win tricks

7/27/2019 Win Tricks

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Windows98 Tips and TricksSpring CUE Conference May 19, 2001Doug Prouty Contra Costa County Office of Educationhttp://www.cccoe.net/workshop

Creating Desktop Shortcuts Without The Desktop Being In View

From a Windows Explorer or the normal My Computer window, forexample, simply right-click the filename for which you want to create a Shortcut and chooseSend To->Desktop As Shortcut. Everything else is then done for you. You can then rename theshortcut later if it is necessary.

Creating Document Shortcuts

With some programs, like Word 97, you can create a Shortcut by selecting a block of text, right-clicking the selection, and dragging it to the desktop. When you release the button, Windowsopens a menu. Choose the option Create Document Shortcut Here. When you're ready to workwith the file again, choose the Shortcut. Windows doesn't only launch the program for you andload the document; it will also return you to the passage you originally selected when youcreated the Shortcut.

Using An HTML Document As Desktop Wallpaper

The Active Desktop lets you have a HTML page as your desktop wallpaper. And you can takeadvantage of any links defined in the document. Click on a URL in the wallpaper, for example,and Windows calls up your browser and connects to that address.

To use this feature, first create the document and move it to the Windows\Web\Wallpaperdirectory or wherever you choose. Then right-click the desktop and choose Properties to openthe Display Properties dialog box, with the Background tab showing. If you put the file in theWallpaper directory, Windows will list it in the text box labeled "Select An HTML Document OrPicture." If you put it elsewhere, choose the Browse button to find it. Select the file and choose

OK. If you don't have the Active Desktop enabled, Windows will ask if you want to enable it.Answer Yes. That's all there is to it. Windows will now use the document as your desktopbackground.

Using A Web Site Page As Desktop Wallpaper

You can also download a Web page to use as wallpaper. Go to the Web page of your choiceusing Internet Explorer and choose File|Save As. Navigate to the directory you want to save thefile in (preferably Windows\Web\Wallpaper), enter a filename, and choose Save. Then follow theinstructions above, and the Web page will display as your desktop background.

Maximize, Minimize & Close All Windows

This is common. You have a handful of applications, which you want to close. Surely you don'tclose each Window one by one?. Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the applications you wantto close on the taskbar. Right-click one of them. There will be a context menu for you to Close,Minimize or Maximize. You can also right-click on the gray area of the taskbar and chooseMinimize All Windows

Get A Nice Wallpaper

If you like cartoons, Plus98! themes should keep you contented. But if you want some awesomeand stunning artwork, art gallery sites such as Digital Blasphemy(http://www.digitalblasphemy.com), offers breath-taking 3D rendered artworks for wallpapers.


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Nice wallpaper can eat up to a gigantic 3-5 megabytes. This will consume a lot of systemresources. If you have a graphic conversion program, convert it to JPEG or GIF. This willcompress up to 10 times the original size and won't suffer quality loss.

Less Clutter, More Space (And Speed Too!)

A very cluttered desktop makes things hard to find and might even cloud a beautiful wallpaper.

Only the most important icons should stay on the desktop. The rest must go. And alsoremember that the less active desktop components are there, the better because they can causethe desktop to be complicated and slow. You will find that a clean desktop will look very neatand the refresh and startup loading rate will be much faster because there are less items.

If You Don't Need It, Don't Use It

If you don't need the active desktop, you can't disable your desktop as web page. All you needto do is to right-click the desktop, selectActive Desktop and check offView As Web Page. Youwill find that it will speed up the desktop dramatically.

Window Key (WinKey) Shortcuts

WinKey Open Start MenuWinKey+E Open an Explorer window

WinKey+R Open the Run dialog

WinKey+Pause Open the System Properties

WinKey+F Find: All Files

WinKey+Ctrl+F Find: Computer

WinKey+M Minimize all open windows

WinKey+D Show/Hide Desktop

WinKey+Shift+M Undo minimize all open windows

WinKey+Tab Cycle through taskbar program buttons

WinKey+F1 Open Windows Help

Adding Shortcuts To Your Start Menu

You can drag and drop to insert a Shortcut in a Start menu submenu very easily. To place aShortcut in your Programs group, for example, drag the filename to the Start button, hover overit until the Start menu opens, then drag the filename to your Programs menu and hover over ituntil the Programs menu opens. You can then drag the Shortcut to any spot on the Programsmenu or hover over one of the third-level menu items to open it and then drag the Shortcut

there. Again, as you drag the Shortcut, Windows inserts a divider to indicate the Shortcut'sposition.

Moving Shortcuts Around

Windows will automatically place shortcuts in alphabetical order. If you have a program you usemore frequently, just drag it to the top of the order as shown above. Now, we all know we canadd items to the start menu as first-level items. However, all items will be placed above thePrograms menu separated with a divider. You can actually drag an item between the Run andPrograms menu and it will stay there!


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Moving About And Copying Shortcuts

You can move items that are already in your Start menu by dragging and dropping in Windows98. You simply point to an item in your Start menu, click the left mouse button, and hold itdown as you drag. As with adding a Shortcut, when hovering over a submenu item it opens thatsubmenu, and Windows displays a divider to indicate where the item would appear if youdropped it. To copy a menu item rather than move it, hold down the Ctrl key as you release the

mouse button.

Removing Items In Your Start Menu

Windows 98 now lets you delete items from the Start menu thanks to the Internet Explorershell. To delete an item, simply right-click it and choose Delete. Then just answer Yes whenWindows asks if you are sure you want to delete that item.

Choosing Toolbars

By default, Windows will come with the Quick Launch toolbar installed. The most useful button isperhaps the "Show Desktop" button. Click on it to show the desktop. Click again to switch backto your applications. To create toolbars, all your need to do is to right-click any empty space of

the taskbar, select Toolbars, and select any toolbars you want.

Managing Toolbars

All the items in the toolbars are manageable. Right-click on buttons to rename, copy, cut, deleteand view properties. Next, to change the appearance of the toolbar, right-click on the toolbarand you can decide whether you want large icons or small icons, show or hide titles or show orhide text.

Custom Toolbars

You can create any toolbar by right-clicking the taskbar, select Toolbars, New Toolbar... andselect folder. The contents of the folder will be displayed as buttons. The catch? The toolbar

becomes the real thing - if you delete or add items to the toolbar, it will be removed or addedinto the folderitself. Great of you want to manage your folders from the taskbar. Else, you willfind this a big annoyance. The solution out is to create a folder just for toolbars. Dump justshortcuts into it and you no longer have to worry about messing up your original files.

Slide & Stack

If you have a bunch of toolbars, you will notice that you can actually stack toolbars on top ofeach other to save space. A small arrow will appear for you to scroll the toolbar from end toend. Just double-click on any toolbar and they will slide to full view. The best way is to enablethe "Show Title" option and size it until only the title is in view. Now, whenever you need it, justdouble-click it to slide out and double-click again to slide back. The drawback here is that allother toolbars in front of the sliding toolbar will slide with it. When you slide that toolbar back,

the other moved toolbars however won't slide back with it. So, try to make the more frequentsliding toolbar towards the left side to prevent from moving other toolbars as well.

Out Of The Taskbar

Toolbars don't have to stick to the taskbar. They can be independent toolbars on the desktop.Just create a toolbar and then drag it to the side of the desktop. It will be something like thetaskbar itself but only just buttons. Right-click and select Auto Hide and Always On Top and youhave a power-toolbar even that will appear when the desktop is out of sight or IE in full screen.Your don't have to worry about the toolbar popping out at wrong time because you will have to


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go to the very edge of the screen to do that. Try having toolbars at all 3 sides (excluding thetaskbar of course).

Floating Toolbars

If your run out of space for your toolbars and you have a uncluttered desktop with a highresolution (800x600 or higher), try dragging it to the desktop. You now have a floating toolbar

on your desktop. Resize this properly and place it where you don't have icons interfering. Thecatch about this trick is that when you click on the "Show Desktop" button on the taskbar, thetoolbar will disappear as well. Click on the button again to restore it.

Utilizing The Send To Menu

One of the coolest things you can do with Windows is the Send To menu. You can add shortcutsto the Send To menu and if you have a unknown file format, you don't have to search for theapplication to open it up. Just right-click the item and select Send To | Application. It is thatsimple. To customize the Send To menu, go to c:\window\sendto directory and start creatingshortcuts to your frequently used applications. Once it is done, you can now right-click anyunknown file and open them without further trouble.

You can also add items to the Send To menu without opening up Explorer! Create a shortcut onthe desktop to your Send To directory. Dump this shortcut in the Send To directory itself. Namethis shortcut Add to Menu. The next time you want to add an item to the Send To menu, right-click select Send To | Add to Menu add the item will automatically be added!

Associating & Re-associating Files

If you have once opened an unknown file, Windows will prompt you to open that file withanother program. If you like to always open that file under that program, check Always usethis program to open this type of file and Windows will do that.

Windows In Full Screen

To activate the Full Screen mode use the F11 key. This will work on any window including theExplorer. It is best used when presenting a Web page or reading one that requires a great dealof scrolling. Press it again to restore it back to the Window mode.

Enabling Thumbnail View

If you have a directory just for storing images or HTML files, you will find the preview Windowon the left a very good help. But to view them you must highlight them one by one. For a betteroption, right click any blank space of the window and select Properties. Check the box Enablethumbnail view and click on OK. On the Explorer menu, click on View and you will find a newoption - the Thumbnails view. The setting requires you to specify enable Thumbnails view on afolder-by-folder basis.

Change the size of Desktop Icons and their Titles

To change the size of the Icons on the Desktop:

1. Right-click on the Desktop

2. Choose Properties from the context menu. On the Appearance tab look in the Itemlist box. Once you find Icon you can choose the size from the Size box. Next change thefont type and size.

3. To hit the Apply button, once you are satisfied hit OK


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One Click Shut Down or Restart

To Shut Down or Restart Windows with one mouse click:

1. Right-click the Desktop and select New > Shortcut

2. In the Command line box type:

rundll.exe user.exe,exitw indow s

for one click shut down

rundll.exe user.exe,exitw indow sexec

for one click restart

rundll.exe shell32.dll,SHExitWindow sEx 0

for one click Log off

3. Click Next and give it the appropriate name (Shut Down or Restart)

To change the icon on the shortcut, right-click on the shortcut, and select Change Icon. Somenice icons can be found in \Windows\System\shell32.dll.

Using the SHIFT Key

You can use the Shift key for many additional features. Try some of the following tasks whileholding down the Shift key:

Hold down the Shift key when you delete a file. This will keep the file from being sent tothe Recycle Bin. Beware, this means that the file has actually been deleted and can nolonger be restored

Hold down the Shift key when you double-click on My Computer, NetworkNeighborhood or the Recycle Bin. This will open these items in the dual-panedWindows Explorer

Hold down the Shift key when you double-click on any Folder. This will open the folder inthe dual-paned Windows Explorer

Hold down the Shift key when you click the Yes button from within the Shut DownWindows dialog box when you select Restart. This will restart Windows only (notcompletely re-boot the computer). This is useful if all you want to do is just activatesome Windows-only changes

If you hold down the Shift key when you right-click on an icon, the option Open with...will be available so that you can open the file using a program other than the programnormally associated with that file

Changing the Sort order in Explorer

To change the sort order of the right window of Explorer simply click on one of the buttonsunderneath the toolbar to change the sort order from ascending to descending.

To make the columns fit the largest item in the column, just Double-click on the columnheading separator.


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Print Screen with Windows 98

When you press the Print Screen button on your keyboard while you're in Windows 98, yourscreen is copied to the clipboard. Now start the Paint program (click Start > Programs >Accessories > Paint) and from the Edit menu select Paste. Now you can print your screen.

If you only want to print an open window, and not the whole screen, hit Alt+Print Screen.

Desktop icon for screen saver for Office users

If you use Microsoft Office you can create a shortcut on the desktop called, say, "Screen Saver",with the following command line. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\OSA.EXE" -s(or substitute the location of your Office installation). This activates the default screensaver.

Common shortcut keys

Function Keyboard Strokes

Access Start menu Ctrl - Esc

Switch between programs Alt - Tab

New Document Ctrl - n

Open Document Ctrl - oClose Document Ctrl - w

Close a Window Alt - F4

Save Ctrl - s

Print Ctrl - p

Quit a program Alt - F4

Force quit an app or shut down Ctrl Alt Del

Restart Ctrl Alt Del (twice)

Copy Ctrl - c

Cut Ctrl - x

Paste Ctrl - v

Select all Ctrl - a

Find Ctrl - fFocus to pulldown menu Alt and select using arrowsRoll through active windows Alt - Esc

Picture of Screen PrintScreen

Picture of Active Window Alt - PrintScreen

Resources:

Windows 95/98 Tips & Trickshttp://www.activewin.com/tips/

Infini Source: Windows Help.Net

http://www.windows-help.net/windows98

Windows 98 & NT Tips and Trickshttp://www.cs.umb.edu/~alilley/tips.html

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