Windows 98/Millennium Edition Post Setup Tips Oct. 10, 2000 (C) 2000 by CptSiskoX@hotmail.com This file is NOT in the public domain. For latest version visit: http://members.fortunecity.com/computingx/ Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for anything that happens as a result of using any of this information which is provided as-is and has no warranties implied or otherwise. These tips are also available for download from AXCEL216's website: http://members.aol.com/axcel216/95.htm Enjoy. ComputingX Discussion Forums: http://www.delphi.com/computingx/ Xteq Systems - the BEST Freeware, home of Xteq X-Setup, the ultimate Windows tweaking and admin utility: http://www.xteq.com/ Xteq X-Setup Support Forum: http://forums.delphiforums.com/xsetup/ Search for drivers here: http://members.fortunecity.com/computingx/drivers.html If you need a tip not covered in this file, please try AXCEL216's top-notch site: http://members.aol.com/axcel216/ After installing Windows 98 or Windows 98 Second Edition, there are several small adjustments, refinements, and tweaks that can be used to improve response time, system performance, etc. This document attempts to address many of these items. Many will also work for Windows 95/ME computers, but the general focus is on Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition (SE). Most of these tips do work on Windows Millennium Edition (ME). Tweak Recycle Bin Right-click on the Recycle Bin on the Windows 98 desktop. Left-click Properties and place the dot in Configure Drives Independently. Click (C:) and adjust the slider as desired. I recommend doing this for all your hard drives and removable disks. When finished, click Apply and then OK. This will give you more disk space as needed and desired. I use 3% which is 61.4 megabytes on a 3.2 gigabyte hard drive, but your settings may vary, depending on your needs and preferences. Enable DMA Mode for Hard Disks and CD-ROM Drives If you have a hard drive or CD-ROM drive that supports DMA Mode, you can increase the speed of your hard disks by allowing them direct memory access. If you are not sure if your drive(s) support this configuration check with your drive maker or system vendor. Do not use it unless you are certain it will work on your system. To enable it, right-click on My Computer on your desktop and left-click Properties. Click Device Manager and click CD-ROM or Disk Drives [depending on which you wish to enable or disable DMA on]. Select your drive and click Properties, Settings, DMA. Warning: This may not work on some systems and/or with some drives. Adjust Typical Role Settings To speed up caching of disk drives and improve performance, right-click on My Computer, left-click Properties, and click the Performance tab. Click File System and change Typical Role of this Computer to Network Server. Also set Read-ahead optimization to Full. This does not require you to be on a computer network and works on standalone machines as well. Disable Floppy Search Right-click on My Computer, left-click Properties, and click the Performance tab. Click File System and on the Floppy Disk tab uncheck Search for a new for a new floppy drive each time your computer starts. This way, Windows will not search for a new floppy disk drive every time it boots up, thus speeding up the boot time and will use the previous settings. You should undo this if you install a new floppy drive or have problems with yours. Speed up CD-ROM Access Right-click on My Computer, left-click Properties, and click the Performance tab. Click File System and on the CD-ROM tab turn the Supplemental cache size to large [slider to the far right side] and set the Optimize access pattern to Quad-speed or higher. Speed up Removable Disks Right-click on My Computer, left-click Properties, and click the Performance tab. Click File System and on the Removable Disk tab, place a check in Enable write-behind caching on all removable disk drives. Disable this option if you have problems after enabling it. Get Latest Windows Updates Click Start, Windows Update. Select Product Updates from the options that come up [please note that this requires an Internet connection]. Check the items you wish to download and install and follow the on-screen instructions. Microsoft posts frequent bug fixes, updates, patches, etc at their website: http://www.windowsupdate.com/ Configure Scheduled Tasks Click Start, Run, and type "TuneUp" [no quotes]. Windows 98 will open the Maintainence Wizard which will allow you to set options and scheduling for automatic sessions of Disk Defragmenter, ScanDisk, and other maintainence tasks to keep your system in tip-top shape. Maintaining "clean" drive(s) and free more space Backup critical files to a removable disk or a WWW or FTP site. Empty recycle bin. Empty browser(s) cache. In Internet Explorer, be sure to check "Delete all offline content" as well. Delete browser(s) history. Delete .CHK, .OLD, .BAK, .GID, .TMP files. None of these are needed. Delete empty folders named TMP or TEMP. It is usually completely safe to delete the contents of your TEMP folder, such as C:\Windows\Temp (path may vary). Delete broken shortcut files with .LNK extension. Often files with .001, .002, etc extensions can be deleted safely, as they are usually backups of old versions of C:\Autoexec.bat or C:\Config.sys, etc [text files]. To be safe, view them in Notepad or any other text editor before deleting. Remove seldom or never used software from Add-Remove Programs in the Control Panel, or via the software's own uninstall software. If it does not have either option available, manually remove its file folder(s) in Windows Explorer and remove the registry entries (using Start, Run, Regedit - for advanced users only). Delete unwanted or unneeded cookies files (.TXT extension is used by MS IE). These are usually found in C:\Windows\Cookies, but your path may vary. Netscape stores its cookies in its own subfolders, in a file named Cookies.txt, which can also be safely deleted. Erase older e-mail, or back it up to another location. Too much e-mail in your inbox or other e-mail folders can bog down your system and cause a big performance hit. I suggest no more than 20 e-mail messages in your e-mail software at a time, as a general rule. Delete unwanted or unused ActiveX Controls from your C:\Windows\Downloaded Program Files folder (your path may vary). Do the same for browser plug-ins which you don't need or want on your computer. When installing new software, if there is an option for Custom settings, it is often best to choose it. This way, you can install only those features you want, and avoid those you don't. This means the program will take up less disk space. For larger files which are used often and not acceptable to simply delete, consider zipping them with an archiving application such as Power Archiver [http://www.powerarchiver.com/] or another similar utility. Zipping can reduce file size greatly and allows you to place more data in an area than you would normally be able to. These zip files can be backed up to WWW or FTP sites or CD-ROM discs if you have a CD-R/CD-RW drive available, or even to Zip drives or other removable media.Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.