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24.438 bytes |
Service Hints & Tips |
Document ID: GSMH-39FE6R |
Crossbrand - Assorted Window NT 3.51 Information
Applicable to: World-Wide
Service Information:
PERFORMANCE MONITOR:
Have you tried unsuccessfully to open a Performance Monitor settings file?
These files include alert (pma), chart (pmc), log (pml), workspace (pmw), or report (pmr). Chances are that the file's read-only attribute is set. Remove the attribute to open the file.
HELP FOR THE BLINKING MONITOR:
Does your monitor appear to blink rapidly while you work? Do you hate this? Does it make your head hurt?
The problem may be that your refresh rate is set too low. Go to Control Panel and double-click on Display. in the dialog
box, find the entry labeled Refresh Frequency. The higher the frequency, the less the blink.
Warning:
Before you set that refresh frequency, check your monitor's documentation. It is possible to damage a monitor by setting the refresh too high.
LOCK IT UP:
When you need to leave the computer for a while (just to make sure you can still walk), and want to protect your data from prying eyes, lock it up. In Windows NT, press Ctrl+Alt+Del. In the resulting dialog box, choose Lock Workstation. This locks the computer and tells everyone that it's locked. They don't even need to take the time to mess around. When you get back, press
Ctrl+Alt+Del again, and enter your password to unlock your computer.
SERVICE PACKS:
Everyone wants to install service packs as they come out. Smart idea, because of the bug fixes and other valuable components they offer. Keep in mind though, that you may need to re-install custom Windows NT components and drivers that you got from original equipment manufacturers!
PROCOMM PLUS AND SCREEN PRINT:
In Procomm Plus, you can press Alt+N to send screen data to the printer. If you try this after you've installed Service Pack 3 on your 3.51 system, you'll get garbled output. To get around the problem, replace winsrv.dll with the file in Windows NT Service Pack 2. After you make the change, restart Windows NT.
MAKE FILE MANAGER REMEMBER:
Want File Manager to always open in a given drive in a given directory?
All you have to do is run File Manager. Then select the Save Settings On Exit command from the Options menu. Go to the
drive and directory in which you want to open. While you're at it, size File Manager to the parameters that suit you. Quit File
Manager and then open again. This time, deselect the Save Settings on Exit command. Until you decide to change things, File
Manager will continue to open to your selection.
KEEP THEM SEPARATE:
When you run those old Windows 3.1 apps, they use the same memory as all the other Windows 3.1 apps. If you're concerned about one of the programs crashing and messing up all the other programs, run the possibly offending program in its own memory.
There are several ways to do this. First of all, when you create the program item for this troubled app, select the check box
labeled Run in Separate Memory Space. If you use the Run command from the File menu, you'll get the option in a dialog box.
Note:
That the option is only available for Windows 3.1 apps.
You may be tempted to choose the Run in Separate Memory Space option just to play it safe -- not a good idea! This option in
itself uses up a lot of memory. Save it for those troubled applications that have demonstrated that they can't be trusted.
CHANGE YOUR PROMPT DIRECTORY:
Put the command prompt where you want it. If you'd like the Windows NT command prompt to take you to the NTFS drive by default, just click once on the MS-DOS Prompt icon. Choose the Properties command from the File menu. Under Working
Directory, put the directory in which you want the prompt to open. If D is your NTFS drive, type in D:\. Type in whatever drive
and directory you want to use.
CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD:
Are you getting tired of your password? Do you suspect that someone might have caught on to your password? In any case,
you can change it easily: push Ctrl+Alt+Del (no matter where you're working). This opens the Windows NT Security dialog box.
Click on the Change Password button. Now type in your old password, press Tab and type in your new password. Press Tab
again and type in your new password to confirm that it really is your new password.
TIME FOR A CHANGE:
Would you like to have a small clock at the bottom of your desktop? You can find plenty of shareware clocks, but why not use the one that comes with Windows NT?
Open the Accessories group and click once on the Clock icon. Now choose the Properties command from the File menu. In the resulting dialog box, locate the Run Minimized check box and select it. Click on OK to close the dialog box and record your
changes.
Now when you run the clock, it will appear in miniature at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like the clock to run automatically, put the icon in the Startup group.
CAMP BOOT:
Many people have asked how to make a boot floppy disk from the CD-ROM. Well, here's how. Before you start, make sure you have three blank formatted floppy disks. Open the CD-ROM and locate <CD-ROM Driveletter>\i386\WINNT32/O. Now that you're in the correct directory, choose the Run command from the File menu and enter WINNT32/O in the text-entry box. Now click OK (or press Enter). The program will prompt you for floppy disks.
CHANGING DRIVES AT THE MS-DOS PROMPT:
To change to another drive in a Windows NT MS-DOS session, type
Drive:
where Drive is the letter of the drive to which you want to switch. This is different from what you've probably become accustomed to in later versions of MS-DOS. In those later versions, most of us typed:
Drive:\
but this won't work in Windows NT; you'll get this message:
The name specified is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
LOSING TIME:
If you copy a file from an NTFS drive to a FAT drive, you may notice a change in the time stamp. There's nothing wrong; it's just that the NTFS system records the time to the nearest 100 nanoseconds, whereas the FAT system rounds time to the nearest 2 seconds.
DOUBLE TROUBLE WITH DISKCOPY:
Since Windows NT is a multitasking system, running DiskCopy from the MS-DOS prompt causes the system to attempt to lock
the target drive. If the target disk happens to be exactly the same as the source disk, or if the two disk's serial numbers match
(which won't happen often), then Disk Copy will fail. You'll get this message:
Cannot lock the drive. The volume is still in use.
ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS:
To change the Environment Size in Windows NT, add this line to the CONFIG.SYS file:
shell=%systemroot%\system32\command.com /p /e:size
where size is the maximum size in bytes that you want COMMAND.COM to allocate for each program. The maximum size
is 32K bytes, and the default is 256 bytes.
FDISK SEES NTFS AS HPFS:
You can use the MS-DOS program FDISK to delete a Windows NT NTFS partition on your hard disk. Note, however, that FDISK will identify the partition as HPFS (the OS/2 system). This happens because the system identifier byte is 0x07 for both systems.
DOUBLE-DUTY DIRECTORY CREATION:
Using File Manager, you can create a subdirectory by simply typing in a backslash (\). Let's say you go to the root directory of
drive D. You want to add a directory and a subdirectory. All you have to do is choose the Create Directory command from the File menu. When the dialog box opens, type in Directory\Subdirectory, where Directory is the name of the directory placed in the root of the drive and Subdirectory is the subdirectory in Directory. Now click OK to close the dialog box. Your structure is
D:\Directory\Subdirectory and you can do it all at once-no need to create Directory and then go back and create Subdirectory.
If you're working in the FAT system, adding a space before the backslash will cause an error. In the NTFS and HPFS systems,
spaces are allowed. This method of subdirectory creation works only in File Manager-it will not work at the command prompt.
GET THE FONTS YOU WANT:
If you'd like to change the title font used by the Program Manager, you can do it with RegEdit. (Don't forget that fooling around with the Registry can result in bad stuff. Be careful out there.) Open RegEdit (REGEDT32.EXE). Go to one of the following keys:
HKEY_USERS\Default\Control Panel\Desktop
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
and change the values of IconTitleSize and IconTitleFaceName to the size and name of your new selection.
The default values are:
IconTitleSize : REG_SZ : 9
IconTitleFaceName : REG_SZ : MS Sans Serif
After you make the desired changes, close RegEdit and restart your computer.
OFF-CENTER ADVICE:
When you tell Windows NT to center your wallpaper, that's exactly what it does. But sometimes, you might want centered wallpaper that's smaller than the screen to show up slightly off center. You can do this with Windows NT.
Windows 3.x and Windows for Workgroups let you change the wallpaper position with a setting in WIN.INI. In Windows NT,
however, the procedure is a bit more complicated because you have to change a setting in the Registry. When making changes to the registry, you should always proceed with caution. Fooling with the Registry can cause a lot of grief if you make a mistake.
Ready:
OK. Run RegEdit (REGEDT32.EXE). Locate the key labeled
HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
Go to \Control Panel\Desktop. Now choose the Add Value command from the Edit menu. When the dialog box opens, add:
Value Name: WallPaperOriginX
Data Type: REG_SZ
and click OK. In the String Editor dialog box, enter the X value and click OK again. Now, while still in \Desktop, choose the Add Value command from the Edit menu again.
This time, add:
Value Name: WallPaperOriginY
Data Type: REG_SZ
Click OK, and when the String Editor dialog box appears, type in the Y value starting point and click OK. Close RegEdit and restart the computer. When you get back to Windows NT, you'll find that the upper-left corner of the wallpaper bitmap appears exactly where to told it to appear.
If you want to adjust your choice, open RegEdit again. Again, locate HKEY_CURRENT_USER and go to \Control Panel\Desktop. This time, you can locate your new keys: WallPaperOriginX and WallPaperOriginY. Double-click on the one you want to change. This will open the String Editor dialog box to let you change the value.
Want to go back to where you started? Delete the two added keys. To do this, click on the key you want to delete and choose the Delete command from the Edit menu. Be careful that you don't delete the wrong key.
ME AND MY SHADOW:
Many computers allow ROM BIOS shadowing. With this option turned on, the computer copies the BIOS from the ROM into the
system RAM. Then, using the 386 enhanced mode, the computer remaps the RAM into the normal address space of the BIOS.
Since RAM is faster than ROM, the end result is a shadowed BIOS that is much faster to read than a standard one.
MS-DOS uses the BIOS for a number of operations. For example,
MS-DOS writes to the screen with BIOS routines. Therefore,
MS-DOS screen writes are much faster when you use shadowing.
However, Windows NT only uses the BIOS during startup. So, there's no advantage to shadowing. There's even a disadvantage -- you're using up some RAM that Windows NT could otherwise use. Most computers will let you turn off the shadowing. Check your manual to see how to get rid of ROM BIOS shadowing when using Windows NT.
HCOPY LOST AND FOUND:
If you lose file attributes when you use the HCOPY.EXE utility included with the LAN Manager to Windows NT Advanced Server
Upgrade and Windows NT Server 3.5 Upgrade for LAN Manager, don't feel lonely--it happens. You can use the MS-DOS
ATTRIB.EXE utility to set the attributes. Or, if you prefer, use File Manager. ATTRIB is a little faster if you're already familiar with
the ATTRIB switches.
FIX:
UPDATED BIOS, IDE CONTROLLER:
You may encounter some problems when you attempt to install Windows NT on an IDE drive that's larger than 504M bytes and uses more than 1,024 cylinders.
When NT reboots and starts the graphical interface, here's a message that's likely to display:
STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.
If you get Windows NT installed successfully, NT still may not recognize the drive as the correct size. For example, you may get 500M bytes free on a 504M-byte drive. Windows NT may fail to recognize the drive, even though it's recognized by other operating systems. You may also find that Windows NT sees the drive but can recognize only 500M bytes of space. What happens is that Windows NT Setup lops off the drive parameters to make it no more than 1,024 cylinders. This is necessary because Windows NT uses int 13 to locate the boot sector. And int 13 won't work with more than 1,024 cylinders.
There are several ways to correct the problem. If you use an AMI BIOS, update to one dated 07/25/94 or later. You can also
install an IDE controller with a BIOS that does a cylinder translation for you. These are often referred to as "enhanced IDE"
controllers. You might also want to try partitioning the drive into less than 500M-byte partitions. No one partition can exceed
1,024 cylinders.
INVENTIVE ICONS:
Want an icon that activates a screen saver? No problem. Note, however, that if you do this, the password protection won't work
--even if you activated it in the Control Panel. To set up a screen saver icon, you'll need to modify the Registry Editor.
Caution:
Modifying the Registry Editor is serious business. If you mess up, you could very well cause damage to your Windows NT installation. Continue at your own risk.
Run RegEdit (REGEDIT.EXE) and locate:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows
Locate Programs and double-click on the name.
In the String Editor dialog box, you'll see these values:
exe com bat pif cmd. Use the arrow keys to get rid of the highlighting, then, one space after cmd, add scr to the list. Click OK, then close RegEdit. Log off from Windows NT and log back on.
In the Program Manager, click on the group to which you'd like to add your new icon. Choose File|New. Select the Program Item radio button and click OK. Type the title of the file you want to run, or click the Browse button to look for a file; the Browse dialog box defaults to Programs. Change this to All Files (*.*).After you pick a file, add the /S switch (which causes the saver to start immediately) to the end of the command line.
For example,my command line is:
K:\WINNT35\system32\SSBEZIER.SCR /S
QUESTIONABLE ICONS:
If you migrate Windows for Workgroups 3.11 program groups to Windows NT, the program item icons often get replaced by
question marks. The problem occurs when you use 256 or more colors in Windows for Workgroups and don't use the same
resolution in Windows NT. You don't have to grin and bear it, and you don't have to go back to the original resolution in
Windows NT. Before you migrate your groups, set the Windows for Workgroups resolution to 16-color VGA. Or you can highlight the individual program groups and press Alt+Enter to open the Program Item Properties dialog box. Click OK and go.
THE PAUSE THAT IRRITATES:
If you use the Print Manager to pause a print job, then remove that print job, you'll find that the printer remains in Pause. The printer will remain paused until you tell it to Resume. If you forget about Resume, you can tell the printer to print all you want--it won't do a bit of good until you click on Resume in the Print Manager.
MAKE YOUR MOUSE SNAP TO:
Windows NT 3.51 lets you select the mouse Snap to option. Open the Control Panel and double-click on the Mouse icon. At the
bottom right of the Mouse dialog box, you'll see a check box labeled Snap To Default Button. Select this check box and click
OK. Now close the Control Panel and check out the new setting. With this option selected, the pointer will jump to an application's active button.
NAME THAT DISK:
Want to rename that hard disk? Use Disk Administrator. You can assign drive letters of your choice to hard disks and CD-ROM drives. You'd better make a backup first, though.
Go to the Administrative Tools group and open Disk Administrator. In the Disk Administrator window, you'll see a graphical
representation of all your drives and partitions. Click on the one you want to change, then choose Tools|Drive Letter. In the Assign Letter dialog box, you can choose, for a hard disk, any available letter from C through Z, but not a letter that's currently in use. Make your selection and click OK. Now follow the instructions. You may need to make a new emergency disk; you'll definitely have to restart the computer.
You can assign a new letter to a CD-ROM, drive too. To do this, Choose the CD-ROM Drive Letters command from the Tools menu and proceed as described above.
DON'T BOX YOURSELF IN:
Here's something you might like to know about Visual Basic 3.0: You'll find that applications that run in separate memory spaces slow down the operating system significantly when you open a message box. If you'd like to check this out, create a VB 3.0 app with a button to run a message box using the MsgBox function. Run three or more instances of your new app in a separate memory space. If you press the command button, you'll see the slowdown. To solve this problem, you can use a custom form rather than a message box. Of course, you could also upgrade to VB 4.0.
DAYLIGHT OVERCOMPENSATION TIME:
Some computers use the BIOS to handle daylight-saving time. If you have a problem with Windows NT incorrectly setting the
computer time, check to see if your computer wants to do the job. If it does, then disable the Windows NT auto-correction feature.
Here's what happens: Windows NT updates its date and time every hour. It does so by reading the motherboard's CMOS. In
between the readings, Windows NT increments its clock about once every 10 milliseconds. Since Windows NT can't detect when the system BIOS/CMOS adjusts the clock for daylight-saving time, it may proceed to change the clock by one hour. Since the BIOS does the same thing, you end up a full hour ahead in the spring and an hour behind in the fall. By the way, if you use both Windows NT and Windows 95 on the same computer, you might end up two hours off because both systems will make the change right along with the BIOS.
IT'S IN THE CARDS:
Cardfile can't create a temporary file. If you don't have a TEMP directory when you start Cardfile, you'll get this message:
Cannot create temporary file. Delete one or more files to increase available disk space, and then try again.
When you click OK in the error dialog box, Cardfile continues to load. In some cases, you may get the error message twice. Once Cardfile is loaded, you can create new cards. The catch is that you can't save those new cards.
To work around this problem, use the File Manager to create a TEMP directory. Next, open the Control Panel and double-click on the System icon. This opens the System dialog box. Look in the bottom third of this dialog box for the TEMP variable. If there isn't one, click on the text entry box labeled Variable and type in TEMP. Next, move down to Value and type in the path name. After you make the entries, click on Add and then OK.
SKIM OFF THE FAT:
If you decide to boot into MS-DOS, either from a floppy or from the Boot Loader, you may find that you can use MS-DOS to view and modify your NTFS partition. After you mess with the partition, you may also find that it's been corrupted. If this happens to you, it's because you installed OS/2 using the IBM Boot Manager on the first partition. Then, when you installed Windows NT, you to told Setup to reformat the existing NTFS partition. Or you told it to convert the partition to NTFS. Basically, the partition remained marked FAT. To correct the situation, go into OS/2 and run FDISKPM to get rid of the NTFS partition. Then reinstall Windows NT and tell Setup to convert the partition to NTFS.
PROGRAM GROUP THERAPY:
If you work with a particular group of documents for long periods of time, why not put them all into a program group? While in Program Manager, click on a group to select it. This will be the group your new document icon will go into. Next, choose File|New. In the New Program Object dialog box, select the Program Item radio button, then click OK. In the Program Item Properties dialog box, you'll see text entry boxes for Description, Command Line, Working Directory, and Shortcut Key. In the Description box, type whatever you'd like to call your new file.
In Command Line, you need to tell NT where to find the file. If you're adding a Word document, you might type:
c:\winword\MyData\Mine.doc
If you don't know the full path, click on the Browse button. Since you're looking for document files rather than program files, click on the arrow at the right of the list box labeled List Files of Type and choose All Files (*.*). Now locate your file, select it, and click OK. Click OK to close the dialog box. Your new document item will appear in the selected group.
HELP YOUR HELP FILE:
If you run Office 95 in Windows NT 3.51, you'll probably find yourself waiting for as long as 15 minutes for help files to open.
Guess what? It's time for the latest Service Pack. I found that even with the Service Pack, setting up the help file the first time requires more time than in Windows 95. However, you won't get those interminably long delays.
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Search Keywords |
Windows NT | |
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Hint Category |
Windows NT | |
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Date Created |
12-09-96 | |
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Last Updated |
15-04-98 | |
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Revision Date |
10-04-99 | |
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Brand |
Cross Brand | |
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Product Family |
Various | |
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Machine Type |
Various | |
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Model |
Various | |
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N/A | |
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