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Windows 95 in a Nutshell

Windows 95 in a Nutshell

A Desktop Quick Reference

By Tim O'Reilly & Troy Mott
1st Edition June 1998
1-56592-316-2, Order Number: 3162
528 pages, $24.95

Sample Chapter 3:

The Windows 95 User Interface

This chapter provides an alphabetical reference to many of the major user interface elements in the Windows 95 Desktop.

The Control Panel and Remote Network Access (used by facilities such as the Microsoft Network, Internet Explorer, and Dial-Up Networking) are covered in separate chapters, since they are complex environments in their own right. Many of the utilities and accessories on the Start menu are covered in Chapter 5, Commands and Applications, since they are also accessible from the command line.

The alphabetical reference entries are as follows:

Briefcase
Clipboard
Context Menus
Desktop
Dial-Up Networking
The Explorer
File Types
Find Files and Folders
Icons
Inbox
Internet
Login
My Computer
Network Neighborhood
Office Shortcut Bar
Printers
Properties
Recycle Bin
Run
Send To
Shortcuts
Shut Down
Start Menu
Startup Folder
System Tray
Taskbar

Note that because of the variety of Windows 95 installation options, not every system will have each of these features on its Desktop. Note also that while most of these items are visible on the Desktop, some are contained within folders or menus. In addition, a few (context menus, File Types, and Properties) refer to context-specific menus or dialogs that can be popped up from many different objects, and will be different for each object.

Each entry contains a brief description, a shorthand "path" showing how to get to the item, a figure (if some aspect of the user interface is sufficiently complex to require it), and a set of notes focusing on features that are buried in the user interface, not obvious, or undocumented.

Almost all of these user-interface elements are provided by the Windows 95 Explorer. If a user interface element has a corresponding file or folder (as well as being an element of the Explorer), it is shown on the title line for the entry:

Entry Name

\ pathname

Brief description.

The path notation we use to show how to reach each user interface element is described in the Preface. If there is more than one way to reach a given user interface element, multiple paths are shown. For example:

My Computer --> Printers

Start --> Settings --> Printers

Briefcase

\Windows\Desktop\My Briefcase

Synchronize files between two computers.

Desktop --> My Briefcase

Desktop --> context menu --> New --> Briefcase

Description

Before going on a trip, you might want to copy a set of files on your Desktop to the Briefcase, then move the Briefcase to the laptop (or to a floppy disk). You can edit either the original files or the ones in the Briefcase. Then, when you return, copy the Briefcase back to the original machine and use its Briefcase menu --> Update to synchronize the Briefcase and original copies of the files. If the machines are networked, you can synchronize files without having to copy the Briefcase back and forth. Synchronization will work with UNC paths to networked files or folders.

To put a file in the Briefcase, you can drag its icon to the Briefcase folder, or can use the Send To menu, which lists My Briefcase as an option. See Figure 3-1.

Figure 3-1. My Briefcase

Notes

rundll32 syncui.dll,Briefcase.Create

(Send To is probably the easiest way to populate a Briefcase, but the command line could be useful if, for instance, you wanted to create a batch file that created a new Briefcase and then copied the contents of the current folder to it.)

You will need multiple Briefcases if you are using floppy disks for the transport mechanism and you have more files than will fit on a single disk. By default, Send To will recognize only My Briefcase, but you can drag and drop to any Briefcase. (See Send To for a discussion of how to add additional items--such as other Briefcases--to the Send To menu.)

Visto Corp (http://www.visto.com) has a new twist on the Briefcase. For $9.95 a month, you can keep a Visto Briefcase on their web site, and have access to it from wherever you are. The Visto Assistant synchronizes the web-based Briefcase with the one on your disk. It also synchronizes with contact managers including Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Organizer, and Starfish Sidekick.

Clipboard

A shared, system-wide storage area for holding and moving data.

Edit --> Cut (Ctrl-X)

Edit --> Copy (Ctrl-C)

Edit --> Paste (Ctrl-V)

Description

The Clipboard is an invisible storage area, unless you've installed the Clipboard or Clipbook viewer. Data can be cut or copied to the Clipboard, then pasted in a new location, in either the same application or a different application. You must first select the data to be cut or copied. Data in the Clipboard can be pasted again and again, until it is replaced by new data.

Notes

See Also

clipbrd and clipbook in Chapter 5

Context Menus

Right-clicking on many windows, icons, or user interface items will pop up a menu with various special operations. The menu's contents will vary depending on which item you've right-clicked, so it is normally called the context menu.

To view the context menu for an object:

Right-click

Shift-F10 when the object is selected

Description

Figure 3-2 shows the context menu for a folder. Context menus for other types of objects are discussed in the entry for each object.

Figure 3-2. Context menu for a folder

Notes

At the least, individual buttons or other user interface elements often have a context menu consisting of the single entry What's This?, which gives a short description of what that element is used for. However, in some cases, the context menu is more extensive. For example, right-clicking in the results window of a Find search yields a View menu that allows you to customize the way the results are displayed.

If you're ever stuck, try right-clicking on a user-interface element and see if anything helpful pops up.

Any program or command line on the system can be made into a new "verb" on a context menu using View --> Options --> File Types --> Edit from any folder or Explorer window. See "File Types" later in this chapter. (To create new verbs directly in the Registry, see Chapter 4, "Customizing Context Menus," in Windows Annoyances, by David Karp, O'Reilly & Associates. Note that customizing the context menu for HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell lets you create verbs for all files; normally they'll apply to particular file types, based in turn on file extensions; objects--drive, folder, unknown, etc.; or URL prefixes--http, ftp, etc.).

Desktop

\Windows\Desktop

\Windows\Profiles\<username>\Desktop

The most visible element of the Explorer user interface. Supports icons, windows, and drag-and-drop functionality.

An overview of the Desktop is provided in Chapter 1, Using Windows 95. This section mainly consists of a few implementation notes and useful tips.

Notes

Dial-Up Networking

Establish a network connection over a modem.

My Computer --> Dial-Up Networking --> connection

Launch any Internet-aware application (Internet Explorer, telnet, ftp, etc.)

Description

Dial-Up Networking provides a collection of facilities for connecting to remote computers over a phone line, most commonly using the Point to Point Protocol (PPP). Dial-Up Networking also supports other protocols, including the Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP), Novell NRN Network Connect, Windows for Workgroups, X.25, and ISDN. SLIP is available only with an add-on, unless you're using OSR2 or later.

Before you can use Dial-Up Networking, you must first define a new connection. This consists of:

Notes

rundll32 rnaui.dll,RnaDial connectoid-name

where connectoid-name is the name of the connectoid. This is useful if the Explorer is not your shell.

The Explorer

\Windows\Explorer.exe

View all the folders and files on your computer.

Start --> Run --> explorer

Start --> Programs --> Windows Explorer

Context menu --> Explore

Shift-double-click on any folder

Most users think of the Desktop interface as "Windows 95" and the Explorer as an application within it, but in fact, the Explorer is the program that creates and maintains the Desktop and many of the other visible features of Windows 95. However, when you run the Explorer as a separate application, it provides a useful two-pane view of files and folders that allows you to navigate the file system easily. (See Figure 3-3.) It is that view of the Explorer that is discussed here.

Figure 3-3. The double-pane Explorer window

Unlike the Windows 3.1 interface, in which you end up with dozens of open windows if you want to navigate somewhere deep in the file system, the Explorer maintains a tree-structured view of the file system in the left pane and opens only a single target folder in the right pane. This behavior applies only to folders, however. If you double-click on a file or program icon in the right pane, a separate application window will open, just as it does on the Desktop.

It may help to think of the left pane as the "navigation pane"--actions here control what will be displayed on the right pane. The right, or display pane, shows the results. Think of this pane as equivalent to any other window, such as a folder open on the Desktop. (This will become very clear to you if you select an alternative view such as View --> Large Icons. The right pane will then resemble a normal folder view.)

Everything that works on the Desktop works in the Explorer, because the Desktop is just part of the Explorer. Each additional instance of the Explorer that you start up is actually just a separate thread of execution in the same program that also creates and maintains the Desktop.

Quick Navigation Tips

Scrolling around full Explorer windows can take a long time. Typing the first letter of any file or folder will jump right to the first matching file or folder. Press the letter again to go to the next matching file or folder. This behavior applies only to folders that are already expanded (i.e., visible in the left pane).

Backspace will take you back up one level in the folder hierarchy. When the focus is in the left pane, the left arrow will do the same, but will also close the open branch. The right arrow will expand branches (any folder with a + next to it); the up and down arrows will move through the expanded branches in a linear fashion, but will not expand any branch that is not already open. Press Enter to expand or open the currently selected folder.

Cut, copy, and paste keys (Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V) can be used in the right pane to move or copy files from one location to another. Much easier than drag and drop! Ctrl-A selects all.

To get a two-pane Explorer view of any folder, press Shift while you click on the folder to open it.

Notes

Start --> Programs --> Windows Explorer

Starts at C:\

any folder --> context menu --> Explore

Starts at selected folder

Start --> Run --> explorer pathname

Give pathname as argument, or C:\ by default

The Explorer is smart enough to figure out when a floppy disk is full. So you can safely go to a large folder, Select All, copy, and paste to a floppy. When the disk is full, you'll be prompted to insert a new disk.

File Types

Open a file of an unknown type, or associate file types with a different application.

any folder --> View --> Options --> File Types

If you try to open a file of an unknown type (by double-clicking or using context menu --> Open, or using the File --> Open command from within an application), you will get a dialog that asks you to identify which program you want to use to open the file (see Figure 3-4).

Figure 3-4. The Open With dialog box

If you want to force a new association (for example, because you want .htm and .html files to be opened by Netscape rather than by Internet Explorer), or just want to open a file with another application than the one that opens it by default, select the file (click once), then hold the Shift key down and right-click on the file, choosing Open With from the context menu.

Or go to View --> Options --> File Types in any folder Explorer window. Scroll through the list of file types, then click Edit to change any particular association. You can also change associations for objects such as drive, folder, and unknown--see "Context Menus." earlier in this chapter. Click New to create a new file/program association. Figure 3-5 shows a sample Edit dialog box for the Text Document (.txt) file type.

Figure 3-5. The Edit dialog box

For an existing file type, you will typically see one or two actions, such as Open or Print. The one that is in bold type is the default action--the one that will be invoked when you double-click on a file of the specified type.

Other actions will be placed on the file's context menu. Note that you can have more than one open action (although only one can be the default). For example, a text file could have an Open with Notepad action and an Open with Word action or any other program that allows you to edit text files (such as the DOS edit command, or a third-party editor such as emacs or vi from the MKS Toolkit).

Click New or Edit to create a new action or edit an existing one. The resulting dialog lets you specify the command line to be used. For example, to print using Notepad, use the command C:\Windows\notepad.exe /p. (Command-line options for all standard Windows 95 commands are given in Chapter 5. For third-party applications, these may be hard to find.)

Not all programs give access to their internal functions via command line options, though. For example, look at the open action for the content type .gif image in Figure 3-6.

Figure 3-6. Dynamic Data Exchange in an open action dialog box

Sure enough, there's a command line. But "Use DDE" is also checked. DDE stands for Dynamic Data Exchange; it is an ostensibly defunct technology (supposedly replaced by OLE, COM, ActiveX, and who knows what else) that actually plays an important part in Windows 95. For example, both the Explorer and Netscape Navigator can be "driven" with DDE. While command lines specify options given to a program just before it starts, DDE commands can be sent to an already running program. If you're interested in one widely used DDE interface (it's supported by Microsoft as well as Netscape), see "Netscape's DDE Implementation" at either of the following locations:

http://developer.netscape.com/docs/manuals/communicator/DDE/abtdde.htm
http://www.spyglass.com/products/smosaic/sdi/sdi_spec.html

See also:

http://www.creativelement.com/software/delegate.html

Note that you can have more than one extension for a content type. For example, if you've got Netscape Navigator installed, the type Netscape Hypertext Document corresponds to the extensions .htm, .html, .xbm, and .shtml. Files with any of these extensions will be opened by Netscape Navigator. See Chapter 10 The Registry, for an explanation of this behavior.

Notes

rundll32 shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1

Find Files and Folders

Quickly locate any file on the system, using either the filename, the date and time the file was created or modified, text contained in the file, or some combination of these criteria. A list of files matching the criteria will appear in the lower window.

Start --> Find --> Files or Folders

Explorer --> Tools --> Find --> Files or Folders

any folder --> context menu --> Find

F3 while focus is on the Desktop

Right-click in Explorer left pane

Search Criteria

Information entered on all three tabs works together to define the criteria for the search. For example, you can search for a file with a specific name, or leave the filename blank and search for all files created since a specific date, or construct a complex search using multiple criteria. Find remembers search criteria, so you can refine a search by defining additional criteria and repeating the search. See Figure 3-7.

Figure 3-7. The Find Files and Folders dialog box

Because the search results area in Find is "active," you can perform any action you like on the files or folders that appear there. You can copy them, rename them, move them, make shortcuts to them--even delete them. This makes Find a workable alternative to the Desktop or the two-paned Explorer view as a primary interface for working with files and folders. One particularly powerful feature is that once you've found a group of files with some common characteristics (such as file type/extension, modification date, or contents), you select all and then act on them as a group.

Find --> Name & Location --> Named

Enter any part of the desired filename(s). Find does a substring search--unless you're used to wildcards, you don't have to use them. For example, the string "exec" would return autoexec.dos, autoexec.bat, and jobexec.dll. However, find does also recognize the standard file naming wildcards (? and *). For more information on the rules of using these wildcards, see "Wildcards, Pipes, and Redirection" in Chapter 5. You can enter multiple filenames by separating them with a comma (e.g., *.txt, *.bat).

Find also keeps a history of previous filename searches, which you can view by clicking on the down arrow to the right of the field. (This history is preserved even when you clear the previous search using New Search.)

Find --> Name & Location --> Look in

Can be given a drive (and optional folder) in which to make the search. You can specify multiple drives or folders by separating their names with a semicolon (and optional space). For example: C:\; D:\ will search both the C: and D: drives. By checking the "include subfolders" box, Windows will search all subdirectories within the main directory you are searching.

Find --> Date Modified

Lets you specify a range of dates during which the desired files were last changed.

Find --> Advanced --> Of type

Lets you specify whether to search for files of only a given type. Obviously, you could do the same by specifying a given filename extension in Find --> Name & Location --> Named.

Find --> Advanced --> Containing text

Lets you enter a string of up to 128 characters to search for. Carriage returns are not allowed--they will start the search. $ matches the end of a line in text files, and can be used to "anchor" a search, to find text that ends a line. Find will locate ASCII strings in non-text (binary) files, but it will not locate Unicode (two-byte) strings. Cut and paste accelerators are supported.

Find --> Advanced --> Size is

Lets you specify a specific size for a file or a minimum (At least) or maximum (At most) size.

If you're like me, you may find yourself leaving files of a particular type (e.g., Excel worksheets or Word files) strewn all over your file system. A good way to "gather them up into one place" is to search for all files of a given extension (e.g., .xls), then Select All in the Find Results window, and then Shift-right-click. Choose Create Shortcut from the context menu, and put the shortcuts into a single folder. This way, you can organize your files both by type and by project or other subject-oriented category. Rebuild your "file type" folders periodically using the Date Modified tab of Find --> Files & Folders to find your latest work.

Find Dialog Menus

Notes

See Also

dir and find in Chapter 5

Icons

It's easy to take icons for granted. They are a ubiquitous and seemingly immutable feature of the Windows 95 interface, but in fact, you have a degree of control over what icons are used for various types of files. In particular, you can use any icon you like for any shortcuts you create, using Properties --> Shortcut --> Change Icon.

By default, the Change Icon dialog box for a shortcut usually points to \Windows\System\shell32.dll, which contains about 70 different icons, including the standard icons for folders, disks and so on. A browse button lets you search for other sources of icons. But where do you look?

Inbox

Double-click the Inbox icon on the Desktop to launch Windows Messaging (email and fax). Whether this is what you want will depend on your version of Windows 95. The original release used Microsoft Exchange for email; OSR2 uses the same program (with only slight revisions), but it's called Windows Messaging.

Notes

See Also

exchng32 and fax in Chapter 5

Internet

Start Internet Explorer to browse the World Wide Web.

Desktop --> Internet

Start --> Programs --> Internet Explorer

Start --> Run --> iexplore

Internet Explorer is a complex program that is not strictly part of Windows 95, although it most likely will be fully integrated in Windows 98. For more information on IE see Internet in a Nutshell, by Valerie Quercia (O'Reilly & Associates).

Notes

Internet --> Properties is the same as Control Panel --> Internet. This property sheet controls Internet settings that affect any Internet applications that use Microsoft's wininet API (including third-party applications). See Chapter 4, The Control Panel, for details.

Login

Depending on your configuration, you may be asked to log on when your system boots up. There are three reasons you may need a login name and password:

In any of these cases, you should choose a password when you receive your system. You can later change this (using Control Panel --> Passwords). See Chapter 4 for additional information.

My Computer

In addition to the Explorer view and the DOS view, you can still use the hierarchical folder-in-folder view of the Desktop by clicking My Computer --> Drive (C:).

Notes

Network Neighborhood

Access the local network.

Desktop --> Network Neighborhood

Explorer --> Network Neighborhood

Description

The Network Neighborhood (Figure 3-8) provides a quick way to reach other systems on a local or wide area network. When the system is connected, other systems on the same network are displayed as icons in the Network Neighborhood folder on the Desktop. Click on any icon to connect to that system.

Figure 3-8. The Network Neighborhood folder

Other systems might include print or file servers or other user's client machines. Often a network is divided into workgroups. If so, only the local workgroup will be shown. Click on Entire Network to step up a level and see the other workgroups.

If you are connected to a local area network and the Network Neighborhood icon is not displayed, go to Control Panel --> Network --> Configuration --> Add --> Client --> Client for Microsoft Networks.

Any user can designate folders on his or her machine for sharing with other users. You will usually be asked for a password before you can access Shared resources.

Notes

The Sharing dialog box (Figure 3-9) lets you specify the name and access permissions for a shared folder or printer.

Figure 3-9. Folder properties --> Sharing

By default, the folder or printer will be set to Not Shared. Click Shared As if you want it to be shared. By default, the Share Name will be the same as the name of the folder.

You can grant read-only access (the default), which will allow others to view or copy the contents of any files in the folder. Full access will allow them to read and write any files. Click Read-Only or Full and specify the password that will be required to access the folder. If you want some users to have read-only access and others full access, Click Depends on Password and specify two different passwords.

For a printer, full access will allow others to delete jobs from the print queue. You may want to grant full access to printers only to the system or network administrator.

If you leave the password field blank, no password will be required.

The icon for any folder that is shared will change from the standard folder icon to one of a hand holding a folder.

WARNING

If you are using TCP/IP on both your local area network and the Internet, you need to be careful with File and Printer Sharing. You should either make sure that all your shares are password-protected or make sure that the binding for file and printer sharing is disabled. Otherwise, your shared folders will be accessible to anyone out there on the Net.

You can check whether your shares are password-protected using Net Watcher (netwatch.exe). Use View --> By Shared Folder, then use Administer --> Shared Folder Properties for each share.

See Also

ftp, net, and telnet in Chapter 5

Office Shortcut Bar

If you install Microsoft Office on your machine, it will place a toolbar consisting of a series of icons at the top of your screen. This toolbar can be set to occupy the full screen width (Figure 3-10), working much the same way as the Taskbar (and like it, auto-hideable and draggable to any edge of the Desktop), or occupying only the amount of space needed to show the icons it contains (Figure 3-11).

Figure 3-10. A full screen-width Office Shortcut Bar

Figure 3-11. A standard-size Office Shortcut Bar with small icons

The Office Shortcut Bar is not, strictly speaking, part of Windows 95, but it is worth documenting, since it is available on so many systems, and can be used for quick access to any application, not just Microsoft Office.

In addition to the installed Microsoft Office components, this toolbar can display icons for other frequently accessed programs. You can also request additional toolbars (with icons for switching between them) for the Desktop, IE's Favorites, MSN, and the Start menu Programs and Accessories.

To select which toolbars will be displayed, right click on the Office Shortcut Bar. The context menu will list available toolbars.

To customize the Office Shortcut Bar:

system menu --> Customize

context menu --> Customize

The following tabs appear under Customize --> View:

Color

Applies only to the full size toolbar.

Always on Top

A handy setting, although if you also set Auto Fit, it can get in the way of the minimize and close buttons on a maximized window. (If not set to Auto Fit, a maximized window will place its titlebar below the Office Shortcut Bar.)

Auto Hide between uses

As with the Taskbar, makes the Shortcut Bar invisible until you move the pointer to the edge of the screen that hides it, at which point it slides into view.

Auto Fit into Titlebar area

Makes a small toolbar that fits into the upper-right corner of the Desktop (in the titlebar area of a maximized window). If you choose this option, you can neither auto-hide nor drag the toolbar to another location.

Show Tooltips

Tooltips are little information balloons that pop up when you move the pointer over an object: always a handy feature, but especially important if you choose Auto Fit, since the small icons can be hard to distinguish for some tools. (Alternatively, you could choose Large Buttons, but that means losing a lot more screen real estate.)

Our preferred options are Show Tooltips, Always on Top, and Auto Fit.

Customize --> Buttons

You can add other icons besides MS Office to the Shortcut Bar--anything you use often. A standard checkoff list of icons appears. Check any that you want shown, and uncheck any that you want to remove. Select an entry and use the Move buttons to move it up or down in the list. (Icons will be shown in the order in which they appear in this list.) Even better, the Add File and Add Folder buttons let you add any file or folder on the system to the list.

Customize --> Toolbars

Lets you choose additional toolbars to display. This list is also available on the context menu, although you get more control via the Customize dialog. You can also create additional custom toolbars containing whatever you like using Add Toolbar. If multiple toolbars are selected, you can customize each of their buttons separately on Customize --> Buttons.

Customize --> Settings

Specifies the location of MS Office templates.

Printers

The Printers folder contains an Add Printer icon plus icons for any installed printers. Drag items to the printer icons to print them, or click on the printer icon to see or change the status of current print jobs.

Start --> Settings --> Printers

Control Panel --> Printers

My Computer --> Printers

Like Fonts (see Chapter 4), Printers is a "virtual folder" rather than a normal Control Panel entry. The folder should include an icon for each printer that is installed on your system.

Add Printer is a wizard that helps you select the appropriate printer driver for a local or network printer. See "Printers" in Chapter 4 for details.

The context menu for any printer allows you to select that printer as the default printer and specify whether print spooling ("offline printing") should be enabled for it. Note that if offline printing is selected, you can print to a network printer even when you aren't connected, or to a local printer when it is turned off; when the printer becomes available, you will be asked whether to print any files in the queue. See "Printers" in Chapter 4 for a description of printer properties.

File --> Print is the standard way to print for most applications. Context menu --> Print allows you to send a file to the printer without opening it first. You can also create a shortcut to a printer on the Desktop and then drag and drop a file on the printer icon.

WARNING

If you drag more than one file to a printer icon, the system will open a separate copy of the application for each file. This may be okay for text files and a small application like Notepad, but drag a group of Word or Excel files to the printer and you'll bring the system to its knees.

Double-click on any printer icon for a view of the printer's job queue. You'll see the document name, status (printing, paused, and so on), the owner of the job, progress (in number of pages printed), and when the job was started. You can drag your own jobs up and down to change their priority. Use the Printer menu to pause the printer or purge all print jobs. Use the Document menu to pause or cancel printing for any selected document(s). For a network printer, you can only pause, change the priority of, or delete your own jobs.

Properties

Right-click on many objects, then select Properties from the context menu for information about the object and configuration controls.

many objects --> context menu --> Properties

Alt-double-click

Alt-Enter if the item is already selected

Description

Almost every context menu includes a Properties entry. These vary greatly depending on what kind of item has been selected. For example, some of the Control Panel functions such as Display and Date/Time are also available via Properties.

This section describes the features of file and folder properties. Other types of property sheets are described as appropriate elsewhere in the book.

At minimum, a property sheet for a file, folder, or shortcut will have a General tab (see Figure 3-12).

Figure 3-12. A property sheet for a folder

Most of the information on the first page is fairly self-explanatory. A few things need a bit of explanation:

MS-DOS name

The eight-character "short filename" plus three-character extension. If the file has only a short name, this will be the same name that shows up in the Explorer. But if the file has a long name, you will see only the first six characters of the long name, followed by a tilde (~), a digit, and the extension.

Attributes

Check Read-only to prevent a file from being modified by yourself or others. (Obviously, someone else could pop up the property sheet and change the attribute, but it prevents inadvertent modification.)

Check Archive if you want the file to be backed up when a backup program is next run. This attribute is automatically set whenever you modify a file, and is cleared by the same backup programs when the file is copied. By default, hidden files do not show up in the Explorer or via the DOS dir command. See attrib in Chapter 5 for more information about file attributes.

Notes

Recycle Bin

\Recycled

Move files to temporary storage, pending true deletion.

Recycle Bin

File --> Delete

Del key

Description

Drag any item from the Desktop to the Recycle Bin icon to delete it. File --> Delete on the menubar of a folder also moves items to the Recycle Bin, as does selecting the item and then pressing the Delete key. By default, files are not deleted immediately, but are stored until the Recycle Bin runs out of space, at which point they are deleted, oldest first, to make space. Until that time, they can be retrieved by clicking on the Recycle Bin icon, browsing through the contents of the Recycle Bin window, and dragging or sending the file elsewhere.

WARNING

Files dragged to the Recycle Bin (or otherwise deleted) from floppies, network drives, or other external drives such as Zip drives will not be stored in the Recycle Bin. They are simply deleted.

Properties

To delete a file without sending it to the Recycle Bin, use Shift+Delete or the del command on the command line.

Another way to send files to the Recycle Bin without confirmation is to add a Recycle Bin shortcut to the Send To folder. Then you can send something out for recycling by clicking Send To --> Recycle Bin.

Notes

Run

Start programs by typing in a command line.

Start --> Run

The Start menu lists many common Windows 95 applications and accessories plus any third-party applications you've installed, but it is far from complete, and navigating to the program you want is often fairly tedious.

Ironically, the increasing complexity of the system pushes even the most graphically oriented user back in the direction of the command line. Just about the quickest way to run any program that isn't already on your Desktop is to choose Run... from the Start menu and type the name of the program, or keep a DOS command-line window open.

The Run... prompt has the advantage of being one of the first items on the Start menu. In addition, it keeps a command history, so you can click on the little down arrow to the right of the text entry area (or use the up and down arrow keys) and re-execute previous commands. Finally (and this is a big advantage), you can type the name of a file, folder, URL, or UNC path at the Run prompt and it will be automatically opened by the appropriate application (if one is registered). Doing this at the DOS prompt will get you the message "Bad command or file name." (However, see start in Chapter 5 for an easy way to run filenames, URLs, and so on from the DOS prompt or a batch file.)

Some Useful Run Prompt Tricks

Type in a URL (a line starting with any prefix acceptable in your web browser, including http://, ftp://, or even file:// to point to a file on your local disk) and you'll open your default web browser (probably Internet Explorer or Netscape) to the specified web location. If your browser is already running, it will load the specified page in the existing browser window. You can even leave off the http:// prefix, as long as the web address you're looking for begins with www. or ftp.

Type in a UNC pathname to open a shared folder on another computer.

Drag a file icon onto the Run Prompt dialog. Its complete path will be displayed on the Run command line. This is great for building a command line, but is also useful even if all you want to do is find out a file's extension.

With the focus on the Desktop, type a period at the Run prompt to pop up a folder window showing the contents of the Desktop. This can be handy if you have a cluttered Desktop and don't want to minimize all windows in order to see what's underneath. Of course, if you're smart, you'll close the window when you're done or you'll just add to the clutter! (If the focus is not on the Desktop or the Taskbar, this command will open another copy of whatever folder has the focus.)

A DOS window has an advantage in that it can always be left open and that it provides familiar commands (internal to command.com) such as dir, del, copy, and so on. To open a DOS window:

Start --> Programs --> MS-DOS Prompt

or:

Start --> Run --> command

A more important difference, though, is the context in which commands issued from either of these prompts run. A command interpreter, or shell, always has a particular context, or environment, in which it runs. This "environment" can create significant differences in the results when you type a command name.

A significant example of this is the search path, the sequence of directories that will be searched to find an executable file with a name matching the command you type. In DOS, the search path is stored in a variable called PATH, which is typically set in the file C:\autoexec.bat, a startup file that is automatically executed (if present) when the system is booted. (See path and set in Chapter 5 for more information on the content on the search path; see Chapter 9 for more information on autoexec.bat.) A typical PATH setting might look like this:

set PATH=C:\;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND

which says to look in the three directories C:\, C:\Windows, and C:\Windows\Command. If there is a file with the same name in any of these directories, the one that is found first (i.e., in the directory that occurs earlier in the search path) will be executed first.

The search path followed by the Run prompt is:

\Windows\Desktop

  1. \Windows\System
  2. \Windows
  3. The contents of the variable PATH, if found. (It's a good idea to put \Windows\Command in your path.)

When you install applications, they sometimes (but not always) update the search path setting in autoexec.bat or the Registry settings that control the Run prompt path. Many more recent applications (including those in Office 97) don't rely on the directory search path at all, but instead store the individual application's path in the Registry, under the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths. So, for example, if you've installed Microsoft Office and you type winword at the Run prompt, Word will quite predictably execute. But type it at the DOS prompt, and you'll get the message "Bad command or file name." If you want to be able to run Word from the DOS prompt, you need to add the directory C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\winword to your search path, or type the complete pathname of the command. Neither of these options may be acceptable, especially if you use a lot of applications with this behavior. Fortunately, the start program (see Chapter 5) is aware of the App Paths Registry key. So the surest way to run winword or any similar application from the DOS prompt is simply to type start winword. You can also give start the name of any file and it will open the file using the associated application.

A further consequence of the environment concept is that commands typed into a DOS window or the Run prompt sometimes have a scope that is local only to that window. For example, the DOS break command, which controls the frequency with which the system checks for Ctrl-C interrupting a program, sets that condition for only the window from which it was issued. It therefore doesn't make any sense to type that command at the Run prompt. If you do, it creates what you can think of as a tiny bubble of execution context in which it holds true, and then exits without a trace.

In addition, there are a number of commands that you can issue at the DOS prompt that are "built in" to the DOS command interpreter, command.com. These built-in commands are labeled as such in Chapter 5. They cannot be issued from the Run prompt.

For the most part, though, you can use the two command lines interchangeably. If you type the name of a Windows GUI application, it will launch in its own window. If you type the name of a text-based program (for example, ping) it will display its output in the current DOS window, or, if issued from the Run prompt, will launch its own DOS window, which will last only as long as the command itself is executing.

See Also

For more information on the DOS command interpreter, see command in Chapter 5.

Send To

Send a selected item to a program, disk drive, or folder.

context menu --> Send To

Right-click on any file or folder and select Send To to copy quickly to My Briefcase, a floppy disk in the A: drive, an Internet mail client, or any other application or folder that shows up in Send To menu. The result is the same as if the file was dragged into that program: if it's sent to an Explorer component (such as My Briefcase or drive A:), it might be moved or copied--otherwise, it's opened.

Notes

If you place a shortcut to the Send To folder itself in \Windows\SendTo, you can create new Send To destinations simply by sending them to the Send To folder!

WARNING

Send To works a bit differently depending on the destination. Sending to a folder (including the Recycle Bin) actually moves the file there; sending to a program simply opens the file. You can use Send To on shortcuts with impunity, but when you use it on an original file, remember that you may actually be moving the file.

Shortcuts

A link to a program, file, or part of a document.

any file or folder --> context menu --> Create Shortcut

Desktop --> context menu --> New --> Shortcut

You'll notice that some of the items on the Desktop may be labeled "Shortcut to...". A shortcut is also sometimes called a link. It is a small file (with the extension .lnk) that points to another file, and, if it is a shortcut to a program, contains instructions for executing it. The icon for a shortcut has a small arrow in its lower-left corner, by default.

When you create a new shortcut, it will always have the filename "Shortcut to..." plus whatever the original filename was. You can "train" Windows 95 to change this default behavior by creating and renaming three shortcuts in a row. Do this by right-dragging a file from an Explorer two-pane window onto the Desktop and immediately renaming it to remove the "Shortcut to..." prefix; repeat twice for a total of three times. This trick works only for shortcuts dragged from an Explorer window, not those created in a normal folder view. If you have TweakUI (see powertoy in Chapter 5), you can toggle this behavior with Control Panel --> TweakUI --> Explorer.

Shortcuts to Programs

While you can start a program by double-clicking on its icon on the Desktop, very few programs have icons on the Desktop, unless you yourself put them there.

If you find that there's a program you use often, and you want it on the Desktop, use the Explorer to navigate to the directory where the program's executable is stored. (The location is given along with the description of each program in the alphabetical program listings in Chapter 5.) You could move the original program icon to the Desktop, but that's often not wise, since the program may have various supporting files that belong with it in the directory in which it was originally installed. Instead, create a shortcut. When you drag an .exe file, it automatically makes a shortcut, unless you have other types of files selected as well when you drag.

The best way to create a program shortcut is to right-drag an item and select "Create Shortcut(s) Here."

You can also put shortcuts in the Start menu folder, the Send To folder, or many other locations. Many system menus such as these are built dynamically from shortcuts stored in a particular folder, so to add a new menu item, all you need to do is put a shortcut in the right place.

You can also create shortcuts to DOS programs. This is a handy alternative to typing at the command line, and lets you put the DOS programs on the Desktop, the Start menu, and the Office Shortcut Bar. See "Shortcut Properties of DOS Programs" later in this section for more information.

Shortcut Properties

To get more information about a shortcut, go to its property sheet. Figure 3-13 shows an example of the second page of a shortcut's properties.

Figure 3-13. Shortcut properties

Target

If the shortcut is to a command with a command-line equivalent (including, but by no means limited to, DOS programs), you can specify any command-line options or arguments here. For example, if I want a shortcut to telnet to a Unix system, foo.oreilly.com, I would change the target from C:\Windows\telnet.exe to C:\Windows\telnet.exe foo.oreilly.com. Note that if you type the name of a shortcut at the Run or command prompt, any parameters or options supplied there will override options set on the Target line.

Start in

If the shortcut is to a program, this option specifies the folder in which the program will run, and where, by default, it will look for files to open or save.

Shortcut key

You can map a key sequence to open or execute the shortcut. Press any key on the keyboard and you will see CTRL+ALT+key appear as the shortcut key sequence. Type that sequence to launch the shortcut without clicking on it. You should check Appendix A, Keyboard Accelerators, to make sure that you aren't creating conflicts with any existing keyboard accelerator.

WARNING

If you delete a shortcut with a keyboard accelerator configured, Windows won't release it. It will warn you when you try to create another accelerator that duplicates a previous one, whether or not it's been deleted. If you've defined a keyboard accelerator, clear it before deleting the shortcut.

Run

A drop-down list allows you to specify whether the target application should run in its normal window, maximized, or minimized.

Find Target

Click this button to open the folder containing the original file to which this shortcut is a link. The original file will be selected in the folder window.

Change Icon

You can select from hundreds of available icons. See "Icons" earlier in this chapter for details.

Shortcut Properties of DOS Programs

Since DOS programs weren't originally designed to function in a Windows environment, they've been retrofitted using a construct called Program Information Files (.pif files). Notice that the MS-DOS name on the General tab for any shortcut to a DOS program ends with the .pif extension. (Actually, these .pif files apply not so much to DOS programs as to character-mode programs. Besides DOS programs, Windows 95 also supports character-mode 32-bit Windows programs, called "console" applications, such as xcopy32.exe, start.exe, and rundll32.exe.)

The .pif file contains the information required for the character-mode program to function in the Windows environment. The property sheet is the interface for editing the .pif file.

A .pif file's properties have the following five tabs in addition to the General tab: Program, Font, Memory, Screen, and Misc.

Program

This tab is similar to the Shortcut tab of a normal shortcut (as shown in Figure 3-14). It lists the command line associated with the shortcut, with information such as the working directory, a keyboard accelerator, if one exists (the Shortcut key), and whether the program should run in a normal window, iconified, or maximized. There's a "close on exit" checkbox; removing the check is useful for programs whose output you need to see after the program has exited (mem.exe, for example).

The Advanced button lets you specify how the program will interact with Windows. Some older programs (especially games and other programs that are accustomed to having full control over the hardware) have difficulty cooperating with Windows. There are two workarounds: prevent Windows from answering "yes" to any "is Windows running?" calls the program might make (this is similar to faking the DOS version number with setver.exe; see Chapter 9, Windows Startup), and closing Windows before running the program (MS-DOS mode). The default is "Suggest MS-DOS mode as necessary." If this box is checked, when you click on the shortcut, Windows does its best to determine whether the program needs MS-DOS mode and puts up a dialog asking if you want to enter MS-DOS mode. See Figure 3-14.

Figure 3-14. Advanced program settings

If you check MS-DOS mode, clicking on the shortcut will close all Windows programs and shut down Windows before running, and will restart Windows when it is done. You can then choose from two radio buttons: "Use current MS-DOS configuration" and "Specify a new MS-DOS configuration." If you choose the former, MS-DOS mode will use your existing config.sys and autoexec.bat files (if present). If you choose the latter, MS-DOS mode will construct temporary versions of those files containing the commands listed on the dialog box shown in Figure 3-15. Type in additional commands or click Configuration for a wizard that will help you build additional entries for these files.

Figure 3-15. The Font tab

Font

Lets you choose the display font size for the DOS window (see Figure 3-15). Fonts are identified by a width and height in pixels (e.g., 7 ¥ 12).

Memory

Lets you specify any specific memory or extended memory settings required by the program. In particular, you can set the size of the DOS environment.

Screen

This tab has several useful options. You can specify whether the program will run full size or in a window, and the initial size of the window in lines.

If you choose "Display toolbar," the DOS window will include a useful toolbar that gives you access to the Clipboard, the properties, the font, and a button to switch into full-screen mode. (To return from full-screen mode to window mode, press Alt-Enter.)

"Restore settings on startup" means that if you change the font or size, they will be remembered the next time you start up this program.

Figure 3-16. The Misc tab

Misc

The Misc tab is shown in Figure 3-16.

Allow screen saver

Unless this box is checked, an open DOS program window will not give up control of the screen to a screen saver, effectively disabling the screen saver. However, if it is checked, performance may suffer, so you may not want to choose this setting while running games or other performance-intensive programs.

Always suspend

Keeps the program from using any system resources when it is invisible. Select this for programs that don't do anything useful when running in the "background." (Communications programs should never leave "Always suspend" checked, or they will likely hang up if you switch to another window.) The Idle sensitivity slider controls how long the program will need to go without any keyboard input before it is considered inactive, and has its CPU utilization reduced.

QuickEdit

Enable the mouse for selections and cut and paste in the DOS window if this is checked. Otherwise, you must click the Mark button on the toolbar before you can make selections. Note that QuickEdit will not work with all programs (which is why the Mark button is provided on the toolbar).

Exclusive mode

Reserve the mouse for use by this program. It can't be used outside this program's window. Set this only if the program absolutely requires it.

Warn if still active

Many DOS programs don't have the nice Windows feature of asking you to save your files if you haven't done so when you exit. Checking this box tells Windows to warn you if you try to close this program's window while it is still running.

Windows shortcut keys

If the program uses some of the keyboard accelerators that are normally used by Windows, you can disable them here. Clear the checkbox for a key sequence if you want Windows to ignore it when the program is in use.

Shut Down

Shut down the system.

Start --> Shut Down

Ctrl-Alt-Del --> Shut Down

A Windows 95 machine should never be simply turned off, because the system caches data in memory and needs time to write it out to disk before it is turned off. Use Shut Down before you turn off the power.

Notes

See Chapter 9 for a more detailed description of system startup and shutdown.

Start Menu

A quick way to get to many of the most common system functions.

Desktop --> Start

Ctrl-Esc

Press the Windows logo key on Win95 keyboards

The Start menu is one of Windows 95's answers to the growing size and complexity of the operating system. There's just not enough room on the Desktop for every program or file that a user wants to keep handy.

The Start menu includes a few important system commands, followed by cascading menus labeled Settings, Documents, and Programs (see Figure 3-17).

Figure 3-17. The Start menu

One of the fastest ways to use the Start menu is to press Ctrl-Esc, then use underlined letters or arrow keys to pick items from the menu. For example, Ctrl-Esc R will pop up the Run prompt.

Notes

Start Menu Customization Tips

  • If you customize your Start menu frequently, create a shortcut called Customize, and put it in the Start menu folder. Specify the following command line as the target for the shortcut:

    C:\WINDOWS\EXPLORER.EXE /e, /n, /root,c:\windows\start menu

    Now clicking on your Customize button will open an Explorer view of the Start menu folder, and you can add, delete, rename, and reorganize shortcuts there to your heart's delight.

  • If you like keyboard accelerators, you might consider adding some numbered items to the top of your Start menu. Pick your nine favorite programs, and create shortcuts whose names begin with a number. For example 1 Solitaire, 2 Hover... :) Then you only have to type Ctrl-Esc 1 to start the first program, Ctrl-Esc 2 for the second , and so on.

See Also

Chapter 5 for a discussion of Start --> Settings

Other entries in this chapter for a discussion of other menu items

Startup Folder

\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

If you want a program to start up automatically when you reboot the system, put a shortcut to it into the directory C:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Start Up. If you want it to start up minimized (in which case it will simply appear in the Taskbar), set the shortcut's Properties --> Program --> Run to Minimized.

Notes

System Tray

A part of the Taskbar is used for displaying various system status indicators, including the system clock. If no status indicators have been selected, the System Tray will not be displayed. The clock is displayed by default on most systems. Some of these icons are "active"--but they are extremely inconsistent in this behavior: some respond to a right-click, some to a left-click, some to a double-click, and some don't respond at all.

Table 3-1 summarizes the indicators that can be put into the System Tray with the location of the checkbox that controls whether the item is to be displayed.

 

Table 3-1: System Tray Indicators 
Item

Control Location
Audio volume Control Panel --> Multimedia --> Audio --> Show volume control
Clock Taskbar --> Properties --> Taskbar Options --> Show Clock
Desktop color palette, resolution and font size Control Panel --> Display --> Settings --> Show settings
Dial-Up connection Dial-Up Networking --> Connections menu --> Settings --> Show an icon on Taskbar after connected
FilterKeys Control Panel --> Accessibility Options --> Keyboard --> Filter Keys --> Settings
Language Control Panel --> Keyboard --> Language
MouseKeys Control Panel --> Accessibility Options --> Mouse
Power status Control Panel --> Power --> Show Battery Meter
PCMCIA card Control Panel --> PC Card --> Socket Status --> Show Control
StickyKeys Control Panel --> Accessibility Options --> Keyboard --> StickyKeys --> Settings

Notes

Taskbar

The Taskbar contains buttons for each open window on the Desktop (see Figure 3-18). The button corresponding to the window that has the focus appears depressed. To bring a window to the front, click on its Taskbar button. When a window is minimized, its icon appears on the Taskbar rather than on the Desktop itself (as in Windows 3.1).

Figure 3-18. The Taskbar

Notes

Properties

Back to: Windows 95 in a Nutshell

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