Win95 Tips |
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Edited for the Journal by Tom Lassiter |
You obviously passed that test - congratulations - so here is some graduate education in Win 95. Remember my telling you there really WAS a way to PRINT SCREEN in Win 95? Well, here it is.
Print Screen With Win95
If you are used to using Print Screen (or whatever your keyboard calls it) to print what you see, and you try to do this with Windows 95, do not expect much. In fact, do not expect anything. It just will not work.
Now for the good news. There is still a way to print what you see it's just not as direct. When you hit Print Screen, Windows 95 copies the screen to your clipboard. From there, you can paste the screen into Paint and print from there.
After you hit the Print Screen key, open Paint (Start|Programs|Accessories|Paint), and choose Edit|Paste. See your screen? File|Print it!
Mini-tip: If you only want to print an open window, and not the whole screen, hit ALT+Print Screen.
Quickly Seeing Properties
To quickly access the Properties information for any object, hold the ALT key while double-clicking it.
A real time saver, I use this one all the time. A real saver... Right click in a Win95 application's file open box for new, copy, delete, arrange, etc. Most of Explorer's functions except half the toolbar and no pull down menus. Try it.
The "Send To" folder
The "Send To" quick menu (right mouse button on file) shows only the floppy drives as a destination. You can add any other drive or folder as a destination by adding Shortcuts to the "Send To" folder in your Windows directory. You must add a Shortcut or a ".LNK" file to that folder; Or just drag the destination folder to the directory "c:\windows\send_to" while holding the right mouse button, and choose "create Shortcut here" after you have dropped it.
You can also make Shortcuts to your Printer, which makes it easy to print your documents. Also network drives/folders can be added to the "Send To" folder. Alternatively, use any other directory such as a temp directory.
Here is a bonus, if you have different places to send files to which are related such as:
"Customers"
Customer1
Customer2 etc...
You can place in the Send To folder an additional "folder" (not a short cut) called "Customers", then open that folder and place short cuts to all your customers' individual folders and name them appropriately. Then when you right click a file icon, your "Send To" quick menu will show the new "Customers" "Sub menu" and then move to it and you will see a submenu of all your customers' short cuts.
Small Fast Tips
1) Opening My Computer and selecting all your unit drives at the same time allows you to see their properties (and hence disk statistics) in one single dialog box.
2) If you're fed up with your icons, have a look to the PIFMGR.DLL in windows\system\ . Try also in COOL.DLL if you have the Plus! installed.
3) If you haven't got a free zone in the Taskbar to right-click it to access its properties (or to minimize all windows), you can use the zone around the clock to do the same.
4) To close all the parent windows: Hold down SHIFT when clicking close button, e.g. to close all directory windows opened from My Computer.
5) You already know you are starting Windows 95? And you don't want to always be reminded of that? Press ESC during the boot process or, more skillfully, add the statement logo=0 under Options-Section of your MSDOS.SYS.
6) Using .BMP files as Icons: You can rename any .BMP file to .ICO, and then use it as an icon! Windows 95 resizes it to icon size, and changes it to 16 colors, but otherwise it works just fine.
7) Opening Folders Nicely:
If you want to open a sub-folder and have
the parent folder automatically close, hold the CTRL key down as you
double-click to open the new folder.
Next Month
Having completed our tour of Per Bornsjo's site in Sweden, we will embark on a new journey of exploration of various Win 95 sites seeking ever more nifty tips and tricks you can use in your daily (or is it nightly?) routine. So many URLs, so little surf time! I'll try to spend my time finding the goodies so you don't have to.
NOTE: These tips and tricks are provided as an informational member service. Neither Per Bornsjo/Hanar Software [Sweden], HAL-PC, the author, not the editor of this article accept any liability for the above tips and tricks or their applicability to a particular computer or purpose.
CREDIT: The above tips and tricks are courtesy of Per Bornsjo of Partille, Sweden, a student at Chalmers Technical University and creator of Per Bornsjo/Hanar SoftWare of Sweden. He is working to develop his own web site.
Tom Lassiter is a HAL-PC member and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Build or Buy a PC SIG, emcees that weekly SIG meeting and is webmaster of that SIG's internet homepage at http://www.hal-pc.org/~jamesl/borbsig.html. He is a HAL-PC Ambassador to the America Online (AOL) User Group Forum and was one of the initial HALNET beta testers.
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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