Tweaks & Tips Part I
Aug 31 '00 (Updated Oct 03 '00)
I am first to say that I'm no computer expert but I've found a few tips from the web that will help improve the performance of your computer. Some of them will require a bit of technical knowledge of the computer's registry so before you make any changes to it, please make sure you back it up and also make sure you have a start up disk handy in case you can't start up your computer. So, before I go on, I'll give a brief step by step instruction on how to make a start up disk in case you can't start up your computer. I will not take any responsibility for any problems that result of the tips I've given. Some of them are taken from other information on the web, and some are mine. As I am no computer expert, I can't help you with any problems that you may have. So be careful.
Point your mouse to the Start button, click it, select Settings, Control Panel, Add and Remove Programs, select the "Start up Disk tab". You will need a floppy disk (1.44MB). Insert the floppy disk and click ok. The computer will make a bootable start up disk that you can use to boot up your computer if it can't boot up.
There is also a what's called an Emergency Recovery Utility (in Win 95) in which you can create a start up disk for emergencies. The utility is found in the /Other/Misc Directory. Copy the ERU folder from the CDROM to your hard drive and run ERU.exe. Rather than creating a diskette (floppy), I'd suggest saving the files on the hard drive because the registry can be quite large and the ERU will omit some files that it can't fit into a floppy. So, you can boot to DOS, switch to the directory where ERU is and then do the file restore.
For the registry backup, there is a CFG utility in the CDROM install disk. It is also located in the /Other/Misc Directory. Copy the CFBACK folder from the CDROM to your hard drive and run cfgback.exe. The cfgback program can store up to 9 different configurations.
Okay, here are the tips. Please make sure you do the above precautions before changing anything because computers are picky. They may decide to do weird things.
1-Defragment your hard drive frequently. This is especially important if you do a lot of work on your computer. Each time you save or do anything on the computer, the hard drive gets fragmented so the more things you run or do with the computer, the more fragmented it is. I know how much time it takes to do defrag, especially if you have a large hard drive. I'd suggest putting defrag as part of your scheduled task and have it run at a time when you aren't using your computer, (eg. supper time). And you can have it run and end without having it prompt you for the drive. Here's a trick:
First create a shortcut for defrag.exe. You can go to Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, right click on Disk Defragmenter. Select "Create Shortcut". There will be one in that menu. Drag that shortcut to anywhere on your desktop. Right click on the shortcut and select Properties. In the Target area, add the following to it:
c:"%1" /n
provided that you are defragging the c:\ disk. So what you should now have in the Target area should be:
C:\Windows\DEFRAG.EXE c:"%1" /n
Some Windows may be picky. It may want /noprompt instead of /n. If you're having problems, you should check the help file for defrag switches. And, to distinguish it, you could rename the shortcut "Quick Defrag".
If you want to add this to your Task Scheduler, you'll need to run Task Scheduler and add the shortcut to it (otherwise, you will only add the original defrag with the prompt). Go to Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Scheduled Tasks. Copy the quick defrag shortcut and paste it into the scheduled task list. Set up the dates, times, and frequency of the task. And of course, make sure that your computer is on during that specified time.
And, always, try to close as many unused programs before you run defrag as defrag will keep restarting over and over and thus take longer to finish. You can check on what programs are currently running by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete (all three buttons simultaneously) and a window of currently running programs will pop up. You can do that if any programs crash and you want to continue using Windows without rebooting.
If you defrag daily, each defrag you do takes between 5 to 10 minutes, rather than the hour to two hours if you don't defrag very often. And if you use the task scheduler, you won't notice it much at all.
2-Scandisk your hard drive periodically. Same thing. If you scan your hard drive periodically, you could eliminate a lot of problems when running Windows. The options I have are: Thorough scan, Automatically fix errors, Display summary only if errors found, replace log file, delete cross-linked files, free lost file fragments.
There is also a quick scandisk tip that you can implement. Make a shortcut pretty much like quick defrag except this time for scandisk. Add the following to the Target line:
c: /n
It might work as (depending on your computer):
c: "%1" /noprompt
c: /noprompt
c: "%1" /n
You can check on the help file for scandisk as well if stuck.
And, you can add the quick scandisk shortcut to your scheduled tasks so you won't need to remember to do it.
3-Delete temporary files you don't need. The more files you have on your computer, the more congested it is and thus, the computer has to take more time finding things. Deleting unused temporary files will free up a lot of disk space. Please check out this link for a cleanup.bat download. It's a DOS batch file that will go through your temporary directories and delete a lot of junk left by installations and other programs.
http://www.langa.com/cleanup_bat.htm
While you're there, you can find a lot more helpful Windows tips also via
http://www.winmag.com
They have quite a bit of information on Windows. You can check on how well your computer is working via their online Wintune program, your browser via Browsertune among other things.
4-Disable and/or delete programs that run when windows starts. There are a few ways you can check which programs run when windows starts.
i-Right click on the taskbar (usually located on the bottom of your Windows screen, where you could see boxes of programs that you currently have running). Select
Properties, Start Menu Programs, Advanced, click on the "+" beside Programs to open it up. Go down to Startup. You should see what programs are visibly running. You could also have just opened up your Explorer and gone to:
c:\windows\startmenu\programs\startup
and found the same thing. You can delete the shortcuts for programs you don't want to run.
ii-For Windows 98, go to Start, Run, type in "msconfig" (without the quotes) and enter. Click on the Startup tab, scroll through the list of programs that load and uncheck any program that you don't want to run (such as some annoying program that you didn't really want but can't get rid of).
iii-Look up in the windows registry. Open Explorer. Go to c:\windows\ and double click on regedit.exe. Be careful as any changes you make may make your computer unbootable! Please ensure you have everything backed up.
Click on HKey_Local_Machine, Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Run.
Also check under HKey_Current_User, Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Run.
Unless you are familiar with which programs you know you don't run, I don't suggest deleting anything. But, if you do know what you're doing, you can delete whichever program that you don't want run.
Close and restart Windows to take effect.
5-Set your permanent swap file to a specific size, rather than letting Windows set it automatically. Every time you use your computer, depending on the amount of memory it needs, the computer creates a swap file to use as temporary virtual memory. So, during the course of you computer use, the swap file will shrink and grow. By setting the swap file to a permanent size, it will decrease the amount of time Windows takes to figure out how much space to allocate for swap file and create it, as it is already there. The norm is to set the permanent swap file to 2.5 times the total physical RAM you have on your computer. So, if you have 64 MB of RAM, you should set your swap file to 160MB of disk space, provided that you have ample disk space on your hard drive.
To change your swap file to a set size, either go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, System or right click My Computer, System and select the Performance tab. Select Virtual Memory, click on the "Let me specify my own virtual settings" and enter whatever amount of disk space you want to allocate. You should keep both the minimum and the maximum disk the same so that Windows still won't keep expanding and shrinking it. Disregard the warnings, and click ok. It should be okay. No computers will crash due to virtual memory settings, although I may be wrong. Reboot your computer.
Okay, this review is getting a bit long so I'll have to do the rest in part two.
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