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[ Go to July 1997 Table of Contents ]
WinTips
Did PIF Editor Go 'Poof' If you've upgraded to NT 4.0, you might be wondering where your PIF Editor went: It's now in the program's property sheet. Right-click on the application's icon in Windows Explorer and select Properties from the Context menu. You'll find a dialog with Program, Memory and Misc. tabs that let you set everything as you would with the old PIF Editor. If you want more than one set of properties for an application, create a shortcut. It will inherit the properties of the original icon by default, but you can separately edit the shortcut's properties. Make Win95 Boot First If you have Windows NT and Windows 95 in a dual-boot setup, NT will want to be the operating system that boots, so it comes up first on the list of OSes from which you can choose. To change the default OS to Windows 95, boot up NT and select Control Panel/System. Go to the Startup/Shutdown tab. From there, you can select the default startup operating system from a drop-down box. Pining for Program Manager? If you miss Program Manager and File Manager in NT 4.0, here's a way to make your Desktop look and feel more like earlier versions: Right-click on the Start button and select Explore from the resulting Context menu. An Explorer window will open, with the Programs folder in the right-hand pane. Right-click on the window and select Create Shortcut from the resulting menu. There will now be a Shortcut to Programs folder in the right-hand pane of Explorer. Click on it, drag it to the Desktop, rename it "Program Manager" and double-click to open it. By default, it will open in large icon view, and the folders within it will correspond exactly to NT 3.x Program Manager groups. One of the icons will be Windows NT Explorer. Right-click on it, create a shortcut, drag the shortcut to the Desktop and rename it "File Manager." It will open in the dual-pane Explorer view and default to the root of your system disk. Now move the standard NT icons out of the way and set the Taskbar to Auto Hide. Old Drivers Hit Dead End Microsoft drastically changed the video architecture in NT 4.0, which means NT 3.x video drivers aren't compatible with 4.0. You'll have no problems if you use one of the standard video drivers from the NT 4.0 installation CD; you'll get a new driver automatically when you upgrade. However, if you use a third-party video, SCSI or printer driver, you'll have to check with your vendor for NT 4.0 driver compatibility. Go for an EIDE Drive You might have trouble getting NT 4.0 to recognize a second EIDE driver. NT 4.0 Setup sometimes mistakes an EIDE controller for a generic ATAPI controller and automatically loads the ATAPI.SYS driver. The ATAPI.SYS driver doesn't know how to deal with the second drive. To correct the problem, disable ATAPI.SYS (using Control Panel/Devices) and load the appropriate EIDE driver. Teamwork You can share documents with workgroup members by placing a shortcut on your Desktop to their Desktop folders. In NT, you'll find the Desktop folder at \profiles\UserName\Desktop. Take Command Of NT Help You can type help from a command line to display a list of commands and type command/? to get specific command help, but NT also has a command help file. The file SYSTEM32\NTCMDS.HLP provides a handy reference in a help window. You can create a shortcut and place it on your Desktop or Start menu.
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