Running Windows 9X
Joke of the Day:
THE BELL CURVE OF SUCCESSFUL LIFE
Age 4: Sucess is not peeing your pants.
Age 16: Sucess is being able to drive a car.
Age 21: Sucess is being able to have sex.
Age 35: Sucess is making money.
Age 50: Sucess is having money.
Age 65: Sucess is being able to have sex.
Age 75: Sucess is being able to drive a car.
Age 85: Sucess is not peeing your pants.
J
In this lesson we well go over different ways of maintaining your Operating System. This is needed because as a user, you will come to a time when you will wish to update the system, change the settings, or work with the system files. In this lesson we will look at some of the tools that can be helpful in our quest.
After the lesson you will be able to:
Understand and work with Windows 9x system files
Load and add device drivers
Work with TweakUI 2000
Work with the registry
Use the online help
Use the disk management utilities
Work with the printing subsystem
Use Net2phone
Working with Win9X
System files
IO.SYS
This file does the job of what config.sys did in earlier versions of DOS. If config.sys is added, then the user added lines will be added. Here is a list of things that IO.SYS loads:
DOS=high
Himem.sys
Ifshlp.sys
Setver.exe
Files=60
Lastdrive=z
Buffers=30
Stacks=9,256
Shell=COMMAND.COM /P
Fcbs=4
This file takes the place of autoexec.bat in some tasks. For example important paths are set up here. Here is a list of things that this file loads:
Path
Bootdelay=2
Bootfailsafe=0
Bootgui=1
Bootkeys=1
Bootmenu=0
Bootmenudefault=1
Bootdelay=30
Bootmulti=0
Bootwarn=1
Bootwin=1
Doublebuffer=0
Dblpace=1
Drvspace=1
Loadtop=1
Logo=1
Network=0
Disablelog=0
This is a MS-DOS application file that starts the MS-DOS command prompt. It is NOT loaded by default in Windows 9X.
This is the configuration settings file located with the windows’ folder.
This files has the Program manager information. It also contains security information.
SYSTE.DAT
This hidden, read-only file can be found in windows’ folder. It is part of the Windows REGISTRY, which is contains information specific to the local system.
This hidden, read-only file can be found in windows’ folder. It is part of the Windows REGISTRY, which is contains information specific to the user of the local system.
Load and Add New Device Drivers
When you add a new PNP hardware device to your system and boot-up your computer, Windows 98 detects the new hardware and may ask you for the device drivers, if it does not have them.
Normally software or device drivers are shipped with the hardware to allow the user to install at the same time.
Makers of hardware products are always updating their software drivers (from once a week to once a year, at least). To have the latest driver version, it is recommended that the user visit the manufacturer’s web site and browse to the “download” or “driver” section. Do be sure to use only the software made for your product. If the driver does not specify your exact product, then do not use it. Read all of the manufacture’s notes on that driver to see what bugs or features it adds to your product.
Lets see if we can update our Display Adapter drivers!
First, download the newest drivers for your video card.
Remember where you save this downloaded file. You may need to unzip the file if it was compressed (ends in .zip).
Open your control Panel and click on the System Icon.
Click on the second Tab. You should see something like this…
Click on the Display Adapters area
Click “properties”
You should now see this window open…
Click on the Driver’s tab.
Click “Update Driver
Now this window should pop up.
Click “Next.”
You should see this window.
Click “Next.”
Now key in the location of the downloaded file in the “location text box.”
Click “Next” and your drivers will be updated.
I have been using this program for years and strongly recommend. Someone at Microsoft answered our prayers. Soon after the introduction of Windows 95, Microsoft got tired of responding to all of their users' annoyances, so they released TweakUI in the collection of PowerToys. TweakUI allows us a little settings window that you can use to fix a few annoyances without messing around in the Registry. This great little utility program allows us to customize his/her desktop as well. So "Tweak UI" allows you to fine-tune ("tweak") the Windows User Interface ("UI"). Want to install it? You don't need an internet connection to turn off the silly animation and tool-tips that appear everywhere. TweakUI for Windows 98 is right on the CD, in the \tools\reskit\powertoy\ folder - just right click on tweakui.inf and select Install to install it on your system. To run "Tweak UI", install it, then double-click its icon in the Control Panel.
Click on its Icon and you will inter the program, as seen below…
There are 13 “tabs” or categories for you to explore and use in your tweaking.
Still not enough settings?
Then let’s look at
the system registry.
One important Note…
Your system Registry controls everything within Windows. Mess this file up and your done for. So back up the file, which is called regedit.exe! One way to back up the registry is to open regedit.exe (Click START, RUN, key-in regedit.exe , hit enter) in the windows folder and export a copy of the registry, BEFORE touching it. See below…
Once you are in regedit, you will see a window like this…
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Contains OLE information
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Contains the USER information
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Contains the hardware settings information
HKEY_USERS
Contains all USERS information
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG
Contains the current hardware settings profile information
HKEY_DYN_DATA
Contains all of the USERS’ DNA information
No! It contains all of the performance data information, such as drivers used.
Now how can we really edit our settings? Let us look at changing our default recycle bin icon for an example.
If you visit http://www.regedit.com , you will notice that they give the steps to change the settings in this way:
Change
the Recycle Bin Icons (Windows 9x and NT) Popular
Would you like to make you
Recycle Bin into something a bit more exciting? Maybe a glowing toxic waste
bin? With this tweak you can change the icon to be whatever you like.
Open your registry and
find the key below.
Within the key are three
values: '(Default)', 'Empty' and 'Full'. Set the values to equal the icon you'd
like to display for the various states of the Recycle Bin.
Note: These changes should take place immediately, you may need to refresh your desktop by clicking on a blank area and pressing F5.
|
Settings: |
|
Key: [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\ |
Regedit will show a window as seen below…
Using the Online Help
This program allows you to find more information about the other programs found within Windows and how to troubleshoot many common problems.
To open up help, just hit the F1 key.
Windows has a number of disk management utilities, which allow the user to backup his/her data, defrag his/her data, and scan the disk for errors.
MS Backup
Backing up your data regularly on to a different drive allows you to lose less data, if your should system should suffer a crash.
Defragmenting
To keep your disk drives accessing data at the quickest possible speed, it needs to be defragged at least every month.
Scandisk
This program scans the disk’s surface and checks for errors.
Work with the printing subsystem
Printing has changed a great deal from Win3X and 9X.
In the Old windows, printing slowed the performance of the machine to a craw and often meant that the user could only have one or two applications opened during the printing process.
In windows 9X, the printing subsystem has been overhauled to improve speed, stability, and ease of use. The printing subsystem is made up of 16 bit and 32 bit portions. The 16 bit portions, create some limitations, such as, performance while multi-tasking during printing, multi-tasking during background printing, and while attempting multi-threaded processing. The 32 bit portions do speed up the printing process, however.
The Windows’ printer driver is made of two 32-bit components. A universal printer driver and a mini-driver. The A universal printer driver communicates with the OS and contains data relevant to all printers. The mini-driver is made by the printer’s manufacture and communicates data between the printer hardware and the universal printer driver.
Printer Properties
Spooling
Metafiles
Drag and Printing
Net2Phone
Net2Phone is a program, which allows a user, who has a speaker/ microphone setup and a internet connection at 56K, use have free long-distance calling within the US. To read more about this program, go to www.net2phone.com.
Using regedit.com write down the steps to the following for win98…
1.
How do you Re-Initialize Your
Registry Without Rebooting?
2.
What do you find at:
http://www.wugnet.com/shareware/00/week211/
3.
How do I Speed Up ISP Logon Time?
4.
Remove Task Scheduler?
5.
Optimizing Dial-Up Modem Connection Speed?
6.
Tweak my Cable Modem & DSL for
more Speed?
7.
Remove the Favorites Folder from
the Start Menu
