Blue Screen Blues
- Windows 95 is notorious for its intermittent, inexplicable
crashes, particularly on older systems. To add insult to injury, the error message you receive (if you even get one) may not pinpoint the root of the problem.
In some cases, the culprit is your graphics driver. In the Advanced Graphics Settings dialog box, there are four levels of graphics acceleration: None, Basic, Most, and Full. As you move the
slide bar, the description for each setting
changes accordingly. To get to this dialog box, right-click on My Computer, then select Properties, the Performance tab, and the Graphics button. If you change the graphics-acceleration setting here, you must restart Windows so the
change will take effect.
Based on compatibility testing and user feedback, Microsoft recommends different hardware-acceleration settings for systems that have intermittent, inexplicable crashes.
Sometimes changing the Hardware acceleration setting in the Advanced Graphics Settings dialog from Full to Basic, and restarting Windows, can almost completely eliminate the system's unexplainable crashes. And the change may not degrade
the system's graphics performance. The fact is some of Windows' features, such as the speed of displaying a usually hidden Taskbar, are faster with the Hardware acceleration option set to Basic than with it set to Full.
Apparently, using the Full acceleration setting's functions can cause problems with certain graphics chip sets and drivers.
And when the system crashes, you won't get an error message such as "Change from Full acceleration
to a lower setting," but you will get one that reads "Explorer.exe caused a General Protection Fault in Kernel32.DLL." If you've been seeing this kind of message, changing to a lower acceleration setting may help and,
in my opinion, may not even hurt your system's graphics performance.
Refreshing the Desktop
- Without Restarting Windows: To refresh the desktop without restarting Windows, Click on any open area of your Desktop or any icon on your desktop with the left mouse button. Press F5 to refresh the desktop.
Suppressing Startup Shortcuts
- Hold down the CTRL key while entering Windows. This will keep items in the Startup folder from launching.
Freeing HDD space
- Deleting Extraneous or Leftover Files You can safely delete the following files in the root directory: *.txt, *.prv, *.log, *.old, *.___, and *.dos (unless you use dual-boot). You can delete these files
from the Windows directory: *.log, *.old, *.___, *.bak, and, *.000, *.001, etc. If your unsure about deleting some or all of these, make a copy of them, then delete, this way you can always replace the deleted ones you might need
Freeing more HDD space
- If you want to free disk space, you can delete all .AVI files in the Windows/Help subdirectory. Those files only show you some very basic things like how to move a window, how to use the
Start menu, etc.
There is another way for some users to make more room on the hard drive. If you upgraded from Win 3.x to Win95 then often the files "W95UNDO.DAT, W95UNDO.INI" are made to easily uninstall Win95. If someone is content with Windows 95,
they have no need to uninstall it and can delete these files. (You can free up to 11MB!!)
Windows 95 Shutdown Problems
- Trouble with shutting down Windows 95, Try here at Microsoft http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ARTICLES/Q145/9/26.asp?PR=
W95&FR=0&A=T&T=B&M=F&
Copy Windows95 From one hard drive to another
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Warning this might have a flawed x-copy procedure for coping Windows 95 boot volumes possible corrupting short file names. I have done this without any problems but have had mixed reports.
I'm checking into this. and if anyone has any input on this please let me know.
You can check here too: Windows 95 Installation to a New Hard Disk
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q166/1/72.asp
Click on the START button, then RUN. NOTE: This must be run from within Windows 95 at the RUN command! Do not attempt this from DOS boot, MS-DOS Exclusive mode, or from a Command Prompt!
Once at the RUN prompt, the following command can be used to copy the entire contents of the C: drive to the new D: drive (substitute the drive letters that match your configuration, if different)
c:\windows\command\xcopy32 c:\*.* d: /h /c /e /k
This command uses the new xcopy32.exe program, which will copy files without losing their long file names. The /h parameter tells xcopy32 to copy hidden and system files. /c tells xcopy32 to continue if any errors occur
(which will happen - a share violation error will be reported when trying to copy the swap file, WIN386.SWP) /e causes subdirectories, including empty ones, to be copied. /k causes attributes to be copied intact.
Once you’ve completed all the other steps and you’re ready to make the new hdd the bootable (C:) drive, make sure you use FDISK to set the new drive to be the one with the "active" partition.
If you neglect to do so, the system will not boot and you'll receive an error message similar to "No ROM BASIC installed - System Halted."
