| Win 95 Tips & Tricks 1. You can use your right mouse button to drag
files.
2. To set your computer's clock, you can double-click the clock on the
Taskbar. 3. You can switch mouse buttons if you are left-handed. Just double-click
the Mouse icon in Control
Panel.
4. To change your screen saver, use your right mouse button to click the
desktop; then click Properties and select the screen saver
tab.
5. The mouse pointer is easier to see on laptop computers if you turn on
pointer
trails.
6. Just double-click the Mouse icon in Control Panel, and then click the
Motion
tab.
7. When a folder is open, you can press BACKSPACE to open the folder one
level
higher.
8. You can use Defragmenter, in the System Tools folder, to speed up your
computer's
performance.
9. To free up disk space, try emptying the Recycle
Bin.
10. You can use Backup, in the System Tools folder, to make backup copies
of important
files.
11. To learn what any toolbar button is for, you can rest your mouse
pointer on the button for a few
seconds.
12. Right click on a file you would like to send, choose Send To and
select the destination from the drop down
menu.
13. Hold the mouse pointer over the Taskbar clock to see the date
displayed. 14. To remove the clock from the Taskbar do the
following:
a) Right-click the Taskbar and selection the Properties
item.
b) On the Taskbar Options page, uncheck ‘Show Clock’.
15. From the System control panel applet, click the Performance Tab, then
click the CD-ROM Tab. From here, you can adjust the memory cache size for
your CD-ROM
drive.
16. Microsoft Paint can serve as a bitmap viewer. Simply drag a bitmap
icon
onto Microsoft Paint window to view it. The current image will be replaced
with the new
bitmap.
17. You can improve keyboard access to the items at the top of the Start
menu by numbering the icons there (rename them with a number at the
beginning of the name). Then, you can press Ctrl-Esc followed by the
number to launch your most commonly used
programs.
18. Just about everything in Windows 95 has properties. Sometimes if you’re
trying to customize something, try to right-click on it, and see if there’s
a "Properties" menu entry. The keyboard shortcut is usually
Alt+Enter. For instance, in Explorer, you can view a file’s properties
such as the date and time it was last
modified.
19. One of the properties of a shortcut is its icon. You can change the
icon of any shortcut by right-clicking, selecting "Properties",
going to the "Shortcut" tab, and pressing the "Change
Icon"
button.
20. If you want to change a shortcut’s icon, and only a few application
icons are available to you, simply hit the browse button and find
SHELL32.DLL in your Windows System directory. It contains over 70 icons
you can use
instead.
21. Hold down the CTRL key while entering Windows. This will keep items in
the Startup folder from
launching.
22. If you want to open an already associated file with a different
program than the one it is associated with, hold down the shift key and
then right click the file. "Open with" should be added to the
menu now so you can open the file with a different program.
23. Selecting multiple files in Large Icon View has a different behavior
than in List View. To extend your selection, click on the first icon in
your selection and hold down the Shift key while you click on the last
icon in your selection. To toggle a selection, hold down the Ctrl key
while you select the files you want to toggle (between selected and not
selected).
24. If you are at a DOS command prompt, and want a visual display
of a directory, just type "start .", or "start .." and
an open folder pointing to that directory will start on the desktop.
25.
Right-click a drive in My Computer and select Properties. The Tools tab
offers the following disk tools: ScanDisk, Backup and Defrag which can be
used to optimize your system and protect your
data.
26. Windows 95 has a hidden Easter Egg that presents a cute little display
of the people who made it all possible. Right-click anywhere on the
desktop and select New Folder. You’ll have to rename the folder three
times to see this Egg: first name it "and now, the moment you’ve
all been waiting for" -- then press F2 and name it "we proudly
present for your viewing pleasure" -- then press F2 again and name it
"The Microsoft Windows 95 Product Team!" Now double-click on the
folder. Ta da!
27. If your screen resolution is 800 x 600 or higher, you should keep the
taskbar visible at all times. There are many benefits to doing so. For
instance, while you’re connected to the Internet you can see the
flashing red and green modem icon’s lights in the taskbar’s system
tray. If they’re not flashing, there’s no data being exchanged. It
also lets you instantly see all the other applications you have running at
any
time.
28. If you’re a power user with a newfangled PC with tons of memory and
acres of screen real estate, you might want to consider moving the taskbar
to the right or left of the screen, in a vertical orientation. It may seem
a little disconcerting at first, but there are two main reasons for this.
First, a screen is 33% wider than it is tall. That means you can spare
more room horizontally. Secondly, as a power user you will probably be
running several programs at the same time – maybe over a dozen. The
vertical orientation allows the programs to line up neat and clean so it’s
easier to keep track of
them.
29. When you print a document, a printer icon appears on the Taskbar.
Double-click it to see a list of documents waiting to print. To flip from
one application to another using only the keyboard, the old Window 3.1
trick of using Alt+Tab still works – in fact it works better than
before. Now, instead of seeing one application’s icon at a time, you see
them all, along with an outline box highlighting the one you are about to
select. Keep your thumb on the Alt key while tabbing. To select an
application, release the Alt
key.
30. If you ever set the wrong properties for an MS-DOS box and cannot
start it, you can go into the MS-DOS box’s PIF directory and edit
command.pif, or find the command.com path and edit the properties
there.
31. You can use accelerator keys to improve keyboard access to the Start
menu or Programs menu on the Start button by placing an ampersand
("&") before a unique letter in the name of items (rename
them with an ampersand within the name). |