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October 1998
	Win98's FAT32 File System October 25th, 1998 Windows 98 can give you more space on your hard drive by using the enhanced file system FAT32 (FAT stands for file allocation table). FAT32 stores files on your hard drive much more efficiently than the original FAT in Windows 95. Here's how: the minimum space needed to store a file in most Windows 95-based PCs is fairly large-32K clusters (a minimum useable piece of hard drive real estate). In Windows 98, they've reduced the minimum space needed to store anything to 4K clusters. Based on the reduced cluster size, on average you can expect as much as 28 percent more hard drive space. And who can't use a little more hard drive space? Why not check it out for yourself? Microsoft has made available a small FAT32 utility that you can download and run on your Win95 system. It's a quick and easy way to see just how much space you could gain by using Windows 98 and converting to the enhanced FAT32 file system. Click Here to download the FAT32 utility now (only 40K). Once downloaded, extract the contents of Fat32win.zip to your location of choice, then double-click the resulting Fat32win.exe file to run the utility. Once inside, just select a drive and click Scan. October 18th, 1998 More Folder Options Windows 98, with its integrated Internet Explorer 4, now offers you far more options for customizing your folders than ever before. There are many ways to do this, but for starters, go to Start, Settings, Folder Options. Right away you're faced with three choices for global folder appearance and behavior. The three choices are; Web Style, Classic and Custom. Web Style gives you the full integration of IE4, with single-clickaccess to shortcuts, channels on the desktop, etc. Classic gives you the old familiar Win95 type interface, while Custom lets you chose the best features from both. For more click here's. Disk Cleanup October 11th, 1998 Included in Windows 98, Disk Cleanup can help you free your hard drive of unnecessary files. Disk Cleaner is a non-critical file removal tool that can scan your hard drive for entire classes of files that are seldom used. For example, lost clusters, zero-byte files, or even screen savers or help files, and allow you to quickly delete them. Disk Cleanup can also search your drives, and then list temporary files, Internet cache files, and unnecessary program files that you can safely delete. October 4th, 1998 System Configuration Utility Windows 98's System Configuration Utility (Msconfig.exe, located in Windows\System) automates the routine troubleshooting steps that Microsoft Technical Support engineers use when diagnosing issues with the Windows 98 configuration. This tool permits you to modify the system configuration through a process of elimination with check boxes, reducing the risk of typing errors previously associated with Notepad and System Configuration Editor. System Configuration Utility also can create a backup copy of your system files before you begin a troubleshooting session. Create backup copies of your system files to ensure that the modifications made during your troubleshooting session can be reversed. Clicking on the Advanced button brings up the advanced troubleshooting options. The Advanced Troubleshooting Settings dialog box provides further options to narrow the scope of configuration issues with Windows 98. These options will invoke many of the diagnostic switches for Windows 98 (equivalent to WIN.COM /D:). The options provided include the ability to: Disable 32-bit disk access Force the display to VGA Limit the memory used by Windows 98 Enable the Startup Menu Disable ScanDisk after bad shutdowns Enable or disable SCSI Double-buffering
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