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Tips and suggestions that will allow you to enhance and improve Microsoft's Windows Millennium Edition OS.
Windows Me boots faster! - Freed from processing config.sys and autoexec.bat and displaying the whole MS-DOS user interface, Windows Me will boot up about 25 to 35 percent faster than Windows 98 - Shutdown times are also faster, about half that of Windows-98. YMMV Maximum amount of RAM - Windows ME can recognize up to 2 gb (2,048 mb) of RAM.
If you choose to display hidden files in the folder options it has no impact on the protected files they will still remain hidden. To display all the files in a my computer window, click Tools/Folder Options/View and uncheck 'hide protected operating system files'.
Click start/settings/taskbar and start menu then uncheck 'use personalized menus'.
Right click on Start, select Open. Click on File, New then New Folder. Cut & paste in this as the name Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}. You will now get a Start menu that appears as shown below. This will offer faster access to your Control Panel applets.
Arrange the screen display the way you want it then press the Print Screen key, then click inside the program where you want to paste the image (WordPad, Word, etc.) and press Ctrl-V to paste the screen image into the document window. You can also capture only the active window by pressing Alt-Print Screen instead of just Print Screen. This makes an image out of the foreground window only. This tip works with all Windows version not just Windows ME
If Media Player 7.0 doesn't play your digital video files as smoothly as the older Media Player did, you'll be happy to know that "MPLAYER2.EXE" (also known as Media Player 6.4) is still there. You'll find it in the "Windows Media Player" folder (in the C:\Program Files directory). If you want to go back to that version just re-associate your video formats to this player and it will be your new default media player in Win Me. You can do this by right-clicking a movie file, choosing "Open With..." and simply browsing to the MPLAYER2.EXE file. Click the "Always use this program to open these files" checkbox to set it as your new default.
To make a clean boot disk first: format a floppy disc, then go to the c:\windows\command\ebd folder, then copy the files io.sys and command.com to a: - reboot your computer with the floppy disc in the drive. This is also the technique you will use when updating the motherboard bios using real mode DOS.
Microsoft recommends that your PC includes at least a 150-MHz Pentium CPU to run Win Me and if you try installing WinME on a slower machine, you'll get an error message saying you'll need a faster processor, click OK to exit Setup. You can override the 150-MHz limitation by using the command setup /nm - you will still need 32 MB of RAM and adequate free hard-disk space. A typical installation requires 500 MB to 575 MB, but can range between 460 MB and 675 MB, depending on your system configuration and the options you choose to install - Windows-ME should run just as slow as Windows 98!
setup /? - list setup options. setup /im - will ignore the memory limitations. setup /nm - disables processor speed check.
Here's the fix: Launch MSConfig (Start/Run/"msconfig.exe", no quotes) and navigate to the win.ini tab. Scroll down to "Compatibility 95" and change the value of Point32 from 0x00000002 to 0x00080002. Click Apply, close MSConfig, and restart. In addition to this fix Microsoft will release new IntelliType software that is compatible with Windows ME.
One of the most significant limitations is that Microsoft has made it difficult to get at pure, vanilla DOS. It's not that ME doesn't use DOS - it does, just as every other member of the Win9x family does - this link Real DOS-Mode Patch for Windows Millennium will show you how you can restore access to real-mode DOS in WinME by using some files from the WinME Emergency Recovery Diskt. Here's another site that offer a fix for restoring real mode DOS by using the DOS files from the Win98 boot disk: Windows Millennium DOS. ... And antoher DOS Fix for Windows Millennium
SysEdit isn't included with the Windows Millennium version, however you can extract from your Windows98 CD a copy and place it in your Windows\System folder. To extract the file follow these steps. Place your Windows98 disk in your CD-ROM drive. Click Start then Run and type in Msconfig, Msconfig should default to the General tab. Click the Extract File button and type in Sysedit.exe then click the Start button. In the Restore From: type in the path to your CD-ROM drive and the folder Win98 or Browse to the Win98 folder on the CD. In the Save file in, type: C:\Windows\System or use the Browse button to set the path to your Windows\System folder. Click the OK button, when it prompts to save a backup click Skip as there is no backup to save.
To gain a small speed improvement, go into the Display applet and then the effects tab. Under visual effects, disable everything except "Show icons using all possible colors." This will speed up menus, moving windows around, and a few other things as well. Realigning your files can improve operating system and application speed by up to 10%. By aligning your files for Windows to make them run faster (the computer dynamically aligns all files loaded into memory anyway, so doing it beforehand saves CPU time) - There's a program that comes with Microsoft Office 2000 called OTUNEUP.EXE that does this process rather painlessly Under TweakUI disabling all of the 'effects' will increase system performance by disabling extra animations and features within the operating system. Also setting the menu speed to fast will allow you to browse through the start menu and any right-click menus as quickly as possible. Edit your system.ini file in the windows directory - under the [386Enh] heading Add the line ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 This can significantly reduce Virtual memory use as it makes Windows use (fast) RAM before the (slow) Swapfile. This setting will tell Windows-ME not to use the swap file at all until all of the RAM is used. After all of the RAM is used, the computer will push most of the infrequently used data to the swap file. This is a great tweak. This is particularly beneficial for those with 256MB RAM. While you are there in the [386Enh] section, you might want to also add another couple of lines; DMABufferSize=64 to tweak DMA performance. This will conserve at least 64KB of memory to DMA (direct memory access) to reinsure that your DMA devices always have enough memory allocated. Note that this tweak should only be used if you have one or more DMA enabled devices on your system PageBuffers=32 This setting tells the computer to dedicate a certain amount of RAM to buffer the hard drive rather than allowing the operating system to dynamically handle the buffer. Windows dynamic handling of most memory issues is very inefficient, due to the large difference Windows sets between minimum and maximum values. 32 is the highest setting the operating system allows, so it is recommended that you use this value. LocalLoadHigh=1 This setting tells the operating system to load its local drivers into upper memory by default as opposed to trying to squeeze them into conventional memory. This is a good tweak if you have less than 128MB of RAM, but may actually hinder performance for those with 128MB or more - Test it for yourself to see which works best for you. Add these under [vcache] section: Minfilecache=XXXXX This will set the minimum value to how much swap file in KB your system will dedicate. To figure out what to replace XXXXX with, it is recommended that you take 10% of your RAM and multiply that number by 1024 (to convert to KB). For example, If you have 128MB of RAM, so 10% of 128 is 12.8. 12.8 multiplied by 1024 is 13107.2. I would then replace XXXXX with 13107. Maxfilecache=XXXXX This will set the maximum value to how much swap file in KB your system will dedicate. To figure out what to replace XXXXX with, it is recommended that you take 25% of your RAM and multiply that number by 1024 (to convert to KB). For example, If you have 128MB of RAM, so 25% of 128 is 32. 32 multiplied by 1024 is 32768. I would then replace XXXXX with 32768. *Note: Some people prefer to set their min and max filecache to the same value, so as to lessen the time the computer spends with the swap file when the swap file is in use. If you have large amounts of RAM, namely 256MB or more, you can easily set the min and max to the same size without worry. Chunksize=XXX This setting determines how large the chunks are that are allocated to each program residing in the vcache. A program can have more than one chunk, but if it doesn't divide evenly into the size of the chunk, some RAM goes unused (i.e. is fragmented). On one hand, having a smaller chunk size allows for less wasted RAM in the vcache, however, on the other hand, a larger chunk size increases the access speed for the vcache. Common values are 128, 256, 512, 1024, and 2048 . The rule of thumb is, if you have any newer monster multi-GigaByte size hard disk, you may want to set this value to "high": 2048 - 4096. If you don't work frequently with multi-MegaByte size files, you may want to set it to "low": 256 - 1024. Save the changes & reboot your system for the change to take effect. Set file system to cache about 3 times higher than with the 'Network Server' default setting. MaxCache will use 128KB RAM and provide for 6144 Cached Files and 204 Directories. For comparision NetworkServer uses 40KB RAM and provides 2729 Files and 64 Direcroties. Download MaxCache.reg and when it ask you what you would like to do with this file tell it to 'Open this file from its current location.' Before using this registry file, please back up your registry file - DO NOT use if you do not know how to restore your registry file. Edit the MSDOS.SYS file in your root directory (you may have to uncheck 'hide protected operating system files' in the Folder Options under View in the Control Panel for you to view Msdos.sys. Also, make sure you right click Msdos.sys, click properties, and then uncheck 'read-only' to be able to save this file once you have added these options) Add these under the [Options] section: Dblspace=0 This will tell the OS not to load the DoubleSpace compression program during boot up, thereby freeing up memory and reducing an unnecessary program from running. Do not use this if you are using have a compressed hard drive! Drvspace=0 This setting tells the OS not to load the DriveSpace compression program during boot up, thereby freeing up memory and reducing an unnecessary program from running. Do not use this if you are using have a compressed hard drive! Logo=0 This setting will disable the Windows start-up logo during boot, thereby reducing time to load. If you like the Windows logo, don't use this setting. Bootdelay=0 This setting tells the OS not to delay when switching from your BIOS POST to the OS boot up. Although most users already do not experience a delay, this guarantees that you have a zero delay. Disablelog=1 This setting will disable all event logging that occurs during boot up, thereby reducing the amount of time wasted to perform this task. If you wish to have your boot up logged, usually in order to find errors, do not use this setting. Doublebuffer=X This setting tells the computer whether or not to use double-buffering for your hard drive. If you have a large FAT32 partition or you use SCSI, I recommend that you enable this by inserting a 1 for the X. If you have a smaller FAT32 partition (under 10 GB per partition is a good rule) or you still use FAT16, I recommend that you disable this by inserting a 0 for the X. Since Win-Me won't let you edit the config.sys file. In order to apply these settings, click Programs, Accessories, System Tools and then open System Information. Under tools, open the System Configuration Utility: Under the Environment Tab, click New and then enter this info: Variable Name: Variable Value: Stacks: 0,0 This will speed up the underlying kernel of Windows. This is a good tweak recommended for everyone. dos: high,umb Even though you'd think this wouldn't matter anymore, DOS still does play a role in how fast the operating system is and conserving whatever resources it might need is important. Having trouble with icon refresh and display? Maybe your icon cache is too small. This patch will increase the IconCache setting. Download IconCache.reg and when it ask you what you would like to do with this file tell it to 'Open this file from its current location.'
The HTTP 1.1 spec limits the number of simultaneous connections any one browser can make to a given server. This IE tweak turns off IE's built-in compliance with this standard, and lets your copy of IE open far more simultaneous connections with a server. This means your browser can grab many chunks of a web page at one time, speeding load times.
2) Navigate to the following folder: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\InternetSettings] 3) Create the following "DWORD": MaxConnectionsPerServer 4) Set the value to any high number (the default is 2) 5) Creat the following "DWORD": MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server 6) Set the value to any high number as well (the default is 4) Related MS Knowledge base article:
This little tweak will reduce the amount of Timeouts you may experience.
2) Navigate to the following folder: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\ Services\Class\Net\000x] 3) Double click on: Slownet 4) Change the value to: 00
2) Navigate to the following folder: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\ WINDOWS\CURRENT VERSION] 3) Double click on: RegisteredOwner 4) Type in any name you like.
This tweak will allow you to play DVD movies using Windows media player.
2) Navigate to the following folder: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ MediaPlayer\Player\Settings] 3) Create the following "String value": EnableDVDUI 4) Give it a value of: yes
This tweak immensely helps slower computers trying to play DVD's from a DVDROM drive. 450 Mhz is considered a bit slow, but it is possible to get DVD playback without dropped frames. The CDFS Tweak is in the registry:
2) Navigate to the following folder: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\ Control\FileSystem\CDFS] 3) Set the following:
Prefetch = 0x00000800 (2048) - default is 0x000000e4 (228) PrefetchTail = 0x00000200 (512) - default is 0x00000080 (128)
A new version of TweakUI is available for Windows Millennium you can get it right here: tweakui.exe.
This design of System Restore (SR) has one potential trouble spot. It's not uncommon for install programs to be downloaded to disk as a monolithic self-extracting .EXE file(e.g. a game demo) or as a dedicated folder containing installation files (e.g. commercial downloads, ala Symantec's "Vbox".) - So if you or the OS create a Restore Point, later download something like this, then use SR to roll the system back to that same Restore point, the download will effectively disappear. Don't Panic - Here's how to protect your files: WinME System Restore notes.
Windows Me: The Missing Manual is the book that should have been in the box. In this superbly written guide, bestselling author David Pogue. Getting started. The book's early chapters cover using menus, finding lost files, reducing window clutter, and taming the wild Start menu. Figuring out what's what. A complete guide, this book covers every software crumb included with Windows Me, including every control panel, accessory program, and troubleshooting tool. Mastering networks. The book helps you connect several PCs so that they can use the same files, printers, and phone line simultaneously. Flying the Net. This book demystifies Windows Me's rich Internet suite: its email, Web-browsing, video conferencing, and chat-room programs. It even shows you how to use the PC for free long-distance phone calls. Above all, Windows Millennium: The Missing Manual offers warm, witty, jargon-free writing, with enough basics for the novice and enough depth for the aspiring power user. The book bursts with enough shortcuts, advice, and surprising tricks to make using Windows comprehensible--and even delightful. This is also available in your local bookstore, or you can order you own copy here. Windows Me Secrets is 1520-page guide to everything Microsoft didn't tell you about Windows Me. It contains hundreds of hidden features known only to a few. It's almost impossible to cram the book's best secrets into a single page, so here are five quick tricks that can each be consumed in a single bite.
There's a lot more info about each item in Windows Me Secrets itself - Learn how to share music, optimize images, get better support, and complete other covert operations with the newest Windows operating system.
If you are having trouble finding new drivers for a particular piece of hardware, check out windrivers.com - they just might be able to help you out.
The following URL links will help you keep WindowsME up-to-date!
Windows IDE Hard Drive Cache Package Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 1 & Internet Tools DirectX 8.0 HyperTerminal Buffer Overflow vulnerability Windows Media Player 7 7.00.00.1956 Windows Media Player 7 Security Patch A few tweaking guides:
Explore the support newsgroups for Windows Me to share information and solutions with others who are using the product. You can use any newsreader software to access these newsgroups.
A few WinME related MS Knowledge base articles:
The Future...Someday, and that day may never come, this page will contain additional tips and tricks on how to get the most from Microsoft's Windows Millennium Edition (Windows ME). Until that day you can peruse either my Windows 95 or Windows NT Tips & Tricks pages - both of these, as well as other files that may be of intrest, are available on my web site at www.cyberspace.org/~awh/. |