by Tom Lassiter
“Schooldays, Schooldays, Good old Golden Rule Days . . .”
Could it be? Has it finally happened? Have users finally “gone to school” on Microsoft’s busted release dates and broken promises of wondrous new toys that we all had to have? Are they applying the “golden rule” and doing unto Microsoft as they have done unto us? –“Oh yes, we said we’d buy that new release whenever it came out; but now we think we’ll postpone OUR release (of money) for awhile longer too.”
It appears this may well be occurring across the PC user community. Despite its little glitches Win95 still runs our PCs quite well enough for most uses. Combine this with the fact that Win98 doesn’t seem to offer any huge reasons to upgrade; and the just plain work of converting over and tweaking a new operating system, and users are shying away in droves.
I must admit I’m in that camp. My original plan was to buy and install it as soon as it was released. But not, as some did, in one of the midnight computer store lines. I stayed with Windows 3.11 until Win95 had been out about five months and kicked myself for not converting earlier. So I was all set to roll in the new Win98. The main reason was to start converting this column to the new and current version. Then the more I heard and read the less I wanted to deal with the problems of the new system.
So I’m “pulling a Microsoft” – I’m going to do it later. I will do it sooner than I prefer so I can give you, my readers, tips on the latest version. But I’m not hearing a lot of clamor for it as many of you are waiting as well. Bully for all of us – take THAT Microsoft. So – soon but not yet. Win95 tips are still valuable to most of us.
Simple File Associations from Open With
To select an application with which to open files with a particular extension (e.g. – to open a .txt file with Wordpad instead of Notepad), find a file with the appropriate extension in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Select it then hold down the SHIFT key and RIGHT-CLICK on it. Select Open With in the dialog box and checkmark the box reading “Always use this program to open this type of file”. Select the chosen application from the Choose window and DOUBLE-CLICK on it. Now whenever you DOUBLE-CLICK on a file of that type, the selected application will open it.
A-B-Cs of Finding Files to Open
Are you getting tired of scrolling down long lists of files in your Open and other dialog boxes to get to the file you are looking for? Use the A-B-Cs to get there faster. Type the first letter of the file name you are looking for. The cursor will jump down to the first filename it has starting with that letter. Hit the same letter a second time and it will go to the second file it has starting with that letter. Or type the first two letters and it will jump to the first file starting with that letter combination. The more letters you type the quicker it gets there. But two or three are usually sufficient to get you very close to your desired file. Now, sing along with me – M-I-C (SEE you tomorrow) K-E-Y (WHY – Because we love you) M-O-U-S-E. There, you DO know your alphabet!
Clear Skies Ahead
When booting Win95 you get, by default, the Win95 “splash screen” with the lovely clouds. To remove that bit of advertising go to your root directory (usually C:\) and open the hidden system file MSDOS.SYS. In the Options section add the line “logo=0” and save the file. Now you’ll have no more cloudy skies at bootup.
Getting Large Files to Span Floppies
Have you ever tried to copy a large file onto a diskette only to receive the dreaded error message that it wouldn’t fit? If so try this technique with Win95s built-in Backup program. Select START, PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, SYSTEM TOOLS, AND BACKUP. Then just follow the guide of the Wizard to backup your file to a floppy. It will span and ask for additional diskettes as needed. (If Backup isn’t shown in your system tools box then you didn’t install it initially and will need to do so now. Go to START, SETTINGS, CONTROL PANEL. DOUBLE-CLICK on ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS, CLICK the WINDOWS SETUP tab, select DISK TOOLS and CLICK on DETAILS. Check the box next to BACKUP, CLICK on OK then APPLY.)
Want Hard Drive Space – Drop Fonts
It seems every program you load these days adds a sizable number of fonts to your already bulging collection. Unless you are really into desktop publishing how many times have you used a font other than Times New Roman in the past year? Come on now – be honest. SO! All those fonts are slowing down your startup and stealing your precious hard drive space. To see how much space they are occupying go to START, SETTINGS, CONTROL PANEL, and RIGHT-CLICK on FONTS. Select PROPERTIES and the dialog box will show you the total hard drive space occupied by all installed fonts. Mine has 8.58 MB and that is on an almost clean drive with few programs loaded. Remove as desired. If your PROPERTIES item is “grayed out” above then go to your Windows directory (probably C:\Windows) and RIGHT-CLICK on the FONTS folder there and select PROPERTIES. Same result – different road.
Get the pumpkins ready for next month – Halloweens a’comin’! Will we have tricks or treats? My guess is the latter – see you then.
Tom Lassiter is a member of the HAL-PC Board of Directors. He may be contacted at jamesl@hal-pc.org. n
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