Speeding up windows 95 13736

SPEEDING UP WINDOWS 95

Windows 95 with certain minor alterations and software upgrades can operate at a

faster more efficient speed. With this Windows 95 tutorial, all the things you

do now will be easier and faster, and what you always wanted to know is now here

for you to learn. This tutorial will provide you with insightful instructional

and informative tips about free programs such as TweakUI, and day to day

maintenance OS needs. First, it is very important that you run Windows 95 with

at least a high-end 486 (Pentium recommended), 8 megs of ram(adding more ram

will increase overall performance), and at least 1 meg of video memory. Most of

the following tips included here are for speedy application processes while

others simply rewrites or bug fixes. One advantage Windows 95 has over its

competitors is the user interface feature that comes built in with the operating

system. User interface is a program within Windows 95 that allows customization

of certain interface settings based on personal preference. About a year ago

Microsoft released a small program called TweakUI that actually adds more

flexibility and functionality to the already current user-friendly interface.

TweakUI is actually a rewrite (bug fix) program that edits certain data files

from the Windows 95 registry. With TweakUI running on your machine you can

disable the following options which in turn will speed up your access time:

windows animation, reboot start up, GUI interface, and last log on settings.

TweakUI also adds a few nifty extras such as: smooth scroll, mouse enhancement,

instant CD-ROM data load, and much more. Surprisingly enough TweakUI is offered

free of charge to any WWW user and can be found at: http://www. microsoft. com or

http://www. tucows. com. TweakUI is a definite must for any Windows 95 user

looking to benefit the most from their home computer. No can argue that Windows

95 is the cleanest and most efficiently set up OS around. In fact, Windows 95 is

by far the messiest OS to ever hit the market this decade. When compared to

operating systems such as MacOS, OS2Warp, and Windows NT, Windows 95 finishes in

dead last. This is due mainly to the fact that when installing or uninstalling a

program in the Windows 95 environment, the program manager scatters files all

over different parts of the file system (fixed disk directory). These scattered

bits of files are often called leftovers (which is to be taken by definition of)

which if left on your drive, cause extreme slow downs when you CPU is at work.

Usually leftovers can be found in your c:/windows, c:/windows/system, or

c:/windows/temp. The suffixed name for leftovers is as follows txt, old, log,

***,…, and tmp. Deletion of file leftovers make for faster access time and

more hard disk space available. We’ve already seen several simple but effective

ways to increase performance in the Windows 95 environment, but of all the most

important is, disk defragmentation. Disk fragmentation is the breaking up of

different access files all relative to certain programs installed on your fixed

disk drive. Think of your fixed disk drive as a big completed jigsaw puzzle,

which of moved, will break apart into several sub-puzzles. The same holds true

for your fixed disk. When a program is installed it takes up the amount of disk

space it needs to function correctly (usually the last available part of your

drive). On the contrary, when a program is uninstalled it creates a space or

hole on your fixed disk relative to where the program was before. Taking the

same concept and applying it in terms of the jigsaw puzzle, we can clearly see

what our fixed drive would physically look like. This is where disk

defragmentation comes into play. It moves the rest of the currently installed

programs on your drive from their current position to the position where the

space is. Speed comes into play due to the fact that if you drive has never been

defragmented, your CPU probably has to search in different areas of your

physical drive for certain start up files. Disk Defragmentation comes with every

version of Windows 95 and can usually be found by clicking the taskbar and

highlighting the following: programs/accessories/system tools/disk defragmenter.

Overall defragmentation increases performance by about 30 percent and make for a

neater set up system. As discussed earlier, the addition of extra ram, faster

processor, and a good video card make up a great conventional way of boosting

the level of your performance, unfortunately the expense is never a pretty to

hear. If you currently have the minimum required setup (high-end 486, 8 megs of

ram, 1 meg of video memory), you should see some good effective results from

this tutorial. However, if your system falls short of the minimum requirements,

I would definitely recommend a hardware upgrade or the purchase of a newer more

up to date machine.