You Asked Us: February 1998
by Alan Zisman
(c) 1998; first
published in Computer Player, February 1998
Raymond van der Holst asked:
In the Win95 Software Screen you can (un)install
software. BUT I've
got quite a lot of 'old' software in that list that isn't on my HD
anymore,
the uninstall didn't work properly (especially with a lot of shareware)
and now these programs are in the list annoying the hell out of me.
Do you know where I can remove these non-existing
program's from
this list?
Alan replied:
Two ways:
1) The hard way: Open REGEDIT, the Registry Editor, by
typing Regedit
at the Start Menu's RUN line... In the Edit menu, use the FIND command
to search for instances of the program name; delete each instance.
Pressing
F3 will repeat the search. Continue until there are no instances of
that
program in the Registry, repeat for the next program.
2) The easy way: Get a copy of Microsoft's free
POWERTOYS add-ins
for Win95 (available on their Web site), or separately obtain the
TWEAKUI
Powertoy. TweakUI has lots of useful functions for working with the
Win95
User Interface, including the ability to easily remove program names
listed
in the Add/Remove list. TweakUI has a lot of useful functions, as we?ll
see in the next letter?
Gary Ailes queried:
I installed MSN to take advantage of the free month
of use, and then
promptly uninstalled it.
Since that time, the MSN "shortcut" has been on the
desktop, and
I cant get rid of it.
I've attempted to delete every aspect of MSN in the
registry and
have succeeded in making the icon a standard "Folder", but am still
unable
to delete it.
Am I forever stuck hiding it behind the start bar?
Alan answered:
You can get rid of it, along with most other
persistent desktop icons,
using Microsoft's multi-talented TweakUI add-on.
TweakUI?s Desktop feature lets you easily remove
persistent icons from
the Desktop.
Wayne Field wondered:
When I click START and PROGRAMS my list overflows
the screen. How
can I combine them? For example instead of seeing all the programs of
OFFICE,
I'd like to see only OFFICE, and click that to get the program list in
OFFICE. There are others I'd like to combine, too.
Is there an easy way to do that?
Alan responded:
Yes... too many programs insist on creating silly,
top-level Programs
sub-folders, filled with the Program EXE file, a help file, and a
read-me...
And users who've upgraded from Win 3.x typically again
get too many
sub-folders corresponding to Program Manager groups.
There are several ways to customize the Start
Menu/Programs list...
my
favorite is to right-click on the Start button (the secret to Win95
success
is 'when in doubt, right-click on anything in sight')... and choose
OPEN
from the pop-up menu.
You'll get a My Computer-like large icon view of the
Start Menu, with
a
folder labeled Programs. Open it to see the sub-folders that correspond
to
sub-menus. Create new folders, copy, delete to your heart's content,
using
standard W95 file management techniques.
The results will immediately appear in the Start Menu.
Daniel Mueller asked:
Does you know how to copy the WIN95 Files from the
CD-ROM to a floppy
disk. I've managed to get all the NON CAB files to one disk but the
rest
WIN95_??.CAB of the files are toooooo big for my 1.44 floppy.
If I wanted to backup my win95 CD how could I do
that if the files
are then the disk and ZIPPING them makes them larger since they?re
already
compressed?
Alan answered:
Depending on the version of your Win95 CD, you?ll find
most of the installation
files (*.CAB compressed ?cabinet? files) are either 1.7 meg or 2.1 meg
in size? too large to fit on a standard 1.4 meg floppy. And you?re
right?since
they?re already compressed, programs like PKZIP can?t compress them
further.
There are a number of shareware programs which can be
used to format
1.7 meg floppies, but that won?t help if you have the 2 meg CAB files.
But you can still use PKZIP to create a compressed set of disks from
the
entire Setup folder.
Use PKZIP?s -& option, which enables you to zip
items across multiple
floppies... if you type:
PKZIP A:W95.zip D:\SETUP\*.* -&
at a DOS prompt, you will create a set of floppies
with a zipped backup
of
the entire contents of that folder.
-- Note that it doesn't do a good job of error
checking... test the
backup
set by unzipping it onto your hard drive (which you'd need to do to
use
it), before assuming you can rely on it!
Terry Barker asked:
Can I run any 16bit or Dos games or programs on the
newer windows
32bit machine? I hear that it would crash the hard drive if I ran 16bit?
Alan expounded:
Very much untrue!
Win95 will run nearly all (16-bit) DOS and Win 3.x
programs...
Note the following:
1) DOS/Win 3.x disk utilities should be avoided since
they are unaware
of
Win95 long file names, and can inadvertently destroy the long file
names
(this may the reality behind the rumour you heard).
2) Some DOS programs (typically older games) need to
be run in so-called
MSDOS Mode, allowing them near-total control over the hardware.
3) A few Win 3.0 programs won't run without being
tricked.. there is
a
MKCOMPAT.EXE (Make Compatible) program in C:\WINDOWS for that purpose.