April 1996 WinTips

LOGOW.SYS is the "wait" screen you see when you boot Win95, and LOGOS.SYS is the "It's now safe to turn off your computer" screen. Though they have a SYS extension, these files are standard bitmaps you can modify with the Paint applet for custom startup and shut-down screens.

If you use the ERASE *.* command in DOS or in an MS Command Prompt window, it asks you if you're sure, and you have to answer "Y" or "N." Here's an undocumented Win95 feature: By omitting the period and simply typing ERASE **, it deletes the contents of the folder, no questions asked. This is great for batch files or whenever you don't want to be bothered by questions.

John Woram Senior Contributing Editor

Close all your running programs by selecting Shut Down from the Start menu and choosing the "Close all programs and log on as a different user?" option. Then, log back on as the same user.

If you have Microsoft Plus, you can create an icon from any bitmap image. Open Control Panel and double-click on Display. Select the Plus tab, then select the icon you want to change. Press Change Icon, then press Browse. Select "All Files" in the "Files of Type" box. Find a bitmap, then press Open. Click OK.

Place your Dial-Up Networking Folder and its contents on the Start menu as a cascading menu by adding a folder with this name: Dial Up Net.{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48}

You can copy data from the MS-DOS Prompt: Right-click on the title bar and select Edit/Mark. Select the area in the MS-DOS Prompt window with the mouse by pressing and holding the left mouse button and dragging across the area you want to copy. Press the Enter key to copy.

Bring up the Properties dialog fast by holding down the Alt key and double-clicking on the object of your choice.

Here's a tip that lets you put Start menu items in the order you want and also launch them with keystrokes. Right-click on the Start button, then select Open. Rename each item by placing a number in front of it. Now you can open the Start menu by pressing Ctrl+Esc. Launch the program of your choice by simply pressing the associated number.

Create shortcuts for your most frequently used programs. Bring up the Properties dialog for each by right-clicking on it and selecting Properties. Click on the Shortcut tab, and click once in the Shortcut Key field. Do the hot-key combination you want to assign, then click on OK. Assigning a hot key will allow you to switch to the program if it's already running on your desktop.

Print out all the fonts on your system by opening Control Panel, double-clicking the Fonts icon, then on the font of your choice and clicking on the Print button.

When you drag and drop a file, it is either moved or copied, depending upon whether or not you're moving it from one drive to another. Unless, that is, the file is a program. Whenever you drag and drop a program file, Windows will create a shortcut in the new location by default.

If a shortcut with a hot key is on the Start menu or the desktop, doing the key combination will launch the program even if it's not already running.