Here is a way to maintain both DOS/Win 3.11 and Windows95 operating systems on your computer and choose between them at boot-up. This is a useful method for to continuing to run programs under your old DOS/Win system while testing Win95. Doublespace and Drivespace drives can also be handled with this configuration.

1. Copy (not move) the whole Windows directory and all its sub directories to another directory like \WIN31. Copy the whole \DOS directory to another directory like \DOS6.

2. Edit all the INI files in the WIN31 directory to change all path statements from \WINDOWS to \WIN31. The "find and replace" command in most word processors makes this easier, but be sure you save as text files.

3. Boot your PC and install Win95 SETUP through Window's Program Manager "FILE-RUN." As you install Win95 it will rename your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to CONFIG.DOS and AUTOEXEC.DOS. (When you dual boot it renames them back to CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT and then backups the Win95 versions as .W40 files).

4. After Win95 finishes installing and you are on the desktop, use notepad with "select all files *.*" to edit the CONFIG.DOS and AUTOEXEC.DOS files and change all \WINDOWS references in them to \WIN31, and all \DOS references to \DOS6 .

5. In order for the dual boot menu to work, the following lines must appear in the [Options] section of your MSDOS.SYS. (If you use Doublespace or Drivespace disk compression you must change both MSDOS.SYS files - one on the boot drive and one in the compressed drive)

   
   [Options]
   BootGUI=1
   Network=0
   BootMulti=1
   BootMenu=1
   BootMenuDefault=7 (Use 7 for DOS, use 1 for Win95)
   BootMenuDelay=5 (# seconds to select something else)
   
   

   To add these lines, first, open "My Computer." Select OPTIONS from the VIEW drop-down menu. Then select the VIEW tab. Click "Show All Files," and deselect "hide MS-DOS file extensions." Edit MSDOS.SYS with notepad to make sure you have all the above lines. When done, protect the file by restoring the "My Computer" VIEW/OPTIONS to the the original settings.

   To change the attributes, click on the MSDOS.SYS icon using your RIGHT mouse button. Select Properties and uncheck the attribute blocks. Exit and make your text changes, then save the file. Then put the attribute check marks back where they were.

6. Exit Win95 and reboot. You should now see the boot menu and be able to select which mode you want to boot into.

Windows 95 assigns IRQs automatically, but if you need to change them to a specific value, you can.

• Open Control Panel/System/Device Manager
• Find and double-click on the device whose IRQ you wish to change. A panel for that device will appear.
• Select the Resources tab and locate the "Resource Settings" window.
• Scroll the choices to "Interrupt Request" and highlight. The "Change setting" button will become usable.
• Click "Change Setting" for the "Edit Interrupt Request" panel which allows changes to the interrupt, and immediately tells you if your new choice conflicts with other equipment.

In the Control Panel/System/Devices, there is an option to print a detailed or summary report. The detailed report is huge - 20 pages or so! The summary report is two pages, and contains a list of all interrupts currently assigned and for what purpose. This report also lists DMA channel assignments and port addresses.

Another method is to simply right-click on the My Computer icon, and select Properties. This will bring up the System control panel. Select the Device Manager tab, and double-click on Computer within the scrollable window. From here you can view IRQs, DMA channel usage, I/O assignments, and Memory settings.

Many questions we receive regard converting Winows 3.11 ".grp" files to Win95 folders. Windows95 provides a program "grpconv.exe" in the Windows folder which, when run, allows the conversion of Program Manager groups to Win95 folders in the Start Menu.

To quickly access the Properties information for any object, hold the ALT key while double-clicking it.

If you ever forget your Windows Logon Password, simply hit cancel at the logon screen. This will open the default desktop. Open Explorer and under the Windows directory, find the PWL file with your logon name. For example, if your logon name is "Bill," then there will be a file called bill.pwl. Delete this file. Go to Shut Down, and click on "close all programs and log on as another user". When the logon screen comes up, use the SAME logon name and put in a password. Windows will ask you to retype the password for verification. You are back in!!

If you want to create a new registry without a total reinstall, type 'setup /Pf' at the C: prompt. This will create a new registry from scratch. Please note the case of the letters, capitol 'P', and small case 'f'.

File types found under the "New" menu item on the mouse (right click) menu are installed in the Registry.

• Run regedit.exe
• Use the "find" function under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT to locate the default extension (i.e. ".doc" for Microsoft Word) of the program you wish to install.
• Below the file's extension you need to add a new key with the value "ShellNew".
• Now you have two options
  1. Launch a null file (one with no preset styles, etc.) Insert a new string in the ShellNew key named "NullFile" and leave the value blank.
  2. Launch a template file. Insert a new string in the Shellnew key named "filename" and set the value equal to the path of the template document.
• Close Regedit.

Hold the SHIFT key while right-clicking on the file in Explorer. "Open With" can now be selected, and you can choose a different application with which to open the file.

You can change the location of the Taskbar to be at the bottom, top, or either side of your screen simply by dragging it to the preferred location.

To speed up the Program tree accessed from the START button:

• Open the Registry Editor
• Expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER and then Control panel.
• Inside of Control Panel you will find Desktop, highlight it without expanding it.
• In the right pane make a right click and choose New-String value. Name the string "MenuShowDelay" without the quotes, give it a value of 10 or less.

Here is a quick list of fundamentals for getting more speed from your system.

1. Don't use wallpaper. Just as in Win 3.xx, fancy wallpaper can slow down the system. This probably has more to do with what kind of video card than how much RAM you have.

2. Don't use more colors than you really need. 256 colors is adequate to meet most needs. Some people need more colors than this. Some people can make do with 16 colors. Again, this probably has more to do with your video card than how much RAM you have.

3. Don't use animated cursors. Not as much impact as wallpaper, but it seems to impact system performance slightly.

4. Set up your CD ROM settings according to your needs. If you don't access your CD ROM heavily, don't go overboard on the caching or the optimization pattern (for 2x, 3x, 4x, etc.).

5. Avoid using Sound schemes that come with Win95 and the system schemes that come with the Plus! pack.

6. Take advantage of the well-documented registry hack that speeds up the response of your Start menu. To do this:
   • Open the system registry using regedit
   • Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel
   • Highlight Desktop. Right-click on the right-hand window pane and chose New - String Value.
   • Give the new string value a label of MenuShowDelay.
   • Now double-click on the new string and enter a value from 1 to 10.

7. Closely scrutinize your autoexec.bat, config.sys, win.ini, and system.ini files. Determine what, if any, entries are no longer necessary in these files and delete them. Look especially for the loading of 16 bit real mode drivers that are no longer necessary.

To get restrictions on your computer:

1. open the Registry Editor
2. Expand HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ Explorer
3. The following keys are ready to be changed:
   • Editlevel
   • NoClose (You cannot exit Windows 95)
   • NoDriveTypeAutoRun
   • NoFileMenu
   • NoRun (You cannot use the Run command from the Start menu)
   • NoSaveSettings

Windows95 handles disk caching and virtual memory much differently than previous versions of Windows. If left at default, Windows95 interprets the system and dynamically determines the size of the disk cache and virtual memory. However, if too much RAM is used for disk caching, too little is left for applications. As a result, excessive disk activity occurs from applications being swapped out to virtual memory too soon and too often. In addition, there is extra activity of the virtual memory resizing itself.

Noticeable improvement on an 8 MB system may be had by fixing the virtual memory at 20 MB and more importantly limiting the size of the disk cache to a maximum of 2 MB. To control the size of disk caching (despite the implication by Microsoft it can't be done) you add two lines in the system.ini file in your Windows95 directory in the [vcache] section:

MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=x

Where x= the max size of disk caching in KB. In the case of an 8 MB system, x=2048

It is possible to share the Windows permanent swap file between '95 and 3.1x on a dual-boot system by setting 'MinPagingFileSize' in the [386Enh] section of the Win95 SYSTEM.INI greater than, or equal to, the physical size (in Kbytes) of the swap file. Take the size in bytes of the '386SPART.PAR' file (usually found in the root of drive C:) and divide by 1024. One way to get the true size is by typing "dir c:\*.par /a:s" at the DOS prompt. The entry in the Win95 SYSTEM.INI would be for example:

[386Enh]
PagingFile=C:\386SPART.PAR
MinPagingFileSize=8196

When you install Win95, the setup program does not remove your old swap file. This being 386spart.par. Some people have it set to 20mb+. You can safely delete it, but first must take the attributes off of it and also change your "system.ini" in the [386enh] section by deleting the lines:

PagingFile=
PagingFileSize=

Make Win 3.x programs compatible under 95, with MKCOMPACT.EXE

Steps:

1. Open MKCOMPACT.EXE which is located in the Windows\System directory.
2. Select File/Open - Open the EXE file that you are having problems with.
3. Start highlighting things that seem like they may make a difference.
4. Select File/Advanced for more control options.
5. Select File/Save to save the new configuration.

Want to make your single or double speed drive perform like a quad+ speed drive in Win95? It's easy:

• Right Click on My Computer / Properties / Performance / File System / CDROM
• Set the supplemental cache speed to its maximum and the access pattern to 'Quad speed or higher." Previously "choppy" single speed drives might expect significant improvement.

The backup program included apparently runs 15-25% faster if you keep it minimized during the backup.

Dragging and dropping files with the mouse in combination with the CTRL and SHIFT keys can really speed up your file management. Try these combos:

• Hold down SHIFT while dragging MOVES file(s)
• Hold down CTRL while dragging COPIES file(s)
• Hold down SHIFT & CTRL while dragging CREATES LINK

To quickly expand the Explorer tree view to show all subfolders for a highlighted drive or folder, simply press the asterisk (*) key on the numeric keypad.

If you need to select more than one item in a folder, you can:

1. Click once on a blank area next to the first item you want to select
2. Then drag to create a box around the whole group of items you want.
3. Let go, and every item within the box will be highlighted.

Note: If you miss a few items, hold down Ctrl as you click each one.

Right-click on an empty part of the taskbar select "Properties" and choose from a list of options including auto-hide, always on top, and others.

Right-click anywhere on the desktop, then select properties.

There are some classical music scores on the Win95 CD. Search for an ".RMI" extension in the WIN95 directory. Titles include Bach, Beethoven, Canyon, Passport. A compatible media player is supplied with Win95.