Net 'hood - Leave
Netscape - Stop from changing File Types
Network server
Notepad - Change default save directory
Numlock - Control via config.sys
Leave the Net 'hood
If Windows 95 installs the Network Neighborhood icon on your Desktop, and you cannot seem to find a way to delete it, here are TWO ways to leave the Net 'hood!
1. You can open up the System Policy Editor (poledit.exe) and open registry-local user -Shell-Restrictions-Hide
2. The second method is described in Removing unwanted items from the Desktop. (reg section)
E.G When I installed Windows 95, something that I didn't want appeared on my Desktop, the Exchange Inbox and The Microsoft Network icon!
Following the same instructions as outlined in Removing unwanted items from the Desktop, you can remove these items from the Desktop that have no DELETE choice on either of the context menus that appear on the Desktop.
Stop Netscape From Changing File Types
When you install Netscape Navigator, versions 2.0 and 3.0 (32-bit), it changes your file types so that double-clicking on HTML files starts Netscape by default.
If you change your file types to use another browser, text editor, or otherwise, Netscape will re-assign itself to your HTML file types every time it is restarted.
Among these irritations, if you sort a directory listing by file type, you will have to look under N for HTML files, since Netscape insists on calling them Netscape Hypertext Documents.
Solution #1 (create a new file type):
Download NS_FIX.ZIP (1 kb), which contains one patch for the Registry.
Double-click on NS_FIX.REG to apply the patch.
Next, double-click on My Computer, select Options from the View menu, and click on the File Types tab.
Select Hypertext Markup File from the list, and click Properties.
Click Change Icon to choose the desired icon for this file.
Double-click on Open in the Actionslist to specify your favourite WWW browser.
Lastly, double-click on Edit in the Actions list to specify your favourite text editor.
Solution #2 (adjust the existing file type):
Select Options from Explorer's View menu, and click the File Types tab.
Highlight the entry that reads Netscape Hypertext Document, and click Properties.
Click New..., type View in the Action field, and specify your favourite browser in the Application field. Press OK when finished.
Highlight the entry you've just added (View), and click Set Default.
The default is the action carried out when you double-click on a file of that type; all other actions are available by right-clicking. Netscape will associate itself with the Open action, but won't make it the default, meaning that you can specify the desired application with the new View action.
Close this box when you're done.
Note: Although some users have reported seeing "do you want Netscape to change your file types" during installation, it doesn't seem to show up for everyone, and there seems to be no easy way to disable it afterwards.
Network server
A performance tip for standalone Win95 Desktop Machines:
Open My Computer/Performance/File System, and set your Machine to "Network Server".
This allocates about 40KB of RAM to cache the last accessed 64 directory paths and the last 2729 accessed files.
The "Desktop" setting caches the last 32 folders accessed and the last 677 accessed files, and takes around 16KB of memory.
The extra RAM is well worth the file system boost.
BUT before this could help, you need to do a Registry hack, to make this really happen (on some systems anyway).
Microsoft says that these settings get written incorrectly to the Registry for the "Network Server" and "Mobile Docking" profiles on some systems.
The settings that need to be changed are found in the Registry under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates
To edit the Registry, run Regedit, and go to the key above.
Click on Server, and in the right-hand pane you'll see two entries called NameCache and PathCache. Here are the values that you need to enter/modify for each one of them:
1. For NameCache modify the numeric values to read:
a9 0a 00 00
2. For PathCache modify the numeric values to read:
40 00 00 00
These values are written to the wrong entries by default and you have to manually fix them to get a boost in performance when setting your machine to "Network Server".
Because these values are written in wrong many people see no difference in performance when changing to "Network Server". But
this Registry hack fixes it, and when you're done making these changes, go set your system to "Network Server" and see if you notice any improvement
(you'll need to restart Win95 first for the changes to take effect).
Change Notepads default save directory
When you save a file in Notepad it will save it in the Windows directory.
A simple way of changing this to a folder of your choice is to create a shortcut to "Notepad.exe" and place the shortcut on your desktop (or wherever you want it).
Then right click on the shortcut and select properties, In the "Start in" box type the path to the folder that you want to save Notepad files to by default.
ie. C:\My Documents
Control Numlock via config.sys
Normally you can control if your Numlock key is on or off when the computer boots by editing your BIOS setting. You can control it also via config.sys (without editing your BIOS settings). Add to your config.sys the following line: NumLock=xx Replace xx with one of the next two options: On: Numlock on after processing this line. Off: Numlock off after processing this line.