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By Alan Smithee
Note: All links were verified at press time.
Getting tech support by phone is a great deal-if the vendor has
an 800 number, answers your call quickly and has knowledgeable
representatives who can solve your problems. Those are pretty
big ifs. While a few companies still provide such exemplary support,
particularly for big-ticket hardware, it's all too common to find
yourself stuck on hold or wading through voice-mail menus, only
to be connected with someone who's never used the product. And
all on your dime.
Luckily, there's an alternative. Hang up the phone, fire up the
modem and get help online. It's usually cheaper-just a local call,
plus at most 5 cents a minute for connect charges. Because there's
no waiting on hold, you don't have to listen to any annoying music
or ads. And in most cases, online support staffers are more knowledgeable
than their phone-bank counterparts.
In this article we'll tell you how to get the most out of each
of the major venues for online-support-the World Wide Web, CompuServe,
America Online, Prodigy and the Microsoft Network. We'll also
talk about general strategies for getting the help you need as
quickly and cheaply as possible. We'll focus mostly on Windows
95, since that's number-one on the tech support charts right now,
but the tips and tricks apply to any product or problem.
Before you go online for support, check the resources you already
have. Search the program's online help; skim the manual's table
of contents and index; check any readme, .txt, .wri or .doc files
in the program's directory. Many Windows 95 questions I see online
are answered in Faq.txt or one of the many other text files in
the \Windows directory, or in the Windows 95 Resource Kit, which
comes in Windows Help format on the CD (\Admin\Reskit\ Helpfile\Win95rk.hlp).
You should also pull together all the details about your problem
to save the amount of time it takes to get your questions answered.
Describe it in as much detail as you can, if possible with step-by-step
instructions for duplicating it.
Include all basic information that might be relevant: PC brand
and model; CPU model and speed; RAM and hard drive specs; video
board (if any) and settings; version numbers for operating system,
network and relevant applications; printer model and driver information
for printing problems; network board model (if any) and settings
for network snafus.
If you get an error message, report the program name from the
error dialog's title bar, plus the full and exact text of the
message. Explain clearly exactly what you were doing before the
error appeared.
Save everyone time and effort: Your first response from a support
staffer may be a pointer to FAQs or other references that might
cover your problem. If you mention the places you've already looked
without success, you may get a more substantive initial response.
This would also be a good time to upgrade your modem. If you're
still using a 2400bps modem, you'll probably recover the cost
of upgrading to a 14.4 or 28.8Kbps model within a few months through
reduced connect charges. Downloading Wintune, for example, takes
an hour and a half at 2400, while at 14.4 it takes only 15 minutes
and at 28.8 half that again. You can pick up good brand-name 14.4
units (also known as V.32bis) for around $100 and 28.8 modems
(V.34) for under $200.
A 33.6Kbps extension to the V.34 standard is in the works. Modems
offering that speed prior to the standard's approval may have
trouble connecting to other manufacturers' 33.6 modems unless
they've got an upgradable flash ROM. In any case, it's not worth
paying a lot extra for 33.6. You won't get the extra speed unless
line conditions are optimal, you're dialing into another 33.6
and there are no server or network delays-and even then it's 15
percent faster at most.
Time to get online. Clearly, the World Wide Web is the future
of online support. I bet not a single company remotely related
to the computer industry is without a Web site. The scramble to
get on the Web was even satirized in Doonesbury.
Since all the online services now have Web browsers built into
their access software, it makes a lot more sense from a vendor's
perspective to put up a single Web site, rather than building
and maintaining separate forums on each service. (We did that
to some extent ourselves: WINDOWS Magazine used to maintain two
separate back-issue libraries, but we've replaced the one on America
Online with a Web link to http://www.winmag.com.) Another plus
is that vendors have full control over their Web sites, with no
interference or "sorry-no-can-do's" from online
service bureaucracies.
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Netscape
The single most useful Windows resource anywhere, online or off,
is Microsoft Support Online (http://www.microsoft.com/support).
The main page has two pop-up lists that let you quickly bring
up files of frequently asked questions (FAQs) or general info
about the product of your choice. Did your CD-ROM stop working
after you upgraded to Windows 95? The FAQs cover that common problem
vendor by vendor, model by model. As far as I can tell, this Web
site is the only place to get the latest Windows 95 FAQs. I could
not find equivalent files anywhere on CompuServe or Microsoft
Network.
Naturally, Microsoft isn't the only vendor with a Web site offering
tech support. Lotus and Novell, among others, have equally ambitious
projects under way. (For pointers to some of the most useful sites,
see Vendor Sites)
Another worthwhile Web-only resource is Creative Element's Windows
95 Annoyances (http://www.creativelement.com/win95ann). Despite
the peevish-sounding name, it's actually a first-rate FAQ with
solutions and workarounds for most of the OS's bugs and design
defects, particularly those most irksome to sophisticated, experienced
users. I look here first for solutions when Microsoft says "That's
not a bug; it's a feature," or "We're working on it"
or "We've added your request to the wish list for future
updates." Want to get rid of all the icons on your desktop?
Make double-clicking on My Computer open an Explorer window? Create
a shortcut to Device Manager? Stop Win95 from forgetting your
dial-up networking passwords? You'll find directions at this site.
Search engines are the easiest way to track down sites relevant
to a particular problem. I use Yahoo, the most popular. In the
unlikely event Yahoo doesn't have a link to the site you want,
it will bring up a menu that can automatically run the same search
in any of a half-dozen other Web search engines.
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Yahoo
Yahoo is also a great place for finding third-party resources.
Its Windows 95 list, for example, serves as sort of a top 100
for Win95 Internet resources. The URL is quite a mouthful: http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Operating_Systems/
Microsoft_Windows/Windows_95___Win95/index.html.
But there's no need to type all that. Just do a Yahoo search for
"Win95" and it'll top the results list. (For pointers
to some of the best such sites, see The Win95 Address Book)
The biggest complaint about Web support sites, as with the Web
in general, is performance. When traffic is heavy or a server
is busy with other tasks, response can be much slower than with
an online service. Internet task forces are working on ways to
ease the performance bottlenecks (through compression, caching
and replication, for instance), but it may be years before the
problems are finally resolved.
In the meantime, you can maximize Web performance by sticking
to text mode as much as possible. When a site has an alternate
text-only interface, save that URL rather than the full graphics
version in your bookmark or favorite places file. (For instance,
for Yahoo use http://www.yahoo.com/text, not http://www.yahoo.com). The unique
Images button on Netscape Navigator's toolbar
is a big help when working in text mode, as you can quickly load
graphics for the current page if you can't navigate without them.
To minimize delays, do your Web surfing outside of business hours,
and avoid the Internet "rush hours" when half the world
checks its e-mail (9 a.m., noon, 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.).
In the long run, it seems likely that the Web will replace online
services or turn them into Internet service providers. But there's
still one big sticking point: The Web currently doesn't offer
any one-on-one help. Most of what you'll find on vendor home pages
are product announcements, bug fixes, policy announcements and
the like. You won't be able to get individual support from vendors
or discuss problems with other users of the same products.
That could change over the next few years as Web BBSes and billing
software mature. Until then, your best bets for individual support
and user feedback are Internet Usenet newsgroups or the online
services.
Usenet newsgroups are treasure troves of technical support for
some things, but Windows 95 isn't necessarily one of them. As
a general rule, the more popular the topic, the more useless stuff
you'll find in its newsgroup. The two Win95 comp.os newsgroups
(news.comp.os.ms-windows.win95.setup for initial installation
questions, news.comp.os.ms-windows.win95.misc for everything else)
are no exception. (Newsgroup subscriptions vary depending on the
online service or browser you are using.)
Post a serious question not handled in the online help or FAQs,
and one or more sophisticated users will probably post a solution.
Unfortunately, your response and their replies will be mixed in
with hundreds of idiotic postings on topics like "Is Bill
Gates the Antichrist?" and "Free Money Now!!' If you
don't mind wading through all the muck, you can get some good
advice.
CompuServe, which originated the concept and spearheaded the development
of online tech support, is the leader in this area in my book.
More than 1,100 hardware and software companies currently support
their products through CompuServe's BBS-style forums, and it's
still the only service with an offline reader that can handle
BBS messages as well as e-mail and Usenet newsgroups. (AOL's FlashSessions
can handle only the latter two.)
In addition to vendor forums, there are scores of other topics
run by user groups, independent entrepreneurs and magazines like
this one. In these forums, you can talk with experts and exchange
tips with other users. The gurus here often know more about products
than the vendors' support staff, and they're frank about defects
and limitations. Vendor forums, on the other hand, usually have
access to bug reports and other support data not available to
outsiders. They may be able to provide customer support services,
like replacing defective products or mailing an upgrade to fix
a bug.
One of the truly outstanding forums on CompuServe is Microsoft's
Windows 95 Setup Forum (SETUP95), which provides support for initial
installation of the OS. Almost every posting gets a detailed,
to-the-point response from knowledgeable Microsoft employees,
who will follow up as long as necessary to resolve the problem.
You'll generally get an answer in one working day or less, though
a new or unusual problem that requires research may take several
days. Postings that don't belong in the forum (for example, about
applications or post-install problems) may sit for weeks or even
scroll off unanswered.
The only bad news here is that some postings are handled by participants
in Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional (MVP) program, in which
end users field online support questions in barter for MS products
and services. While these volunteers mean well and can be helpful,
they're no substitute for the company's reliable and painstaking
paid staff.
Microsoft's main Windows 95 forum (MSWIN95), which focuses on
post-installation problems, warns you right up front that it "should
not be thought of as a formal means of support." Some questions
are handled by Microsoft employees, others by MVP volunteers.
Either way, the responses are often limited to what you could
find in the Windows 95 Resource Kit, FAQs and Knowledge Base.
The quality varies from one message section to another. For instance,
the Video/Display section responses are pretty much by the book,
while in the Dial-Up Networking section they're often quite insightful.
Bottom line: It won't hurt to ask in this forum, but it's a good
idea to back it up by cross-posting elsewhere.
CompuServe itself runs several Windows 95-related forums under
its WUGNet umbrella, but the MS Windows News Forum (WINNEWS) is
the only one that of-fers much support. Though its sysops are
frequently stumped by users' problems, when they do have a solution
it's often easier or more straightforward than Microsoft's. Unfortunately,
WUGNet's other forums aren't as useful. The Windows Users Forum
(WUGNET) isn't strictly focused on Win95. In addition, many of
the Windows Connectivity Forum (WINCON) postings go unanswered,
while the Windows Business Software (WINBIZ) forum gets so little
traffic it feels like a ghost town.
For help with Windows 95 application problems, you'll fare best
in CompuServe's vendor forums. Microsoft application forums like
MSWORD, MSEXCEL, MSACCESS and MSOFORUM (Office Setup) offer high-quality
support similar to that in SETUP95. The same is true for most
if not all other major vendors, including (from personal experience)
Adobe, Claris, Corel, Datastorm, Intuit, Lotus, Novell, Quark
and Symantec. (If you're looking for help with WordPerfect, check
out both the official WPWIN and the independent WPUSER forum.)
Among small companies, quality varies more. While some are every
bit as good as the majors, others tack online support onto the
job descriptions of people with higher priorities. Skim the messages
on your first visit: If there are a lot of one-message topics
and most of them are unanswered questions posted a week or more
ago, don't expect to find much help there.
Hardware vendors' forums vary even more greatly. While the best
are as good as on the software side, the worst are so bad you
wonder why the vendor even bothers. Some forums are so filled
with unanswered questions and flames from upset customers that
they'd discourage you from dealing with the company. In fact,
it would be wise to check out these forums before spending any
money on a company's products. If your hardware vendor gives you
the runaround, a good backup is CompuServe's PC Hardware and PC
Communications forums (PCHW and PCCOM), where you'll find a high
level of expertise.
HP's forums on CompuServe are a special case. Though sponsored
by the company, which manages the file libraries, the sysops are
volunteer users. If you want direct support from HP, you're better
off picking up the phone.
Finding a particular vendor's forum is usually painless, since
most are listed in WinCIM's online help. Choose CompuServe Directory
from the Help menu, then search for the vendor's name. Larger
vendors have multiple forums (Microsoft has more than 60), while
smaller ones share forums with vendors of similar products. When
you find what you're looking for, click the Service jump text
and WinCIM will log on and take you directly to that forum. While
most vendor-sponsored forums are operated by the companies' tech
support employees, some-including Microsoft's Windows 95 forums-are
user-to-user forums run by volunteers. You have to join the extra-cost
Plus service to access Microsoft staff.
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CompuServe
If your vendor isn't listed, or you want to find an independent
forum, use the Services/Find command, which will log on, search
a database of keywords defined by forum sysops and display a list
of matches. For example, the Quark Online Users Forum (QUARK)
is the official forum for support for QuarkXPress, but search
for "Quark" and you'll see it's also a topic in the
Desktop Publishing Forum (DTPFOR) and a couple of other DTP-related
places. It's always a good idea to search for the vendor's name
as well as the product's name-in this case, "Xpress"
and "QuarkXPress" turn up considerably fewer hits than
a search for "Quark."
If you still haven't found what you're looking for, try the Support
Directory (SUPPORT). This contains basically the same information
as the Find database, but it's compiled separately and updated
on a different schedule, so you'll find that it often turns up
other possibilities.
The first time you join a forum, read the sysop's notices (Special/Notices)
to see if there are any special policies you should respect. For
example, some forums ask you to address your messages to "Sysop,"
others prefer "All," still others a different user ID
for each message section. Then browse or search the messages to
see if any existing topics discuss your problems. (WinCIM's scroll
boxes don't work correctly in Win95. They grow to fill almost
the whole scroll bar, which makes scrolling down difficult. As
a workaround, press End to jump to the bottom of the list, and
the scroll box will behave normally.) If you find some relevant
topics, you can minimize connect charges by marking them (or whole
message sections) and downloading them with Messages/Retrieve
Marked. Then log off (File/Disconnect), open the Filing Cabinet
and read the topics offline.
If you still haven't found a solution to your problem, it's time
to post your own message. Often it's a good idea to post in several
forums. For example, when my laptop wouldn't go into standby after
upgrading to Windows 95, I posted in both Microsoft's Win95 forum
and Compaq's forum. When hyphens started disappearing somewhere
along the conversion trail from WordPerfect to MS Word to QuarkXPress,
I posted in the forums for all three products, as well as in a
DTP user group.
To minimize connect costs, compose your support requests offline
with Message/Create Forum Message. Be sure to select not only
the correct forum but also an appropriate message section within
the forum. Save each message to the Outbox as you complete it.
Then open the Outbox, select each message in turn and click Send.
(Send All only works with mail, not with forum messages.) In each
forum, after you post your message click the Add button in the
Favorite Places list, so it'll be easy to return.
While you may get a response to your post within a few hours,
it's more likely to take one or two working days, especially in
a vendor forum. To check, use Favorite Places (or Service/Go)
to return to the forum and use Messages/Get Waiting to read any
replies. If that command is grayed out, there are none. In a busy
forum, replies may "scroll off" before you get a chance
to read them. If a forum's users post only a few messages a day,
they may stay online for months; if hundreds, the forum may "roll
over" a couple of times a week.
There are only two times you need to worry about scroll rates.
First, when traffic takes a sudden jump (for example, the Word
forum the week after 8.0 is released), or if there's a disruption
at the vendor's end (like a flu epidemic in the tech support department),
messages can scroll off before sysops have a chance to answer
them. It's pretty obvious when this happens, as you end up with
a section filled with one-message topics-that is, unanswered questions.
In such cases, try to find another forum that will give better
results.
Second, if you post a message in a high-traffic forum and don't
check back for a few days, it's possible for responses to scroll
off without your having read them. Many forums are set up to automatically
forward unread messages to your e-mail box when they scroll off
the forum-the sysop can tell you whether that option has been
enabled. The usual rule in such cases is to respond in a new message
in the forum, rather than a reply to the e-mail. If this option
is not enabled, just check back more frequently.
(CompuServe's monthly fee is $9.95, which includes 5 free hours.
Each additional hour is $2.95. Call 800-848-8199 to get connected.)
America Online is CompuServe's most serious challenger for the
online support crown, but it's not a close race. As I write this,
there are only about 165 companies listed in the tech support
menu of AOL's Computing Company Connection (Keyword: CCC). Some
major companies with support forums on CompuServe-including Creative
Labs, Datastorm, Lotus, Packard Bell and Toshiba-aren't on AOL
at all. A few other big names-like Digital, IBM, Intel, Gateway
2000 and Microsoft-have a token presence on AOL. But they provide
only reference materials, file libraries and links to Web sites,
not the one-on-one personal support they offer through CompuServe.
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Get Around AOL
One reason AOL doesn't have so many vendors is that its bulletin
board interface isn't well-suited to online support. There are
two basic kinds of message boards on AOL, unthreaded and threaded.
Unthreaded boards don't have a link between your posting and any
replies. Messages are just dumped into a folder in the order they're
created. To find replies, you have to scroll through manually
looking for messages with matching subject headers. In threaded
boards, there's a Post Response button that links replies to the
original message. Scroll down to your message and, if the sysop
has posted a response, it will be flagged with an asterisk. But
if you use the Add Message button that sometimes appears as well,
your message will simply be dumped into the folder, just as on
an unthreaded board.
Here's an extra tip: You can browse a forum much faster if you
use a List view instead of a Read view.
You can easily get top-quality support on AOL from those vendors
with threaded message boards. The biggest names on that list are
Acer, Claris, Compaq, Dell, Intuit, Symantec and Zeos. While unthreaded
support boards are awkward to deal with, they're no bar to good
advice, as you can see on those operated by Adobe, NEC, Novell,
Quark and Texas Instruments. (Note that NEC is not on CompuServe,
and Texas Instruments doesn't have any direct support there either-only
a user group forum.)
Either way, it can be difficult to find replies to your posting,
and there are no search or sort tools to help you out. While America
Online's FlashSession software can download e-mail and Internet
Usenet newsgroups, it can't handle board messages in the same
way. As a result, you waste time and rack up connect charges reading
and composing messages online. These are problems for vendors
as well as users. For example, in handling tech support for Wintune,
WINDOWS Magazine's test and tune-up software, I've found that
it often takes twice as long to handle the same number of messages
on AOL as it does on CompuServe.
Two shareware add-ons let you read messages offline: Way To Go
and Whale Express. (Find them with AOL's File Search.) Unfortunately,
they're fairly difficult to set up and use, especially in contrast
with the simplicity of AOL's software.
AOL's main Windows 95 forum (WIN95) has some useful Web links,
but its message board isn't a good place for tech support. Like
Microsoft's MVPs, the volunteer sysops mean well and are often
helpful, but they can't match the quality of support you can get
direct from Microsoft via phone or CompuServe.
(America Online's monthly fee is $9.95 for 5 hours, plus $2.95
for each additional hour. Call 800-827-3338 to get connected.)
The Microsoft Network has a long way to go, even to catch up with
second-place AOL. MSN's Computer Companies and Organizations (ComputerCompanies)
section includes folders for about 45 software and 15 hardware
vendors. However, many of those folders contain only files and
Web links. MSN BBS sections are easier to navigate than AOL's
message boards, but have the same defects-no message search, no
command to view replies to your earlier messages and no offline
reader for board downloads (though Microsoft has promised one).
Surprisingly, you can't access Microsoft tech support through
MSN the way you can through CompuServe. The Microsoft Network
bulletin boards for all Microsoft products are staffed entirely
by volunteers, resulting in the same low-level service you'll
find in the MSWIN95 forum on CompuServe.
(Connect to Microsoft Network by double-clicking its icon on your
desktop. Monthly fee is $4.95 for 3 hours, plus $2.50 for each
additional hour.)
IBM's Prodigy service has a scant 30 or so vendors, among which
there are only a handful of big names: six system vendors (Acer,
AST, Compaq, Dell, Gateway and IBM) and one software company (Intuit).
The software uses a weird proprietary interface, small fixed-size
windows and extra-large fonts. In fact, it feels like a DOS program
that's been crudely ported to Windows.
(Prodigy's monthly fee is $9.95 for 5 hours, plus $2.95 for each
additional hour. Call 800-PRODIGY, x1139 to get connected.)
Neither MSN nor Prodigy is a great source of online support-at
least not yet. In fact, it's doubtful that either will continue
to exist in its present incarnation. Both Microsoft and IBM seem
to be moving toward converting their online services into high-end
Internet service providers, and if that trend continues they may
well dump the proprietary stuff entirely.
It's likely we'll be seeing some major changes in the online support
scene over the next couple of years. Inevitably, the trend away
from proprietary online services toward Web sites will continue.
Given user complaints about runarounds and unhelpful support staff,
let's hope we'll also see vendors pay less attention to keeping
support costs down and more to improving quality.
Alan Smithee is a San Francisco-based computer journalist. Click Here to find the e-mail IDs for our editors, who can put you in touch with this author.
In researching this article, I checked out hundreds of Web sites
that touched on Windows 95. Here's a list of the FAQs, file libraries
and other resources that had the most useful information, along
with other sites mentioned in this article:
Clueless Inkorporated's Windows 95:
http://www.cluelessink.com/Windows95/index.html
Data Soft:
http://www.primenet.com/~datasof/win95/index.html
Global Computing (huge list of Win95 links):
http://www.planet-hawaii.com/global/win95.html
House of November:
http://www.scott.net/~gtaylor/win95.html
Infowest Windows 95 Software Archive:
http://download.netex.net/w95/windows95
Microsoft Knowledge Base:
http://www.microsoft.com/kb (also accessible on AOL, CIS or
MSN as MSKB and on the Internet at gopher.microsoft.com.)
Microsoft Reference Tools: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/bam/www/numbers.html
Microsoft Software Library:
http://www.microsoft.com/kb/softlib (also accessible on CIS at
MSL; on MSN at mswindows_sl; and on the Internet at ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib.)
Microsoft Support Online:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/techsup.htm
Microsoft WinNews Electronic Newsletter:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/news.htm (also accessible
at WINNEWS on CIS, AOL, Prodigy or MSN and on the Internet at
ftp.microsoft.com/PerOpSys/Win_News. To subscribe, send an e-mail
message with a blank subject line and only SUBSCRIBEWINNEWS in
the body to enews99@microsoft.nwnet.com.)
WINDOWS Magazine Win95 Home Page:
http://www.winmag.com/win95/
My Virtual Reference Desk:
http://www.refdesk.com/win95.html
TechWeb:
http://techweb.cmp.com/techweb/techweb/win95/win.html
The Cavern's Windows 95 Page:
http://www.iag.net/mgoetz/win95.html
The One-Stop Windows 95 Site:
http://www.win95.com
WINDOWS Magazine:
http://www.winmag.com
Win95 Comp.os Newsgroups: news://comp.os.ms-windows.win95.setup
for initial installation questions; news://comp.os.ms-windows.win95.misc
for everything else
Windows 95 Annoyances:
http://www.creativelement.com/win95ann
Windows95.com:
http://www.windows95.com/apps (shareware);
http://www.windows95.com/usability (new users);
http://www.windows95.com/connect (Internet, Winsock, TCP/IP)
Windows 95 Home Page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/
Windows 95 Networking FAQ:http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/win95netbugs/faq.html
Yahoo:
http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Companies/
Computers/Software/Windows_and_MS_DOS
(software vendors); http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Companies/
Computers/Systems/Personal_Computers/(PCvendors); http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Operating_Systems
/Microsoft_Windows/Windows_95_Win95
(Windows 95 info)
By Mike Elgan
The shortest distance between two sites
Win95 links take you straight to whatever information you need-even
if that information is on the Net. The Microsoft Network online
service and Internet Explorer software support drag-and-drop links
to your desktop. Soon other Net software packages for Win95 will
do the same. This feature puts any Web site literally just a double-click
away.
If you visit a site regularly, simply drag the link from your
browser or area from your online service, and drop it on your
Start button or desktop. Double-clicking on the link launches
your software and takes you to that site. It's that simple.
You can make it even faster by associating each link with a unique
shortcut key. For shortcuts on the Start menu, just right-click
on the Start button and select Open. Once the Start folder is
open, handling shortcuts on the Start menu is just like dealing
with shortcuts on the desktop. In both cases, right-click on a
shortcut icon and select Properties from the context menu, then
click on the Internet Shortcut tab. Find the Shortcut Key box
and click once inside it. To associate a shortcut key, just do
the key combination. For example, press Ctrl+Alt+N. If the shortcut
key isn't already taken, you'll see the keystroke sequence spelled
out in the box. Click on OK. Next time you do this set of keystrokes,
you'll go straight to the online site.
If you jump onto the Web first thing every morning, you can place
your favorite Web sites into the StartUp folder.
Remember: You can assign unique and meaningful icons to these
shortcuts just as you can with any other.
Some Internet aficionados pay an hourly rate for connect time.
Others work in companies with dedicated lines where there is no
added cost for additional browsing. If you fit into the latter
category, fire up your browser first thing in the morning and
stay online all day. You'll save time.
You know the MSN as an online service that doesn't have a lot
of content. But it's also a Web site (http://www.msn.com/), and
a cool one at that. You can customize the site so it lists updated
links you specify. You can set the colors and so on as well. It's
a great place to use as your default home page, bringing you news,
weather, comics and so on-all from one page.
If you own or have access to a Web server, you can build your
own Web site that contains all your favorite links. You don't
have to publish the address or have it linked from anywhere. It
can be your own personal launching pad.
Depending on how you connect to the Internet, you may be able
to save time by using log-on scripts to automate the process.
If you're on a LAN, or are using an integrated software suite,
chances are you can just fire up your browser and your PC will
take care of the rest. But not everyone has it so easy; many dial-up
access providers require you to manually enter your user name,
password or other information before you can launch any of your
Internet clients. You may encounter similar hassles when using
a Windows 95 dial-up networking connection to get online, and
you're interrupted by dialog boxes and prompts for input.
Fortunately, many shareware authors have taken up the slack by
creating scripting programs specifically for dial-up connections.
To find such programs, you can search on the various online services
or on the Web for topics such as "Dial-up," "Dial-up
Script" or "Dial-Up Networking."
By Donna Tapellini
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Mike Elgan's Win95 Home Page
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Windows 95.com 32-bit Shareware
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Microsoft Knowlegde Base
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Windows 95 Home Page
Mike Elgan's Win95 Home Page
Getting Windows 95 to work just the way you want it to is
an ongoing process. To help you along, WINDOWS Magazine editor
Mike Elgan provides a new Win95 tip daily. Learn how to reach
your desktop if you're going mouseless, or how to get a file onto
a diskette using the Send To command. Follow Mike's lead and he'll
also point you to loads of free software, including the latest,
greatest shareware downloads, WinMag's own Wintune tune-up kit,
a fix for Win95's shoddy security, Microsoft's PowerToys, Hot
Java for Win95 and more. When you're ready to browse on, use Mike's
list of favorite sites as your starting point. You can get serious
with links to the Computer Almanac or Microsoft's Knowledge Base,
or you can have fun at the Windows 95 Games Launch haunted house.
http://www.winmag.com/win95
Techfile: Windows 95
WINDOWS Magazine's parent company, CMP Publications, brings
you all the Win95 news that's fit to surf from WinMag and sister
publications Information Week, Home PC, Computer Reseller News
and others. At this site you'll also find a hyperlinked Win95
visual tour, and Techfile's own Win95 Hot List. Visit the WinMag
site for hot news, hot sites and some of the best Win95 info on
the Web.
http://techweb.cmp.com/techweb/techweb/win95/win.html
InfoWest Windows 95 Software Archive
Have a hankering to embellish your desktop? Shop here for
interior decorating essentials like Doom and Hitchhiker's Guide
animated cursors, cursors designed especially for backpackers
and horror fans, and more. The archive also provides downloads
for Windows 95 games, graphics applications, Internet apps and
utilities.
http://download.netex.net/w95/windows95/
The Cavern's Windows 95 Page
Downloads, downloads and more downloads. You'll find programs
in several categories at this site, including Internet software-e-mail
client E-Mail Connection, HTML editors and handy utilities like
Grab-a-Dial for scheduling a Win95 dial-up session. Plus, you
get all the expected players-Netscape, NCSA Mosaic and Hot Java.
And that's just the Internet sections. There are also downloads
for utilities, graphics, games, desktop themes, driver updates
and more.
http://www.iag.net/mgoetz/win95.html
Windows 95.com 32-Bit Shareware
You say you never tire of downloading shareware and demo programs?
We dare you to tell us that after you've checked out this page.
You'll find hundreds of shareware programs and demos in 25 categories,
from desktop themes (Toy Story, Coca-Cola, Jim Carrey) to applications
(Quarterdeck CleanSweep, Avalan Technologies' Remotely Possible),
from multimedia and graphics to patches and updates. Any room
left on your hard disk now? http://www.windows95.com/apps/
Windows 95 Annoyances
Does the Microsoft Network logo on your desktop get your goat?
Do you cringe at the sight of that blue sky every time you start
up and shut down your system? Eradicate those built-in irritants-and
learn some really useful tips and tricks-at this site. Get a list
of items you can safely delete from your directories. Learn how
to hide desktop icons and customize your context menus. If you
find Win95 botherations of your own, submit them. At the end of
the list of annoyances, you'll find a linked bibliography of "required"
reading for Win95 cynics and would-be stand-up comics, including
classics like "Microsoft Buys the Catholic Church" and
"Bill Gates in After Life."
http://creativelement.com/win95ann/
Clueless Inkorporated's Windows 95
Optimize Win95 for the Internet with these step-by-step guides
to getting connected. You'll learn how to add SLIP and dial-up
scripting to Win95, install the TCP/IP protocol, and create and
configure a network dialer connection. A file of FAQs helps you
troubleshoot.
http://www.cluelessink.com:80/
Microsoft Knowledge Base
The Microsoft Knowledge Base is an amazing amalgamation of
more than 50,000 text files, including FAQs, bug reports and fixes,
technical and application notes, and corrections to product documentation.
The MSKB is the primary reference for Microsoft's phone support
staff. Answers to the questions they hear most often, like "How
do I get my CD-ROM to work with Windows 95?" are quickly
added. Why pay for a long-distance call and wait on hold when
you can look it up yourself?
http://www.microsoft.com/kb/ (Also accessible on AOL, CIS or MSN
as MSKB and on the Internet at gopher.microsoft.com.)
Microsoft Software Library
You'll find hundreds of drivers, updates, utilities and file-format
converters for Windows and MS applications here. If a Knowledge
Base solution requires a file, like an updated driver or a bug-fix
patch, it will point you to the relevant software library file.
This is also a good source for drivers for popular hardware.
http://www.microsoft.com/kb/softlib (Also accessible on CIS at MSL;
on MSN at mswindows_sl; and on the Internet at ftp.microsoft.com/softlib.)
Microsoft WinNews Electronic Newsletter
Keep up-to-date on the latest bugs, fixes and product updates.
You can download the newsletter from any service, but, better
yet, sign up for a free e-mail subscription, so you'll find out
about important issues like the Word macro virus and the security
hole in Win95's password cache before they cause trouble. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/news.htm
(Also accessible at WINNEWS on CIS, AOL, Prodigy or MSN and on
the Internet at ftp.microsoft.com/PerOpSys/Win_News. Send e-mail
with a blank subject line and SUBSCRIBE WINNEWS in the body to
enews99@microsoft.nwnet.com.)
Windows 95 Home Page
Read a series of corporate migration studies, check out Microsoft's
evaluation and migration planning kit, run a system check to see
if your system is Win95-ready, and download white papers on Windows
95, graphics architecture and mobile computing. You can also obtain
Win95-compatible software lists, check programs out of the Win95
software library and get Microsoft Internet product information.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/
Microsoft Reference Tools
If you like browsing library shelves, you've come to the right
site. Computing reference tools include the statistics-intensive
Computer Almanac (how many home computers are out there? what
did consumers spend on software in 1994?), a directory of high-tech
vendors' phone numbers, and the Jargon File (where you'll learn
to speak and write like a hacker, among other things). When you've
had your fill of computer-related information, general links take
you to Department of Commerce economic data, the World Factbook
1994, a listing of AT&T 800 numbers, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations,
Roget's Thesaurus and more.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user
/bam/www/numbers.html
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Excite
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Open Text
Finding information on the World Wide Web without guidance is
something like finding a friend's house simply by pointing your
car in the correct compass direction. You might get there...
someday.
To find information quickly, however, you'll need a search engine
to do the dirty work. Whether online or off, a good search facility
will make finding your destination a much less troublesome task.
Possibly the simplest way to find Web locations is to use the
search facility built into Yahoo, a hierarchical Web "menu"
of sites. Point your browser to http://www.yahoo.com and click
on the Search button, or click on Options to see the full search
facility. Yahoo's search engine is fairly simple, so it's best
used as a starting point or when you have a very specific topic
(Windows 95 graphics utilities, for instance).
If you come up empty-handed, Yahoo also provides links to other,
more powerful search facilities: Digital's new Alta Vista, DejaNews,
the new and aptly named Excite, the old favorite Lycos, Open Text
and the popular WebCrawler. There are many, many more, but these
are among the most notable.
When you think of Web search engines, the first one to come to
mind should be Lycos (http://www.lycos.com). The granddaddy of
WWW search tools, Lycos allows you the most customization options.
It also indexes more pages than any other Web search facility
except OpenText, claiming to have cataloged some 92 percent of
the Web, as well as online resources containing graphics, sounds,
full-motion video and programs.
The Lycos (the Latinate name for the wolf spider) engine was originally
designed at Carnegie Mellon University and became a corporate
entity last summer. Its thorough, diverse search results have
made it the most popular Web search engine.
With Alta Vista (http://www.altavista.digital.com/), you can
search either the Web or Usenet. It accesses more than 16 million
Web pages and over 13,000 Usenet newsgroups (as of press time),
and new sites and sources are added continually. It is frequently
busy with an overload of users, so try it during off hours if
possible (between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. is best.) The heaviest traffic
is during regular business hours.
DejaNews (http://www.dejanews.com/) is a special search engine
just for archive material from thousands of Usenet newsgroups.
If you want to find anything relating to Windows 95 printer sharing
that's been posted to Usenet, just enter "Windows 95 printer
sharing" in the search field and send DejaNews to do the
deed. DejaNews keeps a month's worth of Usenet archives active
at a time-that's 4 gigabytes of posts for you to search through.
Excite (http://www.excite.com) lives up to its name, from its
sleek Netscape 2.0 framed interface to an intuitive tab-paged
metaphor that should be quite familiar to Windows users. It indexes
1.5 million Web documents and 10,000 Usenet newsgroups, and also
contains capsule reviews of more than 50,000
Web sites. Excite's NetDirectory is a fairly straightforward categorical
list, but its search engine is where it really shines. You can
either choose to enter the keywords that any other engine will
take, or you can describe a concept and Excite will search for
related items. A concept search on the phrase "Windows 95,"
for example, gave us a top 10 pages list that included Win95-related
site lists, a series of news articles on the OS and a college's
campus upgrade policy.
InfoSeek (http://guide.infoseek.com/) offers 10,000 Usenet newsgroups,
millions of Web pages, and articles from wire services in its
index. Corporate users pay $9.95 per month for access to business
databases like Hoover's Company Profiles, the Corporate Information
Collection, Cambridge Scientific Abstract's Worldwide Market Research
Database. All of these services have additional hourly and seek
fees, as well.
Open Text (http://www.opentext.com/), based on the Open Text 5
search engine, retrieves pages from the Web based on the exact
text strings you enter. Perhaps you want to see how many pages
use the phrase, "This page under construction." Type
it into the text box, and watch Open Text find matches (we found
408) based on the full text, rather than various combinations
of the words you entered. Of all the search engines, it has the
largest number of Web documents indexed: 27 million documents
at press time.
WebCrawler (http://www.webcrawler.com/) is the AOL-owned Web search
engine. While it is simple and intuitive, it's not nearly as thorough
as Lycos. At press time, it contained indexes to more than 2 million
Web documents. Like all the search engines mentioned here, it
is constantly growing in scope and size.
Companies are slowly beginning to see a profitable market in offline
Web searches, which allow you to do preliminary searches on your
PC, then use the information found to scan the Web. Some, such
as Quarterdeck's WebCompass (800-354-3222), even serve as "search
managers," handling probes through multiple resources and
facilities to maximize your online research time.
Another offline product worth checking out is Frontier Technologies'
CyberSearch (800-879-0075), which contains a Web site organizer,
a Lycos-based search facility and a CD-ROM-based index to 500,000
Web sites. The company will sell monthly updates to the database.
Here are pointers to some of the vendor-operated Web sites that
offer substantial Windows 95-related tech support resources.
Adobe: http://www.adobe.com
Claris: http://www.claris.com/
Compaq: http://www.compaq.com/support/
Dell: http://www.us.dell.com/
Gateway 2000: http://www.gw2k.com/
IBM PC Co.: http://www.pc.ibm.com/support.html
Lotus: http://www.support.lotus.com
Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/support/
Novell: http://corp.novell.com/mulform.htm
Packard Bell: http://www.packardbell.com/gfx/support/support.html
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