Operating Systems and Software
The Midnight Question Archive
See Start Your Own PC Business
Copyright 2005 by Morris Rosenthal
Operating Systems and SoftwareThe Midnight Question Archive See Start Your Own PC Business Copyright 2005 by Morris Rosenthal |
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Troubleshooting your Laptop or PC
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See the new Troubleshooting your laptop or PC (May 2008)3/2/99(Q) In relation to copying whole drives you wrote: The XCOPY method doesn't work with Windows 95, you need to use third part software to do the copy. Another person suggested to me just today the site: http://www.vdsarg.com for the software "COPY ALL." XCOPY works fine with DOS/Windows systems, but you have to set the boot pation active on the new Master, which means you need a boot floppy with FDISK on it. The newer versions of Windows NT come with several levels of software RAID that allow you to mirror the drives, and switch as nescessary. Morris (an old posting from somewhere) (A) Briefly, I disagree. XCOPY works perfectly, if you do it right, and I use it all the time to setup systems. You have to run it from a DOS prompt inside of Win 95/98. If you type XCOPY /? you will see the list of switches that will let you copy the hidden files, overwrite read onlyfiles, etc. Also, from running it inside 95/98, you do get the proper long file names on the target drive. Usually, something like: D:\>XCOPY C:\*.* /K /E /H /R /C will grab the whole drive properly. At least, it has for me, repeatedly. David 2/18/99(Q) I have recently purchased a new computer, which I am using for financial programs, and my wife if using as a wordprocessor. Can you summarize the different options I have for e-mail, and whether or not I want to get a regular Internet service like AOL or somebody local? Irving (A) You have three main choices for e-mail. First, the free, no Internet service route, using Juno or a similar provider. The give you a local number to call and a custom e-mail program, which gives you full e-mail usage at the cost of looking at some advertisements. My sister has been using Juno for 2 years with no complaints. The other two choice require you to have a monthly Internet service, whether local or national. Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) will always give you an e-mail account with your service, and you can choose which program (i.e., Eudora, Netscape Messenger, etc..) to use for actually sending e-mails. If you travel, howver, getting your e-mail can be a bit of a hassle. The other option, once you have an Internet connection, is to use the free online mail from Excite, Yahoo, etc.., which you access by going to their home page from any computer. The main advantages are you keep the same e-mail address even if you change your ISP, and you can getand send mail from any live Internet connection in the world. As to who to pick for Internet service, I don't have any strong likes or dislikes, just don't sign any long term contracts, particularly your first time out. A month at a time is the way to go for most folks, unless you have a business. Morris 2/16/99(Q) I am currently under task from my employer to network the internet. I have to admit that I am at a loss as to where to begin. Our current network is Windows NT 4.0 server with Windows 95 workstations. I have two modems available for use, one is 56.6 and the other is 28.8. I am just looking for a starting point, 1) how to share a modem over the network, 2) what kind of software will I need to provide shared internet access and e-mail capabilities for my workstations. I have plenty of networking and computer experience, but haven't worked much with modems yet. Once I know where to begin I can usually figure out the more technical details. Jeni (A) You can install Proxy Server on the NT box (or a 95 for that matter) and the networked computers can then share the modem. Don't ask me for details, I've never had a reason to do it. If anyone has any good info to send me on the subject, I'll be happy to post it. Morris 11/6/98(Q) A couple of years ago, in exchange for an X-Y Plotter, an aquaintenance kluged a x486 for me with DOS 7.0 and Windows 3.11. When he turned the system over to me, he gave me copies of the disks. Since then, he has died. I recently had a catastrophic hard drive crash, and tried to restore my system. In the process, I found disk #2 of 5 to be physically defective. His widow sold all his computer stuff in a garage sale. I have spoken to a lot of PC techs, and other computer professionals, and they have never heard of DOS 7.0. How and/or where can I get a replacement for this faulty disk. Dave (A) Well, Microsoft used to say they were going to come out with a farewell version of DOS to be version 7.0, I never saw it. My guess is that you have DR DOS (Digital Research), the original competitor to MS DOS (or the opposite), which has gone through many changes of ownership, including Novell, who used to ship it with with their network operating systems. Somebody bought it from Novell, at a bargain basement price, presumably a speculative investment based on hopes of a legal settlement with Microsoft. I don't know if they are actually keeping it active or not. Morris (A) I just saw your answer about DOS 7. He may have IBM DOS 7. Jay (A) Dr. Dos is now owned by Caldera. You can download the latest version (7.02) at http://www.calderathin.com/index.html Its basically shareware - try for 90 days, then buy it if you like. Note that it has been updated extensively - contains such things as a netware client, internet browser, e-mail, etc Bill 11/3/98(Q) I recently acquired, via internal office transfer, a Dell Optiplex GM 5120. I had our systems guy install my old hard drive, set it up as the primary, and use the hard drive that came with the computer as the secondary. Everything seemed fine until a few days latter. I now get a "mouse delay" when using pull down menus, start/programs, etc. in Win 95. There is generally a pause of a few seconds during which the hourglass replaces the mouse pointer. This makes for difficult mouse navigation and is extremely annoying. Curiously, this problem does not occur when I am in Netscape Navigator or AOL! I also get a lot of "illegal operation" errors that kick me out of program (most notably Novel GroupWise 4.1). Our part-time systems guy has tried a lot of options/tweaking to no avail. His latest strategy is to try replacing the SCSI. John (A) The problem isn't the mouse, it's just that your system is dogging badly in some applications. I'd guess it just has to do with the way you have software installed, paths for virtual memory, maybe some drive fragmentation. You can run DEFRAG, but after that, I'd suggest reinsatlling everything from the OS on up. By the way, this is why lots of companies won't sell PCs to employees, they worry about the overhead on their IT staff. Morris 10/30/98(Q) I have numerous files in my root directory that are named "file0000.chk" through "file0023.chk". what are chk (check?) files. When I open these files in wordpad, the text is not anthing I have seen. do you what these files are. Can I delete these files. Mark (A) You can delete them all. They are produced when CHKDSK or SCANDISK finds lost files on your drive, normally caused by rebooting or shutting the PC off while it is frozen or in the middle of something. Since you mention Wordpad, I guess you are running Win95, and SCANDISK may be running automatically when you reboot after shutting down improperly. If you lose something invaluable, it might be recoverable from one of these files using a disk editor, but it's not easy. Morris 10/29/98(Q) I am currently upgrading a 486 from Windows CE to Windows 95 for a friend of ours. I formated the HD in dos and I purchased a new HD with a larger capacity - 420Mb but the computer couldn't recognise it at start-up. I then set the jumpers to 'Slave' and linked it from the original. This worked. But now I am constantly getting a message on the start up screen saying - "NO ROM BASIC SYSTEM HALTED". Is this a type of bios/ cmos? and if so, is it possible to reinstall it? If it is possible, where might I get a copy from, and how should I install it? Aidan (A) It just means that the PC is aware that the drive is there, but isn't finding boot tracks, so is defaulting (trying to default) to ROM BASIC, which was present in the original IBM AT. You need to boot from a Win 95 floppy and run SYS.EXE, or reformat with FORMAT C: /S Morris 9/23/98(Q) I have a Pentium II 300 that I am trying to boot up. I have built several computers from my home out of my wheelchair. I ordered 2 units in from Namco, they came in with AMD K6 processors, I complained sent boards and processors back. I got new boards and Pentium II 300 MHz processors. I finally got one up but when I put my Microsoft cd rom setup disk in, it says samples sys corrupted or bad, also line 12 on config sys. I have 4 other disks and they say they cannot be read. Do the disks go bad or can you only use the floppy one time like the CD. I have one of the systems still sold, need some help and technical support would only give lip service and a RMA number. Bill (A) It sounds like you are installing Win95 rather than Win98. If you are installing Win98, you can just go into CMOS Setup, set the CD-ROM as the boot device, put in the '98 CD, and it will install. Win95 requires you to supply a boot floppy with the proper CD driver on the disk, called out in config.sys, and invoked with MSCDEX in autoexec.bat. SAMPLE.SYS is just a marker for where you must include the actual file name of the CD driver that you copy onto the floppy. I've done a complete example of this in the backlog at http://www.daileyint.com/hmdpc/mqcd.htm Morris 9/15/98(Q) I am using 1.44 MB diskettes for backup. I have 8 chapters saved, about .7 MB. When I try to save the next chapter, Word 97 tells me the diskette is full. Microsoft Explorer says it is only half full, but Word will not allow me to save the next 50 KB. Says the diskette is full. Maybe I will have to try Copy from Microsoft Explorer and see what happens. Frank (A) If you are letting word use the floppy for the default, it's storing all of your .BAK files (last version backups) on the floppy also, doubling the amount of data. Explorer doesn't always show .BAK's, depends how the switches are set. Try popping out to DOS and typing "DIR A:" to see what you get. Morris 9/14/98(Q) I have a number of computer which fail the Y2K compliance test. They can support the 4 digit year but do not automatically roll over to Jan 01, 2000. Is there anyway that I can correct this. What do you advise. Timothy (A) Do it manually on Jan 1st when you go to work, or buy new computers in December 99. Doesn't sound like a bad problem, it certainly isn't worth blowing serious dollars on today. Morris 9/11/98(Q) I've passed on my 486/66 to my sister and we have not been able to install IE 4.0 due to disk space limitations. Do you know of any other browers that use less space? System specs: 16mb RAM, Win95 osr2, 56k modem, 2 hard drives, approx 500MB total. Pam Yes, but the name slips my mind, begins with an "O" (turns out to be Opera). It's ideal not only for limited disk space but older PCs, including 386's. It's free on the web (evaluation), you can get to it from a TUCOWS mirror site. They categorize things nicely. 8/31/98(Q) I have a friend who was running DB3+ in a DOS session under Win95, doing some program maintenance or something, recieved a DB3 error message stating that he had 'Too Many Files Open.' I looked around in Books I have on WIN95 and could not find any reference to expanding the number of files available. I told my friend that I thought that 'available files' was probably a dynamic parameter to Win95 and that his problem may be correctable by a command line parameter to DB3+, or possibly he would have to create some sort of INI file for the program. How far off was I, and do you have any idea what could cause this error, and if so, what he can do to correct it. Rennea (Q) Sounds like you need to create a CONFIG.SYS file for the DOS compatibility mode with a "Files= " statement. The DOS default (no statement) may be Files=20, I don't remember, but having to add a line with Files=50, or even Files=100, was common with old DOS/Windows databases. You migh also need a "Buffers=" staement if those come up short, or a "FCBS=" (File control Blocks). Just as an example, the following lines are from CONFIG.SYS on my PC:
Morris 8/28/98(Q) I have an external modem which I share amongst the PCs in my office. Recently, it stopped working on the available Com2 port on my 200MHz Pentium MMX . According to Device Manager, the port is OK and there are no conflicts. However, if I try Modem Diagnostics in the Modem icon in Control Panel, I get a "Port in use or messed up" type error. I know the modem is good, it still works on other PCs. Manny (A) A "Port in use" error often means you have a software conflict. One way to troubleshoot software conflicts in Windows 95/98 is to use "Crtl-Alt-Del" to bring up the task list, and start killing tasks one by one. After each "kill", try the Modem Diagnostics again. (The culprit turned out to be Hotsync, a task used by Palm Pilot which had been connected on Com2 recently. By removing the Palm Pilot software from the "Startup" directory, the problem was solved.) Morris 8/18/98(Q) I just had my small accounting office server cut over from Novell 3.11 to Windows NT Server. In the past, when I had server problems, it usually cost a couple thousand dollars of software and hardware to fix. This happened on a regual basis. When tax season rolls around this year, I don't want to face the same old problems. I intended to use NT for disk mirroring, but discovered there are no empty drive bays in my brand new Compaq! Can I use an external SCSI drive for mirrioring, and will this prevent future crashes? Roger (A) NT Server supports disk mirroring (RAID Levels 1 and 5, I think) using whatever hard drives Disk Administrator can configure. However, even if you fully mirror your current drive, you are only protecting against hardware failure of that hard drive, which is less common than a host of other possible server problems. If you accidentally delete files, corrupt data, get a virus, it will effect both drives, as will a hard drive contoller failure, or any device failure that renders the bus inoperable. A hardware implemented RAID array will protect you better, but it's still just a hard drive approach. With hardware so cheap, the best solution for most small business is to have a spare workstation that is built up enough to act as a server in a pinch, equipped with the same tape drive as the server. The more elegant approach is to run a backup domain server, which means another dedicated machine to mirrior the whole server. Morris 8/14/98(Q) This morning, when I tried to boot my Compaq Pressario, it got to the main Windows screen, put a big red "X" through my inkjet, and locked up. When I rebooted, I got the message "Can't initialize device in /IOSUBSYS or system memory low." With 32 MB, I can't believe thats the case. I can't boot in safe mode, the Command Prompt option is the only way I can get to C:\. Richard (A) Since Richard happens to live downstairs from me, we were able to get "hands-on." The system BOOTLOG.TXT file, always the first thing to check when your Win95 system won't start, showed that the file "BIGMEM.DRV" was corrupt or missing. A quick visit to the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS directory showed it had vanished without a trace. Ours is not to wonder why... The problem with any devices listed in the IOS.VXD is you can't temporarily remove or bypass them, you need to get the actual file back. This was done with EXTRACT.EXE, pulling the file out of WIN95_03.CAB (Cabinet File) on an old Win95 upgrade CD I had lying around. The main points here are to remember to check your "BOOTLOG.TXT" file (use Edit, it's hidden in the root directory), and that you can use "EXTRACT.EXE" on your Win95 CD to fish out single files and avoid a complete reinstall. Morris 8/10/98(Q) Is there such a thing as a disc parking utility for Win95, like Timepark for DOS? Is it still the useful thing it was under DOS (ie. while the disc is idle, to minimize the time that the heads spend in cyl 0 where the FAT, root directory, MBR and DBR live.)? Would this interfere with virtual memory too much? Craig (A) I'm not familiar with Timepark, but I do remember all of the old DOS disk parking utilities that were intended to protect the drive when the system was moved. These all became obsolete with the advent of the self-parking drive, around 10 years ago. I've always assumed that when not engaged, the heads on modern hard drives automatically go to the parked location. Anyway, all new systems support a "sleep" mode for the hard drive, doesn't just park the heads, but spins down when the system is inactive for a while. All parking asside, hard drives are ridiculously reliable, the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) is above 150,000 hours for most drives, that is something around 20 years, so I wouldn't worry about trying to extend that. Morris 7/30/98(Q) I am trying to set up a modem in Windows NT. Windows NT will not see the Modem card, no matter what setting the card is set at - IRQ 1,2,3,4 or COM 1,2,3,4. Any suggestions? I've gone through the auto detect and manual setup - no good. Sig (A) Have you taken the card out and set it manually? A problem with NT is it lets you stick the software settings wherever you want, without the hardware agreeing. Morris (Q - Follow-up) The problem I have is that no matter what the setting are on the modem card, Windows NT will not see the card. The card is not a plug and play card and requires a manual setting (address, com port, IRQ, etc). I am in touch with MS, no help - yet. The card is needed for the WIN911 system, and was set as part of the package. Trying to get in touch with the makers of WIN911 for a solution - unable to get through. I work with Window 95 as a support tech, I am not totally familiar with Windows NT. Sig (A - Follow-up) I have Win911 installed at a clients, I used an old 1200 baud modem for the paging function, but it was under Win95. NT is just a pain for adding hardware, always has been. However, if you sound capable, so maybe the modem is bad. You could try setting it up with any old modem just to see, I think the special modem is only needed if you are using the Win411 confirmation stuff, two way traffic. Morris 7/27/98(Q) I have recently built a new Pentium II system and installed Windows 95. However, when I tried to move my HP660C Color DeskJet to the new machine, I found that the printer was not listed on the Windows 95 CD. I've looked on several Windows 95 CDs, including the latest version, with no luck. I've been unable to negotiate the HP web site and download the new driver, despite your sending me the exact page, my browser just sits and locks up. Franklyn (A) Took me at least a half-hour to find this URL (complaining, not bragging). The HP site is very non-friendly to old browsers, or at least the path I originally took into it was. Finally, I started from the beginning, began seing "nojava" show up as part of the URLs, and was finally able to navigate. At any rate, the following URL had as a default option in it's menu "download DeskJet660C driver for Win95" so it should be the right place.http://www.hp.com/cposupport/prodhome/dj660c.html When you were unable to download the driver, I tried it myself. Although Internet Explorer appears to be locked up, and the progress bar doesn't move, I swapped into the modem window and saw the download was proceeding. Twenty or twenty-five minutes later it concluded sucessfully, if you still can't get it, I'll bring it over on a recordable CD (see the advantage of being my website partner?). Morris 7/22/98(Q) This probably seems like a dumb question, but in Windows NT 4.0, what day does 12:00 PM belong to? I am trying to decide which of 2 versions of a file I have is newer. One is dated 3/23/98 5:43 PM and on the other is dated 3/23/98 12:00 PM. I can't, unfortunately, tell from the file contents. Do you know if 3/23/98 12:00PM refers to the beginning or the end of the day on 3/23/98 in Windows NT? Mike (A) It's an interesting question, if it follows the the usual standard, 12 noon is 12:00PM, and 12 Midnight is 12:00 AM, so 5:43 PM would be newer. At least I think that's how my watch works, but that's not why I posted this question. I just wanted to point out the importance of file dates, to those who weren't already aware, and to report that I've heard from PC dealers who are using the Win98 upgrade to install Win98 because many files on the upgrade CD are newer than on the OEM distribution CD. Morris 7/7/98(Q) I have a friend who brought his old IBM to me. He said it crashed or froze or something. It doesn't have a CD ROM and I can't run setup or anything. Now I don't know that much about computers but he brought it to me anyway cause he doesn't know who to go to without paying a lot of money to get it fixed. I thought you could at least point us in the right direction. I tried my Windows 95 start up disks and they don't seem to work. The only thing that even shows up on the monitor is Norton Antivirus and all it does is run surface testing. He has some program called OS/2 right now but it freezes on us. Sharon (A) OS/2 is IBM's PC operating system, the one originally intended to compete with DOS/Windows. Sounds like the only thing wrong with your friends PC is software, maybe a virus. If he has important stuff on there, you'll want to get an OS/2 boot disk and a virus doctor and try to recover. Otherwise, start with any bootable floppy, run FDISK from floppy, and delete the partion. Then install the new operating system of choice. If you can't get any floppies to boot, try entering CMOS Setup and see if the boot sequence is set to C:A, and change it to A:C. To get into Setup, watch the screen during the memory count for a message like "Hit F1 to enter setup", "hit DEL to enter setup", etc.. Morris 6/12/98(Q) I have a really dumb problem. When I play Minesweeper on my Win95 Gateway P5/200, I can't get at the options. I mean, the game starts (always on expert), but the grid aligns with the top of the screen, so I can't reach the title bar to drag it down, or see the tool bar. I've changed resolution several times, to 800X600, for example, and immediately after I can see the whole thing, but the next time I call it up, it's off the top of the screen again. I have to shut down Win95 every time I want to close it. Help! Karl (A) Well, actually, even when you can't reach the tool bar, you can still get at the menu commands if you click the mouse in the active screen and use "Alt-F", for the File menu. Also, you can shut it down by right-clicking on the Minesweeper section in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen and chosing close. Now, the reason it comes up where it does is due to the coordinates in the ".ini" file, which you can find in the same directory as the ".exe", I think it's normally in the main C:\Windows directory. When you click on "winmine.ini", (the winmine file with the notepad icon), it will open the file in notepad. You can then increase the Y-Coordinate on opening to any value you like, something around 30 should clear the top of the screen. Morris 6/5/98(Q) I'm a sixteen year old who will be starting college in about seven months and I want to put together a new system by the time I start. A friend of mine told me that Windows 98 is supposed to automatically take advantage of a dual processor configuration. Can you confirm this? I will be getting into some video editing and dual processors would speed up the process tremendously. Also, do you know any real good places to get components (cases, drives, cables... and everything else I need)? Jon (Q) I've also heard that 98 has native dual processor support, but from what I read in the industry rags, such as New Media (and you should check out their web site) the OS of choice for non-Unix non-Mac video operations is NT. As to parts, Computer Shopper Magazine is as good a place as any to comparison shop. Morris 6/4/98(Q) I am building my first computer. It is completely assembled, but I'm not sure what order to install the operating system software in. I will also be installing a USR\3Com 56k Courier V Everything v.90 internal Fax Modem and a Creative Labs AWE 64 Gold Sound Card w. Altec Lansing's ACS48 Power Cube Speakers, Number Nine 128 bit PCI 3D video card w. 4Mb WRAM, a 32X SCSI CD-ROM. My operating system will be MS Win95 ver. 4.1111. I would appreciate any help or advice you could give me as to which software to load first, second, etc. The HD is not formatted, the video software is not loaded, nor are the Adaptec SCSI drivers loaded for the board. I have, so far, a machine devoid of software. Also, do you have any advice regarding the BIOS setup, such as the order to load specific hardware related settings? Michael There's no particular order to adding the software for your modem ,video and sound card, though Win95 should give you the oportunity to install the vendor supplied drivers for these as it finds them when it is being installed for the first time. The usual deal, if you bought all the parts seperate, is that you need to edit the autoexec.bat and config.sys files on the Windows 95 floppy disk to include the name of the CD driver and possibly to invoke a SCSI drive manager first, if nescessary for the CD driver. The CD or the SCSI card should have come with a floppy disk of it's own, and you'll also have to copy the CD driver(s), a ".sys" file, from this floppy to the Win95 boot floppy, in order for Win95 to be able to recognize the Win95 CD, thus getting the show on the road. Once Win95 begins to install, the rest is in the hands of g-d. Morris 5/1/98(Q) What is the difference between Win95 Ver A and Win95 Ver B? Which one do I have, and do I need to upgrade? How does this affect my dual-boot situation, and my hard drive partitioning? Can I use FAT32? Complilation (A) All right, these are a few of the Win95 questions I've been offering lame direct mailed answers to without posting. Now I find that somebody's done answered them all for us. His name is Sean, and his Win 95 support page has been around almost as long as my site. Visit him at: http://www.compuclinic.com/osr2faq/ Morris 4/30/98(Q) The content advisor for IE 3.02 keeps getting a phantom password attached to it and removing and reinstalling the s/w does not clear the problem. I am quite sure the problem is within the registry, but there are severl thousand entries there that deal with security. Short of reformatting and reloading do you know of any fixes that will remove the correct registry entry. Note: Ken found his own answer the next day which appears below mine Ken (A) . I enabled the content advisor in IE 3.1 with a blindly typed password once just to see how easy it would be to defeat. I was immediately unable to access my own website (unrated) and many frustrating hours later, I reformatted my hard drive. Fortunately, I had a backup on my second drive, and thanks to you, I'll remember to do a new one this afternoon. Let this serve as a warning to all. Morris (A) Basically what we found was a file, which may or may not be, created when the content advisor is invoked. This actually is the puzzling part which leads me to believe that some other program is corrupting the registry. After this file was found we tracked it back to the registry and finally found the entry that relates to it. I think we figured between 6 and 8000 security entries in the registry. Anyway, the steps we filed were as follow:
We then opened up the IE3 version with no problem. Ken 4/29/98(Q) I recently bought a Compaq Presario 2230 PC. It came pre-installed with Windows '95. I did some level of research to get Linux installed on the same disk using the "fips" utility even though it is a FAT32 file system. But I really want X to work on it. Somehow I am not able to configure the X on it, bcoz of a variety of reasons. The utilities that come along with the Slackware distribution dont detect my Card. I am also not able to tell which card it is having. And it thinks that I have Video RAM of 64K and gives me a utterly useless resolution and locks all other sessions I have. First thing is that I need some help on how to figure out the Video Cards on my Compaq?? All I could gather from the "control panel" is that it is "Cyrix GX". Also I want X to work on my system?? Irfan (A) The Cyrix MediaGX dynamically configures main memory for use as video memory, and in the place of a traditional video adapter, the GX and it's companion chip serve as both the video and sound adapters. The whole setup is designed specifically for use with Windows 95, with maybe a nod at Windows NT. I have no idea if Linux is explicitly supported, or X (short for X-Windows?). Morris 4/23/98(Q) What is the difference between a Pentium II, a Pentium PRO, a Pentium MMX and a Pentium, not to mention the CPUs from AMD and Cyrix? Composite (A) The Pentium MMX, all of the AMD series (K5-PR and K6) and the Cyrix 6x86 series are all pin compatible (Socket 7) and instruction set compatible with the original Pentium. All the CPUs mentioned, except the K5-PR and the original Pentium support the MMX (MultiMedia eXtension instructions and registers). The Intel Pentium II and Pentium PRO, and Cyrix MediaGX require specially designed motherboards, and offer varying performance. The Pentium PRO seems to be a dead-end at 200MHz, the other top-line CPUs are in the 333MHz to 400MHz range. Morris 4/22/98(Q) After my son installed a new game on our 486 PC our Internet connection ceased to work. Netscape opens, but reports a Winsock error and I never hear the modem dial. This is a DOS 6.2 Windows for Workgroups PC. Kari (A) Most likely the install for the game changed your startup files in an unfriendly way. Since Winsock isn't dependant (any more than anything else) on Autoexec.bat or Config.sys, the problem is likely in your System.ini or Win.ini files. If you go to your C:\Windows directory and to a dir system.*, you should see a bunch of files with different dates all named system.xxx (xxx means any 3 letters or numbers). Copy your current System.ini and Win.ini to files called System.mo and Win.mo, than copy the most recent "xxx" files to be System.ini and Win.ini. Restart Windows after each to see if Netscape now works. If this fixes it, and you want to know the specific problem, you can compare the working and non-working files for the culprit. (Kari reports that reverting to her last System.xxx file fixed the problem. Morris 4/14/98(Q) Also one of the Acer Computers can only go the C:\DOS\ prompt. It refuses to go to the C:\ prompt. Bill (A) As to the Acer that goes to the C:\DOS prompt only, I've never heard of that one, when you use Change Directory commands, i.e. CD .. or CD C:\WINDOWS, does it give an error, do nothing, or actually change directories, but leaving the prompt to still reading C:\DOS? Try typing Prompt=$p$g at the C:\DOS prompt, and if that fixes it, the problem is a bad "prompt=" line in the Autoexec.bat file, which can be replaced with the line I gave. Morris 4/6/98(Q) I installed an Interact joystick and racing wheel plug into the joystick port on the sound card and lost most of my CD Audio functions. They are not plugged in now while I am trying to troubleshoot this problem. I took the soundcard out, rebooted the system without, then stuck it back in as you suggested. I ran "Add new hardware" in the control panel, it deteted sound card but CD Audio still is broken. I also deleted every driver that was listed in the device manager for sound card and joystick, used the device manager to remove the device, rebooted and had Win95 detect new hardware again, reinstalled the drivers off the Win95 cd, rebooted again, reinstalled DirectX 5.0 ....and Still no CD audio in Quake, Hexen2, Shadows of the Empire, or any other of my games that use DirectX 5.0 .I have no idea how DirectX 5.0 works but I think my problem is there. Also the win95 cdplayer in the accesories/multimedia does not detect the CD and does not work either. Jeff (A) I searched the MicroSoft site for "cd audio win95 mci", remember the cryptic "CDAUDIO_INIT: MCI_OPEN FAILED (263)" message, and I came across a long list (maybe 40) Microsoft software products that had various MCI errors. To fix a problem with "The Magic School Bus Explores the Ocean" you had to reinstall Microsoft MCI by
It works now! Somehow the Microsoft MCI CD Audio drivers (what ever they are) got trashed by the joystick install procedure, and the auto detect install would not restore them. I never heard of MCI before this. I thought I would let you know in case this comes up again. Jeff (I'm omitting my guesses, Jeff supplied his own answer) 3/26/98(Q) Have you heard of any problems with WIN95 verB transferring TCP-IP protocol? I have a system where I now have NO access to Netscape in spite of re-installation of 95 and Netscape. I have had phone line techs here to check the wiring and it is fine. The only issue is ver B vs 95 A which has no problem with my dads system. The techs said that the verB is the problem. HH (A) I haven't heard of any problems, and it seems pretty unlikely to me that a major 95 release wouldn't allow Netscape to work - can you say FTC (Federal Trade Commision)? If you're checking phone line issues, it sound like you have a modem problem. At any rate, there's a pretty comprehensive list of service packs for 95 available from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/info/updates.htm Morris 3/10/98(Q) I bought for $10.00 a old XT and I plugged it in and booted it up...all I got was message "bad or missing command interpeter", "Incorrect Dos Version". The fellow at the yard sale said had no idea how to fix it or what original dos version its running..where do I start, can't get C prompt. Help !! It boots also saying "Mitsuba Corporation USA 1987, DTK/ERSO/BIOS 2.38 (c) 1986, RAM Test 640K, he did advise it had also 20 meg harddrive, has 1 slot for 5 1/4's . Jim (A) Doesn't sound bad at all for $10. The PC see's the hard drive, which works well enough to tell you that it has the wrong version of command.com for the system files. What you need to do is find or make a 360KB boot disk (that's the old 5 1/4" floppy), and use it to reformat the hard drive. This will leave the drive a clean 20MB for you to work with. You can follow the procedures in the online manual to do it. www.daileyint.com/hmdpc/handtoc.htm Morris 3/3/98Reposted from 2/9/98 with reader correction: (Q) I have a network setup with win95 at home and it works fine. But I would like to connect to my computer from my friends house or from work, both of those are using win95 also. I can't seem to figure out how to make the modem answer the call from the other computer, I couldn't find anything that would let me answer, only to dial out using Dial up networking or hyperterminal. Curtis (A) Windows 95 dial-up networking works great, but you need to have PLUS (the Win 95 extra) installed on the PC accepting the call. Cost about $35 bucks (see correction from Aaron below), last time I bought it. BY the way, be aware that 33K will be your top communications speed, even if you have 56K Flex modems. It requires a true digital modem to get the one-way 56K speed. Morris (A) For some reason MS gave out the very same Dial-Up-Server with their Dial-Up-Networking upgrade 1.1 and 1.2. http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/info/isdn4w95.htm (It says it's ISDN accelrator pack, it's really dun1.1) I recommend not upgrading to DUN1.2 unless you need it because it is slow and bloated. DUN 1.1 is worth getting because it is much more stable and hasextra features. Aaron 2/24/98(Q) We are a software development house based in Pakistan. We want to get information on setting up Internet WEB server. Can you please guide us that what can be the best server for Internet. We like to go for the top of line servers, which can support heavy traffic and load. Faisal (A) Top of the line would be a DEC Alpha server running Digital Unix, or a Sun Sparc running whatever their Unix flavor of the week is. You can get free Unix and free web server software for any Pentium box if you need to save money, and it will still be pretty good. For super big dollars, you can get into IBM mid-range computers, but unless you need the processing power for something else, I don't know the advantage. Stay away from NT and Notes Domino, the two overhyped web solutions that are a real drag on performance. Morris 2/11/98(Q) - "If you receive an email titled "JOIN THE CREW', DO NOT open it. It will erase everything on your hard drive. Forward this letter to as many people as you can. This is a new, very malicious virus and not many people know about it. This information was announced yesterday morning from IBM; please share it with everyone that might access the internet. Once again, pass this along to EVERYONE in your addreess book so that this may be stopped. Also, do not open ot even look at any mail that says "RETURNED OR UNABLE TO DELIVER". This virus will attach itself to your computer components and render them useless. Immediately delete any mail items that say this. AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus and that there is NO remedy for it at this time. Anon (A) That's not a question, it's one of those warnings we all get once a month or so from well intentioned friends. I have the feeling that they operate like chain mail, since I recall seeing this exact message something like a year ago, and I guess it's just coming around again. The bit about not opening undeliverable mail is particularly relevant to this page, because many of the answers I send out come back as undeliverable, thanks to sloppily typed addresses, or blocks on some servers. I always open them to see what's up. So, this warning was posted "as is", whether or not to take it seriously, I can't advise. Morris (A) - Better answer. Within 24 hours of posting this answer, I received the following: The warning mentioned that it came from IBM so I went to their web site and found them listed under Current Hype Alerts!Also - the date of the hype alert for "Join the Crew" was May 20, 1997 and "The RETURNED MAIL Hoax" was June 6, 1997. The url is http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/HypeAlert/ John 2/9/98(Q) I have a network setup with win95 at home and it works fine. But I would like to connect to my computer from my friends house or from work, both of those are using win95 also. I can't seem to figure out how to make the modem answer the call from the other computer, I couldn't find anything that would let me answer, only to dial out using Dial up networking or hyperterminal. Curtis (A) Windows 95 dial-up networking works great, but you need to have PLUS (the Win 95 extra) installed on the PC accepting the call. Cost about $35 bucks, last time I bought it. BY the way, be aware that 33K will be your top communications speed, even if you have 56K Flex modems. It requires a true digital modem to get the one-way 56K speed. Morris 1/30/98(Q) I have a fairly new PC, Cyrix processor, 32 megs, running Win95. Normally I leave it on all the time, but when we were gone for a week I turned it off. When I got back and booted it up, it had developed the bad habit of freezing every hour or two. I turned off every program I could (from WIN.INI, the startup folder, power saving features both in the Windows configuration and in BIOS, etc.), even brought it up without connecting to the network. But it kept freezing at random times. The strangest thing was, the time between freezes got longer and longer; now (a couple weeks later) it freezes only once every day or two. It's almost as if something got cold while I was gone, and once it warmed up it ran better. But I can't imagine anything taking a week to warm up! Usually it freezes while I'm not doing anything, but occasionally I've "caught it in the act". The odd thing is that the mouse freezes ten or twenty seconds before the keyboard. That's right: moving or clicking the mouse does nothing (the mouse arrow cursor--not an hourglass--stays in the same place), but the cursor keys will move the ][ cursor for awhile before that, too, freezes. I once did a Ctrl-Alt-Del when the mouse was frozen, but the keyboard still working, and I got the blue screen msg saying "Windows is busy." I just thought of something. I go to sleep once a day. Do you suppose my computer is just getting sleepy? Mike (A) I believe that it is a new type of virus passed from human to computer. For example, I've been visiting in Israel the past three months and using a friends Gateway Pentium MMX 166 to do my Internet stuff. It has a similar bad habit to your PC that I've been unable to pin down. Since I'm sure Gateway would say it was fine when it left the factory, the only possible explanation is it must have caught something from me, that I undoubtedly picked up from a computer in the States. Maybe you brought something back from vacation with you? As to the freezes getting farther apart, I have a friend whose Pentium 100 (which I'd gotten wholesale for him from a supplier), insisted on freezing once or twice an hour when we got it, which changed to once or twice a day, then a week, then it got healthy all together. And who doesn't believe in the power of prayer? So, as long as the duration is heading in the right direction, I'd follow the advice they give to doctors, and "try to keep her mind busy while time heals the wounds." Morris 1/23/98(Q) Just switched from Win95 to a WinNT 4.0 print server. Big mistake! My Win95 systems can no longer see the Printer, yet the NT systems see it just fine. Any ideas? Jack (A) I didn't have any ideas, but Jack got back with the answer. "I finally got a hold of a WinNT GURU and fixed it by taking the spaces out of the Share Printer as name. Seems Win95 is not smart enough to recognize spaces." . Thanks Jack, Morris 1/9/98(Q) Do you have any insight on why PC's running Windows95 get "invalid Page Fault" errors at a specific address? (0137:xxxxxxxx). This occurs on my homebuilt systems as well as most other consumer PC's as well. A couple example errors:
I get these errrors using many programs using a large variety of namebrand hardware configurations so it can't be the hardware on ALL the different systems. I've tried running FAT32 and FAT16 file system. I've tried Windows95 SR1, and Win95 SR2. Some have 32Meg SDRAM, others 64Meg EDO. All have this same problem with no common hardware. Any ideas? David (A) Sadly, no insight. I'm as in the dark as you (Netscape on the Gateway I'm using here in Israel pulls the occasional page fault). From a programming point of view, it probably really is a page fault, but whether the problem is due to bugs in Windows 95, or problems with CPUs or cache blowing the occasional bit is hard to say. From the point of view of somebody who has been programming off and on for 20 years, I'm convinced that the whole thing is increasingly held together by smoke and mirrors. Morris 1/7/98(Q) I have been posting a record of the U.S.S Edison, a WWII Destroyer on which I served, on the web (yes, this is my parner Frank Dailey, as in "daileyint", MR). I post each new chapter as it is completed, but on the last chapter posting, the pictures failed to load for my readers. They work fine on my PC. Any suggestions? Franklyn (A) The image references in your HTML code were all "Absolute", that is, they were pointing at the files on your C: drive. Unless you are loading images from a different web site, an "Absolute" link starting with "http://www...", you always want to use "Relative" links. These look for the images in the default directory, if no path is given, or in a specified subdirectory off of the default directory. I used FTP from Israel to fix it and reload it for you. Morris 12/18/97(Q) I am having a problem with my P75, Windows 95 computer. All of my fonts are messed up. Several programs do not work, giving me the message "no font list" It seems the system fonts are not working? When messages come up the last few words are missing because this new font is too big. Joe (A) Fonts in Windows 95 are installed and viewed under ControlPanel>Fonts. You can always reintsall all the basic fonts off of your Windows 95 CD. Morris 12/16/97(Q) Sometimes people tell me that their e-mail to me comes back as undeliverable. I know that I am giving them the right address. What can be wrong. Shari (A) There are a couple things that can be wrong, though the most common problem is still typo's. Non-fatal error like "Couldn't deliver message within 4 hours, will keep trying" are becoming more and more common with semi-online intranets expanding, and free e-mail providers. A brand new one (and this is the case I abstracted Shari's question from) just came up. My e-mail to Shari in response to a question was rejected with the following message burried in the header - no access from[194.90.1.13]see http://maps.vix.com/rbl/. Apparently, somebody uses my local ISP in Israel to send a lot of junk mail, and it got blaklisted by the Black Hole orgainization behind the URL shown above. Shari's server checks the black list and rejects all mail from the originating IP (Internet Protocol) address, which is fixed in the case of servers. They are trying to provide an anti-spam service, in this case it backfired. Morris 12/11/97(Q) I have a Gateway 2000 P-166MMX with Windows 95. I was in Netscape Communicator and tried to print a letter by clicking on the "Print" button on the tool bar. Not only didn't it print (my HP Laser 6L normally comes on automatically), but on subsequent attempts to print, the "Print" option couldn't be selected (light grey color) and the button did nothing. When I closed all of my Windows before exiting, I found a hidden Window in the middle of the screen that indicated my laser printer was waiting for confirmation before it would print! This has happened to me several times before, and though I'm 76 years old, I'm running out of patience. What is going on? Moshe (A) You're suffering from a very common problem that occurs when fast computers meet slowing fingers, coupled with a little uncertainty. In the Windows environment, there are things that need to be double-clicked (mainly icons), and things that need to be single clicked (buttons, menu items like File, Edit, etc). What you are doing is double clicking on the "Print" button, when it only wants to be clicked once. The result of the first click brings up the window with options for your HP Laser, where you select the number of copies, etc, and confirm the print job. The second click, following immediately after, has the effect of hiding that options window, since it is interpreted as an attempt to select an option in a background window (a window other than the active window, the printer options in this case. All this happens faster than you can see, due to the spped of your system. By accidentally reselecting the Netscape window, you are hiding the printer window, which doesn't appear on the task bar since it's not an official task. Even if the explanation reads like Greek, the important thing is to remember that toolbar buttons should only be clicked once. Morris 12/3/97(Q) I use Windows95 version 4.00.950 with Hebrew support (all messages and Help in English) but recently I've lost the keyboard languages switch icon (E or Ô) near the clock in the tray. The Shortcut Alt + Shift switches languages as usual. Could you advise me how can I restore the icon? Shilman (A) Go to ControlPanel/Keyboard/Languages and click "Enable indicator on task bar". This answer came courtesy of Shilman a couple days after my stock reply of "I don't know". If anybody knows how to get a lost modem icon back on the task bar tray in Win 95, I'd like to know the answer of that one too! Morris 11/28/97(Q) I just formated my C drive, and so erased all data. I have used the floppy disk, labeled boot for cd-rom for Windows95. Now, following the on screen instructions, I restart the computer, and put the Window95 cd-rom in. My problem is: When I receive the C, command prompt. I don't know the correct response to get the cd-rom to load. I've tried every letter possible. a:/set-up etc. The best response, that I've gotten is: a drive is not ready--Fail, Abort, Retry. What should I do, to get the Windows95 disk to load? Marcos (A) It sounds like you formatted the C: drive with the FORMAT/S, making it bootable, and that you are booting to the C: Try changing to A: and typing AUTOEXEC. If that doesn't work, you'll have to go into the CMOS setup (usually by hitting "DEL" when the computer is counting memory on boot, and find the option to change the boot sequence from C:A: to A:C:. At that point, the system will boot from the Setup floppy, and Win 95 should load from the CD. If the A: drive won't boot at all, you need another floppy. Morris 11/27/97(Q) I installed a larger hard drive and used Powerquest's Drive Copy program to image the old disk onto the new one. Worked great and only took about 45 min from opening the case to close to swap it out. My BIOS recognized the correct size and evrything works okay but Win95 says it is about 100mb smaller than my bios or the disk mfg says it is. What's going on? Noel (A) This is just the old rounding error business. Drive manufacturers call 1MB=1 million bytes, whereas the operating system calls 1MB=1048576 bytes (2 to the 20th power). A real GB is 1,073,741,824 bytes (2 to the 30th power), whereas a drive manufacturer GB is 1 billion bytes. Why? So they can sell a 1GB drive as a 1.07 GB drive. Of course, some space is lost in formatting the drive, so depending on how it's reported, the numbers may vary even more.Windows 95 counts roughly 73MB to the GB more than a drive manufacturer, so if your new drive is 1.3GB, everything is all right. Morris 10/26/97(Q) This has happened twice, both to me and a friend. When booting the machine, I pressed some F-key ( I think F8), and now the system hangs while booting. It gets to the screen which identifies the cpu and and ports etc...but the system hangs. I have no clue what happened. Can you aid me here? I've troubleshot the bios for hours and no solutions seem to work. A boot disk from a: can access the c: drive, but that's it. We're also talking Win95, fyi. Christopher (A) The F8 key is supposed to invoke the Boot Manager in Win 95 (offers step by step bypassing of the startup files in DOS). Sounds like the boot manager got sick, but you should be able to replace it by SYSing the drive. If you don't have the SYS program on your emergency boot floppy, you can copy it off the C: (Chris reports back a sucessful fix). Morris 9/30/97(Q) My hard drive recently crashed, and had to be replaced. My repair person installed, formatted the drive, and loaded Windows 95A. Shortly after I got the computer home and started using it, I began receiving the following message: "Registry Problem: Windows encountered an error accessing the system registry. You should restore the registry now and restart your computer. If you ignore this error and shut down your system, you may lose data. Restoring the registry will replace the faulty registry with a known good backup copy. However, this backup copy may not contain all of the information recently added to your system. "Restore From Backup and Restart" then, "System Settings Change". To finish restoring your registry, you must restart your computer. Do you want to restart your computer now? Yes No" I select "Yes" and everything works okay, until the next time I have to boot the computer. I went to the MS Knowledge Base (www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/Q131/4/31.htm) and downloaded "How to Troubleshoot Registry Errors." That information told me the problem was the registry is damaged. The remedy was to use the real-mode registry editor to export, then import, the registry file. Hey, at this point I will try anything! So, I started the computer, pressed F8 then choose "Safe mode command prompt only" from the Startup menu. The first command it said to type in was regedit /1:c:\windows\system.dat /e c:\system.txt I received the message "Invalid Switch." Which ended my attempt to follow the MS directions." How do I resolve my registry problem? S.M (A) That was one hell of a command line: regedit /1:c:\windows\system.dat /e c:\system.txt Without ever having tried to use any of those switches with regedit, it looks like there might be an extra colon after the /l , where I would expect a space. However, it looks theyre trying to feed you the whole thing in one line. Run regedit in Windows 95 without any of the switches, and use the pull down menus to export the registry and re-import it. (As it happened, exporting to a floppy and re-importing did the trick) Morris 9/11/97(Q) My situation is this. The school my daughter goes to was given 8-386's. The problem is that the Windows and Dos were wiped off of the drives. Is there anyway we can get these programs since we're a school and not pay a arm and a leg for each software for each machine? I don't want to pirate or dishonestly use my Dos since I sort of understand the legal side of it. jb (A) I feel like, uh, was it Sophicles who sat in a barrel looking for an honest man? Anyway, find a vendor, either locally or via mail order catalogs, who is a certified Microsoft Education Reseller. They sell software in 10 pack liscences, and it's usually around 20% of the normal retail cost. Outside of that, you might find DOS 5.0 or higher pretty cheap anyway, since it's "obsolete", and the same goes for Windows 3.1 or Workgroups. Pick up a Computer Shopper (Ziff Davis) and scan it carefully. Morris 9/10/97I have recently volunteered to help a program in St. Louis with organizing and configuring some old computers for use in some of the area's Public Schools. So far, I have received 3 computers. 2 IBM PS/2 Model 25's and 1 IBM PS/2 Model 30. I am assuming that the Model 25 is a 8086 and the Model 30 is a 286. Please correct me if I'm wrong. When I turn on these computers, I expected to get a DOS prompt, but did not. I just got a list of functions, so to speak, that are tied to thevarious function keys. For example, F1-LIST, F2-RUN, etc. How can I tell if it has DOS loaded on it? For that matter, how can I tell what operating system the computer is running. Mike What you're looking at sounds like ROM BASIC booting up, since there's no operating system installed. Now, please don't take this wrong, but you won't be doing a school system a favor by giving them these machines. None of them can fully run Windows 3.1, and although they are still capable of doing exactly what made them worth thousands of dollars ten years ago, they are only capable of causing aggravation now. I say this as someone who has worked in schools, all the way back to Apple II days teaching "LOGO". Don't accept any donations less than a 386sx, and you'll be on the right track. Morris 9/7/97(Q) In my Windows explorer application, it says at the bottom, 19.1MB (disk free space: 181MB ). What do these two numbers mean? I started out with a 1.2 Gig hard drive so how much space do I have left? Some of my applications say I should see if I have enough free space. Does this mean memory? Cathy (A) Free space always refers to hard drive space, memory is always called memory or RAM. You have 181MB free out of 1.2GB, or about 15%. You always want to have at least 10% free, so you're getting pretty close. The 19.1MB refers to how much disk space is used by whatever folder you're currently in. Morris 8/27/97(Q) I was given an old 286 with an EGA monitor (I'm not sure how much RAM). I know I can run Windows, but, I was wondering if there was a program I could run instead. Basically I want some sort of menu and I hope you can point in the right direction. Nick You can squeak by in Windows in the standard mode (win /s), or you can find a "point & shoot" menu clone in shareware archives, but why bother. You can do your own menu very easily using batch files. Grab a DOS manual from the library (nobody takes them out anymore, should be easy to find). The basic idea is to create a batch file for each program you want to run, with file names like, 1.BAT, 2.BAT. 3.BAT, etc.. Then, add lines to the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file using the ECHO command (simple writes the lines to the screen), like
Also, create another batch file called MENU.BAT with the same ECHO commands. When you start your PC or type "MENU", you'll be reminded which number to hit for each program. Morris 8/20/97(Q) Under Control Panel's system option, behind the performance tab, if you press the graphics button, there is something that controls "hardware acceleration". It is a bar that slides from "none" to "full". Can you tell me what this does? Fredd (A) The graphics chipset on most video cards are cabable of functioning in a couple of different modes. A default VGA/SVGA mode for native Windows drivers, limited to 256/16 colors, is usually the most basic level. Next comes the enhanced modes, requiring graphics chipset specific drivers, which allow the cards's resolution and colors and scan rates to be pushed to the maximum. Hardware acceleration can refer to any advanced techniques the adapter may use to push performance, from drawing shorcuts implimented in the chipset like polygon fills or 3-D fills and rendering, to bus mastering. Whether or not the graphics acceleration capabilities of newer MMX CPUs would be included, I don't know. At any rate, some of these techniques prove to be incompatible with other adapters, like modems, or with certain software packages. The safest position for the slidebar is "none", and the overall impact of acceleration is dependant on both the driver and the software package running. Morris 8/14/97(Q) Trying to install Windows95 on a 486 and it bombs saying it can't find the A20 Handler which XMS memory manager needs? What's an A20 HAndler? Is it a chip? Is it part of the BIOS? Dave (A) The A20 handler refers to an extra control line for the address bus when the CPU is operating in real mode. The addressing capability of a CPU in real mode is limited to the 20 adress lines (A0 - A19) of early Intel CPUs. Since 2 to the 20th power = 1048576 = 1MB, that was the adress space limit without page swapping. The physical A20 line is used to allow access to the first 64KB of Extended Memory (memory over 1MB), known as High Memory. Loading DOS or device drivers high (see the online book or earlier questions) saves real mode program memory space. I believe the actual hardware implementation of the A20 line is in the Keyboard BIOS chip (I've never known why), but the motherboard must support it. I've never seen a 486 without one, though, so I suggest you check CMOS setup to see if it's been disabled, normally in one of the advanced menus. Morris 8/13/97(Q) This may be a simple question, but I recently deleted my file manager or my file manager icon. How can I get it back or reinstall it? Robert (A) Go to the "Main" group, click on "File -> New", choose "Program Item" use browse to find "WINFILE.EXE" in C:\Windows, type in "File Manager" for description, and you're done. This is a super common problem (losing various icons), and the browse option is the easiest way to guess at the file name required, if you aren't already sure. Just remember that the icon will be added to the active group, and if the active group icons are already filling the window, you'll have to maximize it, or scroll, in order to see the new icon. Morris 8/5/97(Q) Here's the problem I'm facing: I formatted the hard disk of my old Goldstar 286 with the command "FORMAT C:" and ever since the Goldstar has renounced its hard disk. I cannot see the "C:\>" and when I attempt to execute FDISK (isn't that what I am supposed to do?) through a floppy, the message "Incorrect version of MS-DOS" is displayed. What must I do to have a prompt again? What files must be included in the floppy along with FDISK? From what version of MS-DOS (The version that was runnning on the system was 3.20(?) or 3.02(?)) Costas (A) First, when formatting a hard disk, you should always use "FORMAT C: /S". The "/S" makes it a system disk, without wihich it will be unbootable. You can still force it to be a system disk by using the "SYS" command from a floppy, as in "SYS C::, but first you need to get a bootable floppy with the correct versions of "SYS" and "FDISK" on it. The DOS version currently on your hard drive is pretty unimportant, since you are redoing it anyway, the important thing is that when you create a boot floppy (using "FORMAT A:/S") on a working system, you get FORMAT and FDISK from the same system. DOS file versions must agree with the COMMAND.COM that boots. Try to get DOS 5.0 or higher going, and you'll be a lot happier in the long run. The basic procedure with the proper files on your boot floppy is,
If you can scare up an official set of DOS 5.0 or higher Disks, the whole process is automatic. Morris 7/9/97(Q) I have inherited a Pentium 90 Multimedia machine which has been configured insuch a way that it barely is able to stay up. I would like to wipe the hard drive completely, DOS and all and re-load everything from scratch so that I know exactly what the set-ups are. I know that I need a bootable floppy that has the cd drivers on it etc. to be able to load the operating system, but am unsure how to go about this exactly. Any suggestions as to where to look for this information? Dion (A) Re-doing from scratch always presents problems, so it might be a good time for you to think about making the jump to Windows 95. On your specific question about drivers, check your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and make sure that you copy all of the files being loaded to your backup floppy. The CD drivers are the most important of all, the hardware level driver for which is loaded in CONFIG.SYS, and the DOS/Windows driver (MSCDEX - MicroSoft CD EXtension) is loaded in AUTOEXEC.BAT. You'll also want to save all the drivers for your sound card and any special drivers for your video adapter. Drivers used in Windows need to be installed from their factory disks. If you are going to stick with DOS/Windows, unless you actually need to repartition your hard drive, your best bet would be to clean it up rather than reload. At the most you could DELTREE then reinstall Windows, reinstalling DOS won't change anything. You might also step through your startup files on boot (just tap the F8 key after the system finishes counting memory) to see if there are bad lines or commands that take exessive time to execute. If you haven't run DEFRAG and SCANDISK recently, do so. You might also want to check your memory allocation, MEM /C, to see what's going on there. I might be able to give you some more specific suggestions if you tell me where the machine dogs out, and what kind of problems you have. Morris 7/8/97(Q) I have been given a new laptop and would like to wipe the slate clean so to speak. How do I clean off the hard drive without effecting DOS??? Bryant (A) Assuming you have a new enough version of DOS, use my favorite DOS command, DELTREE. First, type DIR *. To get a list of all the directories on the laptop. Then, type DELTREE directory and "Y" to confirm, for each directory you're SURE you want to get rid of. Laptops and Notebooks sometimes include directories with hardware drivers specific to the machine, so don't delete anything unless you know what it is. If there are enough directories that they scroll off the screen, just repeat the DIR *. from time to time to see how you are doing. Five minutes and you'll be done. Morris 7/7/97(Q) Which web browsers can be used on a PS/2? It's Windows 3.1. Both IE and Netscape claim to only work on a 386 or higher. Even though the PS/2 is a 286, we tried installing Netscape 2.0 and it installed, but wouldn't run. Steve (A) The 386 is the minimum platform for the brandname browsers. Your best bet would be trying an older version of Mosaic, the original NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) browser that popularized the web. The ungodly URL below starting with "ftp" is the address of their File Transfer Protocol site Mosaic archive directory, which goes almost all the way back to version zero. You might try downloading a couple, or you could try e-mailing their webmaster at webmaster@ncsa.uiuc.edu to see if the right version will help you. The latest Mosaic version for Windows 3.1X, is Mosaic 2.1.1, which although it is written in 16 bit code, requires the Win32 API, which I believe requires the CPU to support 32 bit protected mode operation, ruling out your 286. However, Mosaic1.0 supports most of the useful HTML stuff, and is written in 16 bit code. Morris |