Tips
on Windows NT
Customising the Start menu in
is quite similar to that of Windows 9x. , however, has a common Start
Menu and a user-specific Start Menu. The common Start Menu displays the
applications that everybody in a group uses and can be changed only by
administrators. Users can change the user-specific menus.
The user-specific Start Menu folder is found under
Win\Profiles\(username)\Start Menu.
The common Start Menu folder is found under
Win\Profiles\All Users\Start Menu.
To customise the Start Menu, click Start > Settings
> Taskbar. Under the Start Menu Programs tab, use the Add and Remove
buttons to add and remove shortcuts. The Advanced button will show an Explorer
view of the Start Menu.
You can open the Run dialog box (Start > Run), then
drag and drop a file or application oo it from My Computer or Explorer. The
complete pathname appears in the Run dialog box. Now you could add
command-line options or simply click OK to launch the file.
Windows uses
NetBIOS to communicate with all the computers on the network, and for all
iernal communication as well. However, this traffic caused by NetBIOS can
significaly reduce bandwidth if you also have an Iernet connection. You can
disable the NetBIOS Ierface on outbound Iernet adapters; that is, all modem or
communication devices that connect Server
to the Iernet.
Open the Network applet from the Corol Panel. On the
Bindings tab, change the Show Bindings For drop-down to select all adapters.
Double-click your outbound Iernet adapter. Under the WINS Clie (TCP/IP)
binding, select the NetBIOS Ierface, and click the Disable button.
You can re-create installation
disks if you lose or damage your original set. Format three floppy disks and
load your Windows 4.0 CD-ROM in
the drive. From the Run dialog box, browse to the i386 folder on the CD-ROM
and select win32.exe and click Open. Alter the Run command line to
d:\i386\win32/ox (where the first d is the CD-ROM drive letter). Click OK and
follow the prompts.
For a complete list of the settings and addresses currely
assigned to your system, open the Command Prompt from the Start button's
Programs menu, and type ipconfig/all. This will display all TCP/IP related
settings on the system. This is similar to winipcfg in Windows 9x.
Creating a user template makes it easy to add multiple
new users with the same group and access privileges. Open User Manager for
Domains. Add a new user by selecting New User from the User menu. Label this
user as a template for the user level, such as Template--Worker or
Template--Secretary and set the correct privileges and options for Groups,
Profile, and Dial-in. The next time you need to add a user, simply select the
template accou, and select User > Copy from the menu. All you need to do is
change the name and password.
Windows 4.0's
Performance Monitor can track disk activity and performance. Though a very
useful tool for troubleshooting, you will experience 5 to 10% degradation in
the performance of whatever storage device you're monitoring. To turn the
Performance Monitor on, launch the Command Prompt from the Start button's
Programs menu item. Type diskperf –y and reboot Windows. You can launch
Performance Monitor from Start > Administrative Tools > Performance
Monitor.
When you're done, be sure to turn Performance Monitor off
again by typing diskperf -n at the Command Prompt.
The Emergency Repair Disk (ERD) holds a record of the
settings and boot parameters for your primary partition Boot Sector. Every
time you make a change to these areas, you should also re-create the ERD;
otherwise, the repair disk will not restore your system to the most rece
functioning state. To create an updated ERD, type rdisk /s in the Run dialog
box.
An up-to-date Emergency Repair Disk (ERD) can aid you in
recovering from a damaged boot sector. To restore a damaged boot sector,
reboot the computer using the Windows Setup
disk 1, followed by disk 2 when prompted. Select R for Repair. From the next
menu, select only
Inspect boot sector (to check the boot sector for
damage). Insert disk 3 and then the ERD when prompted and follow the
instructions on screen.
The Disk Administrator can restore a system's drive and
partition structure after a drive failure or other system failure.
To create a backup file, start Disk Administrator from
Start > Programs and select Partition > Configuration > Save. This
creates a floppy that coains all drive-related configuration information. Any
time you need to restore your drive configuration, select Partition >
Configuration > Restore from the menu, and insert the disk when prompted.
Windows 4.0
lets you compress and decompress directories and files on FS partitions.
Compression reduces storage requiremes for seldom-accessed files without
degrading overall drive performance. You can compress and expand files and
directories from My Computer or Explorer — just right-click an item, select
Properties and enable Compress from the list of attributes.
To view which files and directories are compressed,
enable Display compressed files and folders with alternate color feature using
View > Options from Explorer.
Windows 4.0
offers a system you can use to schedule backups. Open Corol Panel >
Services and start the Schedule service. Change the Schedule Startup settings
to Automatic. This loads Schedule each time
boots. Create a CMD file that coains the command string for the backup
operation (the complete command line instructions are listed in the Backup
help documeation). For example, a CMD file that coains backup backup c: /d
"8/8/99 Backup" /b /l "c:\backup.log" would launch Backup
to perform a backup of the C: drive. It will then label the backup 8/8/99
Backup and create a log file called c:\backup.log.
Launch the Command Prompt and add the CMD file to the
automated schedule with the command line at 18:00 /every:m,w,f mybackup.cmd
(for AT task-addition command details, type at /? at the command prompt). This
sample would execute mybackup.cmd every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6
p.m.
Wish to avoid inserting the
CD-ROM every time you access Books Online? Simply copy the
\Support\Books from the CD-ROM to your hard drive. Next, remove the disc from
the drive and attempt to launch the Books Online Shortcut. When you're
prompted to insert the CD-ROM or specify an alternate route, click the Browse
button, and select the directory where you copied the files.
If you manage to cause your
4.0 system to cease functioning properly, you may be able to restore
the system using the Last Known Good Configuration (LKGC). LKGC is saved each
time a successful user login occurs. To return to the LKGC, reboot your
4.0 system and watch the boot process. When the message "Press
spacebar NOW to invoke Hardware Profile/Last Known Good menu" appears,
press the spacebar. Press L to use the LKGC. Your system should return to its
state as of the last successful user login.
Windows 4.0
displays the name of the last person who logged on to the system. To stop it
from doing so, launch the Registry editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre
Version\Winlogon. Select the ReportBootOK item, create a new String Value and
name it DoDisplayLastUserName. Double-click the new string and change its
value to 1. Close the Registry editor.
You can display a message every time someone attempts to
log on to a Windows machine.
Launch the Registry editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
\CurreVersion\WinLogon. Add or edit the following keys:
LegalNoticeCaption (the title for the message box).
LegalNoticeText (the text to be displayed in the pop-up
dialog box).
Close the Registry Editor and reboot.
Two accous that everyone already knows exist on
are the Administrator and the Guest accous. Fortunately, the Guest
accou is disabled by default. However, you must have an Administrator accou
— the one with the widest access and privileges.
For additional security, rename the Administrator accou.
Then, create a new user accou named Administrator, but give it restricted
privileges, so it can't access anything, and don't make it a member of any
group. This creates a decoy and protects your real administrative accou.
A few memory manageme tweaks can make running your old 16
bit applications (Win 3.11 style) a lot more reliable.
All Windows 16-bit applications are executed within the
same virtual machine, so they share the same memory space. While, by default
launches all Windows 32-bit applications and DOS applications in a
separate memory space. So if one of the 16-bit applications fails, then they
will all fail. Launching each application in its own individual memory space,
however, you will preve the failure of one application from ierfering with
others.
Note that 16-bit applications in separate memory spaces
are unable to exchange OLE information.
To launch applications in a separate memory space, run
the file from the Run dialog box and check the "Run in Separate Memory
Space" box. You could also create a shortcut to the 16-bit application,
edit its Properties and check the "Run in Separate Memory Space"
box.
Setting the application’s priorities can corol the
speed at which applications run. uses
32 levels of priorities to manage how much CPU processing time an application
or process receives. Higher-priority applications get more system resources as
soon as they ask for them. You can launch a program at the predefined
priorities low(4), normal(8), high(13), or realtime(24). Realtime is available
only to Administrators and should be used with caution. It will place a task
at the same priority level as the core system itself.
To change the priority for any process, bring up the Task
Manager, right-click on the process and select the appropriate priority from
the Set Priority menu item.
To start a process at a particular priority, open the
Command Prompt and type one of the following commands:
start /low <application>
start /normal <application>
start /high <application>
start /realtime <application>
where <application> is the path and name of the
executable you wa to launch.
Windows Task Manager can aid you in finding the amou of
RAM you can regain by disabling unnecessary system services. Right-click on
the taskbar and select Task Manager from the coext menu. You can view the CPU
usage and memory usage under the Performance tab. To regain resources, you can
kill unnecessary processes from the Processes tab.
To secretly share a resource, simply append a dollar sign
($) to its share name. When you do so, the resource doesn't appear in Network
Neighborhood, but is readily available by either mapping the drive or typing
the UNC in the Run dialog box. This provides an additional degree of privacy
and security to a shared resource. Furthermore, any access restrictions or
passwords assigned to that shared resource remain in effect.
If you have the 3D Text screensaver installed, edit its
settings according to the following:
Type I love as
the text and click OK. The screen saver text shows good? and cycles through a
list of Windows programmers. Type
Volcano and the screensaver cycles through a list of volcanos.
When you eer a command in the Command Prompt window, that
command gets saved by the system (up to 50 commands), and you can use it again
without having to retype it. All you have to do is press F7 to open the
history. use the arrow keys to highlight the command you wa to use and press
Eer to execute it. If you need more than the default 50 commands, click in the
Command box (upper left corner) and click on Properties > Options. Set the
Buffer Size to the number of commands you need.
If your machine
is running off an NTFS volume, each time you use Explorer or the Dir command
to list a directory on an NTFS volume, Windows
updates the LastAccess time stamp on each directory it detects. If you
have a large number of folders on an FS partition, you may be able to speed up
Windows Explorer by telling
Windows to not update the
Accessed time. Start the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurreCorolSet\Corol\FileSystem.
Add a new DWORD value. Eer the name as fsDisableLastAccessUpdate. Double-click
this and type 1 to enable it.
You can change the Start menu delay in displaying
sub-menus. Run Regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRE_USER\CorolPanel\Desktop.
Change the value for MenuShowDelay to any number between 0 (fastest) and 4000
(slowest). If the value does not exist, add a string value with this name.
You can change the default boot delay of 30 seconds. Open
Corol Panel > System > Startup/Shutdown. Under the Show List For, change
the setting to the desired boot delay value. To bypass the boot menu
altogether, set the delay value to 0.
Note: If you dual boot between two Operating Systems
using the boot loader, do not set
the boot delay value to 0.
If you'd like to pri while you are away, you can schedule
the pri jobs. Click Start > Settings > Priers. Right-click the prier
icon and click on Properties. Select the time range from the Scheduling tab.
Click OK to close the dialog box and record your changes. If you would like to
pri some documes immediately and some later, you can create a new prier as a
copy of the curre prier and enable scheduling for that.
Before using Disk Administrator to make changes to the
partitions, you may wa to make sure you save your curre configuration. To do
this, click Start > Programs > Administrative Tools > Disk
Administrator > Partition > Configuration > Save. Insert a formatted
floppy disk io your drive and click OK. You can restore the partition
structure later by clicking on Partition > Configuration > Restore.
The Performance Monitor will not monitor disk performance
unless you turn on the disk couers first. To do this, open the Command Prompt
window and type diskperf -Y. Restart the computer. You can monitor disk
activity with the Performance Monitor. Since the couers will affect disk
performance, you should turn them off by typing diskperf -N at the Command
Prompt when you have finished testing.
If you have both, and
Windows 95 with the Plus Pack, you can use Desktop Themes under
4.0. Find Themes.cpl and Themes.exe in the C:\Windows\System folder
under Windows 95 and copy them to \Win\System32. Reboot the system to Windows
. A Desktop Themes icon will appear in Corol Panel.
To use the two-pane Explorer view by default, open the
Registry Editor and locate HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/Folder/shell/open/ddexec. Change
the ery for (Default) from [ViewFolder("%I",%I,%S)] to [ExploreFolder("%I",%I,%S)].
The ery for both, open/ddexec and explore/ddexec should be the same.
Turn the desktop
off for computers with little memory. Right-click in the Taskbar click on Task
Manager. Under the Processes tab, locate explorer.exe. Select it and click on
End Process to shut down Explorer. You can save between 1 to 3MB of RAM this
way. You can start programs using the Task Manager itself. To get your desktop
back, click New Task and run explorer.exe.
If you can do without the regular
4.0 desktop permanely, it's possible to start with just the Task
Manageror even with the Command Prompt. Launch the Registry Editor and locate
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows /CurreVersion/WinLogon.
Double-click on value named Shell (set by default to Explorer.exe). Eer
Taskmgr.exe for the Task Manager.
For a command prompt, eer Cmd.exe. Close the Registry Editor and log off.
Server 4.0
includes a software-based protocol analyzer called the Network Monitor Age. To
install it open Corol Panel > Network > Services and click on Add.
Select Network Monitor Age from the list. You can now start Network Monitor
from the Administrative Tools. To capture network data, click on Capture >
Start. Click Capture > Stop to stop monitoring.
If messages don't reach their destination(s) when using
the "net send" command, turn on the Alerter and Messenger services
in the Services applet of the Corol Panel. Also, make sure that the iended
recipie is not logged in to multiple machines.
Open Windows Explorer
and click View > Options > File Types. Locate Folder and click Edit.
Click New to open the New Action dialog box. Type Command Prompt in the Action
box, and type cmd.exe in the Application Used to Perform Action box. Now you
can right-click a folder and click Command Prompt to open a Command Prompt
window at the folder's path.
If you dual boot between Windows
and Windows 9x, you can save space by allowing both systems to share
the same swap file. First, configure the Windows
swap file, setting it to a FAT partition. To do this, open Corol Panel
> System > Performance > Virtual Memory. Next, boot to Windows 9x and
configure the virtual memory using the same settings as you used for . Again,
you will find this setting from Corol Panel > System > Performance >
Virtual Memory.
Windows uses
a file called Pagefile.sys and Windows 9x uses Win386.swp for the swap file.
However, you can set Windows 9x to use Pagefile.sys by modifying the
System.ini in the Windows folder. Open the file in Notepad and make the
following changes under the [386Enh] section:
PagingFile=X:\PAGEFILE.SYS
PagingDrive=X:
MinPagingFileSize=NNNNN
MaxPagingFileSize=NNNNN
where X: is the drive where the swap file is located and
NNNNN is the size of the file in kilobytes. Restart the system delete the
Win386.swp file.
Windows can
automatically fill in file and folder names at the command prompt, much like a
UNIX terminal. launch the Registry editor and move down to the HKEY_CURRE_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command
Processor. Select CompletionChar and set its value of to 9. Restart the system
for the changes to take effect. Now, at the Command Prompt window, type in the
first few characters of the file or folder and press Tab to complete it
automatically.
Windows saves
the Desktop settings on normal exits only. You could lose your rece Desktop
modifications if crashes or
hangs. You can save your curre Desktop settings by selecting an object on the
Desktop and pressing F5 key.
The CD Key is required to reinstall the operating system.
If you have lost it, you can retrieve it from the Windows registry. Open
Regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurreVersion.
Look at ProductId. The CD Key is digits 6 through 15.
To change the icons used for the Recycle bin, run the
Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\DefaultIcon.
Edit the value labelled Full and type the path to the icon file. Similarly,
edit the value labelled Empty to specify the icon for the empty recycle bin.