Turn off Win95 Logo at startup
Either press Escape during bootup or add the line, LOGO=0, to the "options" section of your MSDOS.SYS
Cleaning Up Opened Windows
After you have opened multiple Explorer windows, you can close your current window and its parent window(s) all at once by holding down the shift key while closing.
Escaping when the System Hangs
If the usual ctrl-alt-delete does not respond, press ctrl-escape. This may bring up the START menu from which you can shut down the system.
Remove the Shortcut Arrows
Many people seem to be annoyed by the little arrows that Windows 95 puts in the lower-left corner of icons that represent shortcuts. Well, now you can get rid of them! To do this, use the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) to search for these keys:
-
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\piffile
Within each of these keys is the string, "IsShortcut". If you remove (or more
safely rename) both of these strings, the arrows will be gone when you restart Windows 95. To restore them, go back into regedit and rename the strings to their previous values.
Dealing with and removing tildes
Suppose you wanted a directory named "New Downloads" in Win95, but have the short file name be just "DOWNLOAD" instead of "NEWDOW~1" which is less than helpful. Short filenames are relevant in a mixed computing environment where you share files with other users whose systems do not support long file names (LFN's). Here are a couple of things to try:
- Train users to start LFN's with a descriptive short version. For example, DOWNLOADS-NEW which would resolve to Downlo~1.
- Further, you can get rid of the tildes with a simple registry hack. Add the value NameNumericTail = 0 in the following Registry key:
Hkey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem.
Screen saver corners
You can make your screen saver use activation/deactivation corners.
- open regedit
- open HKEY_CURRENT_USER
- open software
- open microsoft
- open windows
- open current version
- click on Screen savers
- add a new string value
- name it Mouse Corners
- edit value to equal "-Y-N" (no quotes)
Now when you position your mouse cursor in the upper right hand corner of the screen, the screen saver will immediately activate, likewise, if you position the mouse in the lower left hand corner of the screen, the screen saver will not activate, even after it has been sitting for longer than the time specified. This is very useful to keep your screen saver from activating when doing disk utilities like defragment, and scan disk.
Microsoft Keyboard and Hot Keys
Windows 95 has built-in support for the Microsoft Natural Keyboard, using the special keys as follows:
- WIN + R = Display the Run dialog box.
- WIN + M = Minimize all windows currently open.
- WIN + F1 = Start Help
- WIN + E = Start Explorer
- WIN + F = Start Find Files/Folders dialog box.
- CNTL+ WIN + F = Start Find Computer dialog box.
- WIN + TAB = Cycle through taskbar buttons.
- WIN + BREAK = Display Systems Properties panel.
Stop programs loading in the Startup Group
- During startup of Windows 95, hold down on the shift key until the windows is done loading. This will stop the programs in the startup group from startup and taking up valuable memory resources.
- To keep CD's from playing automatically, hold the SHIFT key for a few seconds after closing the CD-ROM drive door.
Music CDs and Autoplay
By default, Windows 95 CD Player applet starts automatically when a music CD is inserted and begins playing This is set up in Windows 95 much like a file extension association.
To change this:
- start Explorer
select "View/Options/File Type."
Scroll the list and highlight "Audio CDs."
Click "Edit."
Highlight "Play" and click "Edit."
You will see the command path used to invoke the cdplayer. The default is set to "C:\WINDOWS\cdplayer.exe /play." If you delete the path the audio CD is won't play when inserted. If you delete just the '/play' parm, the CD Player applet is started when an audio CD is inserted, but CD does not play.
Turn Off the CD-ROM Auto run
When A Windows95-aware CD-ROM is inserted into the CD-ROM drive, Windows95 automatically launches the program on the disk and the audio CD player pops and starts playing immediately. This is cute at first, but soon gets annoying.
If you hold down the Shift key when inserting the CD, this doesn't happen. You may turn this "feature" off as follows:
- Right-click on the My Computer icon
- Choose the Device Manager tab.
- Open the CD-ROM branch, and select the entry for your CD-ROM drive.
- Click Properties, and then choose the Settings tab.
- Turn off the Auto insert notification option.
- Click OK, and then OK again.
Turn off the Exploding Windows Animation
Dont like how windows seem to grow out of the taskbar, then shrink down to it? You can turn this animation off through a Registry setting.
- Start RegEdit by clicking Start/Run, and entering regedit
- Expand HKEY_CURRENT_USER
- Expand Control Panel under HKEY_CURRENT_USER
- Expand Desktop under Control Panel
- Double-click on the WindowMetrics folder under Desktop
- Choose "string value" from the Edit/New menu, and create a new string called MinAnimate
- Double-click the new entry, and enter "0" for the value.
- Exit RegEdit, and reboot.
