If you feel comfortable playing in the Registry, change then around, giving PathCache the numbers for NameCache and vice versa.
(This data is correct if you have kept your system as Desktop or Mobile/Docking. Only the Network Server settings got mixed up).
Q. In the item "Fdisk to the Rescue" last November, you missed one point. You suggested that when Bryan Chan saw the message 'Error reading MBR on drive 81h', he enter fdisk /mbr at the DOS prompt. If indeed his master boot record was destroyed due to a hardware failure, the procedure you gave him was correct. But this message also appears when a virus has blown away the MBR. After entering the fdisk command and booting his system, he should run a good antivirus program for detecting and removing viruses.
A. Thanks for the reminder! Some viruses indeed cause the fatal message Bryan Chan saw. Other virus symptoms include increasingly slow performance, an inexplicably full hard disk, and of course mysterious crashes and reboots. It pays to remind people that viruses may be the cause of many problems that seem to originate with a hardware failure or hard disk data error.
A. I don't have an exact technical answer but I don't believe wallpapers take up as much resources in Windows 95 as they did in Windows 3.1x. A wallpaper would take anywhere from 1% to as much as 3% of the resources in Windows 3.1x but that same wallpaper would not take *any* resources in Windows 95. So don't worry about the wallpaper; use any you want.
A) Create file associations: Explorer/View/Options/File Types
B) Add and remove bundled applets: Control Panel/Add/ Remove Programs/Windows Setup
C) Install fonts: Control Panel/Fonts/File/Install New Font
D) Set keyboard repeat and cursor blink rates: Control Panel/Keyboard/Speed
E) Set modem port and speed: Control Panel/Modems/Properties
F) Set mouse double-click speed: Control Panel/Mouse/Buttons
G) Change wallpaper: Right-click desktop, Properties/Background
H) Change windows color scheme: Right-click desktop, Properties/Appearance
I) Change display resolution and color depth: Right-click desktop, Properties/Settings
J) Adjust audio volume: Click speaker icon in taskbar
K) Set date/time: Double-click taskbar time display
Add new hardware Wizard:
Control Panel- Add new hardware icon, helps to install new h/ware devices
easily with Plug and Play technology.
Add Printer Wizard: Start-Settings-Printer: Help setup new printers
Add/Remove Programs:
For Win95 compatible progs. only: Install'n made here are tracked in the
Registry & info abt. the setup is retained so can uninstall peoperly. Apps
that have .inf files can be installed & removed thru the Windows Setup
dialog box - click "Have Disk".
Clipboard Viewer: Click "Start"- Programs-Accessories- Clipboard. Clock: To set the clock, d/click on it on the Taskbar...
Control Panel:
Icon on Desktop, or Start/Settings/Control Panel. Can also access some items as follows:
Label a drive or diskette: Right click the drive icon, click Properties, type in new label.
Regional Settings: Control Panel/Regional settings: Number/Measurement: selected metric (not US.)
Does anybody know how to make the TaskManager kill a running application? All I can get him to do is switch to the application.
I use the three finger salute - ctrl-alt-del [which brings up a list of running applications, which will then allow you to pick one and kill it]