Make dial-up networking accessible in Windows 98!
Dial-up networking (DUN) in Windows 95/98 is normally found by
navigating to Start | Programs | Accessories | Communications.
In the DUN folder, you still have to double-click the necessary
connector.
To quickly access DUN, you can create a shortcut to this folder
on your desktop. Here's how:
Navigate to DUN via the Start menu, right-click, and drag it to
the desktop.
Select Create Shortcut Here, which will leave a copy of the
shortcut in the Start menu in case you accidentally delete the
shortcut from the desktop.
Likewise, if you always use the same connector, you can locate
it in the DUN folder and drag it to the Quick Launch toolbar or
the top of the Start menu. However, this shortcut method leaves
the connector in the DUN folder. You don't move the connector;
you simply create a shortcut to it.
Win98 will exhibit a slightly different behavior than Win95 when
you drag DUN connectors out to the desktop or to a folder. Win98
creates a dial-up networking exported file (.dun), which is
actually an .ini file that contains the details necessary to
start up the connection. This means that you have a true copy of
the original connection.
You can edit, dial, copy to disk, or even delete the .dun file
without altering the original. But if you don't change the name
of the exported file and you copy it back into the DUN folder,
it will overwrite any original connector of the same
filename--without warning!
Note: Win95 OSR2 and Win95 with the DUN Update 1.2 support DUN
exported files, but the default action for drag and drop is
still to create a shortcut--not to export the file.
Configure the Automatic Updates feature in Windows ME!
In a previous tip, I showed you how to use Windows Me's
Automatic Updates feature to keep your computer up-to-date with
the latest Windows components free of charge. This feature
places a small globe icon in your system tray and alerts you
with a message box to notify you that there are updates ready
for you to download.
But what if you don't have the time to download the updates when
the message box appears? Here's how you can configure the
Automatic Updates feature to remind you of the updates at a
later date.
Click on the Install Reminder message box to open the Updates
window. The list box that appears contains the updates along
with a brief description of each. Click the Remind Me Later
button, and from the When Would You Like To Be Reminded?
dropdown list, select an interval of your choice. You can choose
to be reminded to download the updates anywhere from 5 minutes
later to the following day. Click OK. You'll next see the
reminder message according to the time interval you just set.
Mysteriously Colored Filenames in XP Home!
The font color of many of the filenames (not folder names) in
Windows Explorer has changed—for no apparent reason from the
default black to a bright sapphire blue. The filenames in a
given folder can be black, blue, or both.
This phenomenon is not new, but for some reason quite a few
readers have written about it recently. The blue color is not
harmful in any way. Windows XP supports the NTFS file system,
which in turn supports NTFS file compression. By default, NTFS-compressed
files are displayed in a color, specifically the bright blue you
mention.
You say you haven't compressed any files, but if you've used the
Disk Cleanup applet, you've probably done so without realizing
it. The Disk Cleanup applet includes an option called Compress
old files, which saves space. You probably selected that option
without realizing that it would change the appearance of the
filenames in Windows Explorer.
If you prefer, you can select Folder Options from Windows
Explorer's Tools menu, click on the View tab, and uncheck the
item that says Display compressed files and folders with
alternate color. But now that you know the cause of the color
change, you may want to retain this visual indication that a
file is compressed.
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Things to Note
Your
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