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| Maintenance Wizard |
December 27th, 1998
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Included with Windows 98, the Windows Maintenance Wizard was designed to make the PC more self-maintainable. The
Wizard schedules tune-up jobs to be run automatically on a regular basis. Windows Maintenance Wizard will help
you by: Deleting unnecessary files. Making sure your hard disk is optimized and properly functioning. Launching
applications up to 36 percent faster (average). You can launch the Windows Maintenance Wizard from the System Tool
group off of the Start Menu (or look for TUNEUP.EXE in your \Windows folder). Features of the Windows Maintenance
Wizard include: Disk Defragmenter The new Disk Defragmenter uses the process of disk defragmentation to increase
the speed with which your most frequently used applications run. To accomplish, this Disk Defragmenter creates
a log file which identifies your most commonly used programs. Once this log file has been created, it can be used
by Disk Defragmenter to store the files associated with most commonly run programs (the files will be stored contiguously
on the hard disk). Placing all of the files associated with a given application in the same location on your hard
disk will optimize the speed with which your
application runs. ScanDisk Windows 98 has been enhanced to run ScanDisk automatically in the event the operating
system is shut downimproperly or your hard disk suffers a hard error. This feature will significantly help people
ensure that their hard drives are in proper working order, free of lost clusters, cross-linked files, etc.
Disk Cleanup Disk Cleanup is a tool in Windows 98 that automates the task of cleaning unwanted file off of the
hard disk, increasing free space. This tool is a especially useful to help users clean out Internet cache files
that can accumulate after browsing the Web. Additionally, this tool is customizable by the user to designate files
to remove.
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| December 20th, 1998 |
Mapping Remote Systems as Network Drives: |
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Mapping Remote Systems as Network Drives:
If you have a TCP/IP connection, and do a lot of FTPing from a specific site, why not add that site as a drive
icon on your desktop? First, you must create a file
called LMHOSTS in your Windows directory. Give it the following structure:
Ip-address alias # the octothorpe starts a comment
e.g.: 198.105.232.1 MSFTP # Microsoft's FTP site
Next, right-click on My Computer and select Map Network Drive... Select a drive letter, and in the Path: text box,
type the alias and a directory:
\\msftp\data
Select OK, and you're on. Note that this works best with Windows 95 and Windows NT FTP sites. It works more or
less with other FTP servers. It works just as
well over PPP as over a direct connection.
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| Fix Broken Start Menus: |
December 13th, 1998
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Sometimes people experience the problem of having a Start menu, which is empty and
cannot be modified. One possible cause: If the c:\windows\"Start Menu" directory is modified (particularly
if anything is deleted) from the MSDOS prompt, Windows 95 will decide that the start menu is invalid. The Start
Menu is empty, and if you try to add anything to it, you get "Unable to add to Start Menu" or a similar
message. Solution:
1.If there are still subfolders and links in c:\windows\"Start Menu" that you can access from the Explorer,
copy these to another folder as backup.
2.Restart the computer, and when you see "Starting Windows 95..." press F8 to get to the startup menu.
Choose "Command Prompt Only."
3.At the c:\ prompt, change to the windows directory and "deltree startm~1". Reboot the computer.
4.When Windows 95 reloads, it will find that rather than being invalid, the Start Menu simply isn't there. It will
then create a valid Start Menu.
5.At this point you can go to Start / Settings / Taskbar / Start Menu / Advanced and start copying back in the
shortcuts you backed up in step one, or you can run
GRPCONV.EXE to get your basic icons back, and reinstall or create the other links by hand to get your icons back.
6. Now you have a Start Menu again.
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| December 6th, 1998 |
Trace Internet Routes:
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Included with Windows 95 is a program called Trace Route. Open a Dos window and type tracert <location name>.
The location name can be any ip address ornumber, for example www.microsoft.com. The program will the trace the
route from your internet provider to that location, and show you every computer system along the way. Watch as
you jump from cost to cost and over oceans via satelites and high speed connections instantly. Also very useful
for when you can't connect to a site - it will show you if something is down along the way.
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