Application Tips

Eudora Lite and More than One E-Mail Account
Hidden FDISK Switches
Hidden Format Switches
Creating Outlook Contacts Shortcut
Changing the Number of Days Displayed in Outlook Calendar
Changing File Associations
Extracting files from Win95's CAB files
Recovering Damaged Text Files
Setting Swap File Size
Defragmenting the Swap File
ScanDisk with OEM SR2
Substituting Drive Letters
Shutting Down or Restarting Windows95 from an Icon
Stopping Applications from Starting Automatically
Saving Space Using WinZip
Office97 and Plus Pack Themes
Opening a Files for Editing
Opening Associated Files from a DOS Box
Using Another E-Mail Package when Exchange is Installed
Power Surfing
Lotus 123 Release 5 Lockup
Wildcards with DIR and File Find
ScanDisk Command-Line Switches
Defrag Command-Line Switches
Fixing Page Fault in MPREXE.EXE
Changing the Telnet Scroll-Back Buffer Size
Auto-Dialing for 32-bit Internet Applications
DOSSTART.BAT File
Fixing Corrupted Exchange Files
Emergency Recovery Utility
Turning off the ending = with Exchange
Using your mouse to select an area in a DOS app
Using Exchange with more than one ISP phone number
Backing up the Registry
Adding Notepad to SENDTO
Having Eudora Pro be the default e-mail program, rather than Exchange
Free drive space errors with Norton Utilities
Using the new DOS Edit
Creating Distribution List with Exchange
Using Memmaker
Signatures using WordMail
Creating Document templates
New XCOPY switches

Eudora Lite and More than One E-Mail Account

To set up Eudora Lite to work with more than one E-Mail account you need make 4 changes to the Eudora.ini file and then save the file as Eudora2.ini Etc.
Then to start Eudora on the alternate account you create a new shortcut with the target entered as C:\Eudora\Eudora.exe C:\Eudora\Eudora2.INI where "C" is the appropriate drive letter.

The 4 modifications to the Eudora.ini file are all in the "Settings" section as follows:

Where altname = 2nd user name & alternate.net = 2nd ISP

  1. POPAccount=altname@alternate.net
  2. ReturnAddress=altname@alternate.net
  3. DialupUsername=altname
  4. SMTPServer=mail.alternate.net

Note many setting will remain as they are in the primary account .ini file.

Side Note: To remove Eudora's startup splash screen add the line "NoSplashScreen=1" in the settings section.

Hidden FDISK Switches

Here are a few additional switches that can be used with FDISK:

Hidden Format Switches

There are a couple of undocument Format switches that have been around for several years: They will work with at least DOS 6.2 and above.

These can be useful if your are formatting drives from a batch file or shortcut and don't want to be prompted for input.

Changing the Number of Days Displayed in Outlook Calendar

When in Outlook's Calendar program with Day View, to change the number of days shown, press Alt along with the number of days you want to see.
For example Alt-4 would show 4 days.

Creating Outlook Contacts Shortcut

To create a shortcut for your Outlook Contacts folder on the desktop

  1. Right click on an open area of the desktop
  2. Select New / Shortcut
  3. Enter in the path to your outlook program followed by outlook:contacts. Note the quotes are necessary - "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\OUTLOOK.EXE" outlook:contacts

Changing File Associations

  1. Changing File Associations quickly
  2. In Explorer select a fileof the type you want to change.
  3. Hold down Shift & Right click the selection.
  4. Choose "Open With".
  5. Select the program to open the file type.
  6. In the dialog box check the Always use this program to open this file.
  7. Click OK
  8. The association are now made

When you double click on a data file, the application associated with that file's extension is stated the the file is loaded.
To change a the application associated with a particular file extension:

  1. Open a Folder
  2. Go to View / Options / File Types
  3. Scroll down until you see the particular file extension(s) you want to change. This will be in the File type details: section towards the bottom of the dialog box.
  4. Click on the Edit button
  5. In the Actions box, double click on Open
  6. In Application used to perform this action:, enter the name of the application you want to open when you open a file with the extenstion. You can enter it manually or browse to it.
  7. Click on the Ok, Ok, and the Close buttons.

Extracting files from Win95's CAB files

Note from Bob: The submitted tip will only extract files that start with the name you specificed.
To extract a file from an unknown cab file, where it will search through all cab files, from the command line, enter:

for  %p  in  (x:\win95\*.cab)  do  extract  %p   filename

Where x\win95 is the location of you cab files and filename is the name of the file you are looking for.
To do this in a batch file, use two % signs instead of one.

Recovering Damaged Text Files

Here's a handy tip to recover a corrupt or damaged text file through Word 97.
It doesn't have to startout a Word file either. This can be used to recover any file that contains text.

Here's how you do it:

  1. Open Word 97
  2. Click FILE->OPEN and click the file you wish to recover to select it.
  3. Down near the bottom of the page on the "Files of type" section, choose "Recover text from any file"
  4. Click "Open".

 

Setting Swap File Size

If when you first start your computer, a swap file is being created. You can speed the boot process by specifying this as the minimum swap file size.

  1. Boot your system and don't open any applications
  2. Note the size of your swap file (WIN386.SWP)
  3. Open the System Properties dialog box (right click on My Computer and select Properties)
  4. Click on the Performance tab
  5. Click on the Virtual Memory button
  6. Check Let me specify my own virtual memory settings
  7. If you have a hard drive or partition that is not ofter used, you can change the location
  8. For the minimum size, select the size (or slightly larger) of the swap file when you first booted.
  9. Don't select a maximum. Let it default to the rest of your hard drive space.

Defragmenting the Swap File

Normally when you use Windows95's Disk Defragger, this will not defrag the swap file.

To defrag the swap file:

  1. Open the System Properties dialog box (right click on My Computer and select Properties)
  2. Click on the Performance tab
  3. Click on the Virtual Memory button
  4. Check Let me specify my own virtual memory settings
  5. Check Disable virtual memory (Note: This will cause the system not to use a swap file)
  6. Click on the OK button
  7. Answer Yes to the warning
  8. Click on the Close button
  9. Reboot when prompted
  10. You system will reboot.
  11. Check to see that there is no swap file. If one still remains (WIN386.SWP), you can safely delete it.
  12. Defrag your system as you usually do
  13. Now reset the swap file to your previous setting and reboot. (Note: Do not leave your system running without a swap file)

ScanDisk with OEM SR2

To alter the way the DOS Scandisk gets used during a SR2 bootup, you can modify the \WINDOWS\COMMAND\SCANDISK.INI file.

With the new OEM version of Windows95, if the system was not shutdown cleanly,
the next time it is started, it will stop and prompt you before running ScanDisk.
New options are available for the MSDOS.SYS file to configure how ScanDisk will start.

Substituting Drive Letters

You can use the DOS SUBST command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to set a drive letter to a local or networked drive and directory.
This way you only need to go to a new drive letter rather than needing to go several levels deep into a directory structure.
For example:

SET SYST=D:\SYST
SET UTIL=%SYST%\UTIL

SUBST G: %DATADIR%\GRAPHICS
SUBST H: %DATADIR%\HTML
SUBST I: %DATADIR%\HTML\intrepid
SUBST M: %DATADIR%\MIDI
SUBST T: %TEMP%
SUBST U: %UTIL%
SUBST W: %DATADIR%\HTML\smulder
SUBST Z: %DATADIR%\DL

Shutting Down or Restarting Windows95 from an Icon

To Shutdown Windows95, create a shortcut to:
rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows

To Restart Windows95, create a shortcut to:
rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec

Note: This will also run the DOSSTART.BAT file if you have it. There is an easy way to not use this file and boot to DOS Mode. See my section on Booting to DOS Mode

Stopping Applications from Starting Automatically

If you have applications that you want to stop from starting automatically, there are three places you need to look, the WIN.INI file, the Startup Folder and the Registry.

  1. The load= or run= lines in the WIN.INI file. This is in the directory where you installed Win95, usually the C:\WINDOWS directory
  2. The StartUp folder.

    Start the Explorer.
    Go to C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp folder.
    Remove any shortcuts you find there that you don't want.

  3. The Registry.

    Edit the Registry
    Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Run.
    Remove any programs from there.

Saving Space Using WinZip

Do you have a folder with lots of .txt ot other files that when "ZIPPED" really compress?
Try this to save valuable disk space:

  1. Zip all the files into one big "ZIPPED" file.
  2. Then delete the UNZIPPED files and keep the ZIP file in the original folder.
  3. Then when you want to see a particular file, open the main "ZIP" file but don't extract the files, just double click the file of interest right in the WinZip screen and it will open.
  4. If you modify the file and save your changes in the normal fashion, WinZip sees the change and asks if you want to update the file in the ZIP to which you of course say yes or Ok.

The net result is your files take up a lot less disk space and the files are easily accessable. (I have a group of .txt files that ZIPPED are just over one Meg but unzipped are over 7.5 Megs!)

Office97 and Plus Pack Themes



Plus Pack users who install Office 97 will experience crashes when using the THEMES.EXE to change their desktop.
The file must be manually replaced with a new one on the Office 97 CD-ROM.
It is not done by default during the Office installation.
The warning is buried deep in the setup instructions and easily missed.

Note from Bob: You can download the patched version of the file at THEMES.EXE- Updated Themes.exe version 4.40.311

Opening a Files for Editing



I would call this a Web Authoring Tip, but it has many other uses...

Adding an 'Edit' option to HTML Documents Options Menu.

When I double click my *.htm files it always fires up my browser.
Well sometimes I want to edit that document instead. I can put Notepad in the Send To Folder to ease this problem. Here is another way to deal with this that is a bit slicker:

  1. From Windows Explorer, select View then Options
  2. Click the File Types Tab.
  3. Select the type you want to add edit for (in my example this would be 'Netscape Hypertext Document' or *.HTM
  4. Click the Edit Button.
  5. From the Edit File Type panel click the New button.
  6. Action is: &Edit, Application used to.... is: c:\windows\notepad.exe %1
  7. Click OK, then Close, then Close.

Now when you secondary (right) click an HTML Document select Edit
from the menu (or press E) and you are now looking at the source in Notepad.

You can use a similar process for Graphic files (JPG, GIF, etc) to send them to your favorite Graphics program.


Opening Associated Files from a DOS Box



For a file with its associated application, say Word for Windows, and a data file, FILE1.DOC

At a DOS prompt, type START FILE1.DOC (or just file1 if it's unique). Word comes up and loads the document.

Using Another E-Mail Package when Exchange is Installed

Normally when web browsing, if Exchange is installed, and you click on a e-mail address
it will default to opening up. If you want to change it to another e-mail program:

  1. Open up a Folder
  2. Select View / OptionsClick on the File Types tab
  3. Scroll down to URL:MailTo Protocol
  4. Click on the Edit button
  5. Under Actions, highlight open
  6. Click on the Edit button
  7. Under Application used to perform action
  8. From here you can browse to the e-mail program you want to use

Eudora Pro has an option to set that automatically. Other programs may have switches you need to include.

Pegasus needs a -T %1 for it to automatically insert the e-mail address

Power Surfing

This tip works especially well if you have a large monitor and run at a high resolution...

If you want to really power surf the web, open up more than one browser. Arrange them on the screen so that you can see at least part of each one at all times.

Once this is done, you can now drag links from one browser to another. This saves you from having to use the back button constantly, especially if you are on a page like a search engine, where there are lots of links and you want to try a bunch of them.

Also, if you encounter a web page with frames, and you want to break out of the frames, you can drag a link to a new browser. No more frames.

(You can also right-click a link and choose "Open in New Browser".)

Here's an example of using two browsers...
Let's say you are going to be using a search engine for the next hour or so. Start two browsers and tile them vertically. (Minimize all programs except the two browsers, and right click a blank spot on the taskbar, then choose 'tile vertically'). Now drag the edges of the browsers so that the browser on the left is about 3 inches wide. Drag the edges of the browser on the right so that it takes up the rest of the screen. Now, using the browser on the left, open your favorite search engine and do a search. When the list of hits are displayed, drag a link into the browser on the right.

This lets you see all the hits from the search engine while you are surfing those sites... no more hitting the 'back' button all day long.

Lotus 123 Release 5 Lockup

If your Lotus 123 Release 5 for Windows grays out the spreadsheet and locks up, here's what to do:

  1. Go to Control Panel, System, Device Manager Performance, Graphics
  2. Move the bar to the left until the problem goes away.
  3. You'll have to reboot and experiment each time.
  4. When the problem goes away, go back to System and move it up one notch to tweak it.
  5. That way you'll be going as fast as you can with the graphics limit.


Wildcards with DIR and File Find

In addition to the usual wildcards for doing such things as a DIR or File Find,
new options are available with Windows95. The following are a few examples:

COM - All files and folders that have COM in the extension
*ABC* - All files and folders with ABC somewhere in the name
*ABC - All files with ABC as the last characters in the name (no including the extension)
*ABC? - All files with ABC as the second to last characters in the name
?ABC* - All files and folders with ABC as the second through the fourth letters in a name
?ABC? - All files and folders with at least one letter before and after the ABC

ScanDisk Command-Line Switches

Scandskw

drive: - Drive letter of disk you want to scan
/A or /ALL - Scans all local, non-removable hard drives
/N or /NonInteractive - Start and closes ScanDisk Automatically

Defrag Command-Line Switches

Defrag

drive: - Drive letter of the disk you want to defrag
/all - Defrag all local, non-removable drives
/F - Defrag files and free space
/U - Defrag files only
/Q - Defrag free space only
/concise - Display the Hide Details view
/detailed - Display the Show Details view
/noprompt - Immediately starts Defrag

Fixing Page Fault in MPREXE.EXE

Occasionally, after Exchange is installed, you will get errors that indicate that MPREXE.EXE caused a page fault in KERNEL32.DLL
To solve the problem, delete the .PWL file associated with your login ID.
Another solution is to download the Password List Update (278 K) to repair the existing PWL file.

Auto-Dialing for 32-bit Internet Applications

If your 32-bit Internet applications do not automatically invoke your
Windows 95 Dialer, here is a way I found to enable this feature.

  1. First, bring up an internet application such as Netscape or Internet Explorer.
  2. Next, manually dial into your internet provider by double-clicking your connection icon.
  3. Once connected, go to the Control Panel and double-click on the Internet icon.
  4. Once the window open, uncheck the checkbox titled "Dial whenever an Internet Connection is needed".
  5. Click the check box again and make sure there is a check in the checkbox.
  6. Next, click the APPLY button.
  7. Finally , click the OK button.

Once you do this, close your internet application and disconnect from your internet provider.
Re-start your Internet application and the Windows 95 dialer should start up.
NOTE: From my experience, all Internet applications will be effected and will automatically start the Windows 95 dialer.


DOSSTART.BAT File

There's a file name DOSSTART.BAT in the WINDOWS directory. By editing this file you will be able to configure how to start DOS whenever you exit Windows to DOS mode.
This is just like an AUTOEXEC.BAT file that starts up your system.


Fixing Corrupted Exchange Files

To replace corrupted files in MS-Exchange run
c:\program files\microsoft exchange\mlset32.exe

Normally, just removing exchange won't delete the old files.
If it should happen that one is corrupted it won't be replaced by the original from the CD when exchange is added again.
Running the program above launches the original exchange setup applet which guides you through the original install process.


Emergency Recovery Utility

Microsoft includes their Emergency Recovery Utility(ERU) on the 95 CD-ROM
This utility makes a backup of the registry and other important system files.
In some cases Windows 95 can be fixed by restoring the registry with this utility.

The ERU program is in the \OTHER\MISC\ERU directory on the Win95 CD.
If you have the floppy version of Win 95, the utility can be found at Microsoft's web site
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/download/eruzip.exe

ERU is also a good way to keep recent backups of all your important system files!


Turning off the ending = with Exchange

When using Exchange, sometimes other e-mail packages will end
each line with a = character.

To turn this off:

  1. Open the Control Panel
  2. Double Click on the Mail / Fax icon
  3. Highlight Internet Mail
  4. Click on Properties
  5. Click on Message Format
  6. Uncheck Use MIME when sending messages

Using the Mouse to copy text in a DOS program

If you want to use your mouse to select an area to copy while you are in a windowed DOS program:

  1. Right click on the icon that starts the program
  2. Select Properties
  3. Click on the Misc tab
  4. Check the QuickEdit box

This eliminates the need to select text by using the pull down menu.

Using Exchange with more than one phone number

If you set up exchange to connect using the modem, you can only have one phone number listed.
If you have more than one phone number available for your provider, you would need to create another profile,
which would have your e-mail to go to two mail boxes.

To get around this problem, simply select Network for the connection.
Connect first using either phone number and then start Exchange
Then no matter what phone number you used to connect to the internet,
all your e-mail will be in one place.

Backing up the Registry

Use CFGBACK.EXEon the Win 95 CD. It is in the /OTHER/MISC/CFGBACK directory.
It will save up to 9 copies of the registry in*.rbk file format.
You can restore any of these when necessary.

Adding NOTEPAD to SENDTO

Create a shortcut to notepad.exe in the C:\WINDOWS\SENDTO directory.
Then, you'll have the option to view a files contents by right-clicking it and "sending" to the notepad.
Immensely useful for deciphering old set-up files (or .DOC files that aren't Word files, READ.ME etc.)


Eudora Pro for Win95

If you are using the Internet Explorer and send e-mail, Win95 defaults to using Exchange.
If you would rather use Eudora Pro as your e-mail program:

  1. Start Eudora Pro for Win95
  2. Select Tools
  3. Select Options
  4. Select Mapi
  5. For the section Use Eudora MAPI Server, select Always

Now when you e-mail from within the Internet Explorer, Eudora will come up as your
e-mail program.

Norton Utilities

If the readings on the amount of hard drive space is showing
more than is possible

  1. Go into Norton Recycled bin
  2. Hit empty Norton Protected files

This will now give you an accurate reading.


Using EDIT

The DOS based text editor that comes with Windows95 has some advantages
over the one that came with prior versions of DOS.

EDIT can also be used on prior versions of DOS.
Just copy EDIT.COM to your old DOS directory.

Creating Distribution Lists for Exchange E-Mail

  1. Start Exchange.
  2. Open up the Address Book.
  3. Create a New Entry.
  4. Select Personal Distribution List from the menu.
  5. Type in the Name of the List as well as any notes.
  6. Click on the Add/Remove Members button.
  7. Select the people you want on the distribution list.
  8. You can use the Windows Ctrl or Shift with left mouse button to select multiple entries.
  9. Click the next two OK buttons.
  10. To send to your Distribution List, simply create your e-mail as usual and select it from the Address book.

Using Memmaker

Here’s a blast from the (supposed) past:


Signatures Using WordMail

If you are using WordMail that comes with Office95, you can send e-mail using Microsoft Word.
Exchange will automatically detect the addition and start WordMail when you create a new e-mail or reply to an existing one.

It will use Word's spell checker, most of the WinWord text formatting capabilities (centering, full justification, bold, italics)
a special Mail button bar and quite a few new features. It is certainly worth trying out.

This may sound like MS hype but I'm actually quite impressed

To include a signature:

  1. Start a new message (Ctrl-N)
  2. Type in your signature.
  3. Highlight your signature text.
  4. From the pulldown menu, select Edit / Autotext.
  5. Type in signature for the name.
  6. Click on the Add button.
  7. Now when you send any message, this text will be added to the beginning.

Advantages are:

  1. By adding the text to the beginning of the file, a reply will have your signature at the end of your reply, not at the end of their message.
  2. You can format text with Bold, Italics, Underlines etc. Anyone using Exchange can also view them

Adding New Document Templates

  1. Save a blank file with the program for the documents you wish to create the templates, into the hidden directory \WINDOWS\ShellNew.
  2. Then open the Registry Editor and add the key "ShellNew" under the extension related to that document (ie. .BAS, .ORG, .DXF)
  3. Add a new substring and name it Filename
  4. Double-click Filename and type the name of the blank document you just saved.
  5. Now you can right-click on the desktop, select New and you’ll see the option to create a document-type icon for the application you just selected.

I have found a lot of variations and options on this tip.


New XCOPY Switches

There are quite a few new switches to the XCOPY command. To get a full listing, type XCOPY /?. Below are some of the additions over DOS 6.X.

Problems with older Win 3.X programs

There is a program, MKCOMPAT.EXE in the SYSTEM directory. If allows you to change several settings that could help with problem programs.

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