Your computer is getting slower.

Just by using your system consistently, you are slowing it down. That’s because you are slowly adding or changing things in the operating system that require more and more resources, or you may be unintentionally misconfiguring your system. Ever have a car that ran fine when you just drove it, but threw fits whenever you changed or added a part? Same thing: Every new driver you load for a program that opens on startup drags your system down just that much more. And unlike the Windows for Workgroups world, Windows 95 has some FAT drivers.

To address this perpetual systemic malady, I’ve collected a stocking full of reliable (and simple!) tweaks for your system to make it run just a little bit better. Or, if they don’t make your machine faster, they’ll allow you to work faster on it by improving how you use it.

Having just rebuilt several machines from the ground up, I have some recently tested suggestions for setting up your system configuration to wring optimal performance out of Windows 95. Not everyone will want to use every tweak, but where there are caveats for certain users, I’ll mention them.

Did you know that DOS is still an integrated part of Windows 95? Its form has changed, but it is still there, waiting for you to issue command line instructions. The big secret is that DOS windows don’t just run DOS programs anymore. To prove it, open a DOS window [START, PROGRAMS, MS-DOS PROMPT.] You’ll get a DOS window. Now type defrag and hit enter. Your Windows 95 defrag.exe dialog box will pop up. That’s right: almost any Windows program can be launched from a command line. So if your want to control your mouse properties (like switching right-left button functions) while you are in a virtual DOS session, just shell out to a command prompt and type control mouse and hit enter. This launches the program control.exe (your control panel) and then requests the mouse function. You’ll get the mouse properties, ready to be changed.

As a side note, most DOS command line requests (other than command.com functions like ver, dir, copy, etc.) can be invoked from the [START, RUN] box. If you love your command line, but your boss won’t let you run Unix, this is a quick way around the Graphical User Interface.

For everyone who wonders why their new 24x CD-ROM doesn’t see to be going much faster than their old 2x, better check your system settings. Right click your My Computer icon on the desktop and choose Properties. A System Properties dialog box will appear. Choose the Performance tab, and click File System.

Since most computers are sufficiently beyond the spec. that Windows 95 was originally designed for (Pentium 70), you can expand your system performance by allowing the Operating System to use more resources. (Don’t try this one unless you have at least 16 MB of RAM.) Under the Hard Disk tab, choose Network Server as the machine’s typical role, and slide Read Ahead Optimization up to Full. While you are in here, let’s spiff up the CD-ROM. Click the CD-ROM tab, boost the Supplemental Cache to Large and change the Optimize Access Pattern to Quad-Speed or Higher. Click OK and then click OK again. You’ll be asked to reboot, but when you come back up again, expect to see marginally better performance, and much better CD-ROM performance.

One of the main system items that seems to sneak up on people is the proverbial "out of space" error on their hard drive. Since hard drives have ballooned in size since you bought your system (I don’t care when you bought it, drives are bigger since just last month) now would be a good time to add a second drive to your system and start moving data off the Operating System drive. When I configure a computer for the first time, I try to keep as much data as I can off of the system drive. One reason drives this rationale: swap file.

For those of you who are not familiar with the notion, I’ll offer a quick primer: When windows 3.x came out, applications were getting to represent pretty large chunks of what had to reside in memory. Back then, if you had 8 MB of RAM, you were a fat cat with deep pockets. Most people had 4 MB of RAM. Once you loaded DOS (your operating system) Windows (your interface) plus any other hardware drivers, your RAM memory was pretty much full. No room for programs!

To deal with this overhead problem, Microsoft instituted a sub-system called Virtual Memory, or (as it was called in less glamorous circles) a swap file. When you loaded up two applications, whichever one you weren’t presently using (either minimized or just "behind" another window) got itself shelved onto a file on your hard drive. This was one big file of a fixed size (like 20 MB or so) that the operating system could move idle programs to, thus freeing up the much faster RAM for the program you were actively using.

As programs have continued to balloon in size, a swap file has become even more necessary. Windows 95 improves on its ancestor by making the swap file dynamic, that is to say, elastic. Only running one small program? Your swap file stays small. But launch a monster application like AutoCAD or Microsoft Access, and you are going to need a lot more room to maneuver. So the swap file will stretch to accommodate your needs. That is, until it knocks its head on the ceiling of your hard drive.

Be tough on yourself. Be mercenary. Consider dumping or archiving to tape or diskette anything you haven’t touched in 9 months. Unload programs you’ve downloaded and then neglected. Don’t store things in your recycle bin as if it were just another directory, use it correctly. Dump your trash!

If you do all of these steps, and then run Scandisk and Defrag, your swap file will be much happier. One of the tricky parts of swap files is that they only use contiguous sections of hard drive space to store swapped data. So if your have 500 MB total free on your drive but have some little scrap of data every 20 MB or so, your total swap file size can only ever grow to 20 MB.

Finally, if you are chewing over why your modem sometimes won’t work and it is plugged into COM2, consider this tip: It might be quarreling with your S3 video card. The early S3 chipset cards had the bad habit of reaching down into the COM2 memory range and hijacking memory for its own purpose. But you can put choke chain on that card to keep it from interfering until you can afford to get it replaced. Right click your My Computer icon on the desktop and choose Properties. A System Properties dialog box will appear. Choose the Performance tab, and click Graphics. By lowering your hardware acceleration, you can back the S3 card out of the COM2 territory. This is a temporary fix, though, until you can update your video card. Running a modern system (especially AutoCAD) without hardware acceleration is like trying to win the Indy 500 on a skateboard.

Thank you to all who have sent me questions or requests for topics to cover.

Peace on Earth,

Webwalker