David le Page
Windows 95 and 98 are riddled with excellent functions which Microsoft, in its wisdom, has never gone out of its way to tell you about. Take advantage of some of them in-between your next few system crashes. If you’re not clear on how to get to the functions mentioned, try using Help in your Start menu.
Your personal computer may well be set up to automatically start some of the programs you use all the time. These programs are usually determined by the contents of the StartUp directory, which in turn is in the Programs section of your Start menu. To edit them, right click the Start button, choose Open and edit the directory and sub-directories which pop up. Now any programs whose icons you shove into your StartUp directory will run automatically when you boot up.
What about hiding that damn great billboard that pops up everytime you hit Start? Go Start, Settings, Taskbar. Then tick the box that says “Show small icons … “, for a more discreet and elegant Start menu.
Should you be in a hurry and want to bypass these StartUp programs, hold down the Ctrl button as Windows is booting up.
There are a number of useful functions to Windows Explorer that can save a great deal of time. To highlight a whole block of files, highlight the first one in the batch. Then hold down Shift while selecting another file several rows down. All the files in between will be selected. You can select and deselect individual files by holding down Ctrl while using your mouse.
There are different ways of sorting your files before moving them. First, make sure you’re in the detailed file view mode by hitting Details in WinExplorer’s View submenu. Your files will be listed in a column, followed by details of size, type and date. Clicking on Name, Size, Type and so forth will reorganise the files accordingly.
If you need to make use of the MS-DOS window on occasion, you can get around some of that infuriating uneditable typing of paths and file names by first entering your command, such as CD (change directory), and then dragging the relevant directory or file name from WinExplorer into the MS-DOS windows. Presto, it’s all typed out for you, sans errors.
Other little functions are hidden away for those prepared to brave the MS-DOS interface. If you are curious about the mechanics of the Internet, or want to recreate for yourself one of those riveting scenes where genius geeks track down online serial killers by sending little lines shooting across digital maps of North America, this could be for you.
At the MS-DOS prompt, type “tracert www.serialkillercentral.com” (tracert is short for tracer route). The tracert function will generate several lines of impressively obscure text and numbers describing the route your messages have to take to get to that website.
Another useful MS-DOS function is called ping. If you can’t reach your favourite website, check whether it’s up or down by typing “ping www.mg.co.za”. If you get a message saying “timed out”, there’s something wrong with it – which means you can relax knowing the problem isn’t at your end. When you get a result four lines long, dripping with times in milliseconds, you know that the website is still up, and theoretically reachable.
Hidden in your Windows directory is a file called winipcfg.exe. Double-click on it while you’re on the Net to find out what your Internet protocol address is. This can be useful.
There are those who, for some odd reason, hanker after the days of Windows 3.1. To recreate something of that little pocket of time, look through the Windows directory for Progman.exe. Clicking on it will bring up the Windows 3.1 program manager on your desktop. The old Windows 3.11 file manager is also there, called winfile.exe.
Many people run many programs simultaneously, and frequently find it difficult to get behind them to what’s on the desktop. Here are two ways of getting around this problem.
If your keyboard has a Windows key (the button with a little flying window usually situated between your Ctrl and Alt keys), try Windows-M, which minimises all your applications, making it easy to see the desktop. Alternatively, go back into Windows Explorer to the Windows directory. Look for the Desktop directory, and then drag it on to your Start button. Now you can go Start-Desktop to open a window showing all that lies upon your desktop. Mouse maniacs may choose to right-click an empty section of the task bar at the bottom of the display and select “minimise all windows”. Alt-tab switches between windows.
Coping with unnatural disasters is an essential skill for all Windows 95 users. The first step is to make the following keystrokes a regular reflex: Ctrl-S. Do that all the time and you shouldn’t ever lose too much work.
In the event of an actual crash, you may sometimes be able to get to some of your programs for last-minute manoeuvres by using the keystroke for raising the Start menu: Ctrl-Esc. Alternatively, use the classic Ctrl-Alt-Delete menu to try and shut down just the offending program. You may have to repeat this several times before it actually works. Chanting “Oh mighty Bill” under your breath is probably the logical incantation at such times.
Rebooting your system, even for good reasons, can sometimes be tedious. You can accelerate this process by holding down the Shift key as you go Start-Shutdown-Restart. That bypasses a complete system reboot, and just reboots Windows.
If you’re new to Windows, be sure to check out the keyboard shortcuts listed to the right of the Edit menu. The Ctrl-C (copy), Ctrl-X (cut) and Ctrl-V (paste) shortcuts apply fairly universally, and can make your life much easier. If you often find yourself shuffling bits and pieces of documents around, try highlighting some text, and then dragging it on to the desktop. The result is rather like having digital Post-Its.
I have one final piece of advice – a file hidden in your Windows directory called tips.txt. It provides you with many more suggestions of the kind I have supplied. I believe the logical place for such information would be a button labelled Tips emblazoned on the first page of the Help menu.
ENDS