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Windows 98 Tips

Try these tips with Windows 98 !!

Selections:

 

Performance

To increase icon usage and help speed up response time, Start/Run/Regedit, then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer. In the right pane make a string called MaxCachedIcons and give it a value of 30000.(This tip was suggested by Paul Barker)

Freeing Memory in DOS Windows: In the [386Enh] section of 'System.ini', add "LocalLoadHigh=1".

To gain more conventional memory, add the following to your CONFIG.SYS:

Virtual Memory: Even though Windows 98 advises you to let it manage your virtual memory for best performance, this means that it will adjust it on the fly, causing moments of wild disk activity while you are virtually frozen. To set the disk cache permanently and stop this activity, do the following:

Virtual Cache: Setting these values will prevent VCache from filling up your RAM and causing your applications to be paged out to disk.

Using Notepad or Wordpad, open "System.ini". Find the [vcache] section (or add it if it is not there), and add these two lines ( use a number that is 25% of your system RAM) The following example is for a system with 16 meg of RAM.

If you have a system with 24 meg of RAM or more, change your File System to "Network Server".

Speed Up the System Restart: Add 'BootDelay=0' to the [Options] section of C:\msdos.sys. You may have to change the attributes on this file (attrib -s -r -h msdos.sys) to edit it. Don't forget to put the attributes back after editing (attrib +s +r +h msdos.sys).

Reducing your Registry file: (This tip was suggested by Paul Barker) When applications are removed from Windows 95 or if entries are deleted from the Registry, the Registry files don't change in size. This is because Windows 95 leaves gaps in the Registry files. To remove the gaps or compress the Registry files and help improve performance:

Bypassing the STARTUP folder: If you want to quickly load Windows 98 without loading any of the programs in the Startup folder, type your password and click OK in the Welcome to Windows dialog box, then press and hold down the [Shift] key. If you're on a network, type your password and click OK in the Enter Network Password dialog box, then press and hold down the [Shift] key. If you're not logging into Windows or a network, press and hold down the [Shift] key when you see the Windows 98 splash screen appear.

Turn Off Animation! If you don't have a fast video card, you can improve performance by shutting off the animation displayed when you minimize and maximize windows. First, backup your Registry by copying your .dat files in your Windows folder to a floppy disk.

Select Start/Run, type regedit, click OK, and go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\desktop\WindowMetrics folder.

Hate how the Start menu pauses? Fix it! Open Regedit. In the right panel click on H_KEY_CURRENT_USER then click on Control Panel. Find desktop, right click on it and pick NEW String Value. Call it MenuShowDelay, all one word. Now in the left panel you should see on the bottom a value called MenuShowDelay. Double click on it to bring up the value dialog box. Give it a value from 10 to 1, 1 being the fastest. Reload Windows. You should notice a vast improvement in speed for your Start menu items!

Install Windows 98 clean! If installing the upgrade, you will need to have Disk #1 of Windows 3.x or Windows For Workgroups. There is a definite system performance gain due to freeing up space by not keeping old Windows files lying around. Simply format your C: drive and sys C: with an old DOS boot disk. Reinstall your CDROM drivers, reboot, change drive specification to your CDROM drive and type 'SETUP' at the command prompt.

How to install DOS 6.x AFTER Windows 98 has been installed. I don't know why anyone would do this but maybe it is a comfort factor in case one needs to reinstall Windows 98 and not reformat.

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Space Allocation/Copying

You can allocate 512 byte sectors instead of clusters by using DriveSpace3 which is included in the Microsoft Plus! Pack or if you have WIndows 98, comes bundled with that OS. If you're worried about the reliability of disk compression, you can install (compress a drive) DriveSpace3 without compression by selecting No Compression (Fastest) from the Advanced settings menu. If you have alot of small files on your system, you can save dozens of megabytes of disk space.

Using Windows 98 FAT32: If you are running Windows 98, you can use Windows 98 FAT32 Convert utility in Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools to convert to FAT32 partitions. Another way to create FAT32 partitions WITHOUT losing your data is to purchase Partition Magic as it supports FAT32 partitions for resizing, creation and conversion. All in all, FAT32 will reduce cluster sizes on large hard drives allowing more efficient usage of the drive. Some people who use it say there is no performance loss while others seem to think there is a slight performance loss.

Adding a new harddrive? (Following from a post in the Microsoft newsgroup by Len Segal). You will need to install the new HDD as Master and run FDISK to set the partition as ACTIVE. FDISK does not allow you to do this on a slave HDD. Next, put the old HDD as C: and the new one as D: and run the following procedure from a DOS window within Windows 98 (it will NOT work any other way):

xcopy c:\*.* /e /h /k /r /c d:

This will copy EVERYTHING you will need to the new HDD. (You do not need to change any attributes.)

If you want to keep the old drive as a slave drive, you can now swap the new and old HDD's as master and slave respectively and all should be OK. If you are going to remove the old drive, remember to change the settings in CMOS and the jumper on HDD itself.

A second option is to get GHOST. Supposedly, it makes an image of your HDD for easy copy to a new HDD. I have not used this product.

A third option is to get DRIVE COPY from Powerquest, makers of Partition Magic. I have not used this product.

Delete your old DOS. Free up 3-4meg of space by deleting your old MSDOS 6.x . Windows 98 has its own DOS.

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Soundcard, CDROM and other devices

Create a Windows 98 boot disk with CDROM drive access:

If you have your CDROM real mode drivers you can format a Windows 98 boot floppy and have it Copy the System Files to it then follow the below steps to manually place your CDROM drivers on your boot floppy and into your startup files.

If you don't have your cdrom drivers and you have an IDE or ATAPI cdrom drive, download this boot file. You have your choice of boot95.exe or boot98.exe from Comtrade Support Files.

If your sound card is supported by Windows 98, but Setup did not detect it. Here's how you install it.

If your CD-ROM drive is not recognized by Windows 98, use the following steps:

Add the CDROM drive's information to the CONFIG.SYS to allow usage of the CDROM drive if rebooting your system to the Comand Prompt. Using the Windows 98 CD-ROM driver will allow access to the CD-ROM drive while in Windows 98 GUI. However, selecting ShutDown and "Restarting in MS-DOS Mode" will NOT allow usage of the CD-ROM drive. The DOSSTART.BAT in \Windows already has the MSCDEX.EXE line. You need to have your DEVICE= CDROM driver loaded at system boot time.

To use other devices after "Restarting in MS-DOS Mode" add to \WINDOWS\DOSSTART.BAT. You can then put any TSRs (Terminate and Stay Resident) programs in such as your MOUSE driver. Device drivers that go into your CONFIG.SYS can not be added here.

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Internet Connection Sharing

This section guides you though setting up a Windows 98 SE feature called Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) which allows a network of 5 computers to share one Dial Up Networking internet connection. ICS contains a Network Address Translation (NAT) feature built into Windows 98 SE. ICS uses the TCP/IP protocol. An advantage of NAT is its application transparency, meaning there is no need to set special settings for all of your Internet applications. Whereas proxy based products require users on all of the networked computers to set their Internet applications to "use proxy" and configure the TCP/IP of the proxy server. DHCP setup and static IP address setup are discussed.

HOST Setup using DHCP

HOST Setup Static IP Address

Client Setup using DHCP

Client Setup Static IP Address

No Sharing... button on the ICS HOST machine

This article explains the culprit Q231651 What you might try is uninstall ICS then reinstall it on the HOST side.

SYMPTOMS When you cancel the Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) Wizard, you may not be able to use the Sharing option in the Internet tool.

CAUSE This issue is by design.

 File Transfer Rates on the Client

Connection Timeout Settings

HOST side

CLIENT side

NOTE: Using Internet Explorer, Outlook Express or other Internet applications to dial from the HOST or CLIENT will not allow the other side to continue using the connection when the "dialed from side" meets the idle timeout setting.

Constant Connection for both HOST and CLIENT:

I have found two different ways to keep the Internet connection active regardless of which machine is idle.

Internet application setup

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Cosmetic

Restore Windows Files Option Missing from Setup: This problem occurs when there are header sections (begin and end in brackets [ ] ) in the setuplog.txt that contain more than 32 characters. These headers need to be disabled for the option to reappear. To restore this option:

Try this site for Windows 98 keystroke shortcuts!
http://www.scott.net/~gtaylor/route98/keystrokes.html Windows 98 keystrokes

Turn Off the Bouncing Click Here to Begin Arrow The "Click Here to Begin" arrow that bounces off the start menu when you first start Windows 98 was irritating right off the bat. Some feel it's useful for those folks who can't figure out what Start means, but many of us think it's fairly stupid. Microsoft claims that it is impossible to get rid of the little bouncing arrow, but someone figured it out:

Make a LOCKNOW setup with a screensaver on your desktop.
(Credit goes to Gene Fudala for this tip!)
Have you ever wanted to invoke your favorite screensaver immediately and lock your workstation? You can, simply by:

If you don't want the first level of folders in C: shown in the right hand panel when Explorer starts then change it's start icons Properties Shortcut Target to : C:\Windows\Explorer.exe  /n,/e,/select,C:\

If you do not want to be prompted for a password, set your primary network logon to Windows Logon. To do so, use the following steps:

If the above didn't work, then try these steps:

If you have multiple users try this:

To hide the Network Neighborhood desktop icon, go into \tools\reskit\netadmin\poledit from the Windows 98 install CD. Double-click the POLEDIT.EXE to execute it, click on File/Open Registry. Next, double-click the Local User icon. Go into the Shell book then Restrictions. Check the Hide Network Neighborhood box. Exit POLEDIT, Save the change and go into Shut Down/Restart the Computer.

To hide icons in the Control Panel, add a line in the c:\windows\control.ini for each *.cpl icon you want to hide. If the [Don't Load] section header is not there, add it at the beginning of the file. Any settings associated to the .cpl file will be retained. For Example:

System boot to the Windows 98 Boot Menu: Add 'BootMenu=1' and 'BootMenuDelay=X' (where X is the number of secs to delay booting to your default Menu item) to the [Options] section of C:\msdos.sys. You may have to change the attributes on this file (attrib -s -r -h msdos.sys) to edit it. Don't forget to put the attributes back after editing (attrib +s +r +h msdos.sys).

If you want to add a popout menu with the contents of your Control Panel, Printers folder, or Dial Up Netwoking folder, it is easy to do by following these instructions:

That's all there is to it. Now, if you click on your Start Menu, and navigate to where you placed your new folder(s), it should pop out, showing the contents of that particular folder (i.e., if you made a new Control Panel folder, you would see all of your Control Panel applets.)

To register OCX files.(This tip was suggested by Paul Barker) When you get an error message that tells you an OCX file is not REGISTERED in the Registry, register it by making a shortcut in the C:\WINDOWS\SEND TO folder to the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\REGSERV32.EXE file. Then find the OCX file and right click it. Select SEND TO and the REGSERV32 entry in the list. This should register the file.

Eliminate the Shortcut arrows on your desktop shortcuts. Here's how:

Are you tired of looking at the name Recycle Bin on your desktop when you'd much prefer Dumpster, Garbage or just plain Trash? You can change the name using the Registry.

Press the F4 key at system boot to boot into MS-DOS 6.x. If that doesn't work and you have your old DOS still on your system, put BootMulti=1 in the [Options] section of the msdos.sys file.

To clear documents from the Documents setting within the Start button, click on the Settings icon then the Start Program Menu tab and click the Clear button.

You can access your Long File Name directories or files in a DOS Prompt by simply putting double quotes around the that name. For example, cd\"Program Files".

You can stretch the Taskbar to get your buttons to display text besides the icon. Simply click your mouse on the top of the Taskbar until you see the up/down arrow then drag it up (if Taskbar is on the bottom).

Use the right mouse button to drag and drop into folders, windows, etc. you will get a popup menu with the "Move Here/Copy Here/Create Shortcut(s) Here" options.

If you want to have the Explorer View all the time (split view panes) do this:

To remove an item from the "Add Remove Programs" Uninstalled list in Control Panel that will not uninstall, execute the Regedit program, expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder, open the Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Uninstall folder. Select the folder of the item that is to be deleted from the Uninstalled list. Delete or remove the DisplayName and UninstallString items. The "Add Remove Programs" Uninstall list will now show the item removed.

Add new Windows 98 compatible applications via Control Panel and Add-Remove Programs icon. This way the uninstall feature of that application will be added to the Add/Uninstall tab's list. Only Windows 98 applications will do this. All other applications can be added via the Run option within the Start button and will not create an uninstall feature.

Here's a way to define friendlier short filenames (DOS version of a Long File Name) instead of the standard XXXXXX~1.XXX format. Run REGEDIT and do the following:
Before trying this tip, please check out this warning.

The "Send To" quick menu shows only your drives as destinations. You can use any folder or file as a destination by adding shortcuts to the "Send To" folder. You must add a shortcut file to that folder; a shortcut to Recycle Bin is great as it will avoid the prompt dialogue "Do you want to send to Recycle Bin?". By the way, to edit the "Send To" menu, just open the Send To folder in C:\Windows.

The Windows 98 Setup program creates a file called MSDOS.SYS in the root directory and sets the file's Read-Only, System, and Hidden attributes. Unlike the MSDOS.SYS file in MS-DOS, this file is a text file. It contains a [Paths] section that lists the locations of other Windows 98 files (such as the registry file) and an [Options] section that you can use to personalize the startup process.

The [Paths] section can contain the following settings:
HostWinBootDrv=<Root of Boot Drive>
Default: C
Purpose: Specifies the location for the root of the startup drive
UninstallDir=<Root of Boot Drive>
Default: C
Purpose: Specifies the location of the W98undo.dat and W98undo.ini files. These files are necessary to uninstall Windows 98

NOTE: This setting is present only if you back up your system files when you are prompted during Windows 95 Setup.
WinBootDir=<Windows Directory>
Default: Directory specified during Setup (for example, C:)
Purpose: Lists the location of the necessary files for startup
WinDir=<Windows Directory>
Default: Directory specified during Setup (for example, C:)
Purpose: Lists the location of the Windows 98 directory specified during Setup
The [Options] section can contain the following settings and must be manually inserted
AutoScan=<Number>
Default: 1
Purpose: Defines whether or not ScanDisk is run after a bad shutdown. A setting of 0 does not run ScanDisk; 1 prompts before running ScanDisk; 2 does not prompt before running ScanDisk but prompts you before fixing errors if any errors are found.

This setting is used only by Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2 and Windows 98.
BootDelay=<Seconds>
Default: 2
Purpose: Sets the amount of time that the "Starting Windows98" message remains on the screen before Windows98 continues to startup.
BootSafe=<Boolean>
Default: 0
Purpose: A setting of 1 forces your computer to start in safe mode.
BootGUI=<Boolean>
Default: 1
Purpose: A setting of 1 forces the loading of the graphic interface. A setting of 0 disables the loading of the graphic interface.
BootKeys=<Boolean>
Default: 1
Purpose: A setting of 1 enables the use of the function-key startup options (that is, F4, F5, F6, and F8). A setting of 0 disables the use of these function keys during the startup process.

NOTE: A setting of BootKeys=0 overrides the use of BootDelay=n.
BootMenu=<Boolean>
Default: 0
Purpose: A setting of 1 enables the startup menu. If this setting is 0, then to invoke the startup menu you must press F8 when "Starting Windows98" appears.
BootMenuDefault=<Number>
Default: 1 if the computer is running correctly 4 if the computer locked up in the previous instance of Setup
Purpose: Use this setting to set the default menu item for startup.
BootMenuDelay=<Number>
Default: 30
Purpose: Sets the number of seconds your computer will pause on the startup menu. If the number of seconds counts down to 0 without intervention, the BootMenuDefault is activated.

NOTE: This option is not functional unless BootMenu=1 has been added to the [Options] section of the Msdos.sys file.
BootMulti=<Boolean>
Default: 0
Purpose: A setting of 0 disables the multi-boot option. (For example, with a setting of 0 you cannot boot your previous operating system.) A setting of 1 enables the F4 and F8 keys to boot your previous operating system.
BootWarn=<Boolean>
Default: 1
Purpose: A setting of 0 disables the safe-mode startup warning message and the startup menu.
BootWin=<Boolean>
Default: 1
Purpose: A setting of 1 forces Windows98 to load at startup. A setting of 0 disables Windows98 as your default operating system (this is useful only if you have MS-DOS version 5.x or 6.x on the computer).

Note: Pressing F4 inverts the default only if BootMulti=1. (For example, pressing the F4 key with a setting of 0 forces Windows98 to load.)
DoubleBuffer=<Boolean>
Default: 0
Purpose: A setting of 1 is a conditional setting that enables double- buffering for controllers that need it (for example, SCSI controllers). A setting of 2 is an unconditional setting that enables double-buffering regardless of whether the controller needs it or not.

DBLSpace=<Boolean>
Default: 1
Purpose: A setting of 1 allows the automatic loading of the DBLSPACE.BIN file. A setting of 0 prevents the automatic loading of this file.

NOTE: Windows 98 uses either Dblspace.bin or Drvspace.bin if either is present in the root folder of the boot drive at startup. To disable a compression driver from being loaded at startup, use both settings in the Msdos.sys file.

For example:
DBLSpace=0
DRVSpace=0

DRVSpace=<Boolean>
Default: 1
Purpose: A setting of 1 allows the automatic loading of the DRVSPACE.BIN file. A setting of 0 prevents the automatic loading of this file.

NOTE: Windows 98 uses either Dblspace.bin or Drvspace.bin if either is present in the root folder of the boot drive at startup. To disable a compression driver from being loaded at startup, use both settings in the Msdos.sys file.

For example:
DBLSpace=0
DRVSpace=0

LoadTop=<Boolean>
Default: 1
Purpose: A setting of 0 does not let Windows 98 load COMMAND.COM or DRVSPACE.BIN/DBLSPACE.BIN above 640K. If you are having compatibility problems with software that makes assumptions about available memory, try setting this to 0.
Logo=<Boolean>
Default: 1
Purpose: A setting of 1 forces the default Windows 98 logo to appear. A setting of 0 prevents the animated logo from being displayed. A setting of 0 also avoids hooking a variety of interrupts that can create incompatibilities with certain third-party memory managers.
Network=<Boolean>
Default: 0
Purpose: A setting of 1 means the network was installed and adds "Start Windows, bypassing startup files, with network support"; as an option on the Windows 98 startup menu.

The MSDOS.SYS file also contains a section that contains seemingly useless information. This information is necessary to support programs that expect MSDOS.SYS to be at least 1024 bytes in length. For example, if an anti-virus program detects that the MSDOS.SYS file is less than 1024 bytes, it may assume that the file is infected with a virus. If you delete MSDOS.SYS, your computer will not start.

The following statement, followed by a series of X's, appears in MSDOS.SYS:

;The following lines are required for compatibility with other programs.
;Do not remove them (MSDOS.SYS needs to be greater than 1024 bytes).

Since each line begins with a semicolon (;), the lines are not read by the computer.

To edit the MSDOS.SYS file:

Right mouse clicking on any icon will give options to change Properties/Delete/Rename/Copy/Open etc. Right mouse clicking anywhere on the desktop and selecting Properties allows Display properties to be changed. Faster than going thru Control Panel!

Applications can be added to the Start button by dragging the executable or icon to the Start button or from the Start button via Settings/Taskbar and using the Advanced button to Cut/Copy/Paste of icons from various folders.

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Networking (WINS Peer to Peer / Dial Up Networking)

You can use WINS to share files and printers. Follow the instructions for using WINS from the http://www.winfiles.com/connect page. WINS can use both the LMHOSTS and WINS to find a static or dynamic IP address to resolve or if one computer can't use WINS, it will automatically try the LMHOSTS file that is setup with actual IP addresses. A file has to be put into the C:\windows directory called LMHOSTS (without any extension). This file will contain the IP address and ComputerName (eg. 198.105.232.1 ftp). To find what your IP address is, Click on the Start button, then Run... NBSTAT-N. The IP address will appear at the top of the screen. Right clicking on My Computer allows you to map a network drive via the Map Network Drive selection. Here you put in your \\ComputerName\SharedResourceName format (ie.. \\winserve.001\guest). If only the \\ComputerName is known, make sure the Network Neighborhood icon is on the desktop, then click the Start button.. Run... \\ComputerName. A dialog box will appear with all the shared resources available at that remote site. Important: To set security up on folders or entire drives, go into Explorer and right click the drive or folder and select the Sharing... option, Sharing Tab, the Share As radio button. Then select the Access Type. Passwords can be setup to use so security is maintained. Only those drives/folders that are setup as Shared will be available.

To use the 32-bit Internet connection Dial Up Networking (DUN), follow the step by step instructions contained in the Windows95 TCP/IP FAQ. The FAQ will explain all the settings for TCP/IP protocol, Client for Networks (Windows Logon Client) and Dial-Up Adapter and can be used for both PPP and SLIP.

Right mouse click on the Dial Up connection icon (the one setup for dialing into your network or ISP) and Properties to change Modem and Server Type options. For example to set the "Bring Up Terminal Window" option that some ISP's require. Click on the Connection option on the Menu bar then Settings to check the "Redial" option.

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MS FAX

To use FAX in Windows 98, you can use the Windows 95 MS FAX located on the Windows 98 CD under \tools\Oldwin95\message\us.

  1. Copy \windows\system\MAPISTUB.DLL somewhere you will need this after installing MS FAX. This file somehow becomes missing after installing MS FAX and causes Outlook Express (OE) to display a prompt informing you that OE is not the default mail client. Another message box appears instructing you to reinstall the app that uses MAPISTUB.DLL so it can be put into \windows\system.
  2. If you are running Outlook 97 (or later) or Microsoft Exchange Mail, you can skip to step 4. If not, run the wms.exe file first which will install Windows Messaging (contains the MAPI requirements for FAX).
  3. Reboot
  4. Run awfax.exe to install MS FAX.
  5. Reboot
  6. Copy MAPISTUB.DLL into \windows\system

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