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USE THE IMPROVED WINME DEFRAG UTILITY IN WIN9X
Microsoft shipped WinME with an improved version of Defrag. It's much faster than the stock version that shipped with Windows 95 or 98. Reports from around the net indicate that it is safe to use the WinME Defrag utility in previous 32-bit consumer versions of Windows (Win95 and Win98). If you choose to use it ...
- Download WinME Defrag to a temporary directory.
- Find your stock version of DEFRAG.EXE in your %WINDIR%, usually C:\Windows.
- Right-click it and select Rename from the menu, and rename it to DEFRAG_OLD.EXE.
- Now unzip WinME Defrag to that temporary directory and rename it to DEFRAG.EXE.
- Move it to your C:\Windows directory, and you're done.
If for some reason, the new WinME Defrag doesn't work, you can simply delete WinME Defrag, rename the original, stock version back to DEFRAG.EXE again and you're back in business.
One last tip: If you're having trouble running Defrag, either version, boot into Safe Mode, run Scandisk first, and then run Defrag. Actually, it's a good idea to do this occasionally as it defragments the one file that can't be defragmented in normal Windows, your swap file.
A WISE WINDOWS TWEAKER CREATES AN ERD
If you're going to go poking around the innards of Win9x, and you are or you wouldn't be here, you should make sure you have a good, working Emergency Recovery Disk. Heck, you should have one (or two) even if you don't plan to poke around.
It's so easy to do. Go to the Control Panel. Double-click Add/Remove Programs, select the Startup Disk tab. Insert a blank disk into your floppy drive and click the Create Disk button.
A WISE WINDOWS TWEAKER EXPORTS A COPY OF THE REGISTRY
When you make any changes to the Registry, you should first make a back up copy. There are several ways to do this, and several ways to replace a backup, but one quick and dirty way that works is from right within Regedit.
Open the Registry Editor (go to Start/Run and type regedit and press Enter). Pull down the Registry menu and choose ExportRegistry File.... Navigate to where you'd like to store the backup file, type in a name for the file, select All under Export Range, and click on Save.
To restore the entire registry from this saved file, simply double-click it in Windows Explorer. Note that the REG file will be quite large, possibly a couple of megabytes. Be patient while Regedit saves the file, and if you restore, give it a few minutes to complete that job as well.
FORCE IE 5.5+ TO USE STANDARD NON-CUSTOM-COLORED SCROLLBARS
To force Internet Explorer 5.5+ to use standard non-custom-colored scrollbars, all you need to do is create a simple plain-text file and then tell IE to use it. Here's how:
- Launch Windows Explorer and surf to a permanent location for your new file. I used the C:\Windows\Web location (or C:\WINNT\Web for Win2K or WinNT users) as it has other browser related files in it.
- Right-click in the right pane (in the Web directory) and go to New/TextDocument.
- Name it anythingyoulike.CSS. Note the CSS extension--very important. When you see the "change extension" warning, ignore it, just click Yes.
- Now open the file for editing in Notepad (launch Notepad, click File/Open... and surf to it).
- Now comes the hard part. This step trips some folks up, but it's really very easy. Just follow the directions and you'll be OK. Use your mouse to highlight the text below, and then press Ctrl+C to Copy the text to your clipboard.
body {
scrollbar-face-color: ThreeDFace !important;
scrollbar-shadow-color: ThreeDDarkShadow !important;
scrollbar-highlight-color: ThreeDHighlight !important;
scrollbar-3dlight-color: ThreeDLightShadow !important;
scrollbar-darkshadow-color: ThreeDDarkShadow !important;
scrollbar-track-color: Scrollbar !important;
scrollbar-arrow-color: ButtonText !important;
}
- Now paste the copied text into the new file you created that you should still have open for editing in Notepad.
- Save your edits and close Notepad.
- If you choose to make your own CSS file using the text above, please make sure that your final product is formatted exactly as you see it above. All the spaces, line breaks and tabs must match or it won't work. If you have trouble, or if all this copying and pasting makes your head hurt, you can download a ready-made CSS file right here. Just unzip it to your Web directory and continue on with the instructions below.
- In IE, go to Tools/Internet Options... and then, under the General tab, click the Accessibility... button.
- In the lower half of the dialog box you'll see User style sheet. Check the box that says Format documents using my style sheet and then...
- Browse... to the location where you saved (or unzipped) your new CSS file and double-click it.
- Click OK and OK again.
- Close and relaunch your browser and surf to any site with colored scrollbars. They'll be so much toast!
- Enjoy!
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