| Keep it clean Keep your hard disk lean by limiting the amount of junk files it accumulates. Here are three key rules: 1: Select the Custom option in program installers so that you can decide exactly which parts of a program to install. 2: Manually limit the amount of disk space that your Web browser uses for cache files. 3: Open the Temp folder in your Windows folder occasionally and delete all files with dates older than the current date. Windows or applications may still be using files with the current date, so leave those files alone. ========================================================================== Keep your drivers up to date Many unrelated system problems arise from buggy drivers for video, audio and other hardware. Make sure that you have downloaded the latest drivers for your hardware. But Remember Don’t install new drivers willy-nilly, try to obtain the latest drivers just in case your system behaves oddly. And REMEMBER always, keep the old drivers on hand in case you want to revert. The instructions accompanying the new drivers ought to specify which files are being upgraded. ========================================================================== Take your time It is NOT wise to install multiple programs or drivers within a short time span. Wait several days between installations to make sure that the latest additions work and haven't messed up anything else on your machine. If you install five or six programs in one day, you will have trouble determining which one of them made something go wrong. Before deleting any programs or files in your Windows folders, back them up on floppy disks or in a temporary directory, and keep them for several days or weeks before you delete them. ========================================================================== Back up If you’re installing some small shareware or freeware items, Always do a complete system backup before making any major change. You should make backups of the most important system files. These are autoexec.bat, config.sys, win.ini, system.ini, user.dat, user.da0, system.dat and system.da0. ========================================================================== Memory management Do not have too many things being loaded by DOS itself, You may not have enough memory left in this region to satisfy these requests. This can cause programs to fail with messages like ‘Not enough memory’ even if you have 128MB of RAM in the machine and nothing else running. If you can’t do without the drivers or programs loaded by DOS before Windows starts, try a memory manager like EMM386 to optimise use of conventional memory. EMM386 enables DOS drivers and programs to be loaded into parts of the top 384KB that aren’t being used, leaving more conventional memory free for those programs that demand it. How to optimise memory Remove as many unnecessary drivers as possible from config.sys and autoexec.bat. Most devices need only their Windows drivers to be used from within Windows. There is no need to load Smartdrv, which is a big memory hog. Install the memory management software by inserting at the start of config.sys the following commands (if not already present): Device=C:\Windows\himem.sys Device=C:\Windows\Emm386.exe noems DOS=High,umb Below these three commands, you need to replace any Device, Buffers, FCBS, Files, Lastdrive and Stacks commands with Devicehigh, Buffershigh, FCBShigh, Fileshigh, Lastdrive-high and Stackshigh commands. In autoexec.bat use the Loadhigh command to load any programs loaded by this file. For example, replace KEYB UK with Loadhigh KEYB UK. Warning: tinkering with DOS start-up files, and in particular with memory managers, can result in a PC that won’t boot. Make sure you have a bootable floppy disk containing a copy of the original system files before you start changing them. |