The Best of Windows 95 Shareware/The Best of Windows 95 Shareware (Wayzata Technology)(1996).ISO/pc/faqs/4.txt

Text File | 1995-12-05 | 24KB | 460 lines

Tips on Windows '95
By John Calandrino
Version 1.2
For the month of NOVEMBER

ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT:

+ Sorry it was late this month... it usually comes out on the first of
  the month.

+ I encourage you to distribute this file. However, it should not have
  been altered in any way (especially things like the author's name and
  the rest of the heading above). If you are confused about this
  distribution policy of mine in any way, just E-mail me in the same
  place everyone else will: [e-mail] (that's J CALANDR for AOL
  users who don't want to type an I-net address).

+ This file is separated into different parts, each of which is updated
  monthly. Every month, I edit this file on my computer, then add .1
  to the version number, change the month, and re-upload it. As you can
  see from the top, this is my third release of this document. I have
  been using Windows '95 since it came out on August 24th. I hope my
  information can be useful to you.

+ Here are the parts this document is divided into...
    -NEW THIS MONTH: Things that are new or revised this month.
    -DAYS I'VE BEEN USING WIN95: Just what it says. This is also
     the amount of days since the release date (Aug. 24, 1995).
       -CORRECTIONS: Where I correct myself about things I
     said last month that were not true in some way.
    -*THE* ADVICE/QUOTE/TIP OF THE MONTH: To me, this is the
     most important part of this file.
    -TIPS: General tips on Win95.
    -APP ADVICE: Advice for running certain apps in Win95.
    -UNSOLVED PROBLEMS: Problems with Win95 and its apps
     that remain unsolved by me and my E-mailers. E-mail me if you
      know the answer to any of the problems mentioned here.
    -QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: Area that deals with E-mail questions
     that are answered by me or other E-mailers.
    -LAST MONTH'S PROBLEMS, THIS MONTH'S ANSWERS: Answers to last
     month's problems, if they have been solved.
    -E*MAILERS: People who sent me mail about Tips for
     Windows '95 last month. If I use what you sent in my document,
     I will mention your name there, too.

+ By the way, if you have any contradictions of what I say in this
  article or have something else to share with me about Win95, etc.,
  E-mail me at [e-mail]. If I decide to use what you said,
  I'll mention your name in my document. If I forget to mention
  your name, just tell me and I'll correct it next month. Also
  "[e-mail]" suggested that I have a mailing list for my
  tip sheet. If you wish to be on the list, just E-mail. This is also
  a good way to people that are not on AOL to get my tip sheet, as that
  is really the only place it is uploaded regularly.

+ One final note: There are too many sections of this tip sheet. It is
  getting a little confusing and needs to be simplified. I would
  really like it if people gave me some ideas for simplification so
  it's a little more readable.

ALL RIGHT, LET'S BEGIN!

NEW THIS MONTH:
Tips for Windows '95 has been revised and reformatted yet again to
make it easier to understand, because last month it really was a mess.
Three sections were eliminated that were repetitive, and 3 nicer and
more interesting ones added.

DAYS I'VE BEEN USING WIN95: 69 days

CORRECTIONS:
Last month, the following was said in a long report about AOL and Win95
graphics modes on the AOL WEBB Browser:

    "(SENT BY [e-mail]) You may experience trouble
     with Win95 and AOL freezing up. AOL may freeze on or around
     the 10th graphic file downloaded when using the WEBB Net
      Browser. When that occurs your entire system will freeze
     with it,...The problem (and solution, kinda) is, AOL and
     it's WEBB Graphics Driver are not 100% compatible with
      Win95's new Graphic Drivers and GUI. To prevent this from
     happening,... re-configure your 16bit graphics
      Mode to 1024x748 and then cut it to 24bit 800x600. This way
     the AOL's graphic display engine will not have a conflict
     when assigning and matching colors with the 16bit (64,500
     colors). You must have be in a 24-bit mode (32,000 or 256
      color or lower mode)..."

First of all, to be honest, I didn't have a clue as to what this person
was talking about when I first saw this, even after I put this in
last month's tip sheet. Now, however, I have had much more experience
with both the Internet and graphics modes, and can give a better
explanation. The above stuff is kinda choppy, so let me paraphrase it:
Win95 and AOL are not really compatible graphically, at least when you're
using AOL's WEBB Net Browser. At around the 10th or so graphic file
that you attempt to view in the browser, AOL may freeze up. You are
even more susceptible to this problem if you're using the built-in
Win95 plug-and-play driver for your video card. There is, however, a
way to make Win95 more compatible with AOL; change the graphics mode.
Go to Settings, Control Panel, Display, and click on the file tab called
Settings. A bunch of display settings will appear, namely Desktop Area
and Color Palette. To be as compatible with AOL as possible, change
the Desktop Area to 1024x768 and the Color Palette to High Color (16-bit).
If you can't do this setting because your video driver or monitor or
RAM or something else won't allow it, change it to as close as possible.
Next, change it again (it works, okay, I don't really know WHY) to
800x600 and True Color (24-bit), which is perfectly compatible with
AOL (their color palettes match so there's no substitution of colors).
If that isn't possible, use 800x600 resolution and the highest amount
of colors possible for your system, unless it's 256, then you're basically
screwed and condemned to a life of constant WEBB Browser freezing :)
Actually, no, but it's still nice to be compatible, since there
definitely will be less freezing in AOL with the right graphics modes.
By the way, this also happens in USENET groups, especially when trying
to access another part of AOL at the same time you're currently downloading
a graphic file (or .UUE encoded file), and even more so when you try
to read messages of the same USENET group that you're downloading a
file from at the time.

*THE* ADVICE/QUOTE/TIP OF THE MONTH:
I'M KIND OF CHEATING THE "*THE*" PART OF THE TITLE BY SAYING THAT THERE
ARE 3 IMPORTANT THINGS I'M COVERING IN THIS VERSION OF THE TIP SHEET,
BUT THEY ALL REALLY NEED ADDRESSING ANYWAY...

TO KEEP OR NOT TO KEEP SMARTDRIVE: Should you keep Smartdrive? I have
a few arguments for and against it. Since I mentioned the following in
my September version (1.0) of this tip sheet, a few people have sent me
mail about it...(here's what I said below)

    "Get rid of SmartDrive, since Win95 doesn't need it. It's an
     additional 2.5 megs or more of RAM that I'm sure you'll be
     happy to reclaim."

Since I said that, a lot of E-MAIL came to me about what I said, so
I put this in the CORRECTIONS section of the October version (1.1)
of my tip sheet...

    "(SENT BY [e-mail] & [e-mail]) Last
     month... ...some people may want to keep SmartDrive on
     their system even after they install Win95. It's a sacred
     few, but they're still there, because people who open a
     lot of .GIF (graphic) files and use the CD-ROM a lot may
     enjoy the increased speed in these situations. On the other
     hand, you may find something useful for the additional RAM,
     especially if the SmartDrive was big like mine, like 2.5 megs.
     Secondly, it's not always an additional 2.5 megs of RAM:
     people using a small SmartDrive can only be using 22K-1.5
     megs on their system."

After I put that in last month, someone sent me E-MAIL again...
(SENT BY [e-mail])

    "One other item...You really don't need smartdrive in your
     autoexec.bat. You don't need it at all actually. Win95
      has its' own caching system which also caches CD-ROMs.
     If you noticed when you installed Win95, it remarked out
     the smartdrv line in your autoexec.bat......"

Now I don't know who to believe, but personally I would rather have the
RAM and let Win95 use it's own caching system, even if it may be a
little inferior to SmartDrive for some things. If you have an opinion
on whether to keep or get rid of SmartDrive, just E-MAIL.

SECOND OF MY THREE THINGS I'M DISCUSSING HERE THIS MONTH IS THE WINDOWS
3.1/Win95 'CONVERSION CORNER':

Below are things that you could do in Win 3.1 (and 3.11) that you can
also do in Win95, but in a slightly different way...

Windows 3.1: To tile windows, select the option Tile from the Window
menu.

Win95: (SENT BY [e-mail]) Open two or more applications, right
click on the taskbar on the taskbar (gray bar at bottom of screen),
click on tile horizontally/vertically.

Windows 3.1: To get to the MS-DOS prompt, go to the Main program group,
and double-click on MS-DOS Prompt icon. To get to the real DOS, select
Exit from the File menu.

Win95: Click on Start, Programs, MS-DOS prompt. To get to the real
DOS (version 7.0; also called MS-DOS mode), select Start, Shut Down,
make sure the dot's in "Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode", and
click on Yes.

MORE "CONVERSIONS" WILL BE COMING NEXT MONTH. IF YOU WANT, I'LL MAKE
A "CONVERSIONS" SECTION OF THIS DOCUMENT...

THIRDLY, I'D LIKE TO KNOW IF ANYONE IS EVEN INTERESTED IN DOOM II
ANYMORE AND WHY SHOULD I FINISH THE DOOMKILL.WAD?

TIPS:

1. (SENT BY [e-mail]) Having trouble loading your
   CD-ROM drive in DOS? Is your CD-ROM drive not functioning in DOS?
   Your problem may be that you are using Win95's virtual drivers for
   your CD-ROM drive. When DOS tries to load MSCDEX in MS-DOS mode, it
   can't because it can't find a driver to load it to. The way to solve
   it is to add a line for MSCDEX or your CD-ROM driver (before you
   installed Win95) to CONFIG.SYS. That should solve your problems.
   Another solution is to take the MSCDEX line from your old DOS
   AUTOEXEC.BAT or the line for MSCDEX currently in your AUTOEXEC.BAT
   and add it to DOSSTART.BAT in the C:\WINDOWS directory. DOSSTART.BAT
   is a batch program that is run whenever you switch into MS-DOS mode.
2. (SENT BY [e-mail]) You might want to do some
   research on the registry, as this seems to be the key to really
   customizing Win95. The guy who sent this just started getting into
   this himself, and has already managed to change a couple of things
   that you can't change just using control panel. (be forewarned,
   though: if you mess with the wrong stuff, you can royally screw up
   your system!)
3. (SENT BY [e-mail]) This is yet another one of those very
   basic computer things that not a lot of people do regularly: backing
   up files. If you like something that you downloaded from AOL or
   somewhere else, then copy it to disk or zip it up (with PKZIP/UNZIP)
   and copy it to disk. There's a PKZip command that formats the floppy
   disk (thereby erasing it), spans multiple disks for large (or large
   amounts of) files, zips all the stuff up and copies it to disk. Here
   it is... "PKZIP -&f A:\<name of zip file>.zip <file1> <file2> ...
   example: PKZIP -&f A:\WORDDOCS.ZIP C:\DOCS\*.DOC C:\GAMES\OMF\README.DOC"
   This command (in the example) would format the floppy in the drive,
   compress all files with extension .DOC in C:\DOCS directory,
   compress C:\GAMES\OMF\README.DOC with the other DOC's, and span this
   zip file (WORDDOCS.ZIP) over as many disks as necessary.
   By the way, if you don't think that backing up files is important,
   just keep in mind that you will eventually learn the hard way.
   Everyone does, including me...

4. (SENT BY [e-mail]) If you change the line in the SYSTEM.INI file
   from "SHELL=Explorer.exe" to "SHELL=progman.exe", this makes Win95 act
   very similar to Win 3.1, for those who may prefer that format. There's
   obviously problems with doing this, though, as you are depending on
   something that was never intended to be used as an operating system as
   your main operating system interface in Win95. At least it may help the
   transition be a little more gradual.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:

Q1. (SENT BY [e-mail]) Where are your old CONFIG.SYS and
    AUTOEXEC.BAT files from before you installed Win95, just in case
    you want to compare your new (post-Win95) files with the MS-DOS/
    Win 3.x ones?
A1. This question, luckily, has an easy answer. All your old MS-DOS/
    Win 3.x startup files in still in the C:\ directory, only with
    a different name. Your new startup files are CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT,
    and COMMAND.COM, just like before. The old files (pre-Win95) are
    now called CONFIG.DOS, AUTOEXEC.DOS, and COMMAND.DOS. You'll see
    the difference right away, if you were to put your current startup
    files in another directory and rename the *.DOS files with their
    former 3-letter extensions, and restart the computer. Your computer
    should start like old DOS days. Quick, restore the new files!!!
    Oh, by the way, if you deleted your old DOS/Win 3.x files via the
    uninstall option in Win95, you may not be able to get the *.DOS
    files. Too bad, but you may have the old files backed up somewhere
    on floppies. Look around; you'll usually find it somewhere...

LAST MONTH'S PROBLEMS, THIS MONTH'S ANSWERS:

1. Last month's problem...

    "(SENT BY [e-mail]) You may not hear your modem
     dial in Win95. I usually still works fine, except you hear
     no noise. You could try raising the volume of the modem's
      speaker if that's the problem, but usually it isn't. I'd
     like an answer to this if anyone who reads this has one."

   This month's answer: (SENT BY [e-mail]) It may just be a
   minor configuration problem in your configuration that the
   modem app uses when it calls wherever. Here are a few modem settings
   and what they mean. In setup programs, you may see a part of setup
   with the words MODEM STRING: and then a bunch of things like
   "A0 &C1 &D1 X4 " (etc.; this is only an EXAMPLE). The following line
   could be changed to read "A0 &C1 &D1 X4 M2" simply by editing it.
   Or, you can type commands at the terminal like this: "AT <command>"
   (i.e. AT X4, AT L3). Here are the settings that are concerned with
   modem noise...

    L0 - VERY LOW SPEAKER VOLUME
    L1 - LOW SPEAKER VOLUME
    L2 - MEDIUM SPEAKER VOLUME
    L3 - HIGH SPEAKER VOLUME
    M0 - SPEAKER OFF
    M1 - SPEAKER ON UNTIL CARRIER DETECTION
    M2 - SPEAKER ALWAYS ON
    M3 - SPEAKER ON UNTIL CARRIER DETECTION, BUT OFF WHILE DIALING
        S10=100 - FOR AOL ONLY, CAN MINIMIZE LOST CARRIERS

   Another words, L0 through L3 control modem volume, M0 shuts off the
   modem speaker. M1 lets you hear dials, connections, and busy signals
   and then shuts the noise off once connected. M2 keeps the speaker on
   all during connection, so you hear a little noise from the speaker
   the entire time (VERY annoying). M3 doesn't let you hear the dial,
   but lets you hear busy signals and other connection noise and
   then shuts off while connected. S10=100 is for AOL only, and can
   minimize the chance of losing the carrier (AOL).  AOL has also been
   mildly helpful in providing optimizing strings for the AOLnet part
   of AOL. If you have a serious modem problem or have the above stuff
   doesn't work, refer to them and they might help you solve it.

APP ADVICE:

EXPLORER, WORDPAD, AND POLYVIEW - (SENT BY [e-mail]) Not
everyone has this problem, but if you do, it can be kind of annoying.
Remember in Win 3.x, when you used the File Manager and some files
were represented by icons which opened the file and its associated
program? For instance, if you had a document called "MYFILE.DOC" and
it was made in MS Word, there would be an icon next to the name with
a little written-on piece of paper and when you double-clicked on this
icon Word would start, opening up MYFILE.DOC in the process? The
same associations can occur with MS Word and Win95 Explorer, an
improved version of the File Manager from Win 3.x, but in many ways the
same. I've gotten WAY off topic here, so let me get to the point.
Depending on your computer, WordPad and PolyView may not open up
their associative files if the files are in long-file-name directories
or have long file names. Solution? For WordPad, remove the association
of WordPad to all .DOC files (in WIN.INI) and re-associate it by
then double-clicking on any .DOC file in Explorer and telling Win95
to open it with WordPad. For PolyView, don't use versions 2.15-2.16;
use version 2.10 instead. What wrong with 2.15/2.16? I don't know, but
the easy solution is to just use 2.10 if you can. Excluding PolyView,
all these programs are 32-bit apps not only designed specifically for
Win95, they are make directly by Microsoft and come with Win95 as key
apps (nobody can really do without some kind of File Manager). I wonder
if Microsoft lets this kind of thing slip by often (hypothetically;
everyone knows that MS apps just don't seem to get along together all
the time...)

DPMI stuff (DCK) - If you try to run it in Win95, it
will give you a message like "This DPMI module cannot be run in
Win32". Translated, it means "YOU CAN'T RUN THIS PROGRAM". If you
toy with the options, you may get it to say that DCK is performing
"illegal" actions on your computer. Huh? Anyway, run this program
in MS-DOS mode and everything will be just fine, except for the
tendency DCK has to crash on you. There is a patch now for it,
though. If you aren't at least using DCK 2.2, you can't use
the patch, so upgrade, too. I heard DCK 1.x had a few problems,
and not just with Win95.

MSD (MS System Diagnostics, VERSIONS 1.0-2.11) - This programs detects
Win95 as Windows 3.0, Enhanced. There's kind of a difference here. The
new version given with Win95 (MSD version 2.13, I think) detects it
as Win 4.0, or Win95, like it should. No big deal, it's just that I
wonder if other (older) apps detect the same thing...
Wondering how to get the new MSD installed on your computer?
The steps below will tell you how: (SENT BY [e-mail])
1. Check to see if your version of Win95 came on floppies or on CD-ROM.
   If it came on floppies, then you can't get the new MSD (the CD has
   extra stuff that's not on the floppy version).
2. If it's CD-ROM, insert the CD into the CD-ROM drive and wait. A menu
   should appear. If it does indeed appear, close the menu and continue
   on. If not, it's probably due to some CD-ROM drive setting and it
   doesn't matter. You can still continue to follow these instructions.
3. Click on the Start button, then Programs, and finally MS-DOS Prompt.
4. At the prompt, type 'x':, where 'x' is the drive that Win95 is on.
5. Still at the prompt, type "CD\WINDOWS\COMMAND" and Enter.
6. Type "COPY D:(or CD-ROM drive letter)\OTHER\MSD\MSD.EXE" and confirm
   the overwrite if necessary.
7. Type "MSD" at the prompt. You will now see Windows 4.0, enhanced next
   to the Windows version if all went well. Don't worry if you see
   any warnings about the performance of MSD in Windows. It also is
   natural for this program to take up the full screen. Alt+Enter
   makes it in a window again.
8. That's all!

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS:

1. (SENT BY [e-mail]) This e-mailer has memory problems in MS-DOS
   mode. He used to be able to run games in MS-DOS with no problem.
   Now, he has deleted the old MS-DOS/Win 3.x files and has memory
   problems. Deleting the FILES=50 line in his CONFIG.SYS file
   (TIP FROM LAST MONTH [[e-mail]]) helped a little, like
   it was supposed to, but not enough. How can you get more conventional
   memory?

2. I myself also have the same problem.... I had 572K memory in MS-DOS
   mode and suddenly one day I had 517K, although MSD still says it's
   572K but the rest of my computer doesn't agree.

3. (SENT BY [e-mail]) Anyone know where a PC speaker driver for
   Win95 is available on-line (like AOL)?

4. (SENT BY [e-mail]) Has a Win95 version of DOS InterLink been made
   yet?

E*MAILERS:

1. [e-mail] - See #7 and #13 below.
2. [e-mail] - Also known as Shane and as ShaneWho on AOL.
3. [e-mail] - See #2 above.
4. [e-mail] - Also known as Joe.
5. [e-mail] - Also known as Hank and as ResumesPro on AOL.
6. [e-mail] - Also known as WOJOMAN on AOL.
7. [e-mail] - Also known as Frank and as DodgerFrk on AOL.
8. [e-mail] - Also known as Jessica and as Jessief18 on AOL.
9. [e-mail] - Also known as Louis and as LouisAD4RP on AOL.
10. [e-mail] - Also known as CopyDoc4 on AOL.
11. [e-mail] - Also known as Eileen and as EILEEPHOTO on AOL.
12. [e-mail] - Also known as Mark and as MLGOLD on AOL.
13. [e-mail] - See #7 and #1 above.
14. [e-mail] - Also known as Tim and as TMAbbott on AOL.
15. [e-mail] - Also known as Brett.
16. [e-mail] - Also known as ClarkLK on AOL.
17. [e-mail] - Also known as Cabrio911 on AOL.
18. [e-mail] - Also known as Steve and as SKarr36465 on AOL.
19. [e-mail] - Also known as DShaw27626 on AOL.
20. [e-mail] - See #18 above.

ALSO, THIS DOESN'T GO INTO ANY SECTION, SO I'LL PUT IT HERE...
A guy named Brett said this amongst many things in his e-mail to me:

    "I enjoyed your newsletter on Windows 95 & think you did a
     tremendous job.  It was entertaining AND informative."

Thanks, Brett! Also, while I'm still rambling on, I'd like to say that
if you wish to e-mail me, I'd really appreciate it, and if you have
any problems with Win95 that you'd like to send to me, no matter how
elementary they may seem to you or me, I'll be sure to try and answer
it.

ONE LAST THING... [e-mail] got a chain letter shortly after
I posted his e-mail address in my tip sheet last month. Did anyone
else that I put in my list of E-mailers last month get a chain letter?
If you did, e-mail and tell me.

THIS IS ALL I HAVE TO SAY FOR THE MONTH. WHILE I'M HERE, I MIGHT AS
WELL TELL YOU ABOUT MY OTHER CREATIONS COMING SOON FROM ME:

MYTOURNS.ZIP - OMF Tournaments
           Version 1.0
           Planned Release Date: ??/??/96
           NOTES: A collection of OMF 2097 tourneys created
           by me with the OMF tournament compiler.

DOOMKILL.ZIP - The DOOMKILLER Pwad Package by John Calandrino
           Version 1.0
           Planned Release Date: ??/??/96
           NOTES: A Wad Package for DOOM II containing
           a small collection of Wads that I have created.
           Includes 32 levels of DOOM-ing action, as well as new
           enemies and text in certain areas. It originally was
           going to have 62 levels and be released on 10/31/95, but
           that date is impossible, even with only 32 levels. I'm
           trying to do too much at once and it's all caught up to
           me...

UTILFONT.ZIP - UtilFont by John Calandrino
               Version 1.0 (Shareware); Version 1.1 (Registered)
           Planned Release Date: ??/??/96
           NOTES: A small collection of fonts. A shareware
           version will be uploaded with only one font, the
           entire package will be sold for $10? (price is
           "iffy" right now).

JCFILE13.TXT - Tips on Windows '95
           Version 1.3
           Planned Release Date: 12/1(?)/95
           NOTES: An update of this file. Updates usually
           occur monthly, with the exception of a
           special release every so often.