HP Recovering the system from the Windows XP desktop

1. Disconnect all peripherals from the PC, except the keyboard and mouse.
2. From the Windows XP desktop, click Start, All Programs, and then HP Tools.
3. Select HP PC System Recovery. The "Recovery" screen will appear with the question "Do you really want to start HP PC System Recovery?"
4. Click Yes, to continue the recovery process.
5. When the "Recovery" screen appears, click Next, and then click Yes to perform a normal, non-destructive recovery.
6. To perform a destructive recovery, click Advanced, and then click Yes.

CAUTION: A destructive recovery will format the hard drive. This will delete all the information on the hard drive and reinstall Windows XP and the original software that came with the computer.

Recovering the system without using Windows

1. Disconnect all peripherals from the PC, except the keyboard and mouse.
2. Turn on the computer.
3. When the initial blue HP screen appears, press the F10 key repeatedly until a recovery menu appears. The progress indicator that first appears does not indicate that a recovery is taking place. The progress indicator represents the time before the recovery process is started.
4. When the "Recovery" screen appears, click Next, and then click Yes to perform a normal, non-destructive recovery.
5. To perform a destructive recovery, click Advanced, and then click Yes.

CAUTION: A destructive recovery will format the hard drive. This will delete all the information on the hard drive and reinstall Windows XP and the original software that came with the computer.

 

Problems running ScanDisk and Defrag

Many people have problems running ScanDisk and/or Defrag, with the program running 10% or 30% and then stalling. Often with a message that Windows is trying to write to the drive. To run ScanDisk/Defrag successfully:

 

1. Go to Start > Run and type msconfig in the Open: box
2. On the General tab, uncheck all items listed under Selective startup (make sure that Selective startup is selected)
3. Hit apply and OK and restart Windows
4. This starts Windows with only the basics running; Insures nothing will interfere with ScanDisk and Defrag
5. Run ScanDisk and Defrag, when ready go into msconfig and select Normal startup and restart Windows

(If you use Windows 95, restart your system, when you see the Starting Windows 95... text on your screen, quickly press the F8 key. From the menu that follows, choose Safe mode, and run ScanDisk & Defrag. When ready, reboot.)

 

 

 

DOS Delete Tree Command

If you are the type of user who wants the fastest and
dirtiest method to do things, then this command is for you.
In the DOS command line, use the word DELTREE to delete all
members in the current directory and all of its
subdirectories. They'll be deleted quickly, and without
hesitation or animations. This is a powerful command, so
use it sparingly: You can do a lot of damage very quickly.


 

 

 

New PNP Devices

 

Windows has several ways to detect new hardware. One of

them, the 'Add New Hardware' wizard, leaves much to be

desired and takes forever besides. As an alternative, go to

the Control Panel and select 'System.' Now, select 'Device

Manager' and press the 'Refresh' button. This will take a

few seconds, but should come up with a nice list of newly

installed items. If one is found, Windows will search for

new drivers.

 

 

Faster Dialing

 

Double-click the Modem icon in the Control Panel. Click the

'Properties' button. Select the 'Connection' tab. Click on

the 'Advanced' button. In the 'Extra Settings' text box,

type S11=50. That will speed up the dial tone from 100

milliseconds to 50 milliseconds.

 

 

 

 

 

Dual Boot Options

      Platform: Windows 95/98/NT

                                      User Level: Advanced

                                                                  Submitted by: Raymond Hicks

 You too can make your computer boot Window95, Windows98, windows 3.x, winodwsNT, unix, os2, etc. Get a large hard drive (or

 several) You MUST BE ABLE TO SPECIFY WHERE TO INSTALL THE OPERATING SYSTEM DURING THE INSTALLATION or

 this will not work. Programs like QuarterDeck's Select it allow you to boot multiple os's from the same computer. The trick to

 getting it to works is you must install these programs under the operating system that is NOT installed in it's default directory. For

 example, Select-It looks for Operating systems on only the first disk. If you install windows onto D:\windows, that specific version

 of windows will assign that drive as the default drive and the "first" drive. It also must store boot information on drive C:, thereby also

 making it the "first drive". Install (for example)Select-It under the OS running off of D: \windows. And follow it's instructions. Viola,

 dual boot win95/95 (Which Microsoft Press explicitly state CANNOT be done). This trick is usefull is you have several pieces of

 hardware which cannot run under the same system at the same time. So just give them their own operating system!

 

 

 

Hidden Startup

 

This little trick will (hopefully) keep the kids  off of

the computer when you are not around. Rename the WIN.COM to

HIDEME.COM and that will cause Windows to not come up

fully. At your leisure, just type in HIDEME at the command

prompt and Windows will start normally.

 

 

 

 

Memory cache

 

From the System control panel applet, click the Performance Tab, then click the CD-ROM Tab. From here, you can adjust the

 memory cache size for your CD-ROM drive.

 

Ping

 

While connected to the internet via dialup or in a networked environment, open a DOS window, and at the DOS prompt type "ping"

 and the internet address you wish to check. ie. ping www.windows95.com. Windows95 will tell you how fast the connection is to

 the address given.

 

Applications that refuse to go away

 

Have you got a list of applications in yuour add/remove applications lists that are no longer on your system but refuse to go away?yes,well the easiest way to get rid of

 these items is to manually delete them through regedit.this is how you do it.start regedit and click on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key and drill through the following

 keys SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/WINDOWS?Current version/Uninstall.Now locate the offending applications and just delete them.The offending applications should no

 longer appear in the add/remove programs list.

 

Avoiding the Startup Programs

Hold down the CTRL key while entering Windows. This will keep items in the Startup folder from launching.

 

Better Caching Performance

Goto Control Panel - System Tab - File system - change the Typical Role of the Machine to Network server, then apply changes. Instead of rebooting your PC, run

 Regedit and goto to this key, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Server\. Edit the Namecache and pathcache to these

 binary values: NameCache - a9 0a 00 00 PathCache - 40 00 00 00. These values are actually reversed before you edit the changes. Exit Regedit and reboot.

 

CD-ROM After a Win95 Break Down

 

 For non PnP CD-ROM drives. After Installing Windows95 copy in the StartUp disk the MSCDEX.EXE file and any *.sys files supplied in you CD-ROM Installation disk,

 then Copy the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files and delete REM words in this two files related to CD-ROM. This Will keep you safe from loosing you CD-ROM

 connection if your computer Breaks and be able to reinstall Windows95 form its CD-ROM.

 

Changing Win95 to Win3.x

 

In your Windows directory there is a file called system.ini, which is system file. The first line in Win95 reads as shell=explorer.exe, which tells the computer to use a

 Win95 interface. If you are a person who prefers Win3.x interface over the new one, simply change the line until it reads as follows, under you system.ini file, the first line

 should read shell=progman.exe, and the next time you start Windows you will have the familiar Win3.x interface.

 

Control the Size of Your VCache

 

Windows 95 does not use Smartdrive to cache the hard drives in your system. Instead, it uses 32bitVCache that dynamically grows and shrinks as the need arises (not

 to be confused with Swapfile, which operates in a similar manner). If you have more than 32MB of physical memory, VCache may be using more memory than it can

 efficiently manage. You can limit the maximum amount of physical memory VCache uses by adding the following lines to the System.ini file (instead of the Registry - go

 figure!):[vcache] MinFileCache=512 MaxFileCache=2048. The above values are in Kbytes. Feel free to experiment, but you must have a value greater than 0 for the

 MinFileCache value. By limiting the VCache in this manner, you will experience improved system performance.

 

Crash Avoidance, Part 2

 

Your computer is constantly creating new temporary files (.TMP) to help with productivity. To help avoid crashes, delete all the .TMP files that are not current.

 Using your find feature, search for *.TMP files, sort the files by date, and delete all the .TMP files without today's date.

 

Dead Mouse

 

If your mouse goes out, its very hard to maneuver around Windows 95. You can only get to a certain point when trying to select things without the mouse. You have

 always heard that if your mouse goes out, you can change the accessibility option from the control panel to use the arrow keys on the numeric keypad to move the

 mouse around. Well, you can only do this if you have thought about it beforehand. You need to go to control panel, click accessibility options, choose the mouse tab (this

 is where you lose control if you have no mouse, no way to choose the mouse tab without the mouse. Click on settings, then click the box that says "use shortcut". Now,

 if your mouse goes out, you can press the left ALT+Shift keys with the number lock key, and then you can use the arrow keys on the numeric keypad to move the

 mouse. (the 5 in the center of the pad is the same as a click)

 

Disabling Recent Documents

 

To disable the recent documents, create the following batch file : c:\cleanup.bat. This file should contain the following lines : C:\ CD/ CD WINDOWS CD RECENT DEL

 *.LNK Now modify the autoexec.bat and add the following line onto the end of the file : CALL C:\CLEANUP.BAT. Now every time you bootup and go into Windows the

 documents should be empty.

 

Empty the Other Trash

 

Emptying the \Windows\Temp folder of all its contents then running a Scandisk and Defrag can cure a lot of intermittent and annoying problems and also speed your

 system response up. This folder is supposed to be emptyied whenever you shut down your computer, but if you don't shut it down or there are other than ".tmp" Files or

 folders in there, then they will not be removed. This can cause boot problems, system lockups and shutdown hangups. These files also take up space that could be better

 used for other things.

 

Excess Baggage

 

Search your system for *.zip and *.avi files (and other types of video files you might have), and delete the ones you don’t need. ZIP files are typically left over from Internet

 downloads. Once an application is installed, you probably don’t need the ZIP file it was packaged in (unless it’s something you know you’ll need to reinstall). Video files

 (*.avi) also take up quite a bit of space. For example, you can regain 7 MB of precious space by deleting the *.avi files from your c:\Windows\Help folder.

 

Finding the Welcome Screen

 

If you turned off the Welcome Screen and would like to see it again or make it pop up every time you start Windows, go to the Start, Run, and type WELCOME, and click

 OK.

 

Fixing Corrupted Registries

 

If Windows95 gives you the dreaded "Your registry is corrupt" message, DO NOT PACNIC! Instead, reboot the computer. When you see "Starting Windows 95", push the

 "F8" key. Choose "Safe mode command prompt only" from the menu. You will quickly get a "C:\>" prompt. Change to your Windows directory and type "regedit /e

 savebutt.reg" It will say "exporting file". eventually it will stop with an error message. After this, type "attrib system.dat -r -s -h". Then type "ren system.dat system.old".

 Lastly you need to type "regedit /c savebutt.reg". These commands will pull only the undamaged sections from your old registry and make a new one based on these. If it

 fails, reinstall Windows. If it works, some of your programs may no longer function. Reinstall them.

 

Get Rid of the Inbox Icon

 

f you don't use inbox, there is a way to delete it. Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE). Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\

 SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\ Desktop\NameSpace\ Look for the key 00020D75-0000-0000-C000-000000000046, that has a default value of

 Inbox. Delete the entire key (not just the default value), and close the Registry Editor. Click on the desktop, and press F5 to refresh the desktop so that this change will

 take effect.

 

Getting around the Save password in Dial-Up Networking

 

 

Getting around the Save password in Dial-Up Networking

 

in the no-Password mode, the dial-up networking is unable to save the password and remember it. You can get around this by going to settings, control panel and then to

 passwords. Then, set it so that you can personalise the desktop. Now, when you shut down windows, there will be another option, Log on as another user. In this mode,

 you will be able to remember Passwords, so the Dial-up networking will be rememberd. Enter your password in and save password. Once it's been saved, go back to

 Passwords and change the configuration to anyone can use the same settings of the desktop, and don't use any password at all. Windows will now switch back to the

 normal mode, but somehow, the Dial-up networking save password is unchanged. So, your password is now saved and you won't have to type it in again.

 

Hidden Startup Programs

 

Having problems trying to find those programs that load but are not in your startup folder? Try looking in the registry. Run Regedit and look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,

 Software, Microsoft, Windows, Current Version, Run or Run service. This is where things like system agent, NetMeeting, the active movie check and other such things

 hang out.

 

Increasing Your Com Port Speed

 

Windows 95 default setting is 9600 baud for the com port your modem is tied to. To optimize your throughput do the following : Right click "my computer", click on

 properties. Click on "Device Manager" Find the com port your modem is hooked up to. Click on "properties" Click on "port settings", Increase the port setting to its

 maximum value. Then make sure the flow control is set to hardware. Then click on "advanced", maximize the receive buffer and transmit buffer. Make sure FIFO buffers is

 turned on. Click "ok" all the way out.Then reboot your system. This should speed up your bandwidth while surfing the net.

 

Custom Startup Screens

 

Ever get sick of the Windows95 startup and shut down screens? They are just standard bitmaps that can be modified by any

 graphics program. The wait screen while booting is LOGO.SYS, the wait screen while you shut down is LOGOW.SYS and the "It's

 now safe to turn off your computer" screen is LOGOS.SYS. Be creative, and make your system your own.