Win95 Tips and Tricks

Edited for the Journal by Tom Lassiter

Last month we examined a few of the ways you can go out and find some nifty little WIN95 tricks, some undocumented, that you can use to impress your friends and co-workers. If used properly, and with some imagination, you should have achieved some success and maybe even a "Wow, how'd you do that!" But hey, just because you have a library card doesn't mean you are Yoda. That is OK though; you may be on the way to being a "baby guru", and that beats a sharp stick in the eye. This month you will receive more fodder for your cannon to enable you to shoot your way up the guru scale.

Desktop Properties

A Shortcut is to right-click anywhere on the desktop, then select Properties.

Different actions on documents

In Explorer you can set up different actions to be performed on a document in addition to just the standard `open' command that will be available to you when you right click on your icon. Go to an Explorer window and choose View | Options and then the tab `File Types'. In the list you see, find the association for the file type you want to add an action to, e.g. BMP file. Double click on it to bring up the edit window. You should see that there is already at least one action here, probably Open, maybe Print, etc. Click on the New...button and type in a new command, like Edit or View or whatever you want. Then select the application you want to use to Edit your bitmap, as opposed to just viewing it. Then when you right click on a BMP file you will see your new command there and you can easily choose to View, Edit, Open, Print...whatever you want with whatever app you want to do it with.

Freeing diskspace

If you want to free disk space, you can delete all .AVI files in the Windows/Help subdirectory. Those files only show you some very basic things like how to move a window, how to use the Startmenu, etc.

There is another way for some users to make more room on the hard drive. If you upgraded from Win 3.x to Win95 then often the files "W95UNDO.DAT, W95UNDO.INI" are made to easily uninstall Win95. If someone is content with Windows 95, they have no need to uninstall it and can delete these files. (You can free up to 11MB!!)

Explorer tips

To get Explorer to show a two-directory view similar to File Manager, just open two instances of the Explorer, right-click on the Task bar, and select "Tile Vertically". Win95 will retain both if you leave them running when you shut down so that they are instantly available the next time you boot up.

Escaping from a hang

If you get hung up in Win95 and the usual CTRL-ALT-DEL does not respond, press CTRL-Escape. This may bring up the START menu from which you can shut down the system.

Expand your Taskbar

Ever have too many programs open, and the Taskbar has a bunch of "icons" that you can't read the title in? Make it bigger! This should have been obvious, but I just came across it one day. Just move your mouse cursor to the top of the task bar (if it's on the bottom) and drag it up. Win95 remembers position as well.

Expanding All Subfolders

To quickly expand the Explorer tree view to show all Subfolders for a highlighted drive or folder, simply press the asterisk (*) key on the numeric keypad.

Fast name change

Here's a simple trick that saves a bit of time. When you want to rename a file, folder or desktop item, do you find it a hassle to right click the item, choose Rename etc., etc. before you can type in the new name? Well, try this...

1) LEFT click on the file, folder, or desktop item as you normally would to select it.

2) Wait a moment, long enough for Windows to know that you are not double clicking it, and LEFT click again.

3) The file, folder or desktop item is now ready for a name change.

Or the fastest way Choose the file you want to change the name on, and press F2.

How to set up hot keys to load your favorite programs

For Windows applications, if you do not have a Shortcut to the program, you must create one. For DOS programs, you can use a Shortcut but it isn't necessary. Select the Shortcut or DOS program and choose Properties. In a Shortcut to a Windows program, click the Shortcut tab. In a DOS Shortcut or program, click the Program tab.

Click in the field named "Shortcut key" to place the cursor within this field. Press the key combination you wish to use to open the program. Click Apply, then OK.

Restrictions: The key combination must be in the form of CTRL + (some key) or CTRL + ALT + (some key). You cannot use ESC, Tab, Spacebar, Enter, Print Screen, or Backspace in the key combination. You cannot use a key combination already reserved for Windows or another program. These restrictions can also be seen by right-clicking in the "Shortcut key" field and choosing "What's This?".

To remove a Shortcut key, press just CTRL when in the "Shortcut key" field. The field entry should change to "None." Click Apply, then OK.

To remove the hot key from a DOS program or Shortcut, change the value of the "Shortcut key" field to none. You then MUST COMPLETELY shut down Windows 95, wait a bit, then restart your computer. Turning your computer completely off works best; just pressing the reset button doesn't work sometimes if it's done too quickly. Just restarting Windows 95 doesn't work at all.

CREDIT: These Win95 tips and tricks were provided courtesy of Per Bornsjo of Partille, Sweden. He is a student at Chalmers Technical University and creator of Per Bornsjo/Hanar SoftWare of Sweden. He is now working to develop his own site.

Tom Lassiter is a HAL-PC member who serves as Chair of the Steering Committee of the Build or Buy a PC SIG and emcees that weekly SIG meeting. He also serves as a HAL-PC Ambassador to the America Online User Group Forum, and was one of the initial HALNet beta testers.

NOTE: These tips and tricks are provided as an informational member service. Neither Per Bornsjo/Hanar SoftWare [Sweden], HAL-PC, nor the editor of this article accept any liability for use of the above tips and tricks or their applicability to a particular computer or purpose.

E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.

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