The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Tips and Tricks
George Skarbek
 gskarbek@melbpc.org.au

Want to fit a bit more onto a floppy?

I usually backup onto floppies by using PKZIP as this is faster than copying and you can store much more data on the floppy. Occasionally there is just too much to fit onto one floppy. PKZIP can span multiple floppies but there is another program that provides much better compression. It is a Russian program called RAR which produces files ending in .RAR.

RAR can create what they refer to as a "solid" option, giving by far the best compression in most cases. Compressing all the articles that I have written for the Computer Age in 1996 which are in Word format reduced their size from 638 KB to 202 KB using the maximum compression with PKZIP. The RAR "solid" option reduced these to 122 KB which is one third better than the best that PKZIP can achieve. Incidentally the actual disk space consumed by the 50 Word documents on a 1.2 GB disk is over 1.6 MB due to cluster size. RAR reduced the consumed disk space to 8% of this. Using any compression program to move very seldom used files into one compressed file can free up a lot of disk space, especially with many small files.

Both RAR and PKZIP can produce self-extracting executable files so if you are sending the compressed files to another user, they do not need to have the extraction program. RAR has this built in while with .ZIP files you must use another program called ZIP2EXE. Both PKZIP and RAR are available on the BBS. PKZIP is the first file that you see in the file tagger, the file name is PKZ204G.EXE. RAR is listed as RAR200.EXE.

Removing the annoying Windows 95 password at startup

Are you asked for a password each time your computer starts? If you press Enter or Cancel does everything work. Would you like to remove this annoying prompt?

It's not very difficult to remove. Right-click on the Network Neighbourhood, then click on Properties. Then select the Primary Network Logon, change it to Windows Logon and click OK. If you are asked to restart the computer click on No.

Next open Control Panel, click on Passwords, then Change Windows Password. Type the password you have been using in the Old Password box. Just press Enter if you haven't been entering any password. Leave the New Password and Confirm Password boxes blank and you will not be prompted again with the login screen after you restart your system.

Note: If you - or anyone else in your family - have set up user profiles, the above steps will not prevent Windows 95 from prompting you for a password. If several people share a computer and have different tastes then each individual can have his or her wallpaper, icons, sounds, etc, by establishing individual profiles, names and passwords. The data and programs are accessible to all.

How to list all Win 95 interrupts

Ever added an old networking card into a Windows 95 computer and been told there is an IRQ clash and wanted to find what IRQs are being used rather than just trying one to see if it's free? Rather than using the not-so-reliable MSD, click in Control Panel, then System, then Device Manager with Computer highlighted click on Properties. You will also be able to examine I/O and DMA addresses.

XTree for Windows 95

There are very many users who still use the excellent DOS program, XTree, for file management under Windows. I use it too, on many occasions. Although, with Windows 95 there are two problems. Long file names, and with the very large hard disks containing thousands of files, running out of memory. Both problems are overcome with the shareware program, ZTW, an XTree for Windows 95. Melb PC members can download it from our BBS, other readers can get it from the Internet on http://www.ztree.com/html/ztreewin.htm

Tips for absolute beginners

Suppose you are using Explorer, File Manager or any other Windows product to mark some files in a subdirectory (or folder as they are called in Win 95) to copy, move or delete them. The following conventions apply to all Win 95 programs.

  • Clicking once on a file marks it by highlighting it
  • Clicking on another file, will mark it, and will deselect the first
  • By holding the Ctrl key when clicking, all the previously selected files remain selected
  • By holding the Shift key down when clicking, all files between the last highlighted file and the file you are currently selecting will be highlighted
T he Shift and Ctrl keys can be used in combination in a single operation. For example, if you wanted to delete all but two or three files from a folder that holds many files, you can do it as follows:
  • Click once to highlight the first of the files to be deleted
  • Scroll down to the last file
  • Hold the shift key down and click on the last file, to mark the lot
  • Release the shift key and scroll until you see a file that you wish to keep, then while holding down the Ctrl key click on the file you want to keep. This will unmark just this file and leave the others marked
  • To delete the marked files press Delete
N ote, in Windows 95 if you press Delete, the files will be sent to the Recycle bin, from which you can reclaim them. If you are sure you want to delete files, hold the Shift key down when you press Delete and the files will be deleted.

For Windows 95
  • To sort by date in Explorer, just click on Modified heading. This helps you to find the recent files. Or click on Size to find all the large files. Clicking a second time reverses the sort order.
  • If all these headings are not visible, but other headings are, extend the Explorer window to the right.
  • If no headings are visible below the line which reads: Contents of... then click on View and select Details.
Reprinted from the June 1997 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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