Getting started |
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by Evelyn Brown |
First, I'd suggest the following:
1. Have a pretty good idea of how you plan to use your computer and what software you plan to install on it.
2. Establish an orderly plan for creating and naming the directories and files you want on your hard disk. Use names that are meaningful to you, but keep them as short as possible, so as not to clutter the system search path.
3. Use directories to keep things together that belong together and to separate the things that don't belong together. Isolate programs from the files they generate by putting the files and documents created by an application in a lower level subdirectory. For example:
C:\LOTUS\FILES - to hold all the worksheets created by LOTUS 1-2-3
C:\WP6A\WPDOCS - to hold WordPerfect documents
These can be further subdivided to isolate areas (departments in your company) or users (people in your household)
C:\WP6A\WPDOCS\THELMA (Thelma's files)
C:\WP6A\WPDOCS\LOUISE (Louise's files)
4. Keep your root directory to a minimum - put in it only what absolutely has to be there, such as Config.sys and Autoexec.bat. Resist the temptation of using this directory for "quickies" by not putting the root directory in your system search path.
5. Put nothing in your DOS directory except DOS files. Set up Bat and Util directories for the little "can't live without's" that you will soon start accumulating.
6. Eliminate duplicate files where possible. For example, rather than keep duplicate copies of Command.com (54kb) on your hard drive, one in C:\ and one in C:\DOS, consider deleting one of them. You can do one of the following:
a) Keep the copy in the root directory, and delete the copy in C:\DOS, or
b) Delete the root directory copy and use the SHELL command in your Config.sys file to tell DOS to look in C:\ DOS for the file when it boots up.
7. Get rid of any other DOS files you don't need - like those in the OLD_DOS directory. DOS creates this directory each time you upgrade to a later DOS version, and it's up to you to decide how long you should keep the ability to "Uninstall" the new version. This directory takes up over a megabyte of your hard drive, and will remain there until you delete it. You can also delete any individual files in the DOS directory you know you will never use (DOSSHELL, KEYB, EDLIN, NLSFUNC, DBLSPACE.BIN). You can always use your installation disks to reinstall these files if you decide later that you need them.
8. Try to control the amount of space wasted on such things as obsolete files, duplicated files, and applications you no longer use. Use non-DOS utility programs such as REPEATS, and DOS commands such as DIR \ /w /s /a-d >prn to search your hard disk and give you information you need to keep a clean house.
9. Don't let temporary files accumulate, either your own or those created by applications software without your knowing it. Some applications may use the root directory or even your DOS directory to store their work files and working copies of your data files. Under normal circumstances, these files are deleted automatically when you exit from the application, and you will never see them. However, if you exit from these programs abnormally (perhaps due to a hardware or system problem) before the application has a chance to delete its temporary files, the files will stay there forever. You can prevent this by creating a C:\TEMP directory and putting the statement SET TEMP=C:\TEMP in your Autoexec.bat file. If you are careful not to put anything of lasting value in this TEMP directory, you can "flush" it any time you want to. You could do it automatically every time you boot your system with a statement in your Autoexec.bat like DEL C:\TEMP\*.*.
Evelyn Brown is a HAL-PC member and Instructor/Coordinator in the Saturday DOS class.
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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