Windows NT Tips

Windows NT Tips

Microsoft gives new life to Windows NT

Desktop Cycler

RRAS: RIP Routing Stops When System Time Is Changed

Flaw in Win2000, NT4.0 makes domains 'too trusting' Printer Friendly Format

Hiding a Windows NT computer from Network Neighborhood

THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR CHANGIN'

If you'd like to change the wording of your boot choices on a dual- boot installation, you can do so by modifying Boot.INI.

To work with Boot.INI, open Windows NT Explorer and go to the root folder. Note that Boot.INI is a read-only file. Rather than overwriting it, we suggest you keep it by renaming it Boot.TXT. Now open Boot.TXT and make your changes to the text. When finished, save the file as Boot.INI. Restart the computer to see how your changes work.

ACCOUNT FOR YOURSELF

Version 4.0 To create a new user account in Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, click Start, then choose User Manager. In User Manager click User New User to open the New User dialog box. Now just fill in the blanks with the user name, the full name, and a suitable description.

READIN', NO WRITIN'

Version 4.0

If you followed the procedure we described in the tip before last (changing the wording on Boot.INI by converting it to text), you'll find that your renamed Boot.TXT will remain a read-only file. However, your new Boot.INI is not a read-only file. This won't interfere with anything, but if you'd like to make it read-only, just locate it with the Explorer and right-click on its icon. When the menu opens, choose Properties, then select the check box labeled Read-only. Click OK and Boot.INI will become a read-only file.

Forget the Salute

Instead of pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete to launch Windows NT Task Manager, right-click on NT 4.0's taskbar and click on Task Manager in the resulting menu.

It's Only Natural

Using NT 4.0 and the Microsoft Natural Keyboard, press WIN+R to display the Run dialog box, WIN+M to minimize all windows currently open and WIN+E to start Windows NT Explorer.

IT ALL ADDS UP

Need to know how much space a selection of folders and/or files takes up on your hard drive? If so, open Explorer and hold down Ctrl as you select objects. Then right-click any of the objects and choose Properties. You'll get a dialog box that displays the total size of all the selected objects.

WHERE THERE'S A WAY, THERE'S ANOTHER WAY

We recently reported that you can change your Windows NT Workstation startup by opening the Control Panel, then double- clicking the System icon. You can also modify startup by right- clicking My Computer, choosing Properties, then clicking the Startup/Shutdown tab.

NOT ALL TRASH IS CREATED EQUAL

Ordinarily, all files deleted from floppy disk drives are gone forever. However, if you like, you can send these files to the Recycle Bin indirectly and provide yourself with some deletion protection. Create a new folder on your desktop and name it Trash. Now move files from the floppy to Trash where you can keep them until it's safe to delete them. Then you can move them to the Recycle Bin where you'll still have some protection.

WHAT, ME RECYCLE?

Deleting files sends them by default to the Recycle Bin, where you can still get them back if need be. If you want to trash a file, knowing that you'll never want to see it again, select it, hold down Shift and press Delete. Gone-zo.

USE IT BUT DON'T LOSE IT

When you run large applications, you can free up some memory by simply minimizing the applications you're not currently using. To test this, open several large appslications. Now right-click the taskbar and select Task Manager. Click the Process tab, then click Mem Usage to sort by size so you can easily see how much memory your applications are using. Now minimize the applications and check the memory usage again. You'll find that the usage drops significantly when you minimize them. For example, we found that Word for Windows uses 1210 Kb as an active window and only 228 Kb when minimized.

DOCUMENTS, DOCUMENTS EVERYWHERE

To revisit documents you click Start|Documents and make your choice. The only problem with Documents is that the menu can get rather full after a while. To clean out this list and make a new, um, start, click Start|Settings|Taskbar, then click the Start Menu Programs tab. Click Clear, then OK to clear the documents menu.

GOT A THING FOR YOUR PROGRAM MANAGER?

If you really liked Program Manager and don't want to give it up quite yet, open My Computer, double-click the Win NT drive (probably C:) and navigate to the Winnt folder. Double-click Winnt, then double-click System32. Locate Progman.EXE and right-click it, then drag its icon to the desktop. Release the mouse button and choose Create Shortcut(s) Here.

You can now double-click the shortcut to open Program Manager. You'll have to set it up since it isn't aware of anything that's currently on the desktop.

PRINTING ON THE FLY

If you'd like to print documents using the drag-and-drop method, you need to make the printer icon readily available. The best way to handle this is to place a shortcut to the printer on your desktop. To do this, click Start and choose Printers. When the Printers window opens, use the right mouse button to drag the printer to the desktop. Release the mouse button and choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. To do this, click Start and choose Printers. When the Printers window opens, use the right mouse button to drag the printer to the desktop. Release the mouse button and choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. Now all you have to do is drag documents to the printer icon to print them. The documents, however, must be registered files that will open the appropriate application.

No More Password

Several people wrote in to say they had difficulty turning off the initial Windows NT password prompt. For those using Windows NT 4.0, a simple solution is now available: The latest version of Tweak UI, the freeware Control Panel add-on from Microsoft, is now NT 4.0-friendly and makes it a snap to turn off the password dialog box, hide desktop icons, suppress items from the Documents menu (and elsewhere), customize the file type list in the New submenu (when you right-click in a folder or on the desktop), and much more. This invaluable customization utility is available free from Microsoft's web site.

Here's what to do: Once Tweak UI has been installed, choose Start;Settings;Control Panel and double-click Tweak UI. Select the Network tab and check Log on automatically at system startup. Make sure your User Name and Password are entered correctly, and click OK. You won't be bothered by the Ctrl + Alt + Delete password prompt again until you change this setting.

More Space

Is the drive on which you installed Windows NT getting a little too full? If you have another drive on your system with room to spare, you can regain a big chunk of your NT drive by moving its virtual memory paging file. This is the swap file Windows uses to supplement your system's memory and allow you to run more applications.

Just choose Start;Settings;Control Panel and double-click the System icon. Click the Performance tab in the System Properties dialog box, then click the Change button. With the drive containing your current paging file selected, type 0 for Initial Size and 0 for Maximum Size and click Set. From the list at the top of the dialog box, select the new drive for the paging file. For Initial Size, type the Recommended amount listed in the middle of the dialog box. For Maximum Size, type in the amount of hard disk space you're willing to sacrifice to this endeavor. Then click Set. Click OK, then Close, then Yes to restart your computer.

EXPLORING FOLDERS

If you'd like to quickly open a folder in Explorer view, select the folder, hold down the Shift key, and double-click the folder. You can open Start in Explorer view by right-clicking Start, then choosing Explore.

DON'T CALL 9-1-1, UPDATE YOUR REPAIR DISK

Whenever you make a change to your hardware or software setup, you should also update your Emergency Repair disk. To do this, insert the Repair disk into the floppy disk drive and click Start. Choose Help, then click the Index tab. Type Repair Disk and click Display. Click the Repair Disk button. When the dialog box opens, click Update Repair Info. When the operation finishes, click Exit. If another dialog box appears asking if you want to create a Repair disk, click No. Now close Help.

STOP THAT CHKDSK

If you run CHKDSK /F /R from a command prompt, the system asks if you want to run CHKDSK the next time you start the system. Suppose you answer Yes and then later decide that you'd rather not run CHKDSK on the next restart.

To stop a scheduled CHKDSK, you have to edit the Registry. So be careful.

Run RegEdit32 and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Ses sion Manager. Now double-click on BootExecute. When the dialog box opens, change the value to autocheck autochk *. and click on OK. Close RegEdit32. When you restart, CHKDSK /F will not run.

RUN, RUN, RUN

When you want to run a program that you know is available but isn't in the Start menu, you don't have to search the disk for the file. Instead, click on Start|Run and type in the file name. For example, if you want to run RegEdit, click on Start|Run, type in RegEdit and press Enter.

This works for Registered programs that are in the path. You can also use this method to run programs that don't require Registry entries provided they are either in the path, or you supply the full path and file name.

DO YOU REALLY NEED TO CLICK ON START?

If you'd like to get rid of the Click on Start arrow that appears whenever possible, you can do the job with a bit of Registry editing.

Now for the usual warning: You can really mess up your installation if you mess up the Registry. Be careful.

Run RegEdit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVe rsion\Policies\Explorer. If there's an entry named NoStartBanner, double-click on the entry to open it. You'll see four initial zeroes. After these zeroes, type in
01 00 00 00
(you don't need to enter the spaces, RegEdit does it for you). Click on OK and close RegEdit. Now restart the computer and you'll never see that arrow again.

If there's no NoStartBanner entry, you need to create one. Right- click on RegEdit's right pane and choose New|Binary Value. Name your new entry NoStartBanner. Double-click on your new entry and then enter the values as described above.

HIDING AND NOT HIDING

If you have several users that you think might benefit from having the known file extensions hidden, you can still display selected extensions.

To hide the extensions, open a window and choose View|Options. Next, click on the View tab (if it isn't already selected). Now select the Hide File Extensions for Known File Types check box. Click on OK to close the dialog box and record your change.

Some file types can cause problems (or at least confusion) when the extensions are not shown. Let's say you'd like Windows NT to display all .TXT extensions. Open a window again and choose View|Options. This time, click on the File Types tab and then locate text files in the list. Click on Edit and select the check box labeled Always Show Extension. Click on OK and then click on OK again when you get back to the Options dialog box.

Now the .TXT extension will appear even though the other registered extensions don't.

A WINDOWS NT EASTER EGG

Here's a neat Easter Egg. Right-click on the desktop and choose Properties. Click on the Screen Saver tab and then choose 3D Text (Open GL). Click on Settings and type in Volcano. Now the screen saver will display the names of famous volcanoes. To see how it will look on your screen, select Preview. When you're finished, click on OK.

A QUICK LOOK AT QUICKVIEW

Many users wonder why QuickView isn't an available option for some files. The fact is you can make QuickView available for almost any file type. The problem is that QuickView may not do you much good with some files.

Let's say that QuickView isn't available for .DAT files. Open a window and choose View|Options. Click on the File Types tab and then (assuming that .DAT isn't already included) click on New. Now click in the Associated extension text entry box and type in .DAT. Select the Enable QuickView check box and click on OK. In the Options dialog box click on OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.

Locate a .DAT file now and right-click on its icon. When the menu opens, choose QuickView to view the file's contents.

PREVENTING USERS FROM SHUTTING DOWN A WORKSTATION

If some of your network's file or print servers do double-duty as workstations, you'll want to guarantee that these machines are always available when your users need them. Therefore, part of your preventative maintenance program should include removing the shut down user right from the workstation's Everyone and Users groups. Doing so will prevent unauthorized users from shutting down the workstation and making its resources unavailable. To remove the shut down user right, go to the workstation and log on as an administrator. Open User Manager and select the User Rights option from the Policies menu. In the User Rights Policy window, choose the Shut down the system option in the Right dropdown list and choose the Everyone group in the Grant to box. Then click the Remove button and do the same for the Users group. Click the OK button to update the workstation's rights policy. When users who aren't members of the Administrators or Power Users group try to shut down the workstation, they will receive notification that they do not have permission to do so.

Fragmented Button

If you look in the Tools tab of a drive's properties dialog box, you might see a button marked Defragment Now. Chances are, this option is unavailable--Windows NT 4.0 doesn't ship with a defragmenter. To use this option, you'll have to install a third-party utility (for starters, see the Diskeeper link to your right).

On the Move

If you go to the command prompt in Windows NT 4.0 and attempt to use the Move command, you'll find that you can't overwrite existing files. You'll get this message: 'Cannot create a file when that file already exists'. The solution is to use Windows NT Explorer to move files; it allows you to overwrite files whenever you want.

Speaking Up in NT 4.0

After you add a microphone to your system, right-click the speaker icon in the Taskbar and choose Properties. In the dialog box that appears, you'll find three option buttons. You can only modify one option button's setting at a time. For example, if you select Playback and modify the option button's check boxes, and then select another option button before you click OK, all the boxes will default back to their original state. The workaround: After you modify one option, click OK.

Taking Task Manager to Task

If you want to start Task Manager in NT 3.x, you can double-click the desktop. This won't work in Windows NT 4.0. Instead, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and then click Task Manager.

Who Owns That File?

If you're using Word for Windows and you open a file owned by someone else, then modify and save the file, it inherits your ownership ID. This occurs when you save the file on an NTFS partition and the owner of that file has granted you Modify permission for the file. What happens is that Word deletes the original file and renames a temporary edit file (that's owned by you) to the original file name, which makes you the file's owner. You can avoid this problem by saving the file with a new name, which keeps Word from deleting the original file.

MEMORY LANE

Several subscribers have asked how much RAM is available to MS-DOS apps. It varies somewhat, but you should have somewhere near 600K bytes available for running programs. If you'd like to check on your own system, open the Command Prompt and type MEM then press Enter. You'll get a report similar to the one shown here (from version 3.51), which shows that 655,360 bytes are available to MS-DOS:
C:\>mem
655360 bytes total conventional memory
655360 bytes available to MS-DOS
592272 largest executable program size
1048576 bytes total contiguous extended memory
0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
927744 bytes available XMS memory
MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

SLASH AND BURN

If you're working at the Command Prompt and try to change drives by typing something like D:\ you'll get this error message:
"The name specified is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or batch file."
This happens because CMD.EXE doesn't allow you to use a backslash to change drives. To change drives, just type the drive letter followed by a colon. Something like D: will work fine.

HANDS-ON MINIMIZING

If you set the properties of the Office 95 shortcut bar to run minimized in Windows NT 4.0, it won't open minimized when you restart Windows NT. It will open normally and you'll have to minimize it manually.

SAVE EARLY, SAVE OFTEN

Have you ever lost your Windows NT 4.0 desktop icon arrangement after Explorer has hung up? When you exit Windows NT normally, the desktop locations are saved. However, Windows NT doesn't continually save the icons for performance reasons. So if you get an abnormal shutdown, you can lose the icon position. To make sure you don't lose the icon position, you can periodically click the desktop, then press F5, which forces a desktop save.

START ME UP

In Windows NT 4.0, if a program minimizes itself when the Start menu is open, the Start menu will also minimize. This is normal behavior: When the program takes the focus from the desktop, the Start menu is minimized.

PREVENT SERVER CRASHES BY MONITORING YOUR DISK SPACE

To keep track of hard disk real estate, configure NT's Alert and Messenger services to automatically notify you when a disk is running out of space. Open the Services Applet in the Control Panel and make sure that the Alert and Messenger services are running. Next, open Performance Monitor and select Alert from the View menu. Then select Add to Alert from the Edit menu. In the Add to Alert dialog box, select LogicalDisk in the Object selection list and Free Megabytes in the Counter select list. Then choose the Under option in the Alert If section, and set threshold value to the minimum amount of free disk space you need. Finally, tell the Alert service whom to notify by opening Server Manager and view the server properties. Click the Alerts button in the server properties window and add the names of the computers and users to the Alerts list, so NT will notify these computers and users when the amount of available disk space falls below the threshold specified.

TALKIN' TRASH

You can change the Windows NT 4.0 Recycle Bin icons that show when it's full or empty. All you have to do is dig into the Registry a bit. (As usual, we recommend backing up the Registry first).

Let's make a change to demonstrate how this works. Run RegEdit (you'll find it in \Winnt, or you can click on Start|Run, type in regedit, and press Enter). Now navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B- 9F08-00AA002F954E} }\DefaultIcon.
Right-click on the Full icon in the right pane and select Modify. Now type in the path and number of the icon you want to use for an empty Recycle Bin and then click on OK.

For an example, let's stick with the current file (shell32.dll) and just choose a new icon. Icon number 56 in shell32.dll shows a folder and a pencil--let's try it. Type into Full:
%SystemRoot%\System32\shell32.dll,56
and click on OK.

Now restart the computer and drag an item to the Recycle Bin to see the new icon.

MAKE YOUR OWN TRASH ICONS

In the last tip, we showed you how to select a different icon for the Recycle Bin. Now that you know how to make a change, you might like to make your own Recycle Bin icons.

To make your own icons, you can use Microsoft Paint and save the two files (empty and full) as BMP files. Let's say you have Empty.bmp and Full.bmp, both in C:\Stuff. You'd run RegEdit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08- 00AA002F954E}}\DefaultIcon.

Right-click on Full and choose Modify. Type in
C:\Stuff\Full.bmp
and click on OK. Because there's only one icon in each file, you don't have to specify the icon number. Now right-click on Empty, choose Modify and type in
C:\Stuff\Empty.bmp
Click on OK, and then right-click on Default and modify its entry to read
Stuff\Empty.bmp
Click on OK and the close RegEdit. Restart the computer and check your new icons.

FIND IT QUICKLY

When you're working in Explorer, you can open Find very quickly by simply pressing F3. Find will open with the path of the currently selected folder in Look In. You can change the path if necessary by typing in the new path. If you prefer, you can click on Browse, locate the new path, and click on OK.

WHAT IS MY CD KEY?

It's easy to lose track of the Windows NT CD case. But if you do lose the case, you also lose the CD Key unless you've already written it down somewhere. This is a problem when you need to re- install.

So, let's look at how you can use RegEdit to get the system to show you the CD Key. As usual, be careful when editing the Registry. Open RegEdit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion.

Look at ProductId. The CD Key is digits 6 through 15. Copy the number into a NotePad file and save it where you can easily find it. It wouldn't hurt to write it down and file it away in your desk just to be safe.

Close RegEdit after you copy the number.

Warning: Don't do anything to change the CD Key--just copy the number and exit RegEdit.

DELETING A DIRECTORY TREE

Some Windows NT 4.0 users have asked about a command similar to the Windows 95 Deltree command. You can accomplish the same thing in Windows NT 4.0 by using the Rmdir command.

Try this: Create a new folder and then create within that folder a subfolder. Now place some files in the subfolder. You can use copies of existing files from another folder. Just make sure you copy (not move) the files.

Now go to the command prompt and type
RD c:\NewFolder\Test /s
and press Enter to delete the folders and the files contained within them.

TOGGLE KEYS

Even if you don't need most of the features included in Windows NT 4.0's Accessibility Options, you may find the Toggle Keys feature handy. When activated, Toggle Keys beeps when you press any of the toggle keys (Caps Lock, Num Lock, Scroll Lock). You'll never again type in all caps without knowing it.

CHECKING DISK PERFORMANCE

The Performance Monitor won't monitor disk performance unless you turn on the disk counters first. To do this, go to the Command prompt and type
diskperf -Y
and press Enter. Now restart the computer.

When Windows NT starts again, you can monitor disk activity with the Performance Monitor.

Since the counters will affect disk performance (very slightly) you should turn them off when you're finished with your testing. To turn off the counters, go to the Command prompt again, and type
diskperf -N
press Enter, and then restart the computer.

UPGRADING CHECKLIST

If you're thinking of upgrading some computers in your organization from Windows 95 to Windows NT Workstation 4.0, you need to consider a few points before you spend any money or time.

Windows 95 supports more than 1000 devices than does Windows NT. Make sure you have device drivers for all your hardware before you start an installation. Although you may think that most Windows 95 drivers will work with NT, this is not the case.

You also need to make sure that all your software will run properly in Windows NT. Some software that you use with Windows 95 may have been written specifically for that operating system and may not run in Windows NT.

Consider going to Windows NT Workstation only on your fastest computers. Although Windows NT will run on a 486, we strongly recommend that you use at least a 90-MHz Pentium.

Remember that you cannot install Windows NT over Windows 95. The best approach may be to install NT on a Windows 95 computer as a dual-boot system. This way, you can test NT without compromising the Windows 95 installation.

SERVICE PACK 3 AND MCAFEE

After you install Service Pack 3, you may notice 0x1E, 0xA bugchecks, lockups, or other random bugchecks when running McAfee NetShield or VirusScan.

Your best approach is to uninstall the application and contact McAfee for a possible upgrade to resolve the problem.

SETTING UP A SOUND CARD

To set up a sound card In Windows NT 4.0, determine the card's selections (I/O port, interrupt number), turn off the computer, insert the card, and restart the computer. Now open Control Panel and double-click on the Multimedia icon. When the dialog box opens, click on the Devices tab.

Now select Audio Devices and click on Add. (You'll probably need to insert your Windows NT 4.0 CD at this point). When offered a driver selection, choose the device that matches your sound card. Set the I/O to match your card and click on Continue. Now set the interrupt to match and click on OK.

You'll be prompted to restart. After the restart, your sound card should function.

If there's an interrupt conflict, you may need to set your sound card to a different interrupt. If so, make the change, reinsert the card, and repeat the installation procedure.

EDITING A REMOTE COMPUTER'S REGISTRY

The next time you need to view the configuration of a remote computer's registry, or even make changes to it, do it remotely. Use the Registry Editor to edit the registry of any computer for which you have administrative rights. To open the Registry Editor, chose Run... from the Start menu, enter REGEDT32 in the Run dialog box, and click OK. To edit the registry of a remote computer, choose the Select Computer option from the Registry menu, and the Select Computer dialog box will appear. Select the remote computer whose registry you want to edit and click the OK button. The Registry Editor will then open the remote computer's registry and display the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_USERS subtrees. The Registry Editor will warn you that the editor's Auto-Refresh feature won't work with the remote computer's registry before allowing you to make changes. To close the remote computer's registry, select Close from the Registry menu.

CHANGING A SHORTCUT

If you place a shortcut to a file on your desktop (or anywhere) and then change the location of the file, the shortcut may no longer work. In some cases, NT will locate the file and make the changes for you. Other times, NT may offer to let you locate the file. And in some cases, you may have to modify the shortcut.

To modify the shortcut, right-click on it and choose Properties. When the Shortcut Properties dialog box opens, click on the Shortcut tab. Type the new path into the Target text entry box and then click on OK.

QUICK SEARCH

To launch a search in any active folder (including Windows NT Explorer), press F3. If the folder isn't active, click on it to make it active and then press F3.

To launch a search from the desktop, click on it and press F3.

AVOIDING CLUTTER

If you need to open a folder and then open a folder in that folder, etc., etc., but you don't want to leave a trail of folders on your desktop, here 's what you can do: Open the main folder. Now hold down Ctrl and double-click on the subfolder you want to open. The new folder will open and the original folder will close.

The only drawback is that the subfolder will open in the same format as the main folder. If the main folder was set to Large Icons, then the subfolder will open with large icons even if it was originally set to List.

WHERE IS MSD?

Want to know what happened to MSD? It became Winmsd.exe. You'll find it in \Winnt\System32. This Windows NT version of MSD will provide you with all the information you used to get from MSD.

You can run Winmsd to find out what version of BIOS your computer runs, what kind of display you're using, and information about your disk drives and memory. Try it, you'll like it. And it doesn't have to run in an MS-DOS window.

UNINSTALLING NETWORK PRINTERS

You can uninstall a printer (local or network) by simply choosing Start|Settings|Printers and then selecting the printer and pressing Delete. If Windows NT asks if you want to delete the files associated with the printer, choose Yes if you're sure you won't reinstall the printer and No if you're not so sure.

Note that you may not be able to uninstall some networked printers because they are attached to a dedicated printer server and take orders only from a controller. In this case, you'd have to have permission to uninstall the printer.

SOUND OFF

If you like to use sounds to alert you when something happens, open Control Panel and double-click on the Sounds icon. Now you can select a sound for any Windows NT occurrence.

If you'd like to have more sounds at your disposal, double-click on Add/Remove Programs and then click on the Windows NT Setup tab. Double-click on Multimedia and select all the extra sounds. Click on OK to close the dialog box and then click on OK to install the new sounds. You'll have to insert your Windows NT CD to install the sounds. You need to use the \i386 directory on the CD.

WHO NEEDS ANIMATED WINDOWS?

When you open a window in NT 4.0, the window seems to fly out of the taskbar. And when you close a window, it shrinks back into the taskbar. If you'd like to do without this particular feature, you can use RegEdit to eliminate it.

As usual, we need to caution you to be careful when fooling around with the Registry--you can do a lot of damage if you make a mistake.

Run RegEdit and navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
Double-click on the WindowMetrics folder and then choose Edit|New|String Value. Name your new string MinAnimate. After you create MinAnimate, double-click on it and set its value to 0 (zero). Exit RegEdit and restart the computer.

INSTALLING A MODEM

Sometimes Windows NT 4.0 will detect your modem and call it a standard modem. This happens even when the modem is supported by NT and when driver files are available.

If this happens to you, you can manually select the correct driver. This is all you need to do to get the modem to function properly.

ANIMATED CURSORS

Want to change to an animated cursor? Open Control Panel and double-click on the Mouse icon. When the dialog box opens, click on the Pointers tab. Now select the pointer you want to change and then click on Browse. Locate an animated cursor and select it. Click on OK to close the dialog box and save your change.

If you load some animated cursors and they fail to work as expected, make sure your system isn't set to 16 colors. This may affect a very few of you, but animated cursors work only when your video is set to at least 256 colors.

WEB SITE SHORTCUTS

If you're surfing the Web and run across a site that you'd like to keep as handy as possible, right-click on the site's URL and then choose Copy from the menu. Now move to your desktop and right- click where you like the URL to appear. Choose Paste Shortcut.

CHOOSE YOUR FONTS

If you'd like to examine the fonts available to your system, go to the \Winnt\Fonts folder. All the fonts are in this folder. You can view them to see exactly what they look like by simply double- clicking on the font you want to view.

If your font list is very long, you can trim it somewhat (without losing any fonts) by choosing View|Hide Variations(Bold, Italic, etc.). The font variations are still there; you just can't see them in the list. You can repeat the command to get them back into view.

SPACED OUT

If you have some icons with relatively long names, you may find that the entire name won't show. You can make the entire name show by changing the horizontal icon spacing.

Open the window that contains the long name. Now right-click on the desktop and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click on the Appearance tab. Now click on the down arrow at the right of Item. When the list expands, select Icon Spacing (Horizontal). Use the spin box to increase the spacing. Make sure your long icon name is visible and then click on Apply. Now click on the window that contains your icon to activate it and then press F5 to refresh the window.

If the name shows, click on OK and go about your business. If the entire name still doesn't show, increase the spacing again, click on Apply, and refresh the window.

You need to make some compromise on icon spacing. Increasing the spacing a little to allow longer names to display is OK. But if you increase the spacing too much, you may be unhappy with the extra desktop space required by your windows.

DON'T BE FRUSTRATED

Let's say you're working with a Control Panel tool and switch to an application. To get back to the Control Panel tool, you press Alt-Tab. The tool isn't in the list.

This is not an error. Since Control Panel tools are treated as modeless dialog boxes, they are always part of Control Panel.

To switch to a running Control Panel tool, you can use Alt-Esc to get the focus back to the Control Panel tool, or you can use the mouse to select the tool on the desktop.

You can also go back to Control Panel and double-click on the tool's icon to open it again.

MULTIPLE PRINTERS

If you periodically need to print something that uses a special setup, consider installing a new printer. You say you have only one printer? Don't worry--Windows NT doesn't really know.

Choose Start|Settings|Printers and then double-click on Add Printer. Follow the Wizard to install your new printer. Give it a different name from the original printer.

After the printer is installed, set its defaults to those needed by your periodic printing requirements. Go to the document you want to print, choose Print, and choose the new printer. Set up the necessary parameters and print your document.

When you want to print standard documents, choose your original printer.

LOOKING FOR AN IMAGE?

If you'd like to use a simple image program, try loading Windows NT imaging software. Although this program (applet really) sports abbreviated editing capabilities, it will do many simple graphic manipulations.

If you have a scanner installed on your computer, you can use the imaging software to handle the scanner output for you. Just make sure you install all the scanner driver software before you install the imaging software.

To install imaging, go to Control Panel and double-click on Add/Remove Programs. Now click on the Windows NT Setup tab and double-click on Accessories. Locate Imaging and select it. Click on OK to close the dialog box and then click on OK again to install. You'll have to insert your Windows NT CD at this point. The directory you need on the CD is \i386.

COPYING SHORTCUTS

When you decide to place a shortcut on your desktop, you'll often find it convenient to work with an existing shortcut. For example, if you open the MS Office folder, you'll find shortcuts to all the Office applications. To place them on the desktop, select them and then right-drag them to their target folder. When you release the mouse button, the menu will open. Choose Copy Here. You'll have no problems with copied shortcuts as long as the originals stay in place.

MS-DOS PLACEMENT

If you want to decide where your MS-DOS window will open, choose Start, Settings, Control Panel and double-click on Console. When the dialog box opens, click on Layout and deselect the "Let system position window" check box. Now use the spin boxes to set the window's position.

REMEMBER TO COPY THE I386 DIRECTORY'S HIDDEN FILES

Creating a shared I386 directory allows you conduct server-based NT installations and saves you the trouble of hunting for the NT Installation media every time you need to install a new service. However, before you attempt to copy the NT CD-Rom's I386 directory to a server, you should remember that Windows NT Explorer doesn't display files that have .sys, .dll and .vxd extensions. Explorer doesn't copy files that it doesn't display. So, before you use Explorer to copy the I386 directory, choose Options... from Explorer's View menu. Click the View tab in the Options dialog box and select the Show All Files option. Explorer will then copy all hidden files when you copy the I386 files to your server. Alternatively, you can use the XCOPY command line utility with its /S switch (which copies all subfolders) to copy the I386 directory. XCOPY copies hidden file types by default.

PLACING MS-DOS PROGRAMS

If you have MS-DOS programs that you want to run in a window, you can make those programs open at different window positions. You don't have to accept the default position.

Let's say you have an MS-DOS program named OLDIE.EXE. First, open a text editor (Notepad will do) and type in the DOS program and its path. Something like this:
C:\utilities\oldie.exe
Save your new file with a .BAT extension. In this case, old.bat will do fine. Now create a shortcut of the .BAT file. Right-click on the shortcut and choose Properties. Click on Layout and then deselect the "Let system position window" check box. Now use the spin boxes to set the window position.

If you have yet another MS-DOS program that you'd like to run in a different position, repeat the procedure described for the first program.

COPY PROBLEM

If you sometimes use the command prompt, here's a problem you need to know about. When you use the Copy command at the Windows NT 4.0 command prompt, it will fail to warn you when you're about to copy over a file of the same name. This is a bug, and Microsoft will probably announce a fix one of these days. In the meantime, just make sure what files are in the target folder before you start copying.

MICROSOFT'S POWERTOYS

We've mentioned in previous tips that TweakUI from PowerToys works in Windows NT 4.0. You can also use FlexiCD and DeskMenu. FlexiCD places an icon in the taskbar from which you can control your audio discs. DeskMenu places an icon in the taskbar that will give you access to the desktop from a menu on the toolbar.

To install these two utilities, put your PowerToys disk into Drive A and right-click on Deskmenu.inf. When the menu opens, select Install. To install FlexiCD, open the PowerToys floppy, right- click on Flexicd.inf, and choose Install from the menu.

What's not supported in Windows NT 4.0? Clock, Tapinta, QuickRes, and Xmouse.

SOUND FILES AND WINDOWS NT 4.0

People often like to use special sound files (Beavis and Butthead, Monty Python, President Clinton, etc.) to mark certain Windows events. If you acquire some sound files that you intend to use with your Windows NT installation, copy the files into the \Winnt\Media folder. This is where Windows NT looks for its sound files, and putting them there to start with can save you a lot of trouble.

By the way, for shut down with a bang, there's a great scream in "A Christmas Story."

KEEP THAT EMERGENCY RECOVERY DISK

Here's a doubly safe way to be ready in case of emergency. Let the system make an Emergency Recovery Disk (ERD) for you during installation, and then keep that disk. As you work with Windows NT, you should use Rdisk to make a new ERD, but use a new disk, not the one you made during installation. This way, you'll have an up-to-date disk and an original configuration disk.

PROPERTIES ON THE FLY

You don't necessarily have to open a folder or Windows NT Explorer to check a file's properties. You can check the item in the Start menu as well. Click on Start, Programs, and then select one you'd like to check and right-click on its icon in the menu. When the menu opens, choose Properties.

This is a helpful method to employ when you want to find a file's location. Right-click on it in the Start menu, choose Properties, and then click on the Shortcut tab. In Shortcut, click on Find Target and Windows NT will take you there.

CLEAN UP START

After a while, your Start menu will begin to fill up. When you have so many programs on the Start menu that it takes a few minutes just to locate the one you want to use, you will probably want to delete some of the programs that you seldom use. Many of us place our most-used programs in desktop folders and don't really need to have them duplicated in the Start menu. The easiest way to get rid of some of these files is to right-click on Start and choose Open All Users. When the window opens, you can select the programs you want to delete and press Delete.

The icons in the Start menu should be shortcuts. However, some programs might actually install themselves in the Start folder. So, make sure that the icons you're deleting are shortcuts. Any icons that are not shortcuts you need to keep.

By the way, this is one reason to not get rid of those little shortcut arrows. If you use TweakUI, it's best to select the arrows, or at least the light arrows.

USING THE SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR

If you'd like to try the scientific version of the Windows NT 4.0 calculator, open the calculator and choose View, Scientific. If you're not entirely sure what some of the keys do, you can right- click on the key to open the single-entry What's This? menu. Click on What's This? And you'll get an explanation of the key's operation.

For example, if you're not sure which version of log the log button performs, right-click on log and choose What's This? And you'll find that log calculates log to the base 10.

USING SUBST TO MAKE THE PERSONAL FOLDER EASIER TO FIND

If you don't provide Network home directories for your users, they're probably accustomed to storing files on their local machines in the %SystemRoot%\Profiles\%Username%\Personal directory. You can make it easier for users to find their Personal folders. Windows NT's SUBST command lets you map a directory path to the root of a virtual drive letter. When you use SUBST in conjunction with the environment variable %UserProfile% in a logon script, you can map a drive letter to a user's Personal directory. The logon script command
SUBST U: %USERPROFILE%\Personal
maps the virtual drive letter U (for users) to the current user's Personal folder. When you run this command, NT will add an extra icon to the My Computer window. Double-clicking this icon will take the user straight to the Personal folder on the server.

Please note: If you have a lot of experience with DOS or Windows, you may have lost data in the past when using SUBST to map drive letters to a directory path. Fortunately, Window NT's version of SUBST is far more robust and stable than previous versions.

CHANGING ASSIGNMENTS

If you'd like to temporarily change the application opened by a certain type of file, you can do it without first loading the application. All you have to do is click on the file's icon to select it, then right-click on the file while you hold down the Shift key. When the menu opens, select Open With. Locate the program you want to associate with this file type and select it. The file will open using the newly selected application--assuming that application can open the file.

QUICK CONTROL PANEL

Several readers have asked about adding the Control Panel to the Start menu so that it directly displays the components rather than having to go to Settings and then open Control Panel. You can place individual Control Panel items into the Start menu quite easily.

To do this, open Control Panel and select the items that you most often use. Drag those items to the Start button and release the mouse button. Now they'll appear in the Start menu for immediate use.

This will work for only a few Control Panel items, because putting them all in the Start menu would make it too crowded. However, consider this: Most people frequently use Add/Remove Programs, System, and perhaps Date/Time. The others are generally used very infrequently.

A SIMPLE TERMINAL PROGRAM

If you don't spend a great amount of time connecting to bulletin boards, you might want to consider using HyperTerminal for your connections. HyperTerminal can do a creditable job of reading information and downloading and uploading files.

If HyperTerminal isn't installed on your computer, click on Star, Settings, Control Panel, and double-click on Add/Remove Programs. When the dialog box opens, click on the Windows NT Setup tab. Double-click on Communications and select HyperTerminal. Click on OK. and when you get back to the Add/Remove Programs Properties dialog box, click on OK again to start the installation. You'll need to put your Windows NT 4.0 CD into the CD-ROM drive.

To set up HyperTerminal, click on Start, Programs, Accessories, HyperTerminal, HyperTerminal and then type in a name for your new connection. Now type in the phone number and click on OK. Next, click on Modify and add all the necessary information (this is dependent on your setup). When you've entered all the parameters, let HyperTerminal dial the number and connect to that BBS.