INTRODUCTION 1

BOURNE AGAIN SHELL (BASH) 2

MS-DOS PROMPT 3

GENERAL 4

ANIMATED CURSOR 5

WINDOWS 95 REGISTRY 6

INSTALLATION 7

Welcome to the Microsoft Windows 95 operating systems. With Windows 95, all things you do now will be easier and faster, and what you’ve always wanted to do is now possible. It introduces you to Windows and gets you up and running quickly. It shows you how to do the most common task and explore in more depth, provide you wiyh tips, and points you some of the exciting new features that come with windows. The following Operating Systems are the existing operating systems available in IT industries.

A/UX AmigaOS BIOS BeOS

CHORUS CP/M DOS GNU

Linux Macintosh Operating Systems Minix

Multics NetWare OS 8/Rhapsody OS/2

OSF DCE OSF/1 UNIX VMS

Windows 95 Windows 98 Windows NT X Window System

Xinu

bash provides all the interactive features of the C shell (csh) and the Korn shell (ksh). Its programming language is compatible with the Bourne shell (sh).

If you use the Bourne shell (sh) for shell programming consider using bash as your complete shell environment.

As well as using the shell to run commands you can use its built-in programming language to write your own commands or programs. You can put commands into a file - known as a shell script - and then execute that file as you would a command or program.

The use of the Bourne shell (sh) is illustrated as this is available on all UNIX systems. Bourne shell scripts will also work under the Bourne Again SHell. The C and TC shells use a programming language which is similar to the C programming language.

To create a simple shell script, you can put command lines into a file, set the proper access permissions and then execute the file.

These are the contents of a shell script called display:

# This script displays the date, time, username and

# current directory.

echo "Date and time is:"

date

echo

echo "Your current directory is: \\c"

pwd

The first two lines beginning with a hash (#) are comments and are not interpreted by the shell. Use comments to document your shell script; you will be surprised how easy it is to forget what your own programs do!

The backquotes (`) around the command whoami illustrate the use of command substitution.

The \\n is an option of the echo command that tells the shell to add an extra carriage return at the end of the line. The \\c tells the shell to stay on the same line. See the man page for details of other options.

The argument to the echo command is quoted to prevent the shell interpreting these commands as though they had been escaped with the \\ (backslash) character.

To display the current effective username by which you are known to the system use the command:

To switch to using another account use the command

and enter your password when prompted.

You are still in the same working directory you were when you issued the command, but you now have access to the file system for your other account.

pwd

/home/helper

su projX

Password: (password for account projX)

whoami

projX

cd

pwd

/home/projX

The user helper switches to the account they have under the username projX and confirms this with the whoami command.

They then use the cd command to place themselves in the home directory for the account they have switched to. They can now work with the files and directories in this account in the usual way.

To create a script use a text editor to create a new file containing the commands that you want the script to execute.

Before using a file as a shell script you must change its access permissions so that you have execute permission on the file, otherwise the error message Permission deniedis displayed.

To run the shell script, simply type its name at the prompt. The commands in the script will then execute one at a time as though you were typing them in at the terminal.

To give yourself execute permission for the file containing the script use the command:

The +rwx after the u allows you to read, write to and execute the script: no one else has permission to read, write or execute.

To give other users permission to read and execute but not alter the shell script use:

To make a file containing a shell script executable and then run the script:

display: execute permission denied

chmod u+x display

display

Date and time is:

Mon Mar 8 10:51:17 GMT 1993

Your username is: erpl08

Your current directory is: /home/erpl08/scripts

The command display does not run the script as the user does not have execute permission for the file. They give themselves execute permission and then re-enter the command to run the script.

Type the command START followed by a period (.) at the MS-DOS Prompt to open the current folder. Type command START followed by two periods (..) to open the parent directory (if there is one) of the directory that you are currently in.

DOS applications and games can be exremely finicky about system configuration and drivers. Get around this by giving each of your DOS programs a custom setup. First create a shortcut for your programs, then right-click on the shortcut and bring up Properties. Click on the Program tab, then the Advanced button. Click on MS-DOS Mode, then the "Specify a new MS-DOS configuration" radio button. Now type in whatever AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS commands your DOS program needs. Note that you can launch batch files from the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

Unlike Windows 3.x, Win95 launches the GUI automatically. But you can shut it off and go straight to DOS each time you start Win95 by editing a file called MSDOS.SYS. Launch Notepad, open the file C:\MSDOS.SYS, find the entry BootGUI=1 and change the 1 to a 0. Exit, save the file and reboot.

Launch any Windows pr ogram from the MS-DOS Prompt command line. The directories containing the programs you want to launch should be in your PATH statement. Make sure they are, then type in the name of the program's EXE file and press Enter.

Launching Win95 programs or folders with long filenames from the MS-DOS command prompt doesn't seem to work. The trick is to enclose the file or folder name in quotation marks. For example, to open a folder called My Favorite Folder from the command prompt, type Start "My Favorite Folder" and press the Enter key. Don't worry about capitalization. The command prompt is not case sensitive.

Batch files in Win95 leave an embarrassing DOS residue behind: the open DOS Prompt window. To close it, create a shortcut to the batch file, right-click on the shortcut to bring up the Properties dialog, select the Program tab and click on the Close on Exit item at the bottom.

Win95 folder windows show you by default only the name of the folder in the title bar. If you'd like the whole DOS pathname, then open a folder window or the Explorer, select Options from the View menu, click on the View tab and select "Display the full MS-DOS path in the title bar."

If you're a fan of the MS-DOS Prompt, then make sure it's always readily available. Right-click on the Start button and select Open. Double-click on the Programs icon, then drag the MS-DOS Prompt shortcut and drop it on the StartUp icon. Now, double-click on the StartUp icon, right-click on the MS-DOS Prompt shortcut and select Properties. Select Minimized from the Run drop-down box. Finally, click once in the Shortcut Key box and type in the hotkey of your choice (say, Ctrl+D). From now on, the MS-DOS Prompt will launch at startup, but minimized. Whenever you want to enter a quick command, just press your shortcut key and it'll come right up.

You can run a DOS program from a Windows 95 shortcut even if it requires variable parameters each time it's run. Create a shortcut for the DOS program, and then right-click on the shortcut and pick Properties from the context menu. Click on the Program tab and add a question mark to the end of the path in the "Cmd line" field. When you run the program from the shortcut, it will open a parameter window where you can type the variable information.

Graphical computing is better than working from a command prompt. But you can still have the command line in Windows 95 and the graphical interface. Right-click on the Start button and select Open. Double-click on the Programs folder and then the StartUp folder. Right-click anywhere in the window, select New/Shortcut, and a wizard will open up. Click on the Browse button, navigate to the Windows directory and double-click on the file DOSPRMPT. Finish the wizard, launch the D OS Prompt and place the command line window where you want it on the desktop. The next time you start Windows, it'll open in the same location.

If you have a program or batch file that you don't want lingering on your desktop after it runs, then tell it to go away. Just create a shortcut to the program, right-click on the shortcut and select Properties. Click on the Program tab and select "Close on Exit."

Here's a shortcut for typing in a long path to a DOS program. From Explorer, a folder or the Desktop, drag any file and drop it into the MS-DOS Prompt window. The path and the filename will appear on the command line.

Copy or cut information from a Windows application and paste it into a DOS application or the MS-DOS Prompt command line. After copying or cutting the information, right-click on the MS-DOS Prompt title bar and select Edit/Paste from the context menu.

A quicker way to paste into the MS-DOS Prompt is to click on the Paste button, which is the third button from the left. If the toolbar doesn't appear in the MS-DOS Prompt window, right-click on the title bar and select Toolbar from the context menu.

To copy data from the MS-DOS Prompt, right-click on the title bar and select Edit/Mark. In the MS-DOS Prompt window, highlight the area that you want to copy by pressing and holding the left mouse button and dragging across the data. Press Enter and you're ready to paste the information.

Here's another way to copy data from the MS-DOS Prompt. Click on the Mark button on the MS-DOS Prompt toolbar, highlight the area you want to copy by dragging the cursor, then click on the Copy button.

Create a shortcut for a DOS program by right-clicking on the shortcut icon and selecting Properties. Select the Program tab, click on the Advanced butt on and select the MS-DOS mode check box. Windows 95 will run the application in real DOS, quitting all current Windows and DOS-box applications. Windows will automatically restart when you exit the DOS application.

Click on the toolbar's Background button to set a DOS window to run in background. You can then open a second MS-DOS Prompt and execute commands while the other DOS app keeps running.

DOS veterans know that typing two periods after the Change Directory command (CD ..) brings you to the parent directory of the current directory. The Win95 MS-DOS Prompt improves on this quick command by letting you use three, four or more periods to move you further up the directory chain-to the grandparent directory and the great-grandparent.

Type the DIR command in an MS-Prompt window to see a new variation on an old theme. In addition to the standard DOS 8.3 filenames displayed on the left, the Win dows 95 long filenames are displayed on the right.

Set the size of the type that appears in the DOS window from the MS-DOS Prompt Properties dialog. Click on the Font tab and choose a set of font dimensions from the scrolling window. When you select one, the preview window shows what it will look like. You set the font size for individual MS-DOS Prompt windows, so if you have two or more running, they can use different type sizes.

Game users, listen up! For maximum DOS memory in an MS-DOS session, add the line LocalLoadHigh=1 to the [386Enh] section of SYSTEM.INI. Players of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake-or anyone who plays a game that uses 32-bit DOS extender software-will reap the benefit of that much more memory.

You already know that when you drag an object to or from the desktop using the right mouse button, you're given the option to Move, Copy, Create Shortcut or Cancel when you let go of the button. If you d on't want to use the right mouse button (or you don't have one), you can accomplish the same thing by pressing and holding Ctrl+Shift, and using the left mouse button.

Most of us use the Start menu to find ScanDisk, Disk Defragmenter or Backup. But there's a better way. In My Computer, right-click on a drive and select Properties. Click on the Tools tab. Here you'll get information on the last time you performed each operation, with launch buttons for each.

By right-clicking on folders, documents, programs and desktop objects, you can bring up the Context menu for that item. Using the Context menu, you can invoke the Properties dialog, as well as do file management tasks.

If you ever want to know what's happening with your system's use of memory, just select Start/Run and type MEM.

If you open Explorer, and select your Windows folder, you'll see that there is a sub-folder named 'Send To'. Inside this folder are all the current options in your Send To menu; namely, your floppy drives.

To add something to your Send To menu, just do exactly what you'd do to add an item to your Startup menu - either drag a program to this folder, or right-click and select new/shortcut.

For example, I've added a shortcut to Notepad in my 'Send To' folder. Now, when I right-click on a file and hold my cursor over the Send To option, I can send that file to either of my floppy drives or to Notepad. If I select Notepad, then Notepad starts up and displays that file immediately.

Your Win95 CD contains a utility called LOGVIEW.EXE in \OTHER\MISC\LOGVIEW, which lets you view and edit your SCANDISK, CALLLOG, MODEMDET and NDISLOG files. These files can be helpful when you're troubleshooting some parts of your system. You can move LOGVIEW onto your hard disk, or just leave it on the CD.

When you drag and drop a file, it's moved, copied or given a shortcut, depending on where you're dr agging it from and dropping it to. The easiest and safest way to tell what it's going to do is to look at the lower- right corner of the icon you're dragging, right before you let go of the mouse button. A plus sign means the file will be copied. An arrow means you'll create a shortcut. If you see nothing, the file will be moved.

If you press and hold the Ctrl key while you drag and drop a file or folder on the same storage device (say, from one location on your hard disk to another), the object is copied to the new location.

If the object you're dragging and dropping is a program file, Windows will go ahead and create a shortcut in the new location by default.

Whether your PC is brand new or three years old, there's probably unnecessary muck in your WINDOWS folders and Registry that's slowing things down. When you first buy a PC and every year thereafter, you should reformat your h ard disk and start over. But before you do, make sure you have a full system backup and all your application installation diskettes or CDs, plus a Win95 boot disk that contains your CD driver (if you don't have the CD Driver, you can't install Win95 from a CD). It's also a good time to visit your PC vendor's Web site and grab all your hardware's updated drivers. But before you do any of this...

Right-click on the My Computer icon and select Properties from the context menu. Click on the Device Manager tab, then the Print button. Select the "All devices and system summary" radio button, then click on OK. This will give you more information about your hardware, IRQs, ports, memory usage, devices and drivers than you ever wanted to know. It would be a good idea to keep this printout handy for future reference.

There's an easy way and a hard way to change file associations. Here's the easy way. Click on a document to select it, then hold the Shift key while right-clicking on it and select Open With from the context menu. In the Open With dialog, make sure there's a check mark in the "Always use this program to open this type of file" box, then double-click on an application in the Choose window. Warning: Once you've done this, the box will be checked by default next time the dialog comes up.

If you forget your Win95 password, just hit Escape at the password box, bring up the MS DOS Prompt and enter dir *.PWL at the WINDOWS directory to find your PWL files. Delete the one with your name in front of it. Restart your system and enter a new password when prompted (Win95 will ask you to verify it).

No rmally, when you double-click on a document type, the system tells Windows to open the document in a specific application. Here's how to expand your options. Double-click on My Computer, select View/Options and click on the File Types tab. Choose the document type you'd like to open in other apps in the Registered File Types list. Click on Edit, then on New. Click on the Browse button to choose an application. Type something like Open in name of application in the Action field. Click on OK, Close, then Close again. Now, whenever you right-click on that document type, you'll see the option you typed in.

Print out all the fonts on your system by opening Control Panel, double-clicking on the Fonts icon, then on the font of your choice and clicking on the Print button. You should do this for each of the fonts you want to take a good look at.

The Windows 95 Resource Kit contains the following gem: "To remove long filenames from removable disks, include the drive letter with the command; for example, scandskw /o a:" However, it doesn't mention that this will automatically strip long filenames from the hard drive as well.

If you're always launching Control Panel to fiddle with your system settings, make your life a little easier by putting Control Panel on your Start menu. Drag CONTROL.EXE from your WINDOWS folder and drop it on your Start button.

Win95 ships with a free Internet utility called IP Configuration that lets you check out all the vital stats of your Internet setup. Launch Start/Run and type WINIPCFG, then click on the More Info button.

If you're like us, and like to install, uninstall and reinstall Win95 components often"and if you have 34MB to burn"copy all the CAB files from the Win95 folder of your CD to a folder on your hard disk. When you install components, from Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs item, click on the Windows Setup tab, select the components you want to add, click on the Have Disk button and just point it at the new folder that contains your CAB files.

Win95 also ships with a DOS program called Tracert that traces an Internet connection so you can see where the packets are hopping over the Net. Launch the MS-DOS Prompt window and type TRACERT followed by the Internet location (say, http://www.winmag.com).

If incoming phone calls disconnect you from your online sessions, you probably have call waiting. To disable it, open the Control Panel, double-click on the Modems ic on and select Dialing Properties. Choose the code that disables call waiting on your phone line. Shred Files Without a Mouse Hold down the Shift key when you press the Delete key to delete a file instead of sending it to the Recycle Bin.

Place a cascading Control Panel menu on your Start menu by right-clicking on the Start button and selecting Open. Create a new folder and give it the following name: Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

You can place your Dial-Up Networking folder and its contents on the Start menu by adding a folder with this name: Dial Up Net.{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48}

And likewise with your Contol Panel/Printers item. Give the file the following name: Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}

If you're halfway through a drag-and-drop operation and change your mind, ju st bang on the Esc key to bail out.

Right-click on your My Computer icon and select Properties. This tabbed dialog is your hardware's Rosetta Stone. By exploring the various tabs and items, you can find out about all the devices installed on your system, as well as your memory and port settings.

If you use the ERASE *.* command in an MS Command Prompt window, it asks you if you're sure, and you have to answer Y or N. Here's an undocumented Win95 feature: By omitting the period and simply typing ERASE **, it deletes the contents of the folder"no questions asked. This is great for batch files, which you want to run without human intervention, or whenever you don't want to be bothered by questions.

Double-click on the title bar of any application, document or folder windows to toggle between maximized and restored states.

Right-cl ick on the Taskbar buttons of minimized applications and select Close from the menu to exit them quickly.

Ctrl+C copies the currently selected file, folder, text or picture to the Clipboard.

Ctrl+X cuts the currently selected file, folder, text or picture to the Clipboard.

If you're like us and install a lot of software, save yourself some time by creating shortcuts on your desktop to A:\SETUP.EXE and A:\INSTALL.EXE.

Ctrl+V pastes the contents of the Clipboard"files, folders, text or pictures"to the currently selected object.

Dragging any application or document onto the Start button will place that item on the Start menu.

Bring up the Properties dialog fast by holding down the Alt key and double-clicking on the object of your choice.

Win95 could very well be loading your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files unnecessarily. It will do so if it thinks you still need them. To find out if you do, make backup copies of each, and make sure you have an emergency boot diskette handy. Change the name of CONFIG.SYS to CONFIG.OLD by right-clicking on the file (you'll find it in the root directory of your hard disk), selecting Rename and typing in the new name. Now, shut down your system and restart. If everything works, then do the same with your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

Here's how to put top-level Start menu items in the order you want and also launch them with keystrokes: Right-click on the Start button and select Open. Rename each item by placing a number in front of it. Now you can open the Start menu by pressing Ctrl+Esc, and launch a program by pressing its associated number.

It's enough to make Miss Manners Mad! Those ill-behaved Win 3.x apps sometimes just don't mind their manners i n Win95. Fortunately, Win95 comes with a handy utility that forces good behavior. Select Start/Run and type MKCOMPAT. Bring the heel to heel by selecting File/Choose Program, then clicking on the behaviors you'd like to induce.

Whenever you change an icon, you'll be offered the default source of icons. It's a file called SHELL32.DLL that lives in the Systems subfolder of your Windows folder. But there's another file hidden in the System folder called PIFMGR.DLL that contains Win95's secret stash of cool icons.

Choose the files or folders you want to put in your Briefcase, right-click on one of them and select Send To/Briefcase.

From the View menu of any open folder, select Toolbar to bring up the folder toolbar. The button on the left is the Up One Level button. Click on the button repeatedly to move toward the root.

Press F2 to change the name of a selected file or folder.

You can double-click on the mini icon in the upper-left corner of an application to make a quick exit.

Press Alt+Tab to bring up the CoolSwitch box. By holding down the Alt key and repeatedly pressing the Tab key, you can move through your running applications. When you let go, the currently selected item will come to the fo reground.

To see the path of a folder or file, right-click on it and select Properties. Hold your mouse pointer over whatever is shown in the Location field. A tool tip will pop up with the DOS path.

To launch your favorite screen saver without navigating dialog boxes, drag and drop your screen saver files from the Windows/System folder (they're the ones with the SCR extensions) using your right mouse button and make shortcuts for them on the desktop. In the future, whenever you want to launch your favorite screen saver, all you have to do is double-click on its file on your desktop.

By pressing the Esc key, you can quickly close any open dialog box.

Double-click on the time in the Taskbar tray to bring up the Data/Time Properties dialog. From there you can change your system's time and date settings.

LOGO.SYS is the "wait" screen you see when you boot Win95, LOGOW.SYS is the "wait" screen you see after you shut down Win95, and LOGOS.SYS is the "It's now safe to turn off your computer" screen. Although they have a SYS extension, these files are standard bitmaps you can modify with the Paint applet for custom start-up and shutdown screens.

You can select files or folders "surgically" by pressing and holding the Ctrl key as you click. You'll select the files or folders you click on without selecting those between. Click on a file or folder once and it's selected. Click on it again and it's de-selected.

By pressing and holding the Shift key while you click on two files or folders, you select the files or folders plus all those between the two.

Press Alt+Esc to move from one open application or folder to the next.

Win95 comes with a few options designed to make it more accessible to handicapped users. One option, MouseKeys, lets you use your numeric keypad to move your mouse pointer. This is useful if you have a notebook on which you don't want to install a mouse, or if you're recovering from a repetitive stress injury caused by the use of your mouse. Double-click on Control Panel's Accessibility Options icon, click on the Mouse tab and check the Use MouseKeys box.

If you're using Win95-compliant communications software, double-click on the modem icon in your Taskbar's "Tray" (the indented area where the time is displayed) while you're online. This will show you your total connect time and file download status.

Move from one item to the next in a dialog box by pressing the Tab key.

In dialog boxes with multiple tabs, move from one tab to the next by pressing Crtl+Tab.

Select the highlighted item by pressing the Spacebar.

If you have Microsoft Plus, you can create an icon from any bitmap image. Open Control Panel and double-click on Display. Select the Plus Tab, then select the icon you want to change. Press Change Icon, then press Browse. Find a bitmap, click on Open, and then on OK for both dialog boxes.

You can share folders on a network without making them visible to others by adding a dollar sign ($) to the end of the folder name. Just tell those you'd like to share them with the names of the folders, and they can type them in.

To find out how much hard disk space you have, double-click on the My Computer icon, right-click on the C: drive icon and select Properties. This dialog will show you how much available storage you have.

Here's a quick trick to close all your running programs: Select Shutdown from the Start menu and pick the "Close all programs and log on as a different user?" option. Then log back on as the same user.

On your portable Win95 PC, hold the mouse pointer over the battery (or, if it's plugged in, the plug) icon in your Taskbar. It'll tell you how much of a charge is left in your battery.

If you hold the mouse pointer over minimized folders or Win95 applications on your task bar, a ToolTip will pop up and give you the folder or application, along with document names.

Right-click on the CD-ROM icon in My Computer and select Eject from the context menu to eject the CD in the drive (or, if the drive is open the eject menu item will close it).

Some Win95 dialog boxes have a question mark button next to the close button in the upper right-hand corner. Click on it and your mouse pointer gains a question mark. Click on anything in the dialog box, and a description and explanation of the item pops up.

Here's how to blast the contents of the Documents cascading menu from your Start menu (for those of you who know how to create batch files). Create a batch file that deletes all files in the C:/WINDOWS/RECENT folder. Now create a shortcut on the desktop to the batch file (make sure you tell the shortcut to close on exit). Double-clicking on the shortcut in the future will clear your Documents menu.

Here's a tip for those of you who prefer the keyboard. Sometimes you'd like to select items on the desktop, but the desktop isn't the currently selected "folder." With your desktop visible, Press Ctrl+Esc to bring up the Start menu, hit Esc, then Shift+Tab. Now your arrow keys will let you navigate items on the desktop.

If you've got a folder window open and want to get to the bottom of it, don't use the scroll bar. Just press Ctrl+End. And of course, if you're at the bottom or somewhere in the middle of a folder window and want to return to the top, press Ctrl+Home.

We sometimes hear complaints from longtime Windows 3.1x users about Explorer's inability to open multiple windows. Solve the problem by opening two instances of Explorer.

If you want applications to run minimized, maximized or in a normal window, create a shortcut for the app, right-click on the shortcut icon, select Properties from the context menu, click on the Shortcut tab and make your selection in the Run item.

Empty the contents of the Documents item on your Start menu by selecting Start/Settings/Taskbar and clicking on the Start Menu Programs tab. Under Documents menu, click on the Clear button.

You can drag documents and folders into the Run dialog. Windows will type the path for you. You can then modify and launch with your changes.

Sometimes it's hard to tell what a document's DOS file extension is (Win95 does a good job hiding that information from you). An easy way to find out is to drag the file to the Run command dialog as described above. The entire path-including the file extension-will be revealed.

The four most recently launched Run commands are still available by clicking on the down arrow in the Run dialog or by using the down-arrow key.

You can type the UNC path to a folder on the server (if you're on a network, of course) into the Run command line.

Admit it. In your haste and excitement, you didn't make a startup disk when you installed Win95. Don't worry. You can still redeem yours elf. Open the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel item and click on the Startup Disk tab. Then just put a diskette in your diskette drive and click on the Create Disk button.

Use DriveSpace for diskettes. Just remember if you need to format them in the future, you must do so from the DriveSpace utility.

Program Manager and File Manager are part of Win95, and they work in Win95 exactly as they did in the previous versions of Windows. Both sport unique advantages. For example, File Manager is much faster than Explorer. If you miss Program Manager and File Manager, you can find PROGMAN.EXE and WINFILE.EXE in the WINDOWS folder and create shortcuts to them on your desktop.

Find out a computer's IP address by running Winipcfg from the Start/Run command line. In some cases, a network administrator has set up a pool of IP addresses called DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) under Windows NT Server. A workstation requests an IP address from a DHCP server and "leases" the IP address for a duration set by the network administrator. A common problem occurs when the DHCP server is moved to a different subnet a nd workstations on the network continue to look for the DHCP server at the old IP address. If the computer is not receiving an IP address from the DHCP server, run the Winipcfg utility to determine if the IP address of the DHCP server is correct. Click on the More Info button for details on where Win95 is looking for the DHCP server. If the DHCP server address is wrong, choose Release and then Renew. The IP address should now be updated with a new lease.

One little-known feature of Windows 95 is that it supports animated cursors, just like Windows NT (in fact, the animated cursors are identical to those of Windows NT, and the two can be used interchangably). Windows 95 comes with at least two such cursors; an animated replacement for the hourglass mouse cursor, and another for the working-in-background mouse cursor (an arrow with a small hourglass).

To activate this, select Control Panel/Mouse/Pointers. Highlight the cursor you want to apply the change to (for example, the BUSY cursor), then select Browse. Navigate to your /windows/system folder, and you'll see two files with .ANI as the extensions, HOURGLASS and APPSTART. Select HOURGLASS, then click on the Apply button.

Now, instead of the boring, static hourglass when Windows is busy, you'll see a way-cool animated hourglass! The sand runs from the top part to the bottom, and then the hourglass flips over and continues.

you must have a video card with 256 or more colors at the resolution you are currently running Windows 95 at. To check this, right-click on your desktop, select Properties, then select Settings. Make sure the Color Palette box reads something other than 16 Color.

All hard drives on your system must be running in 32-bit mode. Check this by right-clicking on My Computer, then select Properties, then Performance. Make sure no hard drives list "MS-DOS Compatibility Mode" - they must read "32-Bit" for animated cursors to work.

The Registry is a heirarchical database within Windows 95 where all the system settings are stored. It has replaced all of the .ini files that were present in Windows 3.x. The data from system.ini, win.ini, control.ini, are all contained within it now, along with hundreds of other system settings. Additionally, all Windows 95 specific programs are now to store their initialization data within the Registry instead of in .ini files in your Windows folder.

The Registry cannot be viewed or edited with a normal editor - you must use a program included with Windows 95 called RegEdit (Registry editor). This program isn't listed on your START menu - you either need to add it, or just click on Start/Run, and type "regedit" in the input field. The Registry Editor will then start.

You may want to immediately back up your Registry before doing any editing, by using the command line switches.

RegEdit, the Registry Editing tool included with Windows 95, has a few command line switches for importing and exporting the Registry data:

•/e -- This specifies that the complete registry should be exported (copied) to a file named file.reg. This is a good way to back up the registry.

•/c -- This specifies the .REG file to use to overlay the entire registry. This is a VERY dangerous thing to do! Make sure you know you have the right file before replacing your entire registry in this manner!

When you first start RegEdit, you'll see the following subtrees under the 'My Computer' header:

If your computer's more than a year old, chances are there's a flash BIOS upgrade available from the manufacturer. Get it (usually via download from a BBS, Web site, or on CompuServe or America Online) and do the upgrade before you run the Windows 95 setup procedure.

Make sure all your system components work properly before taking off on your first setup flight. If something "isn't quite right" before you install Win95, fix it or get rid of it.

If you have the space, install Win95 into a fresh directory. It will take a bit longer to reinstall all the applications you want to keep, but you won't be stuck with all that stuff you don't want to keep.

If you do decide to upgrade over Windows 3.x, delete anything on the load= and run= lines in the [windows] section of WIN.INI. If you've been using a non-Windows shell extension, open SYSTEM.INI and restore the following line in the [boot] section: shell=progman.exe. Next, reboot the system and hold down the Ctrl key to bypass the Startup group applets (if any).

Resist the temptation to let Win95 decide what you need. Choose custom setup and take the time to select just the options you want. Note that Win95 usually has trouble finding a PS/2 mouse, and may think you have a standard serial mouse connected to COM1 even if you don't. It may also think you have an unknown monitor. In either case, highlight the appropriate device, click on the Change button and select the correct hardware.

If your Startup files load any kind of virus protection, disable it and reboot. Some virus watchers will get quite upset at the Win95 setup procedure, so put them to sleep before starting the installation.

If you have any external devices you want Win95 to discover, turn them on before you run the setup procedure.

When Win95 finally opens at the conclusion of a successful setup procedure, select Control Panel/System and then the Device Manager tab. Scan the list of devices under the Computer icon and check for missing hardware (CD-ROM drive, for example), an incorrect modem or monitor, duplicate entries (especially under the Mouse icon), warning icons overlaid on other icons and anything else that doesn't look quite right. With luck, everything will be in order, but if not, now's the time to make the necessary corrections. Once that's done, the setup procedure is truly over. Enjoy!

Both Win3.1x and Win95 run a lot of little programs that don't shown up on the task list or the task bar. In Win3.1x, you couldn't shut them down if they were running properly. In Win95, you can see a list of these "behind the scenes" programs by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete. This brings up a Close Program dialog box. Your installation may go more smoothly if you close or shut down everything but Explorer. When you're done with your install, use Alt+F4 to shut down Windows. When it's safe to do so, turn off the power to your computer and restart.

When reviewing the various lists of installable options, if you're not sure what something is, don't select it. Do you really need the Calculator? Screen Savers? If you don't, clear the appropriate check boxes to save a bit of space. If you guess wrong, you can always use Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs applet later on. Select the Windows Setup tab and you'll find a complete list of components waiting to be installed.

The Accessibility Options are a series of enhancements for users with various physical impairments. Even if you don't need them, install them anyway. They don't need much space, and the ToggleKeys option on the Keyboard tab is a welcome addition to anyone's system. It discreetly beeps at you if you hit the Caps Lock, Num Lock or Scroll Lock keys, accidentally or on purpose. Check out the Mouse tab, as well.

When prompted to enter a user name (required) and password (optional), don't enter the latter unless you really want password protection. That way you won't be pestered for a password every time you start Windows. You can always disable the password prompt later, but if you know you don't want it, skip it now and be done with it.

In Win95, you're never alone at installation time, particularly when you install new 32-bit apps. To access the installation wizard, select Start/Settings/Control Panel, then double-click on the Add/Remove Programs icon. The Install/Uninstall tab is the default. Click on the Install button. Win95 searches for an install program on removable media, and will ask for your help if it can't find one.

In Win95, as in Win3.1x, installation of new applications sometimes renders your system unbootable. To help in these situations, create a bootable "rescue" floppy disk. Insert a diskette that's either blank or contains nothing you need. Select Start/Settings/Control Panel and double-click on the Add/Remove Programs icon. Click on the Startup Disk tab then click on Create Disk. When Win95 is done, make the disk read-only, label it and test it to be sure you can boot your computer from it. To be extra safe, make two boot disks.