Handy Computer Hints

Handy Computer Hints

Using Windows

For Windows 8

Press Win+X to bring up power user commands. This is the old MS start button menu in previous OS.
This is the same as right mouse clicking at bottom left of screen.

To capture a screen in Win95/98 or NT:

1. Select a window you want to capture, point to the desktop for everything
2. Press <Alt> + <Print Scrn> ; the image goes to the copy/paste buffer
3. Open a paint program (Adobe Photoshop or MS Word will do)
4. Open a window to receive the image, Photoshop has the correct default size
5. Paste the image
6. If you use the image in printed output, try to expand it by an integer number of pixels

To find applets that come with Win95 or WinNT

1. Open explorer and navigate to your system files (usually win95 or winnt)
2. Select from the tools menu, find in files
3. enter *.exe and press <Find Now>
4. If you want to have quick access to the programs ::

1. Make a new folder
2. Make a shortcut, using the right mouse pop up menu
3. Place the shortcut on your desktop
4. Select the programs you like and drag them to the desktop shortcut
5. Repeat for *.com files (At this time all are DOS programs)
6. If you like the old file manager and program manager, you will find them here. They can be used together; that is drag files from the old file manage into the old program manager.

To make explorer start in an interesting place

1. Create a shortcut to explorer, you can find the explorer in your system
folder, as illustrated above, create the shortcut using the right mouse pop up menu.
2. Use the right mouse pop up on the shortcut and select properties
3. Select the shortcut tab
4. Add /e,d:\spice8 to the <Target> field and explorer will start in d:\spice8
5. without the "/e," directive you will get a <My Computer> view

To make MS programs start somewhere besides …profiles\…\Personal

This one requires editing the registry, its not for the feint of heart!!

1. Open regedit and go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal

and change the string from %USERPROFILE%\Personal to something like d:\Personal.

If a widow tile bar isn’t viewable

In Windows 95 and NT 4; MS Office and some other applications will walk up the screen if the task bar is at the top of your screen. Eventually it gets behind the task bar so that you can’t get to the title bar to move the window or even get to the menu functions.
If you want the task bar at the top, then you must move the widows using keystrokes. To accomplish this:

1. Select the window by clicking in it using the left mouse button
2. Press <Alt> plus <space> and you get a pop-up menu
3. Press <m> and use the arrows to move the window
4. Press <enter> to finish…

Note; once you get the pop-up you can also use the mouse to select <Move> and after an arrow is pressed the mouse can be used to move the window. This creeping "feature" appears to be removed in upcoming Windows releases.

Navigating help pages using the Explorer

Microsoft is changing its help system and file system to so it is driven by the Internet Explorer interface. <Alt> plus < tab> will still navigate document windows, but to navigate the Explorer hyper text you use the arrows in the toolbar.
If you are bothered by the real estate used by the large toolbar, it can be removed and you can navigate the hyper text using <Alt> plus <right.left Arrow>

Using Your Computer

To restore a mouse you are about to throw away; try this:

1. Soak and agitate in hot soapy water (unplug it first)
2. Rinse in hot water and shake dry
3. Rinse in isopropyl alcohol, return the alcohol to its container
4. Hang to dry overnight
5. If it still doesn’t work, cut off its tail!