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- 5 -
Startup Shortcuts


An efficient machine is only as fast as the operator using it. If you can't use all the speed your machine provides, part of that speed is lost, and you might as well not look for anything faster. I've found that Windows 3.x users—like me—have developed some terrible habits because of that operating system's inefficiencies. For example, do you automatically assume that the machine's going to be tied up every time you use the modem? I know that's what I thought when I started using Windows NT.

Making an experiment, I tried performing a background download with one additional task running—my word processor. The download completed in the background at 9600 baud without a single missed character while I worked in the foreground. The next day I decided to add another task. This time, I compiled a program in one background session, downloaded a few files in another, and typed away in a third. I was ecstatic, to say the least. Everything went perfectly. I tried a third task and fourth task—Windows NT handled everything without a hitch. Of course, you're going to run into a wall somewhere along the way; no machine in the world can keep adding tasks without eventually running out of resources to handle them. I did try the same experiment with Windows 95 loaded on the same machine, keeping everything but the operating system the same as before. Everything bombed after I added the third task. Windows 95 might be more flexible, but research shows that Windows NT will handle more tasks on the same machine given its superior architecture.



Looking Ahead: Part III, "A Look Under the Hood," looks at the architectural details of Windows NT. Pay special attention to Chapters 6, "An Architectural Overview," and 8, "Memory Management," for a better understanding of how architecture plays a special role in allowing Windows NT to handle a lot of tasks better than Windows 95. You should also think about how the same architecture that enables you to perform more tasks restricts the kinds of tasks you can perform.

What's the moral of this story? I don't think any operating system will ever be able to perform every task there is to perform and simultaneously communicate in the background. You need to have the required resources if you want to get the job done. In my case, three or four tasks in addition to the background download are about all my machine can handle.

I did learn something important, though. Using Windows NT allowed me to get three times the amount of work done that I would have accomplished under Windows 3.x in this particular instance. I want to emphasize that point because the new and exciting methods Windows NT introduces can be very inefficient, too.



Peter's Principle: Discovering Your Maximum Load—Without the Pain of Failure

Windows 3.x provided so many visual cues that I almost always knew when it was time to stop adding tasks by the way it acted. That old-shoe feel doesn't come with Windows NT because you really haven't had a chance to break it in yet. Until you do start learning the little quirks that tell you when it's time to stop adding new tasks, you can do a few things to keep your system from crashing.

Unlike Windows 3.x, Windows NT actually comes with some easy-to-use tools that keep track of your system resources. I keep a copy of Resource Meter loaded all the time, for example. (This isn't the Resource Monitor application that I described previously; Resource Meter is a small utility designed to track system resources.) A quick check of the Taskbar tells me just how low I'm getting on system resources. (For more information about this utility, see Chapter 3, "Performance Primer.") I also run Resource Monitor as needed to keep track of how certain tasks load the processor and disk subsystems. As a result, I'm learning to use Windows NT's capabilities more efficiently.

Now that you have a user-friendly operating system that can actually run more than a couple of tasks at a time without dying, you need to learn how to use it efficiently. Task loading is a new technique that all of the old hands will have to learn.


This chapter looks at some of the ways you can make yourself a little more efficient so that you can get the full benefits of using Windows NT as an operating system. This means everything from the way you start your applications to the way you arrange your desktop. Windows NT provides many new tools you can use to make each step a little faster.

The Windows NT Shortcut and OLE


I'm not going to spend much time talking about OLE specifically in this section. Other chapters of the book cover the mechanics of OLE. Chapter 12, "DDE and OLE," spends a lot of time discussing OLE from a user's perspective. The programmer's point of view appears in Chapter 7, "Understanding the Windows NT Registry." What I do is take some time to look at one unique way that Windows NT uses OLE.

Every shortcut you create is a form of OLE. It's an actual link to another object on your machine. Windows NT provides some special handling for these objects.

Unlike an application that can create compound documents to hold all the linking information, Windows NT has to store that information someplace on the drive. After all, the drive is the container that Windows NT uses to store information. The .LNK file is Windows NT's answer to this problem. It contains all the linking information needed to keep the shortcuts on your desktop current with the real object.

You can easily test this by creating a shortcut of a folder on your desktop. Every change you make to the real folder will appear in the linked copy. Likewise, every change you make in the linked copy will appear in the real thing. OLE and the desktop are a part of Windows NT—a new part that will take time to get used to.

Faster Startups


Starting an application might not seem like a big deal. It wasn't a big deal under Windows 3.x. After all, how many different ways can you double-click an application icon sitting in a folder in Program Manager? Windows NT provides more than just one or two ways to start your applications.

Because I grew up using DOS, I really hated using the mouse just to start an application, so I didn't. Few users really understood this, but you can make Windows 3.x somewhat keyboard friendly by installing shortcut keys. Windows NT provides this same feature.

If all Windows NT provided were this particular shortcut, I could stop right here and let you read some text on Windows 3.x. Even though Windows NT uses the same type of shortcut method, the implementation is a lot better. I also discuss some "undocumented" ways of using the keyboard.

Sometimes, you really do need to use the mouse—if for no other reason than the fact your hand is resting on it at that particular moment. Like many people, I spend my share of time mousing around. CorelDRAW! and other drawing programs come in handy for some of the work I do. Using the mouse is nothing new for most people.

Windows NT provides a lot of neat ways to use the mouse with your applications. You'll find that you can do a lot of things you couldn't do before with a simple mouse click. I examine some of these mouse techniques in this section.

Startups from the Keyboard


Nothing beats the keyboard if DOS was your home before you moved to Windows NT. A quick look at the Windows NT GUI tells you that most of your keyboard techniques won't work here. Some people figure that there's no way to use any of the old techniques, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Some shortcut keys come installed with Windows NT. I find that many of them are attached to the Accessibility Options, but you can change all that with a just a little effort (I tell you how later in this section). Table 5.1 provides a list of keystrokes and the actions they perform. You're probably familiar with most of them, but others are new to Windows NT.



Note: Windows NT doesn't provide any way to get to the Control (system) menu using just the keyboard. This means that you'll have to use the MouseKeys feature of the Accessibility Options to move windows and perform other Control-menu–related functions when using the keyboard instead of the mouse.


Table 5.1. Windows NT shortcut keys.

Key or Key Combination Purpose
Alt+F4 Ends the current application. You can also use this key combination to end Windows if you're at the desktop.
Alt+Shift+Tab Switches to the previous window.
Alt+Tab Switches to the next window.
Ctrl+Esc Opens the Start menu on the Taskbar. You can then use the arrow keys to select an application. Pressing Enter starts the application you selected.
Esc Cancels the last action in most cases. You can't back out of some actions, however.
F1 Displays online help. In most cases, this help is general in nature but is application-specific.
F2 Pressing this while an icon is highlighted allows you to change the object name.
F3 Unless your application uses this key for something else, you can press it to access the Find dialog box. In most cases, you'll get better results if you press F3 while at the desktop. You can also use this key at the Taskbar and the Start menu.
Left Alt+Left Shift+Num Lock Holding down these three keys turns on the MouseKeys feature of the Accessibility Options.
Left Alt+Left Shift+Print Screen Holding down these three keys turns on the High Contrast feature of the Accessibility Options.
Num Lock Holding the Num Lock key down for five seconds turns on the ToggleKeys feature of the Accessibility Options.
Right Shift Holding the Right Shift key down for eight seconds turns on the FilterKeys feature of the Accessibility Options.
Shift five times Pressing the Shift key five times turns on the StickyKeys feature of the Accessibility Options.
Shift+F1 Displays context-sensitive help when the application supports it. The Windows NT desktop doesn't appear to support this option.
Shift+F10 You must select an object before you use this key combination. It displays the context menu. Considering the number of options on the context menu, this key combination allows you to do almost anything with the object.
Tab Use this key while at the desktop to switch between the desktop, Taskbar, and Start menu. You also can use Ctrl+Esc to bring up the Start menu and then press Tab to switch between applications.


Tip: Combining the various keystrokes makes them much more powerful. What if you have a lot of applications open and need to quickly get to the desktop, for example? Use Ctrl+Esc to display the Start menu, Esc to close the menu itself, Tab to get to the Taskbar, and Shift+F10 to display the context menu. All you need to do now is select Minimize All Windows and press Enter. Pressing Tab one more time takes you to the desktop.

Windows NT provides two additional methods of using the keyboard to start applications. You can use the Windows 3.x method of assigning a shortcut key to the application. Windows NT also offers automated methods of starting some applications.

Undocumented Parameters

The first program you need to learn about in order to use this section of the book is START. At first, I couldn't figure out what use this program would really have. Then, I started playing with it and figured out a few ways you could use START if you learned about the undocumented parameters that most Windows applications provide. The following are some documented parameters that START provides:

All this is fine if you want to run a Windows application from DOS. This information doesn't really become useful until you can get some work done in Windows without leaving the DOS prompt, however. What would happen if you wanted to gain the advantage of Windows background printing while performing other work at the DOS prompt? You could switch back to Windows, start Notepad or some other appropriate application, load your file, and print, but that would disrupt what you were doing. The following line shows an easier, faster, and much better method:


START /M NOTEPAD /P SOMEFILE.TXT

You need to take a look at a few things here. The first is the /P parameter right after NOTEPAD. Where did I get it? It isn't documented anywhere. All you have to do is look in Explorer.

Take a look at this now. Open Explorer. It doesn't matter what directory you're viewing or how it's configured. Use the View | Options command to display the Options dialog box. Click the File Types tab. Scroll through the file types until you see an entry for Text Document. Highlight it and click Edit. Click Print and then Edit. You should see a display similar to Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1. Windows NT hides a wealth of information. It's a treasure hunt; make sure you spend enough time digging.

Now you can see where I found the /P parameter. Click Cancel three times to return to the main Explorer display. Every other registered application will provide the same type of information. Some of them will be a little too complex to use from the DOS prompt, but you could use them if you wanted to. The whole idea of this shortcut is that you get to stay at the DOS prompt and still use the new features that Windows provides.



Tip: Just about every Windows application provides undocumented command-line switches. Even though you can only guess what those switches are in most cases, you can usually count on the application supporting one or two switches. The /P parameter almost always enables you to print using that application. Some applications also provide a /W parameter that suppresses the display of any opening screens. Looking through the Explorer file listings will provide you with additional ideas.

You need to consider a few other caveats. Notice how I formatted my command line. You must place the START program command-line switches first and then list the application name, the application switches, and any filenames. If you change this order, the application will usually start, but it'll report some type of error in opening your file. I've even had some applications insist that the file isn't present on my drive.

Shortcut Keys

After you spend some time with Windows NT, you'll discover that it's a lot more user friendly than Windows 3.x. I find that I spend a lot less time at the DOS prompt now because I can get just about everything accomplished without it. That still doesn't make me happy about moving my hand from the keyboard to the mouse to start a new application, though.

Remember the first section of this chapter when I talked about the desktop and OLE? This is one of those times when that fact comes into play. To make use of the shortcuts Windows NT provides, you have to create a shortcut. It doesn't matter where the shortcut is, but it must be a shortcut.



Tip: Every entry on the Start menu is a shortcut. If your application appears on the Start menu, you already have a shortcut to use. If it doesn't appear on the Start menu, add it there or on the desktop.

To get the ball rolling, look at the Notepad shortcut on the Start menu. All you need to do is open the Start menu (press Ctrl+Esc and then Esc), open the context menu (Shift+F10), and select Explore. Use a combination of the arrow keys and Enter to get to the Notepad shortcut. Press Shift+F10 to display Notepad's context menu. Select Properties and press Enter. Select the Shortcut tab. You should see a display similar to Figure 5.2.

Figure 5.2. The Shortcut tab of the Properties dialog box enables you to add a shortcut key to an application or to another shortcut.

The Shortcut field of this dialog box is where you enter the shortcut key combination you want to use. To save the setting, just close the dialog box as normal by clicking on OK. The next time you press that key combination, Windows NT will open the application for you.

Startups from the Desktop


Windows NT comes installed with several applications already on the desktop. If you decide to install Exchange, you'll find it there. The Microsoft Network icon is also connected to an application. Just like the icons on the Start menu, none of these icons represents the actual application. You create a shortcut to the application, just like you would for the Start menu.

Of course, the big question is why you would even consider adding an application shortcut to the desktop. The big reason is convenience: It's faster to grab an application on the desktop than to burrow through several layers of menu to find it. Of course, your desktop has only so much space, so placing all your applications here would lead to a cluttered environment very quickly.

Placing on the desktop the one or two applications you use regularly could mean an increase in efficiency, however. Just think about how nice it would be if your word processor or communications program were a double-click away. You could open them as needed and close them immediately after you finished using them. This would mean that the applications you used most would still be handy, but they would be out of the way and wouldn't use up precious memory.



Tip: Keyboard users will probably get the same response time by using shortcut keys instead of placing their applications on the desktop. Not only will this give you a neater-looking desktop, but it'll also reduce the number of redundant links your computer has to maintain.

Placing a shortcut to your application on the desktop might provide an increase in efficiency, but double-clicking isn't the only way to open an application. The next few sections describe other ways you can access your applications faster by placing shortcuts to them on the desktop. I also look at something new for Windows NT in the section "The Data-Oriented Approach to Applications." You owe it to yourself to get out of the application-centric mode and take the new data-centric approach.

Click Starts

Right-clicking is new to Windows NT. Previous chapters took a quick look at the context menu. It's such an important concept, however, that I wanted to take a special look at right-clicking for applications. Figure 5.3 shows the context menu for an application.

Figure 5.3. Right-clicking on an application shortcut produces a context menu.

To start an application with the context menu, all you need to do is select the Open option. This has the same effect as double-clicking, but it might be more convenient if you have slower fingers. Some people really do have a hard time getting the double-click to work. This new method of starting an application has the advantage of requiring only a single click.

I was kind of curious about the Quick View option on this menu. If you select it, you'll see a dialog box similar to Figure 5.4. The majority of the information here is stuff that only a programmer could love. At first glance, you do see some useful information, such as the name of the program and the version of Windows that it expects to find on your machine. You might even be able to use some of the information here to determine the amount of memory that your application needs to run.

Figure 5.4. The View option for executable files provides information about how the application works.

In reality, this isn't the information you want to see because you can determine most of it using other methods. This view provides some special information that makes it easier for you to figure out which files to remove the next time you need to get rid of an old application. If you scroll down a bit, you'll notice a heading that reads Imported-Name Table (Link-Time Imports), as shown in Figure 5.5.

Figure 5.5. The Imported-Name Table heading is what you really want to look at in this view.



Note: Some of the newer 32-bit applications don't provide any kind of "special" information. Don't be surprised if you open some of the new applications in Windows NT using Quick View and find nothing at all except some cryptic information that doesn't help you much. The newer Microsoft compilers tend to hide the Imported-Name Table and other features found in older applications.

Look at the list of files underneath the Imported-Name Table heading. All of them are somewhere on your drive—usually in the application folder or the \WINNT\SYSTEM or \WINNT\SYSTEM32 folders. Unlike Windows 3.1, where it took some major tinkering to discover the files you needed to run an application, Windows NT makes this information easy to find.

Use this information when you need remove an application from your system. This view will help you come up with a list of files to delete. Of course, you don't want to delete any files that another application needs, so you'll have to carefully prune this list so that it reflects only the files that are unique to a particular application. This list has another problem as well: It provides only one level of import file support. If one of the support files calls yet another group of files, you won't see that file here. Fortunately, you can also get to this view using other types of Windows executables. Make sure you look through the entire hierarchy before you consider your list of files complete.

This isn't the end of the story. You can use this information to your advantage in another way. Have you ever had an application that refused to start? It gave you some cryptic message that looked like it was written in Klingon and then killed itself and perhaps a few other applications. Once you got past this point, Windows displayed that helpful message about not finding one of the components needed to run the application. The Quick View dialog box can help you get past this situation. Coming up with a list of DLLs and other support files needed by the application is the first step in getting it to run. Next, check the application and the \WIN95\SYSTEM directory. As soon as you find which one of the files is missing, replace it and voilã, no more mystery message.

Auto Starts

If you used Windows 3.x, you probably used the Startup folder to run specific applications every time you started your machine. Windows NT provides the same feature. All you need to do is add an application to the Startup folder to allow it to run automatically. I always start a copy of Explorer this way so that my machine is ready to use the instant Windows completes the boot process.

Windows NT can do something that Windows 3.x couldn't. I usually drag the data files I'm going to be working on for the next few days into my Startup folder. The reason is simple: Not only do I automatically start the application associated with that data file, but I also automatically load the file itself. This makes morning startups extremely efficient. When I get back to Windows after starting it, my machine is completely set up for use. Every application I need is already loaded with the files I want to edit.



Peter's Principle: Becoming Too Efficient for Your Own Good

Have you ever seen the "ransom note" effect produced by someone who has just discovered the joy of using multiple fonts in a document? To that person, it looks like the most incredible document he has ever produced. The rest of us think the document is pretty incredible too, but not for the same reason.

You can get into the same kind of habit with Windows NT and its advanced features. Consider the Startup folder. It would be easy for people to load every document they think they'll use for the entire week so that the documents would be ready when they booted the machine the next morning.

The best way to use this feature is to think about what you plan to do first thing the next morning or perhaps for the majority of the day. Don't open more than two or three documents unless they all use the same application. Someone who works on the same document, such as a writer, can really benefit from this feature. People who create presentations or work on other documents for long periods of time can also benefit. If you work a little bit on one document and then a little bit on another one, however, you might be better off starting the main application you use and letting it go at that.


How do you add entries to the Startup folder? The procedure is the same as it is for any other folder. The following steps show you a quick way to do it using some of the new features that Windows NT provides.

  1. Right-click the Taskbar to display the context menu. Select the Properties option. Click the Start Menu Programs tab. You should see the Taskbar Properties dialog box, shown in Figure 5.6.

  2. Click the Add button. You should see the Create Shortcut dialog box shown in Figure 5.7.

    Figure 5.6. The Taskbar Properties dialog box enables you to add new programs to the Start menu using a menu-driven interface.

    Figure 5.7. The Create Shortcut dialog box is where you provide the name of the application or file that you want to add to the folder.

  3. Click the Browse button to look for the file you want to add. As an alternative, you can type the full path and filename right into the Command Line field of this dialog box. Click Next. You should see the Select Program Folder dialog box, shown in Figure 5.8. This dialog box enables you to select the location of the shortcut in the Start menu. In this case, you should select the Startup folder, but you could just as easily select something else. Notice that you can add a new folder as well.

  4. Scroll through the list of folders and highlight the Startup folder. Click Next. You should see the Select a Title for the Program dialog box, shown in Figure 5.9, which is the final dialog box of the process. It allows you to change the name of the shortcut. Using a name you can remember is the best idea. Changing the name here won't change the name of the file, only the shortcut.

    Figure 5.8. The Select Program Folder dialog box.

    Figure 5.9. The Select a Title for the Program dialog box.

  5. Type the name you want associated with this file. This is the entry that will appear in the Startup folder. It won't affect the actual name of the file.

  6. Click Finish to complete the task and then click OK to close the Taskbar Properties dialog box.

Once you complete this task, the application or data file you added to the Startup folder will load automatically each time you start Windows NT. Getting your system set up efficiently means that you can do a little extra reading or perform some other task while you wait for everything to load. Of course, adding a file to the load sequence won't make it load faster, but it will give you a bigger block of time.

Controlled Starts

I won't spend a lot of time on this category of starting your application because you're already familiar with most of what you can do here. Everyone is familiar with double-clicking an application to start it. The fact that Windows NT provides so many places to double-click doesn't really change the mechanics one iota. It might be useful, though, to take a quick look at the number of ways you can double-click to start an application. The following list does just that.



Tip: Double-clicking under Windows 3.x always meant that you started the application. Windows NT has no such limitation. You can assign other default actions to an application or its data folder. Instead of unzipping when I double-click a ZIP file, for example, the file reveals its contents for viewing. You could make opening and printing the default actions for a word processing file instead of just opening. The number of ways you can use this feature is unlimited.

Well, that's the long and short of double-clicking. You can always use the old controlled start method we all know and love to start an application. I hope this section provided some food for thought on other—perhaps better—ways of using the Windows NT interface.

The Data-Oriented Approach to Applications


Windows NT really shines when it comes to data. In fact, the whole interface is oriented toward data-centric access. You can force it to work the Windows 3.x way, but Windows NT will give you a lot less grief and a lot more efficiency if you start thinking about your data first and your application second. The next few sections discuss some of the tools that Windows NT provides to make a data-oriented approach a lot easier.

Using Explorer to Get the Job Done


Several of the sections of this book have already taken a long, hard look at Explorer. I haven't really discussed one important feature, though. No longer are you tied to one specific action when it comes to data on your machine. If you've looked at the various context menus I presented in this and other sections, you'll notice that you can always do more than one thing to a particular file.

What you might not have realized is that the actions you saw are all under your control. You don't have to do things the Windows NT way; you can do them any way that feels comfortable and allows you to get your work done faster. This is a nice change from the rather rigid tools Windows 3.x provided. Let's take a look at how you can add a new file extension and then define a set of actions associated with that file.



Tip: The first time you double-click a file that lacks a file association, Windows NT will ask which application you want to use to open it. You can choose an application that is already on the list or use the browse feature to find a new one. Windows NT defines only one action for this new association—open. Always take the time to modify that file association and add options for all the ways you plan to work with it. That way, the context menu associated with it will be completely set up the next time you right-click the file or any like it.

  1. Open a copy of Explorer.

  2. Use the View | Options command to open the Options dialog box. Click the File Types tab. You should see a dialog box similar to Figure 5.10.

    Figure 5.10. The File Types tab of the Options dialog box enables you to add, remove, and modify file associations.

  3. Click New Type to display the New Type dialog box.

  4. Fill in the first two fields as shown in Figure 5.11. The first field describes what kind of file it is. This is the text you'll see in various listboxes. The second field contains the exact file extension.

    Figure 5.11. The Add New File Type dialog box contains several fields that you use to describe a file's association to an application.



    Tip: One problem you might encounter is thinking about file extensions in the DOS/Windows 3.x format. Remember that Windows NT supports long filenames, including long file extensions, as shown in Figure 5.11. You can define new file extensions that are more than three characters long. Windows NT even allows some alternative characters in this format. You could have a file extension of Word_Document if you wanted to, for example. One character you should avoid is the period (for obvious reasons).

  5. Now you need to define some actions for this association. Click the New button. Fill out the information as shown in Figure 5.12. This is just one way to fill out this dialog box. Wordpad uses a command-line interface, so all you need to do is indicate the Application used to perform the Action section of the dialog box. Click OK.

    Figure 5.12. This dialog box shows one type of file association entry. It uses command-line parameters.

  6. Create the same kind of entry for Notepad. Make sure you substitute NOTEPAD.EXE for the location and change the path as necessary. Also change the Action to read Open with Notepad.

  7. Click the New button. Fill out the information as shown in Figure 5.13 (you'll see the DDE specific fields appear when you enable the Use DDE checkbox). This second type of association might look overly complicated, but it really isn't. It's the DDE format of a file association and an extremely powerful way to manage your data files. The DDE instructions form what equates to macros. They actually force the application to perform the same types of tasks that you would accomplish using a menu or the product's built-in macro capability. Chapter 12 discusses this topic at greater length. If your application provides DDE support, you really owe it to yourself to use it. Click OK.

    Figure 5.13. The DDE entry in this dialog box enables you to include macro-like instructions that control the way the application works with the file.

  8. Create the DDE dialog box shown in Figure 5.14 to add some additional support for this new file association. This DDE macro enables you to print the file using Microsoft Word. The DDE Application Not Running field is incomplete in the figure because it was too long to fit in the area provided. Here is the complete entry: [FileOpen(""%1"")][FilePrint .Background = 0][FileExit(2)]. After you finish this entry, click OK. Your Edit File Type dialog box should now look like Figure 5.15. Notice the two checkboxes near the bottom of the dialog box. The second allows you to display the file extension at all times. Usually, you would leave this off to make it easier to rename files in Explorer without accidentally changing their extensions. Because this is an ASCII file, you would probably turn on the first checkbox, Enable Quick View. This enables you to use the Quick View utility provided with Windows NT.

    Figure 5.14. This DDE file shows you how to print a file using the same type of macro commands you used to open the file.

    Figure 5.15. Here are the completed entries for this Edit New File Type dialog box.

  9. Highlight Open With Notepad and click Set Default. This sets the double-click action for the file type. You can right-click to display the full context menu and use a different application to open the file, but this is the default action. You might also want to change the icon. I used the Notepad icon, but you could use any of those provided by the applications in this group or within an icon file. Click Close to complete the process. Click Close to close the Options dialog box.

  10. Create a new file with an extension of .ASCII. I placed my copy on the desktop for sample purposes, but you could put your copy anywhere.

  11. Right-click the file. You should see a list of opening options similar to Figure 5.16. Notice that Open With Notepad is highlighted, indicating that this entry is the default setting.

Figure 5.16. The final result of our new file association is an extended context menu that allows any one of three applications to open the file.

You could do a few additional things to extend this new file association. Chapter 7 tells you all about the registry and the file association entries there. Pay special attention to the section "Special Extension Subkeys." Because you just added a new text file entry to the list of file associations, you could use the registry to add a ShellX entry to it as well. That way, when you right-click the desktop or within Explorer, you see the new file extension as one of the files you could create using the New option of the context menu. In most cases, there won't be a convenient method to add this support, but you should use it whenever possible.

This example of adding a new file association also shows you something else. Productivity under Windows NT is as much a matter of how you configure the desktop and the file associations as it is anything else. Being able to use your machine's speed is what this data-centric approach to computing is all about.

Folders: A Real Organizational Tool


I really hate it when someone creates a new name for something I've been using for a long time. It's like throwing out a perfectly useable set of clothes because fashion has changed or giving someone a new title in order to be politically correct. That's how I used to feel about the use of the term folder under Windows NT. As far as I was concerned, it was a new name for directories.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Folders are not directories. They might look similar and provide about same functionality when viewed from a certain perspective, but folders do provide some features that directories don't. I'm still not as happy as I could be about the name switch, but at least it makes sense.

How do folders help you work efficiently? Figure 5.17 shows one way. Folders support a context menu. Like most of the objects in Windows NT, you can open and explore them. This isn't really all that surprising by now. I was a little surprised, however, when I saw that you could copy and paste folders just like any other object. Putting a group of files in a folder enables you to move an entire project from place to place or make a copy of the data for someone else to use. It's actually faster to use folders than it is to type the required commands at the DOS prompt—something I thought I would never see.

Figure 5.17. The folder context menu tells it all when it comes to the intelligence that this new form of directory possesses.



Tip: One of the ways that using NTFS instead of the FAT file system helps is that you get two additional context menu entries: Compress and Uncompress. Their purpose is pretty clear—you can use these options to compress a folder until you need it later. Choosing the uncompress option returns the folder to its normal state. This particular feature isn't just for folders; you can use it for anything else on the NTFS drive as well. (This option won't work on network drives—at least not at the time of this writing.)

The Sharing option of the context menu enables you to share the folder with other folks on the network. Chapter 22, "Client/Server Networking," covers this feature in greater detail.

You'll find the Send To option useful. This option enables you to place the folder somewhere else. Default locations include the floppy drives and your Briefcase. You can even send the folder to Microsoft Exchange. Imagine using e-mail to send the folder to a partner or coworker who needs to see the information you've put together so far. Unlike past experiences in which I had to get all the files together and zip them up, this option is fairly convenient and makes the work flow smoother.

I use the Create Shortcut option to create a link to the existing file. Then I move the shortcut to my desktop or some other convenient place. Each shortcut uses 1KB of memory, a small price to pay for the convenience they provide.

Chapters 2, "Exploring the Interface," and 21, "Peer-to-Peer Networking," cover the Properties option in greater detail. The Properties dialog box will illustrate how files and folders share many of the same characteristics.

Desktop Tips and Techniques


I've moved to a totally data-centric approach on my desktop when it comes to projects. All I do is create a folder, give it a project name, and then gather shortcuts to everything I need for that project in that folder. It doesn't matter anymore where the data resides or what application I need to use to open the file. The only important element is that I have a data file that needs editing, so I open the project folder and double-click its icon.

This data-centric approach is very important for managers. Think about the time you'll save by putting one folder together and then mailing that folder to all the people who have to work on it. You control the location of the data and the type of access these people have. They need to know only that the data exists and that they access it as needed. All the other information that you needed when working under DOS or Windows 3.x is no longer important.

Of course, like everything else under Windows NT, all is not perfect with the totally data-centric approach. Even Microsoft agrees with me on this issue. They placed your Inbox, Recycle Bin, My Computer, and Network Neighborhood on the desktop for a reason. Sometimes, you need to open an application instead of a piece of data.

I keep my communications program handy on the desktop. I can't really access any of its data from outside the application. My database manager also sits on the desktop, but that's for a different reason. I use Access to design databases more often than I use it for data entry, so, for me, it's really more important to work with the application.

You'll probably run into situations in which the application is more important than the data. The bottom line is that you should try to work with the data first. If this proves to be an inconvenient solution, the data-centric approach probably isn't correct for that situation. The following is a list of some of the types of data I work with using the project folder approach I just described. You probably have some of these applications.


Setups for a Multiuser Workstation


Unlike with Windows 95, someone will probably use your Windows NT workstation when you're not around. Multiple profiles enable everyone to customize their desktops to suit their particular needs. Security keeps prying eyes away from your desktop and the data it contains. You aren't going to want to make every piece of data a secret, however, and installing applications more than once just so each profile gets a copy seems like more of a nightmare than an aid to computing.

Windows NT has an alternative that Windows 95 doesn't offer. When you use Explorer to view the Profiles area, you'll see an All Users folder that isn't really attached to anyone, as shown in Figure 5.18. Looking at this folder might give you a few ideas about how it's used. It contains both a Start Menu and a Desktop folder.

Figure 5.18. Windows NT makes provisions for multiple users on one machine by adding the All Users folder.

Using the Start Menu feature has pretty obvious benefits. When a network administrator completes a software installation, he simply moves the Start Menu entries for it from his profile folder to the All Users folder. The next time you log onto the workstation, you'll see the same application set that everyone else does—derived from the All Users folder. Any additional applications appear in your profile folder alone.



Tip: Using the All Users folder to full advantage has a couple of added features that you'll want to consider. First, you won't spend nearly as much time setting up a new user on your workstation. All the common applications and data folders they'll need to start work will be available to them as a default. You'll also find that this feature comes in handy when someone's profile gets corrupted. Instead of starting from scratch with a new profile, all you'll need to add are any special applications or shortcuts that the person had before the profile got corrupted.

I use the Desktop folder in a unique way. What if there were a lot of people working on one project? Adding data-centric shortcuts to everyone's desktop would take a lot of administrator time. If you place that shortcut in the Desktop folder found in the All Users folder, though, everyone would see it on their desktop without any additional effort on your part.

OK, so this particular setup has a problem. What if everyone who uses your workstation, except one person, needs that application or file? I'll show you a technique for assigning individual security to a particular folder or application in the "Using the Security Page of the File or Folder Properties Dialog Box" section of Chapter 23. All you need to do is lock that person out of the folder or application. He'll see it on his desktop, but he won't be able to access it. I'm not going to say that this is a perfect solution, but it does work and it'll reduce the amount of work you need to do without losing one iota of security.

Setups on a Network


Don't think that shortcuts are something for your local machine alone. I use them all the time in a network setup. All you need to do is place the files for a particular project on the network and then place the appropriate shortcuts on the machines of the people in your work group.

If you're running a Windows NT server, you're all set. Some people with NetWare networks will run into a small problem that's not all that obvious at first. What do you do about long filenames in this situation? Do you just give them up? You don't have to do anything of the kind, but the fix for this problem is less than obvious.

All you need to do is load OS/2 name space support on your file server, apply it to the volumes where you want to add long filenames, add the load command to your AUTOEXEC.NCF file, and reboot the server. You need to have console access to do this. Once you reboot the server, you'll have to reboot all the machines on the network as well. Just logging back into the network won't work because Windows has a memory that you have to erase before you can use that long filename support. That's all there is to it.

On Your Own


Try adding a shortcut to the Startup folder on your desktop. Place any work that you'll need to do tomorrow there tonight. Watch what happens when you start your machine tomorrow morning. You should get a desktop that has all the work you need to do loaded automatically.

Start separating your work into projects if possible. Place each project in a separate folder on the desktop. Use separate folders if necessary to make it easier to find a particular kind of data. You might need to place your graphics files in one subfolder to keep them from crowding the text files, for example.

Look through your drives for data files that Windows NT can't associate with a particular application. Add any new file extensions that you might need to Explorer using the procedure discussed earlier. Check out each new association as you add it. Does the new addition work as anticipated? Evaluate the results you get after a few weeks to see if you need to add more options to the data file's context menu.

Try placing an application in the All Users folder. Does everyone who uses your workstation see it? Now, sit down with the people who use your machine and decide which applications should go into this area. Add any common folders to the desktop area of the All Users folder as well.

Add OS/2 name space support to your NetWare 3.1x file server. If you have the NetWare 3.11 file server, you'll need to apply a patch before you can use the OS/2 name space.

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